Lucy died.

Or she thought she did. She'd swallowed a mouthful of mud and stopped breathing. Everything went black and the pain disappeared, at least momentarily. The water was no longer wet, because her skin no longer recognized any sensation. She'd effectively died.

But she never went to heaven. She didn't go to hell either. Lucy floated somewhere between life, death, and the afterlife. Close to each, but too far to really belong to any one world. She just needed a gentle push, or a helping hand.

Maybe even a hoof or two.

Then her floating turned to sinking, and the pain came back stronger than ever; but in a very orderly fashion, which was unexpected. First her legs began to ache again. The mud was gone, but something rough and sticky was pressing the edges of her cuts together. It was like somebody had found a box of used Band-Aids in place of proper stitches. The split seams in her skin now were bound too tightly, and it made her long for open wounds.

That was just the start of her agony. She felt scrubbed, as if somebody had cleaned her from head to toe with sand paper and ammonia. Even her eyelids were too clean.

It was her wrist that ached the most. Lucy had never broken any major bones. She'd broken her toes a few times playing tag, and once dislocated her ankle kicking Edmund's ass one day when he called her a fat cow. This was worse. It was worse than sticking her hand in a meat grinder, and then in lemon juice. Lucy wasn't even sure she had any fingers left. Hell, she could've been experiencing phantom pain, or whatever Peter called it when his friend's lost their limbs.

"I think she's waking," said a man with a mild, kind voice.

"Oh, that's just wonderful. What do we do now? We can't keep the stupid cow." The other man's voice was less kind and mild. In fact, he was a douche.

"If we left her for dead, we'd be no different than King Miraz or his pawn Caspian."

"Trufflehunter, I swear by the stars above, someday your conscience will catch up to the rest of us, and realize that all humans are scum. This one, though small and frilly, is no different."

Lucy frowned. "Caspian's not a pawn," she groaned as she wrinkled her brow. "At least not my Caspian."

The mild-mannered man gasped. "She's not a Telmarine! That's a non-rhotic accent!"

"A what?" the douche seethed.

A sigh from the mild one. "She speaks like the rest of us, you half wit. Hence, she's not like Caspian or Miraz."

"But she knows them intimately. She said my Caspian. Perhaps she's betrothed to him. Perhaps she's his whore. We should toss her back in that pit where we found her."

Lucy tried flexing the fingers of her left hand, but they were splinted straight with what felt like twigs and cotton balls. Her wrist was bound in a splint as well, but it was swollen to the size of a grapefruit and steadily throbbing with her pulse. One-one-thousand, two-one-thousand, three-one-thousand…

"Is my arm broken?" she asked groggily as she futilely fought to lift said arm, but it wouldn't budge. Something else was pressing on her chest insistently, like a barbell or a small cat. It was likely to be some sort of cat, as it was purring insistently. But cats weren't slimy or cold, and they certainly didn't have long fingers.

"Yes, my dear," the kind man whispered as he touched her forehead. His hand was tiny, and his nails were incredibly sharp. However, the fur between his fingers was incredibly soft, link a mink's. "We've bandaged it the best we can, but if the swelling doesn't go down, we're going to bleed you with leeches."

That sounded absolutely disgusting.

"Please don't do that. Dear God, please don't do that." Tears forced Lucy's eyes open despite the painful salt crusting in the corners. "I beg of you, leeches are…"

There was a badger above her. An actual badger. Like, a brock. It was black and white and fuzzy all over. And it was wearing gold wire, almost coke bottle glasses. It was talking too, in a very sweet, soothing voice.

"We could use a knife, but leech saliva numbs your skin." Lucy's eyes were as wide like tea cups and just as thirsty. She gave the badger a heavy once-over. He was short and pudgy, but somehow he was standing on his two hind legs, and his thumbs looked awfully opposable.

"Have I been drugged? Lithium? Um… lithium?" The badger shook his head no and patted her cheek with his little paw. It was soft and warm, and on a badger. The badger was touching her. Badgers were in the same family as weasels.

"No dear, nothing like that. You're just incredibly weak right, and your stomach's probably rock hard from all the mud you swallowed. Your lung's are probably heavy too, but you coughed most of the dirt out already. That's why your throat burns."

The badger was right. Her throat did burn, but she couldn't feel it at all. Because there was a badger speaking to her in a soft tenor, and now he was petting her hair. Weren't badgers supposed to be pet themselves?

"I'm sorry," Lucy groaned with a weak chuckle. "But I must've hit my head, because right now you look like a badger, and badgers don't talk."

"They do, you halfwit wench," the douche said as he leaned over her. Only he wasn't a douche. He was a dwarf with a round nose. Since he was a dwarf, did that make her Snow White? Had she recently eaten any poisoned apples?

"Are apples red or green here? I know some American apples are pink?"

"She's daft!" the dwarf said cruelly. "Talking about apples when she's this close to death."

Lucy gasped. "Am I dying?"

"Possibly," the badger breathed. "But I think you're going to be just fine."

"Then why am I close to death?"

"Because I want to kill you," the dwarf hissed.

Lucy blinked.

"Oh."


Caspian hated sleeping with his mouth open. Inevitably, his tongue was as thick as a sausage and tasted like musky cotton in the morning. His teeth felt fuzzy and were as dry as Glozelle's humor, causing his lips to stick to them like glue on parchment.

Then there was his head, which had been pummeled to a bloody pulp thanks to his hangover. It felt like someone had taken a rusty mace to his forehead, and then taken a piss on the open wound. Graphic, but accurate.

Moaning like a wounded animal, he scrubbed at his face with his fingernails and cuddled one of his pillows close to his chest. It smelled like Lucy and was just as warm.

'Lucy.' The name drifted into his mind slowly, like a whisper traveling through fog. 'If she's half as drunk as me, then she's probably hurting right now.'

"Oh wait," he groaned as he swiped the drool of his chin with his left hand. "I'm pissed at her. That bitch turned me down."

"That bitch never came home last night."

"Glozelle? What are you doing in my room?" Caspian blinked forcibly a few times, trying to see past his drunken haze. Glozelle was sitting by the fire on his favorite leather couch, wearing very muddy boots and a full-length, leather riding coat. It was wet.

"What did you say last night?" Glozelle seethed as he stood up. "What did you do that made her run off with no idea where she was going?"

"What time is it? Is that rain?" What Glozelle was saying wasn't connecting with the situation.

"Are you listening? Lucy is gone. She's gone and she's lost, and you're asking about the time?"

"Yes. What time is it?"

Glozelle started grinding his teeth in anger. "It's four in the morning, and it's been raining for nearly half a day. The Great River has swollen to twice its size, and I have a feeling Lucy is on the other side of it.

"Then go get her. I'm not her keeper." Caspian glared at the general and tugged a pillow over his head, the one that smelled like Lucy. Even angry at her, her scent was one of the only things that could soothe his headache.

"Are you even listening?" Glozelle yelled, ripping the covers off of Caspian as soon as he'd finished stomping over. "A young girl who's barely hit puberty, who has no skill with a map or compass, is LOST in the woods."

Caspian tried to claw his way back under the comforter, but Glozelle was pinning him on his back to the mattress.

"I don't care how angry you are at her for being sane! Because sane is what she is." Glozelle shook him hard enough to rattle Caspian's teeth. "You are no prize, and looking at you right now, I know you never will be. But why don't you try to prove your worth and go after her?!"

"Because I drank like a fish last night and nearly had sex with Gwen. She'll be fine for one night." Caspian closed his eyes and tried relaxing, and his efforts were almost rewarded. That is, until Glozelle delivered one more bombshell.

"Doris came home last night with cuts on her hindquarters, and one of Lucy's shoes caught in her stirrups. There was blood on it."

Inebriation had taken such a strong hold of Caspian's mind that the only thoughts he had were of Lucy as a cold-hearted bitch with a very active menstrual system (though he wasn't sure just how it worked – no man did or ever would). But, still, Lucy's bleeding was certainly a disturbing possibility, even though she'd broken his heart.

"If you want me to go after her, just give me a few minutes to vomit and put some boots on." Glozelle gave him one more painful shove and let him go.

"I will do my best to cover your tracks, but you forget that I am your uncle's general, not yours. I am no longer able to protect you. You're on your own now," Glozelle said as he walked away. He slammed the door behind him on his way out.

Caspian stared blankly at the velvet canopy above his head. No one had ever said no to him. He gave and took everything with single-minded intensity. Women were an easy conquest, but a child who had a plain face and mud beneath her broken fingernails rebuffed his efforts with scorn. In his anger, he realized that Lucy really wasn't anything special. She wasn't a great beauty, she had no curves and a very rude personality.

He loved her in spite of those faults, which was wrong in some ways. He was an adult, she wasn't. He was sexually active, she wasn't. He was royalty, she wasn't. And when she turned him down, she reacted violently. He almost wanted to return that violence.

But… but she was out in the rain. She'd been out there for a while. In the woods, where there were actual bears and wolves. As fast as she was on foot, she was missing a shoe. Sure, she had tough soles and heels, but they weren't made for rocks and sticks. They were made for dancing.

Just because he was angry at her, it didn't mean that he couldn't rescue her. He was still a prince, and she was still his charge. Besides, with Glozelle on Miraz's team, there was no one else who could help her now.

Heaving a sigh, Caspian slung his legs over the edge of the bed and tried licking the taste of dust off his teeth. Outside, a particularly loud blast of thunder shook the entire castle, and the rain drove down harder. The drops of water fell as hard as hail in a hurricane.

Curious, Caspian shuffled over to the window. The clouds were so thick that they blotted out the sun, and the grass had disappeared under inches of mud washing down from the mountains.

"Where are you Lucy?"


Oh where, oh where could Lucy be?

I'm not sure at this point. On a different note, this story is super OOC. And you know what? I really don't care at this point. I'm sorry if it bothers some of you, I really am, because this is truly your story. But I just can't pull a 180 right now. Maybe they'll be more canon in the sequel, but they just won't be for this story.

...

Oops!

I think I just let you guys in on a big secret.