Adventure

The innocence of childhood, and the proof of all five senses, quickly washed away her logic driven cynicism, and when a parade of creatures she'd never believed existed, led her to a talking lion, who was so much more than just a lion, she took it all in stride. This was an adventure! And one she didn't have to wait to grow up for! They called her a Daughter of Eve and placed a cushion on the ground next to Aslan, where she watched the comings and goings with wide, excited eyes.

There was an indefinable tension in the air that even she could feel, although she didn't completely understand it, and so she was relieved when a pair of talking beavers led three more children into the camp. Two of them were older than her, and had the same worried looks that the creatures around her had, but one was a girl just her age whose eyes were sparkling with the same intense wonder, and she felt an instant kinship for her, for Lucy, and felt another surge of joy at finding a friend.

Lucy was worried too though, about her brother who was missing, and so Lizzy did her best to make her smile, asking her questions about Narnia and where she'd come from before, and telling her stories about her own life and her grandmother's adventures. Just when Lucy had actually laughed, a tall, pale, cold woman walked into the camp, a fearful hush spreading in her wake, and the two girls huddled together as the woman spoke to Aslan in harsh, demanding tones.

Eventually Aslan came back to the camp, leading with him a boy who Lucy abandoned her for, running to him and hugging him ecstatically. The boy hugged her back, but then pulled away, a shamed expression on his face, and Lizzy's heart went out to him, wanting to take away the pain and guilt she saw lingering in his eyes. Later that night, she did get a chance to talk to him, to make him smile like she had made Lucy smile, but then things changed, and things grew darker in a way that had nothing to do with the sun, and she learned the meaning of the word war – it was a long time before any of them smiled again.

The battle was fast and scary and even though she was instructed to stay out of the fray, the other side didn't care and she was forced to flee when two black dwarfs found her hiding place. It was Edmund who saved her, and she got one more brief, intense smile before he was gone again. When the battle ended, and she found him with his brother, lying cold on the forest floor, she began to wish that she had never found this adventure, had never left the safety of her boring, normal life.

But in the end Lucy, Lucy who would become her sister; she saved him, and although Lizzy, now Liz, had learned the meaning of the words war and death and evil that day, she knew that it was worth it.

Years later when she married Edmund, and became Queen Elizabeth the Loyal, she had forgotten what began the adventure, and only knew that Narnia was home.

A home that she never thought she'd leave, until the day they followed the accursed white stag, and stumbled across a lamppost; the day she lost everything.

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Loss

At first, she had raged and cried and searched for a way back. This place, this time, this body, was not what it should be, and every day that passed with no sweet Narnian air, with no stone castle or dancing fauns, and most importantly, no Edmund, killed a little more of her soul. She grew resigned, withdrawn, moody. Her parents worried and her teachers' recommended therapy. Everything was wrong and nothing mattered, not anymore.

On her thirteenth birthday, her second thirteenth birthday, she decided to forget, because she could no longer live with the pain of the memories. Overnight she transformed into an overly studious, overly logical, control-freak science nerd, who wore a Crashdown uniform instead of chain mail, and wielded a number two pencil instead of a sword. She perfected the façade and the friendships and the smiles on the outside until everyone stopped worrying, and on the inside was too numb to care.

Then it happened – the argument, the gun, the bullet sliding under her ribcage as if she was made of butter. The world went dark as blood pooled against her skin, the familiar copper scent sending her mind back as she saw scenes of Narnia, of home, playing across her eyelids with vivid intensity. But then he touched her, the boy Maria thought she could like, and he dragged her back to the present, to the sickeningly lifeless 'real' world. She tried to fight it, to surrender to the sucking pull of nothing, because she didn't want to lose that glimpse of heaven, but in the end his powers were stronger than her will to die.

When he told her not to tell and ran, she couldn't say a word, afraid that if she opened her mouth, the hate she felt for him 'saving' her life would spill out, and her perfect façade would be destroyed.

That night, she stared at her body, her still too young body, in the mirror, now marred by a silver handprint, and laughed until she cried.

After he told her that he was an alien, that the miracle he had pulled off had nothing to do with magic or Aslan or anything she loved, she cried until she laughed.

Roswell still wasn't Narnia, still wasn't home, and this time if it wasn't human, it meant it was from a planet far, far away and was either trying to woo her, ignore her, or kill her. But the familiar sensations of adrenaline, the thrill of strategy and enemies, even though the battles here did not compare to the scale of the battles she used to lead at Edmund's side, were the sweetest things she'd known since she tumbled back out of the rabbit hole into this dull and dying world. It was a drawn out, violent form of suicide, and with every new danger, every new enemy, she prayed that when she died, she would see green hills and dancing trees again.

Mostly, she just prayed for death.