Prompt #11: Use this quote as your inspiration, whether you actually include it or not:

Kidnap me from my reality
and crushed pieces of my soul
colour me outside the lines
until my shattered heart is whole
~ Perry Poetry.

WARNING FOR A DARK, VIOLENT BEGINNING! Rated a high T. Seriously. Beware, okay? Triggers for snakes, killings, darkness, horror, and despair. Possible other things I haven't thought of yet.

The crushed pieces of my soul

The dream was starting again.

Not a dream. No, I could wake from dreams, but this—

I saw my King. King Caspian the Ninth, head back, laughing, talking about going home to his Queen. We were together, all of us; seven, no, there were more, all the loyal Lords on horseback—and then they started dying.

Bern first, an arrow from the woods. Behind him his two cousins fell, his hands reached out to them, that compassionate heart no longer beating. I could tell, my hands were in his blood, trying to stem it—it stopped flowing. I looked up just to see Restimar's head fall from his shoulders, hair suddenly blood-stained gold. Miraz's flatterers rode behind him, mocking. Their voices were so clear; why was my own muffled?

I watched Mavramorn fall. He rode before his king, masterful to the last, sword out—it shattered to pieces in his hands. The pieces, they glittered, and I gathered them up, my own fingers bleeding, mixing with the blood of my friend. I had to get the pieces back to him. I could save him, I could save just one. If two of us helped Caspian, maybe he wouldn't fall, I had to get the pieces—

Lord Mavramorn's body hit me when it fell, a stone dagger in his hand. I looked up. Up into the eyes of my King. I saw when the light in them died. Miraz drew his dagger out of his brother's body, red to the hilt. I heard his satisfied grunt. He reached out and yanked the crown off my King's head as my King—

My King fell. I could not catch him. I could see him falling, see the dead body, the crownless brow, and those bright, dead eyes.

I could never say I was sorry. I could never, ever say a word and have it heard.

I could never save any of them.

The dream was starting again.


The dream was starting again.

Night replaced the daylight. Still my King laughed.

Still my King died.


The dream was starting again.

King Caspian rising in his saddle, looking eagerly towards home. I could hear him laughing. Stop laughing, my King, beware! Beware! Hear me!

Bern lit a torch, holding it high. It burned my shoulder when he fell, and the flames were fed in the grass. One by one the Lords fell to the arrows and the flames, to the swords sharp and hungry behind them. Octesian died shrieking from the fire.

When my King fell, his blue eyes as empty as night, the flames ate his face.

Miraz burned Narnia.


A different dream was starting. The whispers of scales rustling over stones, sounding from all directions. There was no light.

I stood still. I could hear myself now. I could hear every breath, every heartbeat, every thud of blood within me. Could they hear it too? Could I get away? I moved my feet, and stumbled.

They heard me! They were coming!

The sounds were closer, closer; I ran. I ran into a stone wall, my head knocking it hard. I stretched out my hands in the dark—the rustling was coming closer!

And then it circled around my leg. Tighter, tighter, I could not kick it off, circling my waist, my ribs, cracking bone! I heard my own screams! "Get off! Get off!" But then it reached my neck, cold slithering scales wrapping around and cutting off my breathing.

I lost all senses, choking.

It was still better than the dream.

Than living a dream with every sense and ragged pieces of my heart.


The dream was starting again.

Day, and I stood before my friends, my King.

I saw every expression of pain as they died. Never could I die myself.


Over and over, the dream came. Sometimes my darkest childhood fears, my parents leaving me in the dark. Sometimes the monsters from our tales of Caspian the Conqueror. I broke my ankle and it stayed. Still the dreams came on.

Over and over and over.


The dream was starting again.

Night, and my King laughed.

I heard the hoofbeats—I tried to warn him—a white bird flew over his head.

White, white, shining and white. Light itself was born in its wings, and its eyes

It was greater than any King.

I followed, followed with my limping foot, and there was water under my feet! I did not care, I had seen—I had seen—

Reality. It was real.

I had to follow.

Kidnap me from my reality*

Deeper and deeper grew the water. I could swim.

I thought I could swim. How weak my arms! No, no, NO! The bird was vanishing!

NO!

I do not know what sound came from my lips, in the loss of the only true thing I had seen in years, but another sound answered it.

"Who calls?" Water, water in my ears, but the voice was high, shrill, nothing I feared; was this another dream? "If you are a foe we do not fear you, and if you are a friend your enemies shall be taught the fear of us.

There, up ahead! A ship!

My ship. The bodies of my rotting friends aboard—

No, that was not my friend's voice

Another dream—

"Mercy!" I screamed. "Mercy! Even if you are only one more dream, have mercy. Take me on board. Take me, even if you strike me dead. But in the name of all mercies do not fade away and leave me in this horrible land." I would rather drown than dream.

"Where are you?" That voice—I knew that voice, or one like it—"Come aboard, and welcome!"

A dream—a ship—I swam towards it. Eager hands, friendly hands, hands on my arms, my shoulders, my back. I was out of the water. I was—beneath my feet, the deck rocked—this was real.

The men around me all had dreams.

"Fly! Fly! About with your ship and fly! Row, row, row for your lives away from this accursed shore."

"Compose yourself." The high, shrill voice, male, coming from a creature. Another nightmare! Small and furry and not human! "And tell us what the danger is. We are not used to flying."

Fools, fools, monsters and men all, fools! "Nevertheless you will fly from here," I gasped. We must leave. "This is the island where Dreams come true."

They did not hear me, they did not understand, they heard my voice but not my meaning. Wish after wish—as I wished my King back. As I wished for my friends. For peace. Why couldn't they hear me?

"Fools! That is the sort of talk that brought me here, and I'd better have been drowned or never born." King Caspian laughed and died, his blue eyes staring. "Do you hear what I say? This is where dreams—dreams, do you understand—come to life, come real. Not daydreams: dreams."

They heard me. A little girl in the fighting top looked at me in horror; the men around me scrambled for the oars, for the sails. Below us the boatswain beat the stroke, faster than I had ever heard. They knew, they knew, they heard me.

Was it enough? Would it be enough?

The monster spoke in that high shrill voice. "Your Majesty, your Majesty, are you going to tolerate this mutiny, this poltroonery? This is a panic, this is a rout."

"Row, row!" bellowed the man. My breath stopped. His voice was like, the monster had called him Majesty—

I was dreaming again. The dream would start again.

Monsters and kings mixed, and monsters would triumph. The King bellowed again.

"Pull for all our lives. Is her head right, Drinian? You can say what you like, Reepicheep. There are some things no man can face."

The monster bowed, stiff as the mast in a wind. "Then it is my good fortune not to be a man."

I did not listen. I heard the sounds. The other sounds. The scales, rustling in the water—rustling on the wood. They were coming up. I fell down, it was over quicker if they found my neck. Oh, how I wish I had drowned.

The King moved. I watched him. I did not want to watch him die, but always, always, I had to try. The snakes would come for him—the monster would lead them. He went to aft, to the tiller. His eyes—never had his eyes been so fearful.

The dream was starting again.

"We shall never get out, never get out," moaned from below me. They would fall to the snakes first. I would watch them all die. "He's steering us wrong. We're going round and round in circles. We shall never get out."

I started to laugh. What better horror, what better pain, than to offer hope and prove it false! "Never get out!" I yelled. "That's it. Of course. We shall never get out. What a fool I was to have thought they would let me go as easily as that. No, no, we shall never get out." We were lost. Men, monsters, all lost.

Colour me outside the lines

"Look!" A cry from the bow.

Light. A speck, not worth a hope—but light.

And the light fell on us. A broad beam of it, revealing the ship, revealing the shadows. Still the darkness crouched around us, above, underneath.

But something came along the beam. Something came, flying towards, without the noises of the dreams. First a cross, then something with longer arms, then a kite, and then, at last, I saw the Bird.

It did not just fly over the King; it circled our mast, three times it circled. It landed on the dragon on the prow.

And it sang.

Never in the dreams had there been music.

I could not say what it called, only that it spoke truer than any nightmares.

It spread its wings, it rose—do not leave us!

No, we were going after it. We followed.

The darkness—the darkness, it was grey. Seven years; I knew the darkness, and it had never been grey. Now it was.

And we were out. Out, out, we were out!

I looked up. Oh bright, bright, golden sun! My eyes flinched closed, but I had seen it. I opened them again; the blue sky!

I could hear. The men around me laughed, shouted, spoke. I reached out—I touched a rope—it did not move. It did not curl and lash, leaving welts and blood. I touched the ship. She sailed on. She was firm beneath me, and I was crying.

I turned. Turned to the man—not Caspian, not my Caspian, but a little like him. Bold and brave and kind. A king and a little like him.

He did not die before my eyes. He was laughing. And he did not die.

"Thank you." I begged him to understand, to hear and understand. "You have saved me from… but I won't talk of that." Who was this man, this crew, this ship? Like my king, but unalike. "And now let me know who you are." I drew on the distant, distant memories of all the ways I once walked and spoke. The one favoured speaks first. "I am a Telmarine of Narnia, and when I was worth anything men called me the Lord Rhoop."

"And I am Caspian, King of Narnia, and I sail to find you and your companions who were my father's friends."

I fell to my knees. King, King of Narnia—not Miraz. My King's son, and King. I reached for his hand and kissed it, for I was his; all the shattered parts of me were his. A King to serve, standing, living. "Sire, you are the man in all the world I most wished to see. Grant me a boon."

"What is it?" The compassion in his eyes! A light that did not fade!

"Never to bring me back there." I looked behind me—I knew the darkness would be chasing me—over the side of the ship—but we could sail, and perhaps, the Bird—

There was nothing.

"Why! You have destroyed it!"

"I don't think it was us," said the girl, who had come down from above. Her face, her voice—

She was right.

Until my shattered heart is whole.

I dreamed at night.

I dreamed the young King did not make it out, and he watched his own friends die.

I dreamed the little girl, and the monster, of whom I grew quite fond (he had the courage of the greatest of Lords), dreamed till their spirits were broken.

My new King did not mention it, and all his men were kind, but still I could not sleep.

I clung to the sides of the ship, just to feel it rock. It was proof I was not on land.

But land we found, and drew closer. I did not go ashore. I could not. I had had enough of adventures, and would not walk into another one. Even when birds flew into the woods, singing a song as wild and strong as the sun—no darkness dwelt in it—still I could not gather the courage to go ashore.

But then my King called for me.

It was all I could do, to go ashore on trembling limbs. But my King—my King. His men led me to a table, where I found, as I had promised, three of my friends—living. Heads on their bodies, their shoulders rising and falling with breaths. But they slept, slept without dreaming. And such had been promised to me.

A woman, dressed in blue, and an old, old man, dressed the same, led me to the table. I trembled from weakness, but not from fear, for there was a little of the Bird in their faces.

The old man, shining with a pure and faint silver light, touched my head.

The dreams, the dreams faded, the horror—I could not remember it.

I reached to my King, to the little girl who stood so firm in faith.

Still the hands of the Star were on me, his daughter behind me.

And at their touch—

I slept.

I do not know how long I slept. But when I stirred, the table cool underneath me and the forest calm and peaceful, my heart thumped. Not with fear—not, for the first time in seven years, with fear. No, it thumped with joy. I was alive, and now it was good to be so. I stirred, sitting—and across from me, Lord Argoz stirred as well. He blinked, looking round. "I say out oars—"

"Argoz!" I did not let him finish, jumping up and around the table. My arms fell around his shoulders, and I was laughing, laughing, not for terror, but for joy!

"Rhoop?" came the voice behind me, and two other friends, two more, living, sitting, blinking—alive!

Our words were lost in breathless explanations, them questioning their beards, my presence, their hair, my clothes, and how—

And then, behind us, came the woman in blue and our new King.

I knelt, and Argoz and Restimar followed moments later. Mavramorn, too proud to bow without knowledge, stood with his arms at his sides. But I heard his intake of breath, two paces later, when King Caspian was close enough for us to see his face.

"Mavramorn," I murmured, "kneel to your King, King Caspian the Tenth, ruler of Narnia."

A moment later my friend knelt beside me—the four of us, together, kneeling before our King.

In that moment, I was whole.


*All dialogue in the last three sections is quoted from Voyage of the Dawn Treader.