"There must be battles you have engaged in recently," Legolas said. Edmund and he had noticed some soldiers being patched up, some with only the mildest injuries, while nurses attended to the ones who were unconscious and too ill to get up. Most of them were Talking bears and Dwarves.

"About that—" Caspian began, but Glenstorm asked for a word with him.

Aragorn watched the two disappear into the caves, then turned to Edmund and Legolas. "It has been a tough time on us recently, with all the failed attacks and defense of the How. Miraz's forces battered us endlessly over these past few months. For instance, the time when Miraz's scouts found our lair out. Regiment after regiment arrived just outside the borders of the woods—not as much as I'd seen when we were in the War of the Ring, but considering how many we were, it was a hard battle. The attack beat and injured most of our better warriors."

Sensing that there was more to it than Aragorn was telling, Edmund raised an eyebrow. "And? Just that?"

"Of course not, Your Highness. There was a battle that occurred only a few days before you and the others have arrived in Narnia. It was supposed to be a fight wherein we would be able to at least show Miraz the strength behind our rebellion. However... the plan did not go well." Although he didn't show it, Aragorn's disappointment and irritation punctuated his controlled words. "We lost yet again, and with worse casualties than before. Even now the Black Dwarves are protesting against us."

Edmund perched himself on a well-placed rock and sharpened his dagger. "Not good news, then."

"It certainly lowered our morale. However, I believe it has been for the better. In that battle, I blew your sister's horn."

"Speaking of which, how did you find it?"

"Caspian's tutor gave it to me when he escaped, which I then gave to Caspian. I ended up carrying it, however, during that battle. It has proven to be... effective."

"But—" Legolas's mind raced. "If you have arrived even before we have, then you could not have been called by Susan's horn."

This occurred to Aragorn before, and now he tapped the hilt of his dagger to his lip. "I believe someone else called us. Or, at least, something else, I believe."

"Aslan?" Edmund suggested. "Nothing ever happens in Narnia without his permission, after all."

Before Aragorn could answer, someone came along—a faun that Edmund recognized to be the one guarding outside. He offered a sharp salute of sorts. "We have spotted a soldier and what we would... presume to be his men."

Noticing the halt in the faun's voice, Aragorn stood. "Where did you see him?"

"He is no longer there," the faun said. "But I think he may report back to Miraz. I cannot imagine another reason." A pause. "Should we investigate?"

Edmund waved Legolas over. "We'll go out and see what it's all about. It might be another outpost, like most of you said." Or the others might be there as well, he thought, but said nothing out loud. "We'll be back soon, we swear." Half-dragging and pulling Legolas, Edmund retraced their steps back outside, where Legolas finally pried his arm from Edmund's vise grip.

"Must I come with you?" Legolas asked. "I believe it isn't because of your concern for the safety of the How that led you here."

"No, not exactly," Edmund said while picking up his walk into a half-jog, eager to slip into the forest. He noted with a smile how Legolas shook his head and yet still followed him. Based on how Legolas' face, he wasn't too keen on being dragged outside so soon. "Come on, keep up. We still have to find the others."

The thought of Gimli flashed through Legolas' mind. "We have no certainty that they were who the faun saw, and if ever it was indeed them, then why have they not come here straight away, as was our initial plan."

Edmund didn't answer, ducking under stray tree branches and leaping over bushes. It was strange for him to sense the tug in the air driving him to the woods as soon as the faun mentioned seeing someone there. He could guess that Peter would've been worried, Susan a little irritated but concerned, and Lucy most anxious of all.

"There is something bothering you, I can sense it." Legolas pulled his hair from a few twisted branches. "Is it because of your family?"

Edmund could swear that Legolas had this seventh sense. "You can say that." Then, "You miss yours?"

"They are all across the Sea before I came here."

"When do you expect they'll return?"

"Never."

Edmund frowned. "I'm sure they haven't forgotten you," he insisted.

Legolas looked surprised. "You misunderstand. They cannot return."

"You mean they're... dead."

"No, not at all," Legolas said. "They have reached Valinor." Seeing Edmund raise an eyebrow, Legolas' mind whirred as to how he would put it in the words of their tongue. The closest he could think of... "It is much like Heaven."

"Dead, then?"

"No."

Edmund shook his head. "I don't get it. No can get to Heaven unless they die. At least in our world."

They stared at each other, musing on just how far their worlds were, and how different. But what didn't cross their minds, although it was obvious as day, was the thought of how they would ever return to their respective dimensions. Strangers in Narnia never have such a thought while they were there. Much like a lucid dream you never want to end, so was their view of their hopefully not too brief visit here.

Legolas whirled around, hand flying to the dagger by his side. "There is someone there."

"Yeah, I saw it too. Who's there?" Edmund called out.

No response.

"That wouldn't work," Merry said. It was too preposterous, too risky, but he should probably know better. After all, nothing would ever beat Gandalf's excellent plan on sending Frodo and Sam on a suicide mission. Never mind if it saved the whole of Middle Earth, it was laughable to think about in retrospect.

"It's worth a try," Pippin countered, excited. "Think of that! We can head off and get to that rebellion. I can swear that Aragorn or Legolas or one of the others would be there."

"How do you know?"

"I just do. But we'll have to leave soon, before Armix heads to their outpost nearby the woods, or we aren't going to be able to get away from the camp once we're there."

"And when is 'soon'?" Merry asked.

"Tomorrow."

With that Pippin had headed off without him, leaving him without even a chance to argue. Well, he can be like that most of the time—once Pippin had something in his mind he'd go through with it. To be honest, even Merry was pulled in with his antics, back when they were in the Shire... and it wasn't like Merry could do about it.

Or wanted to do anything about it.

He headed rather reluctantly, but resolutely, in the direction Pippin had headed to.

Everyone, except for Susan, fell asleep as soon as dinner was done. There was nothing else to be done for Peter, and Lucy had reluctantly obeyed Susan's goading for her to go to sleep. Susan half-expected her to protest, but to her surprise Lucy obeyed without complaint.

She laid there for a while, senses heightened, eyes staring up at the Narnian sky, the stars twinkling down at her in utter silence. Lifting up her hand, she traced connections between them, murmuring the names of the constellations to herself. They comforted her, in a way.

She must've fallen asleep, because when she woke up the trees seemed to have shifted, the skies a deeper, darker black.

Someone was calling her in the sweetest voice she'd ever heard, much like her father's. Father. It almost felt like it was, but Susan knew that was impossible. Yet it sounded so familiar and comforting. She stayed, unwilling to move. Mixed dread and expectation churned in her chest.

The voice called again. "Susan."

No use. She had to go.

As she stood up, the fear thrummed her muscles and shuddered through her bones, but deep inside the voice struck a different chord than the rest of her. It burst into a song that she constantly heard long ago—when she was Queen Susan the Gentle, when she and her siblings ruled over the land in its Golden Age, when she raced in the woods, hair streaming past her face...

Before they tumbled back out of the wardrobe.

The moon shed its silver rays on the forest before her, the brightness it brought almost as lucid as day. The fir wood stretched their gangly arms above her, showering her with the filtered moonlight between their leaves. Susan looked up at the trees, tracing their rough trunks with her fingers, and she felt the slightest stirring beneath their bark.

Almost as if they were waking up.

"They're–they're moving," Susan gasped. "They're trying to walk."

A rustling sound roared through the forest, as if a strong wind was rushing through the trees, but there was no wind. It was no noise either, but more like an unknown song that sounded strange to human ears–a tree-song, if you will. As Susan looked up at the birches, she saw glimpses of eyes within the deep creases and a nose for the crooked branches, but when she stared harder they turned back to regular trees once more. Every plant she saw underwent this transformation. One moment they seemed to be frisky ladies or solemn old men, but the next moment they were birches or oaks or beeches again.

"I say, they're waking up," Susan said, the slightest shiver in her voice. The trees kept on rustling and their branches brushed her forward to a clearing, where the voice was calling her to.

She stepped out of the coagulation of moonlight and branches and stood there in shock, unable to believe what she saw.

TBC...