Thank you to theVulcanNara, ahsohail01, and airenj25 for following this story. Question to all readers, does Ravka have Santa Claus, or any semblance of Christmas at all?
It took a moment for Lucy to remember where she was. The room she had been shown to was grand, but cold. Cair Paravel had always had a warmth to it. Maybe it was simply the kind of creatures who lived there, but there was none of it in this place. As she thought of the servants in Cair Paravel, friends that they always were to her, she noticed a girl tidying the room.
"Hello," she said.
"Sorry to disturb you, your Majesty, I was just getting your room ready." The girl was shaking.
"Call me Lucy, please."
"But the Darkling said…"
"The fact that the Darkling lives entirely within titles doesn't change the fact that I've never had much use for them. My friends call me Lucy, and I prefer to be friends with as many people as possible."
"Alright, Lucy." The girl's demeanor had changed from being afraid of her to thinking she was insane, so Lucy counted that as an improvement.
"I don't want to get you into any trouble, but if we're going to be friends, I'm going to need your name too."
"My name is Anya..." she paused as if she wanted to say something else, and when Lucy also paused, she asked, "Is it true that you know what happened to the Sun Summoner?"
"I truly don't know that much…"
She didn't get much chance to be diplomatic as Anya barreled into her next thought, "Is she alright?"
"Yes, I think she is."
"Will she return to us?"
"That I don't know," Lucy said. Silence loomed over the room until she added, "It's freezing in here. Could you help me find something more appropriate to wear, and maybe open the curtains to let the light in?"
Anya brightened up doing the things she was more comfortable with. She had even brought breakfast. Seeing as herring was an acquired taste, Lucy managed to convince her to show her where the kitchens were, in an effort to get more of a tour of the palace.
The kitchen staff were as surprised to see her as Anya had been. After Lucy had sufficiently calmed then down, she sat down with them and began to tell stories. "You see, my ladies in waiting were actually mice," Lucy said.
"Mice?" the cook asked in disgust.
"Narnian mice are the most noble of creatures. Dedicated and hardworking as well, though they do tend to be terribly formal." The laughter that elicited brought Lucy as much joy as anything could. There was too little laughter in this place. It was cut short as soon as one of the soldiers entered the kitchen.
"Your Majesty," the soldier said, clearly puzzled to see her laughing with the servants, "you have been requested in the infirmary."
"Alright." She bristled at being summoned, but this soldier wasn't a person to unleash that particular emotion on. At least in the infirmary, she might be able to do some good.
"The infirmary was less like a hospital than she had imagined, as it seemed to be primarily underground. People in multi-colored uniforms stood over others on cots, with the Darkling looming over them all like a vulture.
"Where was she?" he asked the soldier.
"In the kitchen, with the servants," the soldier said.
"She is right here and can be talked to directly. If you didn't want me to go anywhere, you should have put a guard on my room," Lucy said.
"I didn't expect you to go straight to the servants, Your Majesty."
"Every good ruler knows that servants are the heart of any castle."
His eyes darkened slightly, but he didn't take the bait. "One of the few useful things you've told me is that you're a healer where you come from. You may as well be useful while we figure ourselves out of this scenario."
"What do you need an "otkazat'sya" healer for when you have your all-powerful army?" Of course she wanted to help. Too often soldiers like these were collateral damage in whatever conflict they were involved in, but she wasn't about to become this monster's lackey.
"And you accuse me of callousness. My healers tire, and injuries overwhelm them. I would think that someone so self righteous as yourself would be falling all over herself to help, in even it must necessarily be in a smaller way." She didn't answer him. She walked up to one of the beds instead.
The woman standing there did indeed look exhausted and the boy on her table was moaning in pain. "What's his name?" Lucy asked softly.
"Jonas," the woman said curtly, "though I doubt it will matter if he dies while you ask questions."
Lucy brought out her cordial and cupped her hand to the boy's clammy face. "Hello Jonas. My name's Lucy and I'm going to make you better," she said as she uncorked her cordial and poured a drop into his mouth. The effect was instant, as it always was.
The woman looked shocked as Jonas blinked several times and exhaled a long breath, releasing the adrenaline of trying to stay alive.
"What is that?" The woman asked.
Lucy looked around the room, particularly at the Darkling, who was trying to look uninterested, then to Jonas breathing calmly on the pallet, then to the woman. She took a deep breath and said, "This cordial was a gift to me from Father Christmas. It's made from the juice of the fireflower, that grows high in the Narnian mountains. I doubt it exists here."
The Darkling turned to the soldier that had remained with him, "Take him back to the barracks."
"He needs to rest. In my army, the soldiers are more than just fodder to be shoved at the enemy over and over again," Lucy said.
"This isn't your army, your Majesty," The Darkling said as the room seemed to grow darker.
"There aren't two more disparate things in any world."
"I have given you certain leeway in this, but you will not talk to me this way," he said as more menace made its way into his tone.
"I'm not a new plaything you can show around to your lackeys and the people that fear you, and I'm certainly not another little girl you can mold and manipulate for your own ends."
"You speak of things you know nothing of."
"The walls have ears, and it's shocking the stories they tell," she said with her own growl.
"I could kill you where you stand."
"But you won't. If you wanted me dead, you could do it in an instant. You need me alive, because you've decided that if you kill me, Alina will be stuck permanently out of your reach. That would probably be better for her, but not for any of the innocents in and around this place that placed their hope in her." She was the lioness now, as much as she had ever been.
"You assume that I need you in one piece."
"You assume to intimidate me, but how far does your theory go? How much of what you do to me transfers, or is it just death? Does it even matter to you?"
"It seems that you're going to get your wish, Your Majesty," he said and then turned to the soldier, "put her in a cell."
She stood with her head held high, as fingertips brushed her own. "Thank you," Jonas said from the table as she was taken away.