Just a drabble, having just finished rereading The Last Battle and getting a very persistant plotbunny! Lucy reflects on her reunion with her dearest Narnian friend.
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Cymbeline
by May
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I don't know if you fully understand, my friend, what it felt like to see you again, for me, at least. Only you know how it felt for you, and I can't even begin to wonder what those long years were like. I only had a few. You spent half of your life, waiting for me to come back.
Returning home for me was strange, the first time. In Narnia, it always made sense, no matter how old I was. But as a young girl back in my world, I admit to having gone just a bit mad. Nothing terribly worrisome, but do recall that I was nearly twenty when I left you. At home I had the cares and reactions and frame of a little girl, with all the knowledge of having been grown up, of having seen half a world, been on countless adventures. Our two trips back only furthered the longing. I longed for that life again and again. And of course, every time I came back, I looked for you. You were never there. I made other Narnian friends, but you were long gone, hundreds of years of your time before. I knew better than to look for you when I saw Narnia End after the Last Battle.
But that is when I saw you again. When my heart finally accepted that my friend was gone, and all the world was ending, then I saw you. I took in Aslan's country in awe; I marveled at the beauty, the perfection, the blessings...and I felt older again. Not as old as I was when I left full of Queenly cares, nor as young as when we met full of childish innocence, just a merry maiden in between. But my heart was not truly light until we came to The Garden.
When dear Reepicheep bid us come forth through the golden gates, and we saw so many friends of old under the silvery trees, standing on the flowering grass, I felt hope. When more and more people began greeting loved ones long thought lost in that huge, endless Garden, my breath grew quick. Others called to me but I did not hear them. I pushed through the crowd with kind hands, smiling at Centaurs and tree goddesses as I passed them but not stopping. Not until I had run all the way through to the end, till I saw the soft eyes and smiles of the dear beavers, who hugged my stunned form before moving on to Peter and Edmund.
I could only stare at you then, as you walked toward me through the hazy, cool breeze under the silvery green trees above us. You had that smile on your face I knew so well, and the grey I had last seen was gone from your hair, while the light in your eyes was beyond the merry light that had been in them, during our sweet days in Cair Paravel. It was as if your heart burst to see me. It was then that I began to grasp how long you waited for me to return, and remembered how long I had begged Aslan to let me. I cried out your name, picked up the hem of my gown and ran to you then. Before anyone else could greet you, I threw my arms around you, crying and kissing your face as you spun me around in turn, your joyful laugh reaching the treetops above. We waited, and I came back to you to be together in this land for all days, my oldest friend, my first friend, my Tumnus.
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Author's Notes: Not bad for 5am plotbunnies! Review if you so choose, hee hee