Author's Note: I'm not entirely happy with this, but the more I think about it, the more obvious it is the characters I'm sketching would be going around in circles. Constructive criticism is always appreciated.
It was an hour before any bar Reepicheep could look him in the eye as they expressed solidarity, which rather took the gloss, in Eustace's opinion, off their kind words. "There's got to be some way of breaking the spell," he heard Edmund mutter, forgetful of the fine pitch of dragon hearing. "Even if a Queen's kiss didn't seem to work."
"If Your Majesty seeks a King to try his luck, We respectfully remind him of his seniority to Us," said Caspian, winning a snigger from Erlick and a flashing look from the Mouse.
"There's none dare attack a camp with such a guard o' nights, Cap'n?" Rhince volunteered, relentlessly practical. "Always assumin' the young feller's agreeable, of course."
Reepicheep lowered the point of his rapier, which had been aimed in the general direction of the Mate's gut. "We must ask naught of our unfortunate shipmate than we would volunteer to him ourselves," he trilled.
The fine hairs on Eustace's spinal ridges prickled painfully. Of all creatures to defend him, that the victim of his worst excesses should be first! Great, steamy tears formed in the corners of his pale gold eyes, and everyone had to spring back to avoid a warm dousing.
He thumped his tail, gouging a deep scar in the sand; wagged his head. "I think he agrees," said Caspian. "Thank you, Eustace."
"Let's find you somewhere cosy," Lucy suggested, making her fingers rest on his tough, scaled hide as long as she could conceal her revulsion. "There's a little hollow on the edge of the trees, south of the camp; come and see!"
He trudged beside her, through the rough village of rope and canvas the men had erected during the day, past seamen who called cordial greetings from their work, to Queen Lucy and her kinsman. On the southern edge of the settlement, they came upon Ugrian, a blacksmith in his landlocked days, cursing colourfully as his makeshift furnace failed to fire.
Eustace paused. He stretched his snake-like neck and huffed. The charcoal caught, white-hot in an instant.
"Thank 'ee, Dra – young master!"
Eustace swished his tail. "He means, you're very welcome," Lucy translated hopefully. The being that was almost her cousin loosed a fiery hiss of agreement.
As the days progressed, and all manner of tasks were made easier for the crew by his presence, Eustace almost began to like being a massively powerful flying beast: except at night, when his usefulness was limited to lighting fires and providing a heat source for the crew to huddle around in the rain. On the first full day, he had cruised on the air currents into the mountainous heart of the island, returning with a tall, straight pine that matched exactly Drinian's requirements for a new mast timber; the crew had raised three lusty cheers as the Captain congratulated him on his judgement. Seeing the men chipping with small tools to strip boughs and bark, he had offered a set of giant, curved claws and done the job in a trice. And with his proficiency in humane killing, the butchers down the farther end of the beach were soon surrounded with the fat carcasses of sheep and wild goats to messily skin, salt and store in the Dawn Treader's hold.
Eustace had never realised what a pleasant sensation it was to be popular. Neither had he understood quite how unhappy he had been, a surly boy on the edge of a merry company that accepted his hideous presence without question. Both discoveries shook him; but there was one realisation alarmed him even more.
They were worried. Caspian and Drinian, Lucy and Edmund, Rhince and the men. Uncertain of what to do with him; even of how to speak to him. It took three days for the last man to stop asking do you think he actually understands us? within earshot. And though they accepted his assistance in countless tasks, in every earnest face, the chief concern emerged.
"What are we going to do with him?"
The voice he first heard speak it was Lucy's, below him in the dunes as he hunkered one starry night a mile north of camp, hot, heavy tears dribbling down his muzzle, in the mottled cover of thick bushes that matched almost perfectly the dull green and dirty brown of his hide. "It's been almost a week, and we've still no idea how to break the enchantment. We can't delay sailing much longer, Captain, can we?"
"We've no cause, Ma'am: the Dawn Treader is as fit for sea as she ever was." The sand before Eustace shifted as the speakers climbed closer, up the steep seaward side of the dune. He shuffled backward into deep cover, aware that a growl or a small movement would announce his presence, silence their hurtful honesty, yet powerless to make the gesture. As he inched backward, head turned to hide the faint whorls of steam he exhaled on every breath, six dark forms crested the rise and turned to sit, facing the bay, mere yards away from him. "We know, by Eustace's scouting, there's an island not two days' with a good wind before us. If we had but a solution to those problems, I should say we might sail at dawn tide."
"Could he keep up by flying?" wondered Edmund.
"What about towing him?"
"His weight would break a galleon's back, Sire; to say naught of attracting every deep sea beast we might prefer to avoid."
"We could lash 'im onto deck, Cap'n?" The smoky bass of Rhince's suggestion explained their careful formality. "Shift the provisions below to balance."
"He wouldn't stay on deck in rough weather, would he?"
"And whatever we do, there remains the question we all have danced about," said Caspian, propped up on both elbows directly before the eavesdropper. "How in Aslan's name are we to feed such a shipmate?"
"I've not seen him eat a thing!" wailed Lucy, and Eustace's stomach contracted. Girls!
"I would surmise that Your Majesty's kinsman, to prevent distress to his own person and ours, has satisfied his appetites in private." Reepicheep sounded embarrassed, and on Eustace's behalf. The boy inside his monstrous shell wept for unmerited kindness. "You have noted, surely, the condition of the carcasses he has delivered to our butchers? Unmarked, save by the puncturing of claws where they were carried. Master Eustace is as humane a dragon as ever lived; it would be no less distressing to him than to Your Majesty's gentle stomach, to observe his present form at its repast."
"Reep's right, of course," said Edmund. "And we're all jolly sorry for poor Scrubb, but that's not going to solve the problem. How're we going to feed him?"
"We've got fishin' nets, Your Majesties."
"Do dragons eat fish?"
"In greater quantities daily than we could likely gather, Sire." Drinian rose, a stark, black shape against the rippled velvet of the silvered sky. "Master Eustace is like to need as much nourishment as the whole ship's company together, and I see no reasonable way we can provide it. However, there can be no suggestion of abandoning him here."
"None whatsoever," Caspian affirmed, before Reepicheep could shrill outrage at the voicing of the thought. "We of Narnia do not turn our backs on a distressed comrade; I wish only we had some way to make your cousin aware of the fact, Edmund. Have you not seen him watch us? He fears we might slip away in darkness."
"I have sought to console him, Sire!"
Eustace could imagine the smiles, carefully concealed, on every human face. "Indeed," Caspian managed.
"I'm sure Eustace has been awfully grateful for your stories, Reep." Lucy sounded as if she might burst into tears (or giggles) at any second.
"Aye, Ma'am, there's naught more cheerin' than the tale o' Sir Aidan the Afflicted," Rhince growled. Eustace puffed a short burst of smoke.
"It ended well enough," Caspian soothed.
"After two years of enchantment, Sire!" Drinian pointed out. "And he, like Rabadash the Ridiculous, was transformed into a domestic beast, not a full-grown dragon!"
Both stories, which Eustace had heard repeatedly, were amusing enough, and kindly related by a Beast incapable of malice. But both referred to lengthy enchantments, and after six days, Eustace yearned for fingers and toes and a voice. The good humour of companions palled, when one couldn't laugh at their jokes, and he was beginning to realise how much he owed people who had smiled in the face of his determined rudeness.
"Well," Caspian said on a sigh, pulling himself upright. "We have achieved naught in solution to our problems, but I dare wager we all feel the better for their airing. My Lord Drinian…."
"Blowed if I know, Your Majesty." The tall figures of Captain and Mate on either side of the group sent long, black phantoms tumbling down to the base of the dune. "The voyage is devilish enough without a dragon aboard, but when did a little difficulty daunt us?"
"If it did, we should be sitting in my study at Cair Paravel declaring the entire idea of an eastern quest absurd," Caspian concurred as the children chortled and Reepicheep chirruped his assent. "Back to camp, shipmates! We may dally a day more, hoping our dilemma will resolve itself; and then, we must ask Eustace himself what's to be done. Lucy, you are drooping! Lead the way, Sir Reepicheep, and cautiously! Our royal posterior has connected with the soft sand of these confounded dune fields more than once in the past week: we have no desire to repeat the undignified experience!"
Laughing, they slithered down the sand slope, their voices fading as they trudged back to their camp. Eustace emerged from hiding, the breath he had been holding erupting in great, fiery gulps.
They were not going to leave him alone on a strange island. He was ashamed of himself for ever suspecting them, guiltily aware of what his suggestion would have been has his and Edmund's roles been reversed. I'll not be such a little brute again, though, he promised himself. If I ever turn into me again I'll do better, honestly I shall. Ow!
Something was picking at the sensitive skin on his ridges. Eustace turned to swipe the irritant with a heavy paw, only to feel the itching start on its pad. He swished his tail angrily, branches snapping like a swarm of irate wasps around him.
It wasn't fair. He broke cover and thumped his way inland, not knowing or caring where his aching feet might take him. Once he was beyond a bow shot of the shore, he lifted up his head and howled.