Once Upon Another Time
Narnia had changed.
That fact was incontrovertible, as Edmund lay beside the fire, staring up at the achingly familiar constellations. The Leopard, the Giant…
The encounter with the wild bear proved that. Trumpkin's words still echoed in his head.
"Get treated like a dumb animal long enough, that's what you become. You may find Narnia a more savage place than you remember…"
The glory of Old Narnia was gone, the trees no longer danced and the people, the Talking Animals and all that Narnia really belonged to were in hiding. This was far worse than any hundred-year winter and Witch. And yet Narnia was still beautiful, albeit in a savage, wild way, wilder and darker than in the Golden Age. Even during the White Witch's tyranny, Narnia had still been beautiful, like a sleeping princess waiting to be reawakened, draped in ice and diamond snow.
No matter what, it seemed Narnia would always be beautiful.
And then Lucy had seen Aslan. Standing on a rocky outcropping, where the river Rush had once flowed, now at the bottom of a gorge, she had seen him, and he alone believed her.
After their adventures a year previously, he knew better than to doubt Lucy when it came to Aslan. Lucy's connection with Narnia and the great Lion ran so deeply, so much deeper than anyone's.
And so it turned out to be true, since they found the ford at Beruna blocked by the Telmarines, and Lucy had found a way across the gorge, albeit by falling through a hole rather than by any more conventional means.
With every mile they walked, they saw more of the Telmarines' depravity towards Narnia, their uncaring and ignorant ways as they slaughtered trees to build their bridges. He would never forget the dying Dryad that had silently held out its hand for succour.
At least all the walking had kept his mind away from Elednor. Until now.
Turning over, he forced his eyes closed, willing away all thoughts of her, huddling closer to the fire Trumpkin had made in a clearing, letting its warmth relax his tired muscles and lull him to sleep.
It was the footsteps that woke him.
He opened his eyes to see her leaning over him, one hand on his chest over his heart. She looked…old. Her golden hair was streaked with grey, her beautiful faced aged but not overly so, her figure, once that of a warrior, now soft and gentle as that of a mother, filling the black and gold trimmed mourning gown she wore. It was her eyes that truly showed her age, still silver but darkened by loss and pain and agony, and accusation.
His breath hitched and he tried to speak, to sit up and hold her, but her hand on his chest would not let him.
Then he felt the warm dampness spreading over his chest, and he looked down to see blood spilling over his chest, but it was not his own. It was Elednor's, trickling from a wound in her stomach that he knew had been caused by a sword. He glanced up, trying to speak once more but he was mute.
"Why did you leave me?" the dream Elednor breathed. "Why did you leave me?"
I didn't want to! shouted his mind, powerless to speak. I love you, I never meant to leave!
"Edmund," she sighed, her eyes closing as a tear escaped her lids and trickled down her cheek.
"EDMUND!"
Edmund sat bolt upright, his own cheek wet with tears as he looked around into the concerned eyes of Susan, his chest heaving from the nightmare.
"What is it?" he asked gruffly, wiping his cheeks with the sleeve of his jerkin, looking around to see Trumpkin buckling his sword in place.
"Peter and Lucy. They're gone," Susan hissed, grabbing her bow and quiver. Alarm racing through him, Edmund did the same, leading the way into the unnaturally quiet forest.
When they had been Kings and Queens, both Edmund and Peter had been keen huntsmen. While Peter was the better at the chase and the kill, none could rival Edmund as a tracker. If they ever lost their quarry, he had always been able to find it again.
He spotted Peter's bootprint in the soft earth, following after a lighter set he knew to be Lucy's.
"No, stop!" Lucy's frightened voice rang out, as they raced towards it, over a ridge and around another to find Peter stood before a tall, dark-haired boy of eighteen, dressed in the Telmarine way and holding Peter's sword, surrounded by Narnians.
The mysterious Prince Caspian.
"Peter!" Susan shouted in alarm, racing forward to Lucy's side to check she was unharmed.
Caspian looked down at the sword he held, then back at the three younger Pevensies and Trumpkin, before looking again at Peter.
"High King Peter?" he breathed in complete surprise.
He stared at the young boy…well man, he supposed, about his age with dark blonde hair and confident, almost arrogant eyes, then at the queenly child who had cried out, clad in flowing velvet, then at the dark-haired beauty who could only have been a year younger than he, and the dark, lordly boy beside her, intense eyes set piercingly on his own face.
All their eyes spoke of decades of life lived, and then taken away, and he knew his words to be true and the horn's call answered even before the High King spoke.
"I believe you called," Peter murmured jokingly.
"Well, yes but…I thought you'd be older," he replied uncertainly. But then again the Queen Elednor had not been too old either. She did not look a day older than the boy Caspian guessed to be King Edmund.
Peter's face darkened, as Edmund inwardly rolled his eyes. Not again…
"Well, if you like, we can come back in a few years…" Peter trailed off meaningfully, stepping away as Caspian moved forward to stop him.
"No, no that's alright. You're just not quite what I had expected," he murmured, his gaze sweeping all of them again, but lingering on Susan.
"Neither are you," Edmund added, eyes lingering themselves on the fully armoured minotaur standing atop one of the rocky outcroppings. In their day, minotaurs had always been staunchly on the Witch's side, and it had taken them nigh on a decade to subdue them. The minotaur growled in response, raising his axe.
"A common enemy unites even the oldest of foes," a Badger carrying a leather satchel over its shoulder stepped forward, and Edmund glimpsed Trumpkin rolling his eyes. Clearly, the two knew each other.
A Talking Mouse darted forward eagerly, carrying a rapier and a red feather attached to a gold loop around one ear bounced with his movement.
"We have anxiously awaited your return, my liege," he asserted, bowing to Peter. "Our hearts and swords are at your service."
He dimly overhead Lucy murmuring, "Oh, my gosh, he is so cute!" when the Talking Mouse spun around, sword out and demanded to know who had dared to say he was cute. Lucy sheepishly apologised, and the Mouse meekly stood down.
"Well, at least we know some of you can handle a blade," Peter quipped amusedly, but Edmund could hear the slight undertone in his voice. So, apparently, did Caspian.
"Yes, indeed. And I have recently put it to good use procuring weapons for your army, Sire," the Mouse enthused, sheathing his rapier with an artful flourish.
"Good," Peter replied, seemingly ignorant to the uneasy looks exchanged by some of the Narnians. "Because we going to need every sword we can get," he continued as he swung back to Caspian.
"Well, then you'll probably be wanting yours back," Caspian replied coolly, holding it out. With a slight indifferent tilt of the head, Peter sheathed Rhindon and walked off, leading the way. With a weary sigh at the idiocy of his own brother, Edmund followed as together, they all began to walk off through the forest.
Some time later, they emerged from the forest onto an open meadow, to see a great hill of earth and stone rising from the horizon in front of them. A ruined square filled with columns stood a little way in front, and Edmund heard Lucy's audible gasp as she saw it.
As they walked closer, a group of centaurs lined up either side of the stone ramp leading down into the bowels of the hill, which Trufflehunter told them was called Aslan's How, and unsheathed their swords, holding them up into the air in ceremonial welcome to the four monarchs.
Unnoticed by the four Pevensies, Caspian hung back uncertainly, as they walked proudly into the How, Lucy giggling at a young centaur whose sword was not raised high enough.
Inside they came across a great cavern, filled with busy Narnians forging weapons and moving caskets around, great flaming torches on the walls providing a dusky light. Both in front and behind them, either side of the ramp, great tunnels could be seen stretching off into darkness.
Edmund and Peter stopped, as the girls went off to explore the How, looking around the great cavern, noting the armourers and the stores being carted around.
"It may not be what you are used to, but it is defensible," Caspian murmured, as the two Kings looked back at him. Edmund decided he rather liked the Telmarine Prince; Peter's thoughts towards him he wasn't so certain of.
"Peter. You may want to see this," Susan called from a set of steps leading further into the How. All three followed the Gentle Queen, as she showed them beautiful murals and wall paintings, showing their story.
And Elednor.
Edmund paused before a painting of her on a battlefield, hair streaming out behind, armour gleaming in an unseen sun and sword aloft, the gleam of battle in her eyes, and felt his heart contract.
Would the pain never fade?
"It's us," Susan breathed, as they stopped in front of a mural showing them beside their thrones at Cair Paravel.
"What is this place?" Lucy asked, her voice trembling as her own eyes fell on an image of a Faun standing beside a lamp post, holding an umbrella. Tumnus.
An odd look passed over Caspian's face. "You don't know?"
All four Pevensies stared at him, before Edmund finally replied. "This was not here in our day."
Caspian grabbed a torch from a bracket on the wall, and led them deeper into the How, to a great, darkened chamber. He set his torch to a channel of oil that ran around the chamber, illuminating great carvings in the rock walls, of Fauns, Centaurs, Talking Animals, Minotaurs, Gryphons and every creature imaginable, ending in a towering panel showing the great Lion, Aslan himself, framed by two broken columns.
And there, before the great Lion's image, was the Stone Table, cracked down the middle.
Lucy gasped, walking towards it in a dream, laying her hand on the cold stone. "I'm sure he knows what he's doing," she breathed, in the direction of her siblings. Peter's face was set as he stepped forward.
"I think it's up to us now," he replied determinedly. Edmund looked into the stone eyes of the great Lion and shivered.
Then a new voice joined them, and he froze as if turned to stone.
"If you truly believe that, High King of Narnia, then you're even more of an idiot than I thought you were," Elednor said haughtily, as she stepped from the shadows. Edmund turned, and caught his breath as he looked at her.
"Elednor!" Lucy shrieked excitedly, moving towards her to embrace her but Elednor moved back, eyes icy.
She barely looked a day older than sixteen, younger even than when they had first met, her golden hair pulled back in a tight knot, Liliad at her hip, her armour shining in the firelight. But it was her eyes that pulled him, silver, mesmerising and cold as they looked on him. Something flickered in their depths as they gazed on him then she once more looked towards Peter.
"Elednor!" Peter breathed in shock. He moved towards his sister-in-law, but she moved back again. "What are you doing here?"
Elednor's lips quirked sardonically. "Were you really arrogant enough to forget that I too was a Queen of the Golden Age, that not all of them abandoned Narnia?" she asked coldly, before she turned and swept from the chamber, ignoring her family and Caspian as she disappeared around the corner.
She had not looked at Edmund since that one moment, and he felt his heart sink.
They glanced towards Caspian, silent and grave, as Susan turned to him, "What happened to her?" she asked in a small voice.
"She's supposed to be dead," Edmund gasped. "We found her tomb at Cair Paravel!"
Caspian shook his head. "No, she told me that after the death of her son-" he stopped when Edmund's face blanched and he staggered backwards. Of course he knew his son and daughter had to be dead, but hearing it in such cold, dry tones was too much. He sat down on the Stone Table, head in hands. What had he done?
"Elyan died before Elednor?" Peter prompted, his voice shaking. Lucy gasped and Susan put her arm around her. Caspian nodded.
"My professor told me of it. King Elyan the Bold was killed when he was twenty nine, in battle with the Giants. His sister-" he explained, but at that Edmund cut in.
"Laramine," he breathed the name, eyes shut tight as he fought back tears. Caspian nodded.
"Laramine the Wise. She reigned for a hundred years but never married or left an heir. It was not long after her death that my ancestor, Caspian the Conqueror, invaded Narnia. According to legend Elednor did die after Laramine ascended the throne, but she says she and her daughter planned it so. Somehow she met Aslan, and he put her in an enchanted sleep, to awaken when the horn was blown," Caspian finished, holding up the ivory horn Susan had once worn. All four Pevensies were silent when he finished his story, except for Lucy's quiet sobs.
"She hates us," the youngest Pevensie breathed against her sister's shoulder. Susan hushed her, but her own eyes were wet as she glanced helplessly towards her brothers.
"I left her alone," Edmund whispered, uncaring of Peter's hand on his shoulder, comforting and strong. "I did this to her."
"Ed, you couldn't stop Elyan from dying," Peter tried to reassure him, but he himself was saddened by the news. He had loved his little nephew, they all had, and he grieved for the niece they had never known.
Edmund pushed his brother's arm away, standing and striding to the exit, ignoring his siblings' cries.
He had to find her. He had to make her see that he never wanted to leave her, or their children, and that he loved her so much that seeing the cold hatred in her eyes was tearing him apart.
