Narnia:

When Children Cry

Part III

DISCLAIMER: I'm getting so tired of this, I think I'll just give in and say it simply: I do not own it. There, C.S. Lewis, I've said it.

Okay, okay, I deserve all my readers ignoring me. I'm sorry I almost killed him, but I write, not to make the readers happy, but to make the writer happy. This is my story and I like it the way it is. If you don't like it, don't read it (although it would make me very happy if you kept reading anyway).

Smile, everybody, because I love you all and I'm feeling very optimistic on this sunny day... maybe I will have a happy ending...

Nah.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Belonging

Cair Paravel was buzzing in the morning: Queen Lucy was missing! Where, oh where had she gotten to? It seemed as though she'd slipped away in the night without a trace, for she hadn't been in her chambers the next morning. And yesterday! did you hear about yesterday? She went into battle dressed as a man! But where is she now?

As Edmund heard this uproar, he shook his head and smiled, walked out of his room. Upon exiting, he bumped into a frightfully anxious Corin.

'Edmund? By the Lion's Mane, where is she? Do you know? I've been looking–'

'Hush, Corin. Yes, I know.'

Corin's eyes were large. 'How? Where?'

'I think you might stay–'

'I'm coming with you, Ed.' He shivered in his gallantly decorated dressing-gown. 'But she can't have gotten too far with this weather.'

'She's still in the castle, Corin. If you're coming, you'd best hasten.' Corin frowned, nodded, and tightened the rope round his waist as they took flight.

'Where are we going?' whispered Corin, after some bit of winding through the maze of corridors..

'In here,' Edmund whispered back, and carefully turned the cold, brisk knob to a small door.

There she was, her face troubled but pearly as a porcelain doll's. She lay by a faun whom Corin had seen before, but had never bothered to learn his name. Lucy, his betrothed, in the bed of a faun! And yet... And yet it did not seem as strange as it would normally be. There was something so right about the scene...

But it had to be ended.

Edmund gently shook Lucy, whispering, 'Lu? Have you been here all night?'

Corin frowned and almost yelled: 'Lucy, you've disappeared in the night, and here I find you sharing a bed with a faun, of all persons! Do you not know the meaning of reputation, of shame?'

Lucy winced at his voice, but did not move from her spot on the bed.

'Corin,' whispered Edmund. 'the faun is Tumnus, a dear friend of hers, and he's been found nearly dead on the battlefield. You can see she's a little upset. If you could please be a little more quiet, as he's still recovering...'

'And another thing, Lucy,' Corin hissed, paying no mind to Edmund's advisory and sounding more of a man than child that he was. 'You went into battle dressed as a man? Lucy, whatever possessed you to do such a thing? War is for men, not women!'

'Corin,' said Lucy for the first time that morning. It was such a different voice than anyone had last heard her use – melancholy and enigmatic, so musical, and yet so mournful that Edmund looked up at her, unbelieving. The grey, glassy winter light shone through a window bearing the first snow – she was silhouetted by it, making her seem of pale, crystal blue fog. She stood slowly, pressing her white, translucent feet streaked with sapphire veins against the stone floor with steps so sure and light that she could have easily been made of water as well. 'Corin, did you think you could keep me in the castle on the eve of Narnia's greatest battle?'

Corin, still trying to adjust to her new shift of demeanor, wriggled uncomfortably under her intense gaze. 'Well... yes...'

'Then you do not know me,' she said in a grave voice like a glass flute.

'Lucy,' said Edmund immediately, 'don't you think you might leave the nurses to attend Tumnus?'

'They cannot help him,' said Lucy coldly. 'Nor can I. He is beyond aiding.'

'Dead?' whispered Edmund.

'No,' said Lucy. 'He lives.'

'Lucy, you should leave,' said Corin.

She stood, very regal and powerful, but also appearing the saddest thing Edmund had ever seen. No, not regal, really... but untouchable.

'If you wish it,' she said, 'I shall leave.' She looked no one in the eye, but commanded all their respect as she stepped forward and out of the room, hair and gown flowing behind. Edmund noticed the way she walked... toe first, then heel, but it was such a solitary, fluid motion that she seemed to be floating, or carried upon a cloud, or even flying.

Under Prince Corin's command, Queen Lucy was to be kept away from the faun's current room. It was as a death sentence. In the castle of Cair Paravel, she stood alone – walking through the halls like a ghost. Each breath was like clockwork, every movement condemned, controlled. She said nothing, ate nothing, and walked as though she were dead. No eye of hers was raised to meet another's concerned gaze; not once had she spoke or acknowledged anyone's presence. She seemed alone, trapped in her own skin, her own soul. This life lived for her was masked in peace: it was killing her. One would most certainly find it eerie to be in the same room, for she had an unsettling, disquieting presence. She faded into the walls, into the December snow till nothing was left in her.

As she gradually deteriorated in the next few days under Peter's watchful eyes, he suddenly leapt up, not being able to stand it. Being a King and outranking Corin, he tried immediately to cancel the command, wondering why he hadn't before.

Yet Lucy held him back, saying in her new voice, 'He is my betrothed. It is as he wishes.'

'Lucy, you can't really let him do this to you! He's only a boy!'

'Yes,' she whispered. 'and I am only a woman.'

And then Peter saw it. He saw everything: every defiance she'd stood for, each harshness toward those who underestimated her, all because she was a woman. Her last statement, that was not her own. It was her way of sneering but accepting society, it was a quote taken from every glare at her boyish behaviour, every restraint from her fighting.

'Lucy,' he said finally. 'I understand now.'

She smiled, but he could only see sadness in it. 'To see what is right,' Lucy said, 'and not to do it is cowardice.'

And he knew what was right.