MONOCHROME

Chapter Ten: The Protectors Yarn

by Tonzura123

Disclaimer: Do I have to?

"No harm befalls the righteous, but the wicked have their fill of trouble," Proverbs 12:21

But the King would not consent to the union.

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Then:

"We have a sister." My words catapult out. They fill the cave, bring Peter closer, bring Brighid down, level me out. I can feel her eyes fall on me. "Two sisters, actually. One of them is very sick. All of Narnia is falling to this same disease. It brings on fevers, nightmares, paralysis... Eventually it kills. Peter and I- we came to find the cure."

She takes the small peace offering, surprisingly cordial, "What cure?"

"The Archenlanders called it Winter's Teeth."

"I haven't heard of it." But she is irritated that I mentioned it.

My heart drops, but I press on, "It's an old name. From before the Winter."

"I am much older than the Winter," Brighid says. The finality is thundering. "I haven't heard of it. It sounds like a myth."

The Nest, Year 1000: ? Days after the High King's Departure

For the next day or so, rather than incite another brutal attack from the Nest, I bite my tongue and retreat back to Peter's side.

There's not much to do there. His wound is wrapped and clean. His breathing is fine. His color is good. All I can really do is stare at his face while he sleeps, and that becomes boring rather quickly. If I had a grease pen, I might draw on his face. Short of these, I compromise, finding twigs and leaves from the ground around us, poking them into Peter's hair, and resting a twirled leaf-stem beneath his nose like a moustache.

You look ridiculous, I think, pleased with my handiwork. Facial hair really doesn't suit you.

Peter's nose twitches. His brow contracts. The furs covering his right arm rise a little, like he's trying to move his arm, but then his face turns a startling white, going lax.

I hurriedly brush the mess from his face, pull back an eyelid to find white, a hint of blue chasing into his head. I let him go and pull down the furs, peeling back the fabric that is bound to his shoulder. The flesh is more brown than black now, yellowing. Parts of the skin farther out are purpled and red like a bad bruise. I can't help it- I gag.

"Is that where-?"

"You shouldn't be taking that off, yet," Brighid says. She's carving a long bow by the fire, which she never seems to leave. "Infection could set in from the air."

I go to cover it, but her voice stops me again.

"Leave it. It's time to change it anyway."

She joins me, reaching around me to peel the fabric the rest of the way off.

"The arrow was missing when I found you in the net. Either the force of you two landing jarred it enough to send it into the ravine, or you pulled it out yourself."

I shake my head; I don't remember that, and it doesn't seem likely that I would have the stomach to do it.

Brighid takes a new wad of cloth from her kit-bag, along with a jar not unlike the Hawthorn she tossed me earlier. Covering the opening with the wad, she tips the whole thing over, the liquid sloshing, and rights it again. The wetted fabric is pressed against Peter's shoulder. He hisses, muscles in his jaw jumping and cords in his neck popping out.

"This poison targets the heart, makes them weaker, even if by some miracle they manage to survive. There's heavy magic involved."

It just figures that Peter would rough-out something like that. I feel a swell in my stomach. As long as I can keep things civil, I might be able to glean more answers.

"We were attacked by Wolves. They came in the night, surrounded us. There wasn't a moon to see by. Peter and I escaped on Philip-"

"-Philip?"

"My Horse-" My Horse! Why hadn't I remembered him? The whole Guard is probably going mad, looking for us.

Looking for us.

A wave of understanding fills me up from my toes to my head, making the ache there vanish, the soreness of my body a thing of the distant past. For the first time that I can remember in this terrible, tiny cave, I feel completely safe. The Guard- Peter's and mine: trained by Orieus himself, good senses, good sense- of course we'll be found! The wait might not even be that long. I can half-hear the thundering of their feet now, like a summer storm, full of heat and flashing energy. The Guard that Brighid still doesn't know about. Hags may have the upper hand on a boy like me, but against trained Narnian soldiers, she was toast.

This knowledge makes me giddy with confidence. I have to force myself to continue without giving myself away.

"We- We were riding when I think Peter got hit- he just passed out. And then..."

And then the sense. The tug to the right. The sting on my cheek. The fall into nothingness.

"... I think I was the one to take us over the cliff side." I reach up, feel a raised line against my cheekbone. "I think... I was grazed by one of those arrows."

"Well, if you were, it wasn't a poisoned one. Braid these," she tosses me some shapeless rags, and goes on, "I barely had to do anything for you, Son of Adam. You were already wearing a well-padded turban when I found you in that net."

"I'd hit my head before leaving home. I passed out. Hit a tree root."

It's getting easier for me to remember events. They come at my beckoning so effortlessly, I hardly need to claw at them to keep them in place. It's- what's the word? An exponential improvement. Ha!

Brighid harrumphs, supremely unimpressed. "Two knocks in such a short time. It's no wonder you didn't know your own name."

I can't stop the surly tone from carrying out my thoughts, "I know my name."

"You didn't know anything. You were talking to imaginary people, in some imaginary land called Inklind."

"Hmm." I fiddled with the cloths in my hands for a second. "Er-"

"Don't tell me you forgot how to braid, too, Son of Adam."

"I don't think I've ever known," I sniff, surrendering them up to her snatching claws and settling back to watch. Deftly, her hands fly over one another, a long rope forming like magic between them. "When will Peter wake up?"

A black eye flicks upwards to trace my brother's face, and returns to her ever-growing rope. "Hard to tell."

"How come?"

"For one, he's already supposed to be dead."

My heart stalls. "No. He's not."

"Actually, yes. He is. He was shot by an arrow coated in the deadliest poison I've studied, in a blood vessel that leads directly to the brain in a matter of seconds, drank the same poison for maybe a day before that, and fell over the side of a cliff after that."

I struggle to understand, "So, what are you saying?"

"I'm saying a Giant couldn't withstand the sort of assassination attempt that he did," Brighid says exasperatedly.

"He's Peter."

"And, for you, that's a good enough answer?"

"The only one that really makes sense."

She laughs again- a dry choking sound like a waterfall of wooden beads.

I sit up a little as old memory returns, "I was told once that Peter is the center of our family. He's important. When I was brought back to the camps, Aslan told me-"

FWOOSH.

The fire roars up, a smoky purple, and crashes against the ceiling, making me jump back.

Brighid is dangerously still, and her deft hands have frozen over Peter's chest, her talons extended from rigid fingers. She eyes me beadily beneath her matted grey hair. In her anger, her beak has flushed a bloody, warning red.

The familiarity I have with this picture before me settles me. I wait quietly, heart hammering in my throat, until she chooses to remember the half of her that is not a bird of prey, the half that can form thought and rationalize. Sometimes, I know, a Hag does not choose this side.

But Brighid eventually does:

"...As a general rule, Son of Adam. I won't mention Jadis, if you promise to never say that name... again."

"I thought you hated... her."

"I do. Don't speak of him."

I wonder, but say nothing, watching the beetle-black eyes lose their glint and turn to her hands.

She covers Peter's rewrapped chest and quickly places herself back at the fireside, viciously carving into her new bow with the whittling knife. As little as I know about woodworking, it's fairly obvious that there won't be any bow left in a bit.

"Why did you help us?" I ask eventually.

"I had little choice. In Fell Land, where Her lot roam, and I find two boys, Kings, no less, of Narnia. I could have killed you, kept the Wolves from my blood, but that would call down the anger of Cair Paravel, would it not?" She shakes her head, like the tearing shake wolves give to rip out a throat. Slices her knife through wood like margarine. "And if I had packed you up in my wagon to take you East, the Fell would have torn us to pieces. The safest path was this one. Heal you in secret, send you off, and neither Narnia nor Fell will be after me for putting my nets in the wrong gorge."

After this, she refuses to speak again. I take my place by Peter side and watch his chest bellow up and bellow down beneath braided bandages and Hawthorn.

I know Aslan can hear me, when I thank Him for letting us be captured. I hope He hears when I pray for Narnia to be freed of this illness.

OooOooOooOooO

Now, King Edmund was right when he said that the whole Guard was going mad. But is wasn't necessarily because they were looking for the Kings. It wasn't even, necessarily, a noisy or energetic event. On the contrary, they were going quietly mad. Because you see, dear reader, after a long journey of carrying their injured (a whiney Foible) and dead (the poor Twins and Picha the She-Cheetah), narrowly avoiding pockets of Fell Camps (there were at least five), and going without food some days (and some days with food that barely passed as food), they had reached the Grand and Beautiful Cair Paravel only to find that Philip and the Kings had not returned.

It was a terrible moment of realization. The young Robin was aghast at what he had created.

"I apologize, I had not meant to cause distress-!" he began, fluttering anxiously.

"Distress will come after the numb," Telnir promised, absently scratching his Faun horns with a bruised hand. Robin, still fluttering, and now on the verge of tears at the terribleness of the whole affair, flew off through a window to warble his sadness in isolation.

No one else moved or spoke. Everyone was wondering with heavy dread, "Who will tell the Queens?" They waited in the middle of the barracks, halfway through taking off their sweaty armor, and took in the cheery refuge that they had so longed for. The warm, stern beds where they'd spent many nights dreaming of being taken on as a Guard during the Winter. The plates of cooked food resting on rude but well-loved tables. The safety- Oh, the safety!

But-

"Our Kings are in danger," Argo rumbled. Though he sported a heavy gouge to his rear flank, he stood tall and fearsome in the little gathering of soldiers. He had, after all, somewhat of seniority in the group. "We must return immediately to aid them."

Several of the Guard began to nod- it was rote. Obvious what they had to do, really.

But-

"Return where?" Damask asked. The leopardess was missing an entire ear. She did not speak to slur the idea of rescuing her Kings. She was merely making sure that she hadn't missed that important point in the middle of things. Nevertheless, she poised a fine question. As one, the Guard looked around the circle, meeting everyone else's eyes in hope of finding the answer there.

"Ah," said Megg. He didn't know what else to say. Except for, "What will we tell the Queens?"

"The truth!" Damask said instantly.

"Yes, but how will we tell it to them?"

"More of a when, actually," Telnir muttered, and jumped to attention.

The rest of the Guard spun, following his action, to find Queen Susan filling the doorway with her long and loose hair.

The young girl was instantly bombarded by bowing, kneeling, apologizing, and chattering Narnians, every one of them insisting that they would do their very best to reclaim their Kings if she would grant them mercy and such for failing.

"Goodness!" Susan exclaimed, taking them all in with round eyes. In this day and age, Susan was a very soft-hearted girl, so to see the Guard so very sorry and upset made her feel upset for them. Anyone who knew Susan knew that she didn't have it in her heart to be angry with them. All the same, she was very worried about her brothers. "Argo- What happened?"

"My Queen, we were attacked by Fell Wolves. In the fight, I, in my foolishness, sent the Kings on Phillip's back from the fray. I had thought I was sending them to safety." He thought he might add how the Kings were injured when he did so, but Queen Susan's face was already so white that he held his tongue and waited.

With pressed lips, Susan nodded and straightened her back. "Well, I can't say that I'm surprised."

Flinching, the Guard sagged.

"Lucy had a dream that this would happen," Susan continued then, making them blink with surprise. "Oh- She's feeling much better, by the way. We found- Well, I suppose I had better tell you in a safer location. Well," she said again, squinting at them, "Perhaps that had better wait. But Lucy has dreamed of Edmund and Peter every night since King Edmund left. I can tell you what's been happening, if you like."

Breathless, the Guard nodded, and Susan sat them down on the stern bunks and stood in the middle so that they could all see her, telling in a soft voice all that Peter and Edmund had done in the days that they had been gone. There were a few surprising adventures, some that this reader has not encountered yet, for the time it took the Guard to reach the Cair is farther along in time than Edmund has spent in the Hag's Nest right now. But the best part for the Guard was in hearing of the moment that High King Peter woke up, and the author has saved that moment for next time.

A/N: So yes, Peter finally wakes up. In real time, he's been asleep for months now. Our very own Sleeping Beauty.

And Lucy's up and at 'em! More than that, she and Susan seem to be taking this whole Dream thing in stride.

Thanks to everyone who's kept up with this story! Aslan's Blessings, my friends.

As Always,

-Tonzura123