THE LONE ISLANDS fade into the horizon behind us as the Dawn Treader surges into uncharted waters. Excitement and apprehension swim amongst the crew the further we get — Drinian's tales of serpents, krakens, and giant squids have left more than a few men nervous. A few times, I catch Mesithis peering over the bulwark into the frothing sea, as if expecting one of the beasts to be lurking in the Treader's shadow. Rithar teases him relentlessly for it.

"I saw your beastie off the bow this morning!" He calls to the young deckhand as he emerges from belowdecks. "Threw the lad a chicken to keep him at bay!"

A few men laugh as Mesithis responds with a vulgar gesture.

"He's quite young to be gone sailing so long," Lucy notes, working her needle through the red waistcoat in her lap.

"Sixteen," I confirm. We'd celebrated the kid's birthday between Terebinthia and the Seven Isles over four months ago, pulling a few precious bottles of wine from the stores. "I don't know how he convinced his mom to let him come."

My stitch looks skewed so I pull the needle back out and try again, taking care to keep it straight (I'd torn a hole in the knee of my trousers while climbing a tree on Felimath). But Lucy's silence prompts me to look up from my work and I catch her staring intently at Mesithis, receiving his chores from Tavros on the forecastle. Though she quickly returns to her stitching when the boy turns toward us to descend the stairs. I can't mistake what I just saw.

"Lucy," I hiss in disbelief.

Her head shoots up with wide, innocent blue eyes. "What?" She reads my gaze, cheeks turning rosy with embarrassment. A sigh falls from her mouth. "Alright." She relents with a shy, helpless laugh. "I just think he's quite handsome."

I'm expecting her to say it but hearing the words come from Lucy Pevensie's mouth seems impossible. I have to snort back my laugh.

Her face flushes a deeper red and she pushes my shoulder, giggling. "But you have to be quiet about it!" She whispers. "If Ed hears about it he'll be intolerable."

"I won't say anything."

"Good."

A moment passes before the two of us collapse into a fit of laughter. Rhince, a man from Narrowhaven, looks over at us and smiles. He'd joined the crew to help us find the people taken by the mist. His wife, Helaine, being one of them.

Edmund emerges from the stateroom with his new sword and pauses when he hears our laughing. He spots us beneath the stairs, grins, and saunters over with a teasing glint in his eyes. "Working hard, I see– Hey!"

Lucy has her needle raised like a miniature sword and jabs it at him so Edmund has to dance around her. " What's the fuss about?" He asks, settling down beside me.

"Nothing," we chorus. This only piques his curiosity further.

"Come on," he urges. "Just tell me."

Lucy looks at him and rolls her eyes. "It's girl stuff."

Eyes narrowed at his sister, Edmund purses his lips and considers this for a moment before deciding he'd rather not hear about it. Lucy and I share a victorious grin while he gets to work on cleaning up his sword.

Before setting sail yesterday, Duke Bern offered Caspian an old sword from the Golden Age. Apparently, King Caspian IX had gifted each of his seven lords one of the ancient swords before his murder. Caspian has since given it to Edmund, feeling a piece of the Golden Age best belongs with a king of its time.

It's a grand longsword with a large crossguard and flared pommel. Unfortunately, after being hidden in a cave on Doorn's coast for so long, it's encrusted with barnacles and sediment. Edmund has only uncovered half of the blade so far, but at least it's something to keep him busy.

While Lucy and I quietly stitch our clothes, Ed scrapes away at his sword, chips of dried barnacles clattering onto the deck at his feet. I can't wait to see what it looks like when he's finished.

I tie off my last stitch and hold up the repaired trousers with a grin, glad to finally be done with it. Stretching out my cramped fingers and neck, I lean over to peek at Edmund's progress, marvelling at the state of the metal. There isn't a speck of rust on it, somehow.

"It's got a wide fuller," I note. With such a long grip and heavy quillon, I have to wonder how it keeps its balance.

He nods, breaking off another piece of the barnacle shell. "It'll be a light longsword once all this is off." Grinning, he meets my gaze. "You won't stand a chance in sparring anymore."

I scoff. "A bigger sword isn't going to make up for your dreadful footwork."

"My footwork is fine!"

Laughing to myself, I pack away the needle and thread. I'm convinced his mind moves half a moment too quick for his feet to keep pace. Though no one else can see it, I still love to bug him about it.

Across the deck, a commotion rises above the ambience of ship work and chores. Eustace is stumbling through the crew, knocking over crates and barrels as he goes until Reepicheep stops the boy's path of destruction.

I can feel Edmund's disdain for his cousin as Reep slices open the boy's shirt, accusing him of stealing and lying. To my amusement, the mouse spears the stolen orange on the tip of his sword and uses it to smack Eustace in the face "for good measure."

In retaliation, Eustace swings a kitchen knife at him.

"That's the spirit!" Reepicheep evades his sloppy attack with ease, swinging onto the bulwark. "We have ourselves a duel!" He declares, throwing the orange to Drinian.

Edmund and I share a skeptical look, wondering what in Aslan's name is going on. After a moment, our curiosity bests us and we join the rest of the crew to watch whatever mayhem is transpiring on deck.

"Come on," Reepicheep eggs. "Take your best shot."

Eustace begins to swing his knife madly, slashing wide enough for the mouse to dance around it in practiced acrobatics.

Reep lowers his sword. "Stop flapping your wings like a drunken pelican," he says in a chastising tone. "Poise!"

This makes Eustace pause and evaluate himself, breathing heavily.

"Keep your blade up. Up! Up! That's it! Now–" Eustace, changing up his tactics, lunges forward with a terribly uncalculated thrust that sends him crashing into the bulwark. The crew roars with delight at the show.

I sputter a laugh, watching the kid chase Reepicheep along the deck with unpracticed swings. While evading his furious blade, Reep continues to coach him in what is beginning to be the most unorthodox and hilarious swordplay lesson I've ever seen.

"Be nimble! Be nimble! It's a dance, boy. A dance! Come on!"

Eustace tightens his grip on the knife handle and proceeds to thrust it at the mouse, who shouts "again!" with each attack he gracefully dodges. Until, leaning backward to avoid a slash, he pretends to lose his balance and fall overboard. Eustace races after him and looks down into the water. His posture is tense, head swinging around to scan the sea below while Reep sneakily clambers up the shrouds and pokes the boy's shoulder with his tail.

I watch, trying not to laugh, as Eustace turns around and Reepicheep swings down, using his momentum to push the boy to the ground, dropping his knife and knocking over a basket in the process.

A sharp scream wipes the grin off my face in an instant. Lucy must hear it too, because she immediately goes to investigate.

While the crew laughs and applauds the duel, I narrow my eyes at the fallen basket and watch as a small hand emerges from it. A stowaway, I realize.

Lucy quiets everyone. "Look!"

A young, timid girl crawls out onto the deck, looking around at everyone.

"Gael?"

Her head swings around, staring open-mouthed at Rhince as she stands up. I recognize her as the girl who'd lost her mother to the mist a few days ago — Rhince's daughter. She followed him onto the ship.

"What are you doing here?" He says, bringing his daughter into a hug. The crew watch in shock, waiting to see what Drinian will do. But the Captain only approaches the two with Eustace's stolen orange still in his grasp, and presents it to Gael.

"Looks like we have an extra crew member," he says, offering the girl a rare smile. Still clinging to her father's side, she accepts the fruit and Drinian turns away, ordering the men back to work.

I look up at Edmund, confused. "We're not turning around?" We're only a day and a half from Narrowhaven, we could easily sail back and return her safely home. A young girl has no place on a ship headed into uncharted waters and unknown danger.

"I don't know," he mutters, scanning the deck for Caspian. He finds the king on the quarterdeck and sets his sword down. "Let's go see."

While Lucy takes Gael into the stateroom, Edmund and I climb the stairs to the quarterdeck where Caspian is speaking quietly with Drinian, Rynelf captaining the helm.

Caspian's eyes land on us and their conversation falls short. "We're not turning around," he tells me before the words even leave my mouth.

"Why not?"

He shares a look with the captain. "We have the wind on our back, we cannot risk turning around and losing it when we don't know how far off the next landmass is."

I can't believe what he's saying. "Cas, we can just wait in Narrowhaven until another favourable wind picks up," I tell him, doing my best to stay calm. "How do you know she'll be safe where we're going?" I gesture pointedly to Edmund standing beside me. "Ed and Lucy wouldn't be here if the voyage was going to be smooth sailing; you know that."

His mouth parts and his brown eyes turn thoughtful as he ponders what I said.

"We don't want to argue," Edmunds adds. "We just don't want her to get hurt. We have no idea what we're sailing into."

The king nods. "I know," he says, looking between us and the captain. I can see the thoughts racing behind his eyes.

"Master Rynelf," Drinian calls, addressing the sailing master behind us.

"Captain?"

"How far do you reckon we've sailed from Narrowhaven?"

Rynelf blows a long breath from his lips, thinking hard. "We've had the wind with us since we raised sail," he muses, running formulas and numbers through his head. "Hard to say without any proper measurements, captain, but...a hundred and ninety-five leagues is a good estimate."

Drinian nods. "And how long to sail back?"

The sailing master shrugs, running new numbers. "We'd be against the current and tacking against the wind," he says. "Could be four days or even seven; hard to say."

The captain nods his thanks and turns back to us. "Aye, there it is: seven days to Narrowhaven, seven more waiting for the wind."

I share a look with Edmund that says, what's two weeks for a young girl's life?

"My men have families waiting for them," Drinian explains. "You have family, Witchslayer. And so do I. We all want to get home. The people we're setting out to save may not have that time to spare, either — Gael's mother may not." He crosses his arms. "Turning around won't be a popular decision."

His argument makes sense, but the men on this ship know they signed up for a few years at sea. Their families know it, too. And as much as I want to see Nyssa and Trumpkin and Cornelius and all my friends again, I'd never risk an innocent, unsuspecting life just to see them sooner. They'll wait and they'll understand. I know they will.

Drinian doesn't get that. Or maybe he's so sure that the people taken by the mist are running on borrowed time, or that the danger we're heading into won't be as great as we think and Gael will be fine. Still, I wish I could explain to him that the people we said goodbye to seven months ago won't know the difference two weeks makes. But I'm sure if I open my mouth now, nothing reasonable or calm will come out of it. So it stays shut.

"It could be two weeks," Edmund agrees. "Or it could be four days."

Nobody says a word. The tension is like a roiling storm, only broken when Caspian finally sighs and looks between us. "We'll discuss it some more later. I'll speak with Rhince and see what he thinks is best."

Ed nods and turns away, all too aware of my brewing temper. He guides me down the stairs where he retrieves his sword and sits back down to work on it. But I can't stop thinking about what Caspian said and how he didn't disagree with Drinian's argument.

"Are we being unreasonable?" I mutter impatiently. "Or is Caspian just...suddenly willing to risk a kid's life like that?"

A barnacle clatters to the deck and Edmund looks up at me. "We're not being unreasonable," he says softly. "And I don't think Caspian is as willing as you think. I mean, he does have a whole crew of men to consider and the fact that we're sailing blind —"

"I could take her."

He stares, anxiety flooding the link. "No," he says. "You can't fly that long while carrying someone —"

"I can swim."

"— and even if you could, you'd never make it back to the ship."

I look down, feeling riddled with guilt under the intensity of his gaze. He's right. The ship would be too far away by the time I returned Gael to the Lone Islands. I'd have to wait there until they came back on the return journey, and who knows how long that will take. "It's just an idea," I tell him. "I'm worried she'll get hurt if she stays."

His agitation evaporates a little. "I know. I am too."

Sighing, I lean back against the polished wood of the stateroom and watch the clouds pass above us. Edmund returns to chipping at his sword. The Dawn Treader rises and falls on the waves, the crew's footsteps echoing on the deck planks. It's a soft rhythm that wraps me up and wrings all the tension from my body — the rhythm of the sea. And as I linger in it I feel my irritation and anger toward Caspian slip slowly, slowly away.

I feel the ship rise up…up…and tip back down…falling…and then, again, it rises. I exhale a long breath, relaxing, only for a barnacle chip to bounce off my nose and fall in my lap. I flinch, at the contact and pin Edmund with an accusatory glare.

"Rude," I tell him, pretending to be offended.

His grin widens and he looks at me, his cocoa and honey eyes drinking in my face. I flick the barnacle back at him, watching it bounce off his forehead with a gleeful, mischievous laugh.

Rubbing the spot, he chuckles at my reaction and shakes his head. There's a fondness in his movements and the lines of his smile that makes my heart warm a thousand degrees. We look at each other for a moment, laughter suspended in the air. It could have been just the two of us in the middle of the sea. I would need nothing more.

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author's note

five weeks later…haha…my bad…

i got into a creative slump and started binging the walking dead so then my heart was set on glenn rhee instead of edmund pevensie for a looong time

and THEN I binged the summer i turned pretty in like 48 hours so i've got jeremiah fisher on my mind now lmao. did any of y'all watch it? is anyone else incredibly irritated by the ending or is it just me? because i was screaming. i'm so upset.

i'm dying for some jeremiah fics tho so lmk if y'all know any good ones i should check out!

hopefully my tsitp obsession will settle down and i can focus more on this book lol

i have the cutest idea for the next chapter though! it's gonna be a super chill filler with lots of cute bonding between arryn and the pevensies and even the crew! i'm like hardcore praying it turns out as great as it seems in my head lmao

see you guys with the next chapter! love ya!