honestly i'm more surprised than anyone that this fic is being updated
The deck had been cleared in their absence. Everything that could move, crates and chairs and the like, had been stowed below deck and only the bare necessities remained. Amber noted that their blanket, hastily stuffed into a corner, had also been taken. Her chest hollowed at the sight, longing to go back into that moment, blissfully unaware of Dark Island's presence looming over their near future. But she couldn't. She was here, now, with the Dawn Treader crew facing bona fide uncertainty in the shape of shadows and mist.
The crew stood in orderly lines across the deck and its raised counterparts at the front and back of the ship, stock still as they watched Caspian ascend to the forecastle and look out across the crowd. He locked eyes momentarily with Amber, then squared his shoulders and spoke out to the crowd.
"No matter what happens here, every soul that stands before me has earned their place on the crew of the Dawn Treader." His voice parts the silence smoothly, and with it, the skulking presence of evil that had been slithering over the ship undisturbed, like a light casting the shadows into nonexistence. "Together we have travelled far. Together we have faced adversity. Together we can do it again. So now is not the time to fall for these temptations. Be strong. Never give in. Our world, our Narnian lives depend on it." The crowd wait with bated breath as he pauses, raising his chin and looking out beyond the ship. "Think of the lost souls we're here to save. Think of Aslan." At his name, the men stand straighter. "Think of Narnia." He concludes, seemingly blinking back into reality with a renewed assuredness.
"FOR NARNIA!" The deck comes alive with a thundering wave of noise, cries torn from throats rich with pride and determination. Amber's heart stutters in her chest as she watches them pierce the air with their blades and the sight of Caspian's pure bewilderment at their response renews a painful ache deep in her chest. She had never known a better man, or one who lacked the confidence they rightly deserve. For the most part, she had only met men with too much arrogance and too little to justify it. She would tell him, when this was over, that he was fit for this. That his parents would be proud and Narnia is safe under his rule, but for now she watched him blink away surprised tears and join Drinian at the wheel.
Then, they entered Dark Island.
A hush fell over the ship, the kind of silence that descended suddenly and brought a physical weight along with it to settle in the throats of anyone who dared break its suffocating hold. Air was stolen from lungs and even the floorboards lost their familiar creak. The waves no longer whispered. Swords were held with white knuckles. The universe held its breath and waited.
Evil had long since ceased to be a stranger, though its presence was an ever-changing discomfort. It creeped down their throats and ran tapered claws across their ribs, scuttling beetles over their heart and spiders up their necks, running fingers through their hair as a mother would, but with the promise that it would soon pluck their head from their shoulders as if it were nothing more than an apple ready for picking.
Marco balled his hands into tight fists at his sides and shut his eyes to block out the taunting voice hissing in his ear, arms powerless to stop the shake of fear, his vambrace rattling against the hilt of his sword at his hip. Tavros laid a heavy paw on his shoulder, almost buckling his knees in the process, but after a few hushed words Amber could not hear, Marco's courage had been restored by a respectable degree.
"If only they would do the same for you." Said a woman. Amber spun and watched the mist cock its head to the side. The shape was shifting, constantly breaking apart into nothing and reforming, but the detail was enough for Amber.
The untamable wave of hair, the long slope of a nose, lips that quirked up to the side almost involuntarily.
The mist took upon another shape. A man. In him she saw the rest.
Wide eyes and thick brows, low cheekbones and hands that never stopped.
For the first time in her life, she saw her parents.
"You're a waste, Amber." He said.
"You don't belong here. You don't belong anywhere." She said.
"They would be better without you. Happier without you."
"Snaresbrook wished you gone." Amber thought of the orphanage. The dim grey halls, strict matrons, and sleeping quarters crowded with the children she spent her days avoiding. Her memories, 17 years of inconsolable sadness, rolled over her in a wave, carving a hole deep in her chest for them to nestle safely inside.
"Graham wished you dead." She thought of the honest farmer. How the crow's feet in the corner of his eyes would deepen when he smiled, sneaking her some fudge, or introducing her to their new chicks.
She thought of his body, crushed beneath his home, buried too soon with the animals he loved like children.
Her mother stepped forward and tilted her chin with a singular, green claw.
"My dear, you are worthless."
Her father joined her mother and lay a hand on her shoulder. She felt it curve around her body and draw her into their hungry grasp.
"You can join us now. The sea is home to many wonders."
"Come." Their voices had a lullaby lilt that blurred into one another at the edges, their words an ever-flowing river that rendered their words indistinguishable from one another. It was unnatural. Wrong.
Amber grit her teeth and steadied her hand on the hilt of her sword. Confidence trickled in through her palm pressed against the engraved lion. "I don't need you." She said firmly.
And for once, she knew it were true.
After all, she had a new family.
"Amber." The faces of her parents turned ugly and made to advance. "Amber." A hand on her shoulder. But this one was different – solid and unwavering. It didn't coil around her like a snake or seep into her bones. She turned to face Marco, who repeated her name for a third time. "Are you alright?" When she looked again to where she had seen her parents there was only empty air.
"I'm fine." She smiled, patting his hand in thanks.
Across the deck she could see others caught in their own personal nightmares, fighting the shadows that slithered in the dark corners of their minds behind locked doors. Most broke out on their own. You could see it in the way they took a hasty step backwards and shook their head, and how their shoulders loosened moments later. She looked toward the forecastle in time to see Caspian call out something she couldn't hear before retreating, escaping the clutch of evil as the others had done. He met her eyes briefly across the ship. They exchanged nods, brief sanity checks, before melding back into their assigned roles.
A voice echoed in the silence.
Amber spun, expecting to see the ghostly green forms of her parents once more, but the air was empty. It spoke again, the words hovering just above the hum of the ocean, and she began to wonder if it was the water itself speaking to her.
That was, until, she realised the crew were exchanging confused glances. Some drifted towards the railing, squinting out across the murky grey fog, while others hovered warily in the centre of the deck, hands holding their blades tighter.
"Keep away! KEEP AWAY!" The voice grew louder and more coherent the further they sunk into Dark Island, while the fog lifted enough to show hulking pillars of stone risen from the sea like a warning.
Amber considered briefly if the rocks were really the teeth of a giant beast and they were unfortunate enough to be sailing between its jaws, ready to be snuffed out in a singular gulp. She could almost laugh at the thought – if not for the sea of other worries coursing through her head – because ultimately, who was to say it was implausible, here, in Narnia?
She joined Edmund at the railing as he parted the shadows with the glow of his flashlight, drawing it across the rocks as the disembodied voice continued to yell.
The light fixated on a singular spot, and a man as grey as the rock he stood on trembled before them, his eyes so large and white they were almost comical.
"We do not fear you." Called Caspian.
The man raised a sword with skeletal arms, waving it frantically in the air while spending all of his, albeit limited, strength in the process. "YOU WILL NOT DEFEAT ME!" He yelled.
The blade shined gold in the glow of Edmund's flashlight. His breath hitched and his grip faltered for a second, almost plunging their only light source into the depths of the ocean, until he regained his composure with a speed only a King could achieve. "Caspian – his sword." He breathed.
"Lord Rhoop! Men – stand down!" The Dawn Treader crew lowered their weapons and watched on as the man, a very bewildered Lord Rhoop, remained in a fighting stance and began to tremble more fiercely.
A wave of unease swept across the ship as Lord Rhoop was dropped ungracefully onto the deck by Eustace, as now they could observe the very real and very ghastly effects of Dark Island.
It seemed his shaking was not due to the fear of the ship, or the sheer effort it took to hold his sword aloft, but a permanent addition to his being after spending so long with only his worst nightmares for company.
His face was gaunt and haunting, skin stretched across hollow bones and deeply lined like creases in fabric. Across his bare arms and feet were shallow wounds made redder when compared to his colourless skin, stray gravel from his home of stone and sea stuck to his limbs with sweat.
"You should not have come – there's no way out of here!" He stumbled over his words as if drunk, eyes never fixating on a singular spot for more than a second. He looked between each and every crew member, their weapons, their armour, and with each fleeting glance they recoiled, sensing something unimaginably dark behind his eyes.
They dared not dream of what he saw. What memories had him fighting fatigue to keep his sword held high. What horrors stole his voice and left a weak, juddering rasp in its wake.
What force could kill a Lord? Not his body, or his power – but his very soul?
It was almost tangible, the sick glee radiating from the Island itself as it devoured their unease. How it crawled into their brains and blew each fear up like a balloon and floated up, up and away, until it had enough dread to lift the ship from the sea and claim it for its own.
"Caspian, we have the sword, lets go!" Edmund said, with the desperation in his voice painfully clear.
"Let's turn her around, Drinian."
The Dawn Treader crew could barely believe it.
Was it that easy? Could they escape without a scratch – only a few devilish images projected through smoke that would be dispelled from their mind in time? It was as if they'd been slapped through to another reality.
The Island thrummed unpleasantly, trying to reign in the dregs of their fear – but their hope was too powerful. Combined, it could have been unstoppable.
Caspian had just turned to head the wheel with Drinian when Lord Rhoop cried out. "DO NOT THINK!" He warned, digging his fingers into Caspian's forearms. "Do not let it know your fears, or it will become them!" The King didn't know what to say. Lord Rhoop's eyes were haunted, wide and darkened by the horrors they had seen, and it took every ounce of his control to think of Narnia and Narnia alone.
"Oh no…" A whisper.
"I'm sorry –" All eyes turned to Edmund. He was thunderstruck. "I'm so sorry."
A chill spread through the ship like an invisible wave of ice-cold water, and together they watched as the pillars of rock stood so resolutely in the sea descended in a smooth arch, a scaly, barbed tail flicking through the water behind them.
ok. so. in short.
i'm meeting ben barnes in 2 days.
honestly that's why i've managed to get this chapter up - i needed somewhere to be like 'look! this is a cool thing that's happening!'
next update coming in a month. maybe. or a year. who knows! writing is hard.
To the guest who commented during my impromptu hiatus: thank you for the kind words! and thank you for mentioning the swan's wife tale - i did come up with it! i really liked it, so thank u for mentioning it :)
