This is very much called 'oh I haven't posted this month yet and I want to keep my streak.' I was digging in my phone files the other day and noticed a nearly-completed two-shot written last August (August 11, 2021), so, since I don't have time for anything else, I thought I would upload the first part today. The second part, being nearly completed, I'll upload within the next month.

I've also written most of the next chapter of Josie Pye's Diary. That should be coming out next month too, along with a one-shot which will be exclusive to AO3 (songfic).

Reviews appreciated.


They visit him in his dreams.

I'm sorry, he says, so sorry.

Sometimes she berates him for leaving them; sometimes she cries and kisses him. Then she shows him their daughter. I named her after you. He doesn't know how that works, quite, but he doesn't mind.

He suspects this is Aslan's doing, a gift to help him cope, and it does. The Professor's words are comforting, but they can't entirely shake his grief. Shut out from home, from ruling, most importantly from his queen, he is desolate. And to know that one of them, at least, left an heir, is good.

Maybe Narnia won't fall as they had all feared.

I didn't mean to leave, he assures her, and I'll never forget you. Aslan help me, I will never take another bride. Nor chase another stag. The Professor doesn't ask why he goes white when he sees a stag's head on the wall. But it disappears the next day, and the king is grateful.

His dreams become his only comfort. Susan is practical, no help to him, as she tries to hide the pain by ignoring it: talking of the happy times but not of the sad; as if they never were. Lucy is too faithful, too certain, to comprehend his issues. And his pride has barred him from asking the other king, his brother.

They were all in some kind of relationship. Lucy was being courted by a young prince, still in the early stages of getting to know each other. Susan was betrothed to a Narnian noble by the name of Peridan. He had long suspected a lady to have caught his brother's eye; plans had been made to ask her to enter a courtship when they returned from hunting. Which, of course, they had never done.

To rely now on dreams! Dreams! Dreams! A sorry existence, but all that he has.

Thank you, Aslan, he'd say. Thank you. But I want her, I want Narnia, I want you. Please.

All Aslan sends him are dreams.


Did you like it? Please review. I'm curious what you think. Also, which king do you think it is, and why?

Thanks for reading.