Chapter ten already! I've gotten a lot of writing done on this story for Camp NaNoWriMo so hopefully we're looking at steady updates from here on out. I'm excited, personally :D
Thanks so much to rosegold1996 for reviewing!
Chapter 10
The days after the Narnians have left for the raid flow by surprisingly easily for Miranda. She practices with the bow as many hours a day as her arms can stand and gets to know Queen Lucy fairly well. In fact, she's been asked once again by the queen to simply call her Lucy, so she tries to remember to do that as well. All in all, the days are rather peaceful, if she forgets why the How is emptied. They do get lonely, and that's when she worries, but she tries to remember that she's still not sure this entire thing isn't a dream.
Dreams don't feel this real, she knows. And they don't last this long. Not even if she can manage to keep up her pattern of barely three hours of sleep each night.
She tries to forget that when she notices how empty the How is with so many away at war.
And then the day comes when she and Lucy are sitting on the Stone Table's steps and the horn announcing the Narnians' return sounds. Lucy immediately puts away the fireflower potion she's been fiddling with the past half-hour and runs to go and see the returners, but Miranda takes her time. She's more nervous now than before that there will be too many faces missing.
But then, what else is one to expect in a war?
She forces herself to pick up her pace from a steady walk to a hesitant jog, and before she can quite fully prepare, she's out in the early morning sunlight and trying to understand where everyone is.
That can't be all of them.
Vaguely, she hears Lucy asking "What happened?" and she almost seconds the query. But King Peter is striding toward them with a face pinched in sorrow and anger, and it's the anger that frightens her.
"Ask him," the blond king says, turning his head back to indicate Prince Caspian, who's walking with his head a little down next to him.
Queen Susan doesn't approve of this; she tries to talk her brother down with a gentle "Peter," but before she can finish whatever she was going to say, Prince Caspian chimes in with a voice that's heavy and filled with hurt.
"Me? You could have called it off, there was still time."
Technically, Miranda knows it's two leaders fighting, but at the moment it feels like it's just two boys – or young men, she can't decide which – arguing about who's right. She knows it must be more, that it is more because of their responsibilities, and she feels awful for thinking so.
"No there wasn't, thanks to you," King Peter counters bitterly. "If you'd kept to the plan, those soldiers might be alive right now."
So this truly is everyone? More than half of the Narnians who went on the raid aren't there.
What did happen?
"And if we'd just stayed here like I suggested they definitely would be!" Prince Caspian is the first to raise his voice, and Miranda thinks that they must obviously have different ways of dealing with the loss.
"You called us, remember?"
A deadly sort of calm descends.
"My first mistake," Prince Caspian says, cold anger burning in his face.
"No!" King Peter almost sounds like he's trying to laugh. Almost. "You're first mistake was thinking you could lead these people." And with that, the High King tries to walk away, but a startling yell from the prince he's just horribly insulted stops him and turns him back around.
"I am not the one who abandoned Narnia."
Miranda doesn't want to watch this anymore, doesn't want to see the two of them going at it when they're both just lashing out in pain. It frightens her and worries her, and she's already trying to make sense of just how at least half of the army they left with is dead and gone. These two leaders must feel the loss immeasurably, and their words are only worsening each other's pain.
"You invaded Narnia; you have no more right to lead it than Miraz does!"
And there it is, more hurtful things that neither of them will be able to take back.
Miranda stays where she is, both because no one else has moved an inch since the fight started and because she can see the agony Prince Caspian is trying so very hard to hide as he shoves King Peter aside and marches toward the How.
"You, him, your father!"
Prince Caspian stops in his tracks, face going blank. A little bit of Miranda wants to go and pull him away from all these ugly words, but she doesn't know him well enough to feel safe doing that. And it wouldn't help anyways, because King Peter just keeps going.
"Narnia's better off without the lot of you!" the High King spits, face twisted and unsightly.
There's nothing anyone can do now.
With a battle cry that screams of hurt and promises revenge, Prince Caspian draws his sword and points it straight at King Peter. In the same moment, King Peter draws his, and the two of them stand there for long moments before King Edmund yells at them to stop from his place a ways behind. He's tending to the blond dwarf, Trumpkin, who supported the raid when King Peter proposed it.
Lucy runs forward, fireflower cordial already in hand, to help her friend. Her DLF, as she told Miranda in the days they spent together telling stories. The two leaders have to lower their swords to let her through. They do it slowly, like they're pained to have to do so.
While King Peter's attention turns to his youngest sister tending her DLF who looks to be in pretty poor shape, Prince Caspian sheathes his sword and continues on into the How, passing Miranda as he goes.
She almost reaches out to him, but thinks better of it when she sees his face up close. He's not looking for any outside comfort right now; he's angry, and she isn't sure how she'd work with that anyway. So she lets him go after promising herself she'll make a point of talking to him later. Not that she can do much, but maybe she can do just a little something. Their late night talks have seemed to relax him before.
Or she can let him cool down for a bit and then try her best to figure out how to talk to him in the daylight.
In the mean time, she scoots around King Peter and goes to Lucy to ask if she needs help with anything. She gets there just in time to hear Trumpkin grumbling about the Telmarines getting there "soon enough" and then thanking his "dear little friend."
Lucy smiles and so does Queen Susan, and from there Lucy goes looking at the rest of the returners, fixing wounds when needed.
Miranda almost asks Queen Susan to tell her what happened, but she doesn't want to bring up any more bad blood even though she's getting morbidly curious. Instead, she looks for her friends.
Urothorn is currently being tended by Lucy for an ugly gash in his side, Nartus is nowhere to be found, and Suncloud is standing a little ways behind his father, looking at the ground. Miranda looks over and sees Glenstorm crossing an arm over his chest, everything about him sad and sorry. Windmane is crying, turning her head to the side.
Suncloud lost a brother at the castle, she can gather that much. She can't see Rainstone anywhere.
What should she do? What can she do, really?
Suncloud glances up, notices her staring. He meets her eyes for a long moment before looking back to the ground. Unless she's reading him wrong, he doesn't want to talk right now.
She doesn't blame him; he needs to grieve with his family. She'd want the same in his place.
Miranda checks with Lucy and makes sure her help, meager as it is, isn't needed or wanted before heading back inside the How. After a few minutes of wandering indecision, she settles on practicing archery again. She might as well be as useful as she can be, and right now that looks like preparing for the next battle as best she can.
The thwang and thud of arrows isn't as soothing as it used to be. But she barely knows them, has only met a few of them, doesn't even quite fit here. This could still, maybe, just be one grand dream brought on by hospital medications.
So why can she not stop thinking about Nartus and Suncloud's brother that she didn't even know and Prince Caspian fighting with King Peter? Shouldn't she be worrying about the next time she falls asleep and wakes up in the hospital? Shouldn't she be planning how to defend herself when she wakes up and he's there and no one else can help her?
But she isn't, and she isn't sure what to make of that. Surely she doesn't care so deeply for this place, these people she's barely spoken to after so short a time? She hasn't yet seen fit to trust them with many of her secrets, and yet she feels a heavy, sticky sort of feeling in her heart that makes her want to just lay down and not do anything for a while.
She's grieving, for people she hasn't even decided to trust yet?
Strange.
Maybe this thought is what has her putting away her bow and quiver and walking to find Prince Caspian.
There may not be much she can do, but maybe she can help him, like they help each other during those late nights. If he even wants it. But better to offer it anyway, right?
So Miranda wanders through the How, looking for her nighttime friend, wondering the whole time if this really is the best idea. But if it was the other way around, she might appreciate at least the thought. She plugs on, even though her stomach does funny little summersaults as she goes. And at length, she finds him, staring at the wall in the tunnel that leads to the Stone Table.
"Want some company?" Her voice comes out timid and almost squeaky, the exact opposite of what she was going for.
He doesn't react. It's like he can't even hear her, like he's about to just melt into the wall and become part of the mural.
Maybe if she can see what he's looking at, she can guess what he's thinking. Well, he just fought with King Peter, she's pretty sure that's on his mind. But there's also something more, some fresh new pain that was in his eyes as he arrived. A pain that hadn't been there before, and a pain that sparked to violent life at King Peter's insults. Insults about him, Miraz, and his father. So something with Miraz or his father?
She leans forward just a little, sees that the mural is of the Kings and Queens crowned on their thrones at Cair Paravel. So it is about the fight, or maybe the two things are caught up together. King Peter did sort of press the issue.
Does he want her to leave?
She's not getting any feedback one way or another, and it's feeling increasingly uncomfortable, so she starts to step back and away. He tenses.
Miranda isn't sure what to do. She still feels a bit unwelcome, but he seems to want her here, even if only a little. He leans back just the tiniest hair.
She stays.
Neither one of them says anything, but she stays. Prince Caspian still stares at the mural, still practically ignores that she's even there, but she tries not to mind too much. After all, he's had a rather rough few days.
"I know you aren't in a talking sort of mood right now, but if you ever are and you can't sleep...you know. I'll be there." Miranda is painfully aware of how awkward she sounds, how unsurely the words come out of her mouth. She kind of hopes Prince Caspian doesn't notice, but it's not horribly important if he does.
He nods once, eyes never leaving the wall. Does he still want her to stay?
Miranda really isn't very good at this. If only she knew him better, had known him longer, she'd have a better idea of what to say, of how to soothe at least some of his pain. But she doesn't, and she can't shake this feeling that whatever she's trying to do is nowhere near enough.
On an impulse, she decides to blurt something out.
"I'm sorry about what King Peter said."
Prince Caspian's shoulders tense again, but they relax after a moment. His entire posture relaxes, if only a little. But it's more than before. And when he finally speaks, his voice is rough and low, like he's been holding back angry tears for a while.
"Thank you."
He doesn't say anything more, doesn't invite any further conversation, but Miranda gets the sense that maybe, perhaps, he's feeling a tiny bit better. However, he might still want to be alone.
So she leaves him to his thoughts and reminds him one more time that she's here if he ever wants a listening ear, or even a shoulder. He turns toward her as she starts to walk away, his eyes meeting hers for the briefest moment. The storm in his almost makes her breath catch in her throat, and she wants nothing more than to take away that hurt.
But she doesn't know him that well.
So she smiles a sad, comforting sort of smile and continues on, pleased to at least have been a teeny tiny bit of help.
Miranda turns a corner, is about to walk through the makeshift armory, but she hears a nasty sounding voice echoing back down the tunnel. She hesitates, sure it can't be something too nasty because there are only Narnians here and they're not bad from what she's seen. Then she remembers the agony swirling in Prince Caspian's eyes and turns back around. If someone is taunting him, by heaven she won't have it.
She doesn't have time to wonder where such a fierce reaction same from; she's placing her feet as carefully as she can without being slow about it. Another voice that sounds like Prince Caspian's floats through the tunnel into her ears, making her pause. He sounds angry still, but she can't tell if it's in general or in response to this new visitor. She continues on.
"-blood? So do we," she hears as she approaches, now only a bend away from the two.
Nikabrik? Is that Nikabrik?
"You want his throne? We can get it for you."
That is most certainly Nikabrik, but what "we" is he talking about?
She peeks around the bend. Her gut is telling her to stay quiet, to not make her presence known just yet. She doesn't, but she sees the chronically grumpy dwarf ambling deeper into the tunnel with Prince Caspian looking after him. The prince hesitates, as if he's unsure, before following Nikabrik. And Miranda follows them.
Nikabrik leads Prince Caspian to the Stone Table, discussing ancient powers, if she's hearing this correctly.
"You tried one ancient power, it failed. But there is a power greater still; one that kept even Aslan at bay for near a hundred years."
Nikabrik walks Prince Caspian around the edge of the room until they're in front of the wall carving of Aslan, facing the Stone Table. Miranda quickly slips back further into the tunnel and around a bend to avoid being seen.
Moments later, a low growl sounds from the darkest corner of the room. Miranda could swear the hair on the back of her head stands on end. A cold pit of fear quickly forms in her stomach, but she peeks back out cautiously. How is Prince Caspian taking this new development?
Her risk shows that he's unnerved too; he draws his sword, gets down the three steps, and stands en guarde.
"Who's there?" he demands, his voice shaking almost imperceptibly.
"I am hunger," comes the raspy growl as two creatures covered in cloaks blacker than midnight scoot toward him.
"I am thirst," the one on Miranda's left continues. She swears her heart is ready to beat itself out of her chest. Cold sweat makes her hands slip on the stone walls around her.
"I can fast for a hundred years and not die. I can lie a hundred nights on the ice and not freeze." Cue another snarl. "I can drink a river of blood and not burst. Show. Me. Your enemies!" A final growl that's worse than all the others finishes the theatric introduction, but Miranda is shaking like a leaf as it is.
The instant another creepy voice, dry and a bit whiny, whips through the air, she's gone.
She's barely thinking of being quiet, but she manages to hurry along the tunnel without anyone hearing, at least she thinks so. And when she's sure she's out of earshot, she breaks into a full-out run, heart pounding in her ears as she tries to banish the raspy voice from her mind.
What to do, what to do...she has to do something; she can't leave Prince Caspian in there with those things!
Oh god. She left Prince Caspian in there alone.
Panic rises in her chest, clawing at her pounding heart. She's got to help him, somehow, but what good is she against a wolf and a dwarf and whatever that other cloaked thing was? She isn't sure she can help him at all.
But maybe someone else can. The Kings and Queens?
Miranda wishes she knew them a little better, but she can't really complain of that now, not when her friend is alone in a room with three creatures that clearly don't mean well at all.
She bursts out of the tunnel and asks the first person she sees where the Kings and Queens are.
"Please, it's very important!" she pants, out of breath from her frantic sprint.
The Minotaur thinks he last saw them near the training grounds, or at least on their way there. Miranda thanks him and takes off once more.
"Is everything alright?" he calls after her.
What a silly question.
She shouts a thank you over her shoulder and doesn't reply. She doesn't have time; or rather, Prince Caspian doesn't.
Sure enough, she finds the monarchs en route to the grounds. With a yell, she stops them in their tracks.
"Miranda? What on earth's the matter?" Queen Susan asks, looking quite concerned.
"It's Prince Caspian, I think he's in trouble!" she gasps out.
"Trouble?" Lucy asks, looking a bit confused.
"Stone Table, go!" Miranda vaguely thinks that she sounds almost unintelligible, but they seem to get the message; the two kings take off at a run with Lucy close behind them. Queen Susan, however, stays with Miranda as she catches her breath.
"What happened?"
Miranda gets her breath back as quickly as she can and explains the whole thing: seeking him out to see if he was alright, hearing Nikabrik, following them down the tunnel and hearing the raspy voice and fleeing like the devil itself was at her heels. Because for all she knew, it was.
And that's all they say, because as soon as Miranda can breathe properly again, she takes off running for the Stone Table again, Queen Susan right on her heels.
They get to the tunnel in record time. Miranda wants to keep going, even though her lungs are practically screaming in protest and she might be weaving side to side. But Queen Susan slows to a brisk walk and insists she do the same.
"But-"
"Peter, Ed, and Lu are taking care of it, you can afford to walk the rest of the way," the queen tells her firmly.
Miranda almost says something to the effect of she already has a mother, thanks very much, but Queen Susan is a friend and she isn't sure she'd appreciate the sour sass.
All the same, the walk there seems to take ages, ages Miranda is still afraid Prince Caspian can't afford.
But wasn't the whole point of getting the Kings and Queens precisely this? So they could help him because she didn't think she could?
Queen Susan seems to understand that she's still anxious, and Miranda almost thanks her when she picks up the pace. She only doesn't because she's listening for the sounds of a struggle.
At first, there seems to be just that; muffled sounds of swords and yelling travels down the tunnel, but it stops with a particularly loud shout that has Miranda sprinting down the last stretch of the tunnel with her heart in her throat. She doesn't stop to wonder why.
When she rounds the bend, she sees the signs of a skirmish. Nikabrik is lying motionless to the left of the Stone Table, Lucy's standing behind Trumpkin, both of them staring at the archway that frames Aslan's wall carving. That archway is covered in a thick sheet of ice that blocks the Lion's image.
But the most fantastic and terrifying part is the ghastly wraith-like figure that's floating behind the ice, holding her hand out to King Peter. King Peter, who is lowering his sword.
Miranda skids to a stop as silently as she can and frantically scans the area for Prince Caspian. Vaguely, she hears Queen Susan walk in behind her.
There he is, on the ground as if he was thrown there, watching the exchange between King Peter and the ghostly woman behind the ice with wide eyes.
With a start, Miranda remembers her crash history lesson from Suncloud.
"The White Witch?" she mouths to Queen Susan, who's now standing just behind her. Her suspicion is confirmed by a nod.
And suddenly, the hand withdraws and the ice cracks haphazardly; the tip of a sword pokes out the front of the ice glass. Prince Caspian gets to his feet, watching as if entranced by the whole thing.
The Witch throws her head back as her icy prison continues to crack and fissure, and for a moment everything is still and quiet. And then, with a deafening crash and an inhuman scream, the ice suddenly shatters into a shower of shards, exploding outward toward King Peter and Prince Caspian.
Miranda ducks on a reflex, even though the ice doesn't come anywhere near her. Queen Susan, on the other hand, stays perfectly still and observes the scene.
King Edmund lowers his sword once the ice finishes falling, the remnants of it already starting to melt. He turns to his older brother and says something Miranda can't quite make out, but he doesn't sound pleased. He walks off after finishing, his face tight and pinched.
King Peter and Prince Caspian stare straight ahead for a moment, at the mural of Aslan that the Witch covered. And then they turn around and see their sister staring at them, looking as displeased as King Edmund.
Miranda is keenly aware that she is also in their line of sight, and so she quickly melts into the shadows, hoping their gaze won't follow. She hates being stared at; it makes her skin crawl.
Queen Susan, on the other hand, glares at them, not saying anything because she knows she doesn't have to. For his part, Prince Caspian looks sorry and sad, eyes soft as he tries to apologize without words to the Queen of Old. But there's a question in his eyes also, asking how they knew to come and help.
Queen Susan looks to the side, first at King Edmund, and then to Miranda, who shrinks back even more, hoping the shadows cast by the firelight keep her face hidden from the young men. King Peter holds his sister's gaze but Prince Caspian looks over to her.
Oddly, guilt floods her, like it wasn't her place to intrude. But if she hadn't, wouldn't they have had a Witch on their hands? Not that she knew that when she went. On that subject, where are the two cloaked figures?
Miranda scans the room from her corner, moving aside so King Edmund can get past her as he heads for the tunnel when necessary. Ah, there is one, curled up at a corner of the Stone Table. And there is the other, a furry wolf-like thing, snarling even in death with its blood pooled on the dirt ground.
Was that the one who could fast for a hundred years and still live?
And yet a sword could conquer him in less than an hour.
Miranda feels horrid for thinking that, but she thinks the creature maybe deserved his end, bloodthirsty thing that it was. Who in their right mind would even talk about drinking a river of blood anyway?
Lost in her thoughts, Miranda almost misses Queen Susan's exit, close after King Edmund's. Miranda wonders if she ought to leave too.
Trumpkin and Lucy are mourning Nikabrik, and Prince Caspian and King Peter seem to be having a moment of understanding. Her place is not here.
She turns to go, sneaking a quick glance back at Prince Caspian before she completely turns to the tunnel, just to make sure he's alright. And she finds that he is, and her job was only to make sure everything was okay. Now it is and her role is done.
She's taken her first steps toward the tunnel when someone clears their throat. Her heart picks up speed; she hates drawing attention to herself, she really really does. But the polite thing to do is to turn around and acknowledge whoever that was. So that's what Miranda does - the polite thing.
As it turns out, it was King Peter who interrupted her hasty exit.
"May I have a word?" he asks, beckoning to her with a steady hand.
She is keenly aware that she does not want to go, but the polite thing is to go.
At the moment, she hates the polite thing.
Miranda grits her teeth and goes anyway, even though she trembles just a bit. She still barely knows King Peter, and he reminds her of him and she's been enjoying not thinking about him lately.
And yet, as she walks toward King Peter, that seems to be almost all she can think of. By the time she reaches him, she's biting her tongue to keep her teeth from chattering.
King Peter beckons to her again and walks toward the side of the room. Prince Caspian leaves then, and Trumpkin sees to Nikabrik's body. Lucy helps him, and soon Miranda finds that King Peter and herself are left alone in the room, with firelight the only thing to hide her. It's unhelpful.
"I wanted to thank you," King Peter says after a few awkward moments of sitting on the ruins of a pillar.
"For what?" Miranda thinks she knows, but what she can't quite grasp is why the High King felt the need to thank her for it.
"For coming and getting us, to help Caspian." Long moments pass, and Miranda waits for King Peter to say something else, because she isn't sure how to respond to that. "How did you know what was going on?" he continues.
Finally, something she can answer.
Miranda has to swallow her nerves before speaking, but she manages to get the words out with no shake in her voice. "I went to see if he was okay after… after…"
What's the polite way to say that she went to see if he was okay after he and King Peter were ready to kill each other?
"After we fought?" King Peter offers.
Miranda seizes on this and nods gratefully. "Yes, that. I wanted to see if there was anything I could do. Anyway, he wasn't really ready to talk about it, so I was leaving when I heard Nikabrik suggest another ancient power. I probably shouldn't have followed them, but I did, and once I heard the wolf talking I knew Prince Caspian was in danger, so I came to find you guys."
At once, Miranda realizes she might sound slightly accusatory of King Peter's actions regarding that particular fight.
Should she apologize, or just wait?
"You did the right thing, and I think we're all very glad you warned us." King Peter doesn't actually sound angry at all, or even very threatening.
"Well, witches running around are never a good thing," she offers, shrugging like it wasn't as big a deal as it was.
To her surprise, King Peter grins. "Naturally not."
After that, Miranda isn't sure what else there is to talk about, and so she isn't so surprised when an awkward silence descends.
"How are you finding Narnia?"
The innocent question catches her off-guard, prepared as she was to make a quick and barely polite exit.
"It's very different. Not in a bad way, just…different." Miranda doesn't want to admit that she actually likes it quite a bit better, even though there's a war going on and it's an unfamiliar place. It's safer than home, but if she can barely admit that to herself, how on earth is she supposed to say something like that aloud to someone else?
"It is different," the king agrees. "But it's more…more…"
"Just more?" Miranda isn't sure if that's what he was trying to say, but it makes sense. In a lot of ways, Narnia is just a bit more.
"Yes, that exactly." King Peter smiles at her, and some of her fear skitters away. He doesn't seem so bad when he's not trying so hard.
And she doesn't see why it's not a good idea to end the conversation on a good note, so she gracefully does just that and leaves the King Peter to his thoughts. Heaven knows he has plenty to think about.
I posted this chapter before I realized I was going to update every two weeks, so hope you guys enjoyed the early update :)
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