To the dear kind Guest who reviewed so nicely on the previous chapter (and on the first as well): here is a - let's call it companion piece to that previous chapter. I don't get enough reviews but yours just made my day. In any case: Guest, this is for you.

This ended up quite different to (and longer than) my idea of it. The tale spoken, and indeed Edmund's intrusion, was not in my idea. I thought of a couple of hundred words, just to get the general idea of the creation of the painting. Oh yeah, and in case it wasn't clear from the title, this is in the same universe as 'Ten Years', but is previous to it.

Lucy Pevensie picked up her brush and carefully, reverently, laid another stroke of bright gold onto the living mane.

She could recall it, bright as day, when she first saw Aslan; it remained in her memory darkened by night and grief; his shorn face seemed small and strange; and the glorious gold lit up the landscape and her heart. All this within only days, and yet it was seared into her memory more deeply than the happy years of queenship that had followed.

And somehow, she was trying to capture all the facets of the Lion's face in the one painting.

Once, Susan had almost caught her painting; she'd slid it quickly away with a guilty look. Susan was questioning, but Lucy was determined.

Susan! Lucy's heart clenched painfully as it always did, now, for Susan. Her pretty, superficial, overly made up mask that shut out Lucy, Narnia, Aslan. The others all felt it too; Susan did not hide her distaste for Narnia, replacing the deep gladness of that loved and lost place with laughter and wine and parties. She was trying to become a broken kind of queen in England too, only it wasn't working, it would never work. Lucy could see Susan's desires more clearly than Susan could - but Susan would not listen.

A tear almost dropped onto Aslan's penciled in eye. Lucy rescued it at the last minute and continued to work, adding a darker tone to his mane with loving care. She had forgotten how long the beautiful painting had been in the works, but it was since before Susan began to pull away from Narnia: and that was an eternity.

"Lucy?"

Reflexively she was about to hide the painting (although with so much very fresh paint on it that would not have ended well), but realising it was Edmund, Lucy simply called, "Come in."

He entered hesitantly, his gaze instantly drawn to the vibrant beauty Lucy had spent so long creating.

"It's certainly come on a good way since I last saw it," Edmund said at last, his voice thick with tears. Lucy knew the emotion he was feeling; the last thing she would paint would be Aslan's eyes, for it would be too overwhelming otherwise. Never to see the beloved face again; it hurt every time she thought of it.

"Do - do you think it's realistic?"

Edmund leaned closer, obviously relishing in the picture. "Yes. Are you done with the mane?"

"Probably." She smiled at him, and he returned it, a little, slightly broken smile; the break was, she knew, Narnia. While they remembered it, both would be piercingly reminded of pain; but, after all, life was pain. To feel pain was a reminder of their living.

"I think so too. Anyway, Lu, I came to ask if tomorrow night's all right for a meeting of the Friends?"

He always capitalised it in the way the word was spoken; Lucy smiled appreciatively. "I think that'll be fine. I mean," the corners of her mouth drew down sadly, "Susan has a party to go to, but I don't think she's wanting to come in any case."

"True." For a moment his gravity reminded her of King Edmund the Just of Narnia. Since their return to England he had been lighter, readier with a laugh than ever during the happy years in Narnia - but there was always the shadow beneath the surface, a substance cloaked by a smile. As if smiling would make their less happy lot somehow easier. It did, but sometimes she missed the brother who had no need of showing his happiness, because it just was. "Since you are busy, Queen Lucy, I will leave you."

"No, don't," she replied easily. "I can paint just as well while you tell me tales from Narnia as I could otherwise." Her gaze laughed up at him, conveying her knowledge that she had successfully outsmarted him. Edmund, the judge of Narnia, loved words, be they written or spoken. And he had been on occasions their bard, sometimes disguising himself and singing noble songs of old, for a moment unguessed before the rich baritone voice gave him away.

Edmund laughed aloud. "Very well. I shall tell you, then, the tale of Alambil, Lady of Peace, and that dark time when she did not ride in the skies."

Lucy bent her head and selected a different colour, beginning the groundwork on Aslan's shoulder.

"Alambil, Lady of Peace, had danced in the skies for many years, but as every Star does she grew old at last. And as Aslan permits, she sank to an island to rest, the custom being for a young Star to wait on the aged. In her case, it was Oleam, Child of Beauty. I say Child because he had not yet attained his full strength.

"While Alambil was resting on that island (and no one knows where it is, or whether it has sunk under the waves of the sea) Tarva, Lord of Victory, and Iarini, Lord of the Battle, were in conjunction. And during this time, the first Caspian, who was known as Caspian the Conqueror in later years, took advantage of Alambil's absence and fought and captured Narnia.

"Yet the Stars would not have it. They fought Caspian the Conqueror with all that they had. The magic of a Star is foreign to us, but we may still sense its effects.

"And because of this, Caspian fought still harder against the beautiful Narnia; and Aslan's land ached under its burden. Cair Paravel was overthrown and ruined, dryads were either killed or forced into their trees, the very brooks were poisoned.

"But in doing so, Caspian had angered the Stars so much that presently he, too, fell, and he not to rise again. His son was of the same ruthless temperament, however, and crushed Narnia.

"Then Alambil, aged though she still was, rose to the skies once again, Oleam accompanying her. Narnia, then, had peace, though an uneasy sort of peace when they were crushed by the cruel Telmarines.

"Alambil knew that she had very little time before she must retire to her island once more. But with what little strength she had, she saved remnants. A Telmarine horde coming down on the Talking Mice was averted; a few, very few, Centaurs hid successfully; the Fauns escaped to the mountains. Then Alambil returned to her place. Her task, for the time, was done.

"Those years were dark and evil, without the Lady of Peace to dance and watch over her people. But then, when Caspian, tenth of that name, was born, Alambil arose again, with the help of Aslan, and took her place very near Tarva once more. And one night those two met for the first time in two hundred years. Their conversation was brief, but triumphant. Caspian had secret leanings towards the Old Narnians.

"And Alambil's rest, and tribulations, had not been in vain. It was while she still danced far above that she saw a great Lion return to his people, and a girl follow him, and at last, Alambil, Lady of Peace, saw all Narnia renewed."

At the conclusion of this tale, Lucy released a breath she had not known she was holding.
"Thank you, royal brother." She had painted almost to completion Aslan's shoulders; now only the face, her own name and the inscription she had chosen remained. The first was the hardest of all.

She glanced up, briefly, to meet Edmund's gaze. He seemed far away; as far away as Alambil was from Narnia.

#####

It was several months later, and Lucy was almost finished.

Only the inscription to write: and then she could give it to its intended recipient.

Susan had been drawing still more away from Narnia recently. Now, she refused to listen to it, and Lucy's heart still ached.

Carefully, Lucy wrote the words, signed it and laid it away.

Oh, Aslan, would that I could see your face again!

But she could, now, she could see Aslan the Beloved in the painting she had made, for Susan; yet Susan might not even accept it. Lucy sighed.

Through the door, Peter called, "You know we are returning on the morning train with the rings, don't you?"

Lucy turned her head and called back, "Yes; we'll be there to meet you tomorrow, all of us." Except Susan was left unsaid.

Perhaps her painting would help Susan to remember and return to Narnia. Carefully, Lucy slid it out again and covered it up, ready to give to Susan.

She would give it tomorrow evening, after they had returned to Narnia using the rings; and let Aslan be her guide, as he always was.

One last look at the painting, one last prayer that she would see Aslan, soon, and Lucy left her room. Susan was in another room, sitting alone, but she didn't look at Lucy.

Iarini and Oleam are Star names taken from fantasynamegenerators dot com slash narnia dash star dash names dot php.

I'm not sure my Star stuff necessarily fits with the information given about Ramandu in VODT. I'll have to check it. But, if it clashes, I'll just argue... Aslan would not leave his children, and this was his way of assisting them: and Alambil was needed.

The previous chapter, a Guest correctly identified the work I was inspired by: 'From One Beautiful Queen To Another' by Violet and Lilies. Thanks to both Guest and V&L! (Highly recommend, by the way.)

I'm not particularly satisfied with this piece; it wandered off the rails rather which I don't mind, but it detracted from the point of the piece. It needs reworking a bit. However, I hope you enjoy it, and please leave a review to tell me what's wrong with it and how I can fix it. (Although telling me what's right, and why, would also be nice.)

It's up to your imagination how this painting then got from Lucy's room to the town of her grave, without Susan seeing it. And I guess I don't need to explain that Lucy was planning to give Susan the painting in the evening, but by then the accident had killed her.

Thanks for persevering all this way down.