Hey all! Thank you so much for following this story as long as you have! :D Hope you enjoy the conclusion. :)

Epilogue

For nearly fifteen years, it was enough. My friends and I ruled with wisdom, valiance, gentleness, justice, and magnificence (if I do say so myself).

And then one day, they went searching for the legendary White Stag.

"Come on, Zaylie," Lucy begged. "Won't you come with us?"

Edmund turned to smile at me, and I almost went just for him. But I was not a sappy 13-year-old anymore, so instead I shook my head and forced myself to focus. "Not this time. Maybe some other, though." Or more accurately never.

Edmund swung up onto his horse, still smirking at me as he settled expertly into his saddle. "After we marry, I intend to make you a brilliant horsewoman."

I glanced down at the ring on my fourth finger—yup, still there; he'd really asked me—then shook my head and laughed. "If fifteen years couldn't do it, Ed, I don't think a few weeks of being married to you will."

Edmund chuckled as his brother added, "Who can say, Zaylie?" He shrugged as he tucked a lock of blond hair behind his ear. "You just might be surprised."

I rolled my eyes as the others gave their own little snickers. As I'd grown older, my visions had become more and more frequent, and as I'd mastered them, it had become increasingly difficult for anyone to surprise me. I'd even known when Ed was about to propose, though for his sake, I did act surprised.

Plus, everyone knows that makes it more fun.

After a few more minutes of Lu begging and wheedling and me staunchly refusing to get on a horse if it wasn't absolutely necessary, I waved goodbye, and they rode off into the woods, chasing after the White Stag, which, as legend had it, would grant all the Kingdom's wishes. Now, I just wish Aslan had sent me a vision to say this would be the last time I'd see my closest friends, because then I would've gone with them. Or better yet, stopped them from going in the first place.

But He hadn't, so I didn't and went back into the palace instead.

Tarrodour and Tumnus, our palace guards for our entire reign, smiled and nodded at me as I passed. I grinned back, giving them each a quick hug and a kiss on the cheek, before I went up up to my chambers and setting to work on our wedding's guest list. If I wasn't going on a quest to grant all the Kingdom's wishes (insert amused eye roll), I figured I might as well be productive.

About a half hour in, the still air turned to a slight breeze that whistled through the window and played hopscotch in my hair. At first, I ignored it—just wrestled my thick, brown mess into a ponytail and went back to my invitations. But then the weather kicked it up a hundred notches, turning from breeze to gale, and the formerly slightly-annoying-but-still-just-teasing feel became an I-WILL-RIP-YOUR-HAIR-OUR-BY-THE-ROOTS-WITH-THE-SHEER-FORCE-OF-MY-WIND-MWAHAHAHAHA kinda deal. I bounced up from my bed and spun towards the open window, expecting to see a cyclone or something getting started...

But the window wasn't there. Just a whirl of cloudy blackness swirling all around me.

I screamed. "Tumnus! Tarrodour!"

But they didn't come. And somehow, somehow, I knew they couldn't hear me.

The wind kept whipping and ripping around me, nearly sucking the oxygen from the room. I held onto the bed—the only substantial thing remaining—and prayed to the only One who could help me now. Aslan, protect us!

The wind seemed to last weeks, but then, as quickly as it'd started up, it disappeared, and everything stilled as if nothing had happened. Half-worried the tornado or whatever would come back if it realized I'd dropped my guard, I slowly, finger by finger, released my grip on the bed and cracked open the eyes I'd at some point clenched close. The place I saw around me was utterly unfamiliar, yet a childhood best friend at the same time.

The walls were no longer the gorgeous sunshine color of my palace bedroom; they were lilac purple, like the color of my dress at the Pevensies' coronation. The bed was no longer the queen-sized canopy with thick golden sheets hanging all around me, but a cute little daybed with a wrinkled, pink comforter draped carelessly over the top. The only thing that seemed the same was the assortment of books scattered everywhere, taking over every bookshelf and spilling onto every surface; but even that was slightly different, because now, there were also a few dolls scattered amongst the pages, the ones I'd allowed to stay so I could playact all my bookish adventures with them. I looked down at the iPod in my hand, the cup of still-steaming hot chocolate on my dresser, the open book in front of me, and then around the room again, slowly taking in every detail of thirteen-year-old me's American bedroom.

Had all of Narnia been a dream?

I looked over at the clock. 5:36 p.m. If I wasn't mistaken, that wasn't ten minutes after the last time I'd glanced at it, right before I'd appeared Narnia. But that... that couldn't be. Unless I just fell asleep, had a quick catnap, and... dreamt everything.

Narnia, the White Witch, Tarrodour, Aslan, the Pevensies...

Edmund?

A tear squeezed out of my eye. No. There was no way. I couldn't have dreamt up all that. Not the things I'd done, the people I'd met. Not the Pevensies, and the family I'd found in them. Not the way I'd felt about Edmund.

No. No way. This had to be the dream.

I dived back into the sheets and closed my eyes tight, like a child wishing for the impossible. If I just waited, I'd fall back asleep and wake up in my real life—in Narnia. All my friends would be there: Tarrodour, Lucy, Peter, Susan, Edmund. Maybe they'd tell me that I'd been sick—horribly so—but I was safe and I was back and I was where I was meant to be.

I clenched my fists tighter, waiting... waiting.

But nothing happened.

I leapt up from the bed like it was suddenly covered in squid (nasty, slimy things), and my eyes darted around the room, looking for a door, an exit, some way of escape. I didn't have a wardrobe, like I remembered the Pevensies talking about, so I rushed to my closet instead, whirled inside, and closed myself in, silently praying, Please, please, please.

But when I opened my eyes and opened the door, I was still in my old bedroom.

I went to the door on the other side of the room, the one that, if memory served, led down from my room in the attic to the bottom floor of the house. I stared down at the steps, wondering if they'd dematerialize before me if I just glared long and hard enough. But when I tapped a toe against them, they seemed as solid as ever, so instead I took them two at a time. Maybe everything would change when I finally got to the bottom...

But that was a negative as well. I burst into the too-familiar kitchen to find my mother standing at the oven, putting a casserole in for dinner. She gave me a funny look, but didn't seem surprised to see my face, just surprised at the way I'd burst in like a pack of efreets were after me. "Hey, hon," she said, with a smile. "Whatcha been doing up there?"

I swallowed down my shock and some quiet logical part of me whispered not to stare at her. But it had been fifteen years since I'd last seen my mother, yet she looked exactly the same as I remembered, and she wasn't grabbing me and hugging me, saying how much she'd missed me, how worried she'd been, demanding to know where I'd been all this I found my mouth replying to her question, something along the lines of, "Uh... nothing. Just reading," all the while my brain spun with truer replies: Being kidnapped. Fighting in a pretty epic war, if I do say so myself. Beating the pants off a mean, old witch. Kinda sorta leading a nation. Oh, and by the way? Those archery lessons I begged for? Literally, saved lives.

But she was already nodding and turning away as she joked, "Well, don't get lost up there."

I stared silently at her back. A smile. A joke. A casual, completely unworried statement.

Like nothing at all had changed.

I ran to the bathroom, stared at my reflection in the mirror, and let my jaw basically drop to the counter in front of me. I guess for her nothing had changed. I didn't look like the beautiful, 28-year-old woman I remembered becoming in Narnia; somehow, I'd gone back to being that wide-eyed, 13-year-old kid I'd been in a time that seemed like forever ago.

I trudged back up to my bedroom, believing more with every step that it had all been a dream. A vivid one, an awesome one, but a dream all the same.

As soon as I entered my bedroom though, I felt something. A whisper of Golden, like... like a piece of Aslan Himself. I know, I know, it sounds crazy. But... I felt it. And I knew with sudden and unexplainable certainty that all of Narnia had been real

Either that, or I was even crazier than I knew.

But as I turned around, facing the window by my bed, I saw Him, just a glimpse, standing on my windowsill (how it supported Him, I'll never know). His eyes met mine, rooting me to the spot like they had when I first Him, and I heard his voice whispering in my head: It is time for you to return to your world, Daughter. To meet Me as I Am here, and share Me with those around you.

But, Aslan, I thought, does that mean I'll never go back?

Something about his eyes seemed to smile as He replied, You will return to Narnia when the time is right.

And then the feeling floated away and the His image disappeared on the wind as if it had never been there. But I still knew that it was real, all of it. The voice, the Lion, my visions, the Witch, the Pevensies, Edmund, Narnia, everything. I didn't know how I knew, or how it could be real, or really anything else for that matter. But I knew that it was.

And I knew that someday, just like Aslan promised, I'd return. Someday, I would see them all again. And for now, that would be enough.

THE END

Thank you all so much for reading my fanfic these past two years! I super appreciate it and hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it! :D

Until the next story, ciao!