Lucy woke up, feeling a sudden movement of Jadis lying next to her. Instantly she felt something was different, the queen's eyes were closed, her hands squeezed the pillow and the entire body struggled against an invisible nightmare. Lucy had seen it before, so as before, she grabbed her by the shoulders and shouted her name. This didn't help, though. Jadis twitched and her head bumped against the pillow as if something invisible pinned her down, something strong enough to hold her and make her cry in fear. Lucy cried herself, she held her with her entire strength, yet wasn't able to help. Finally, after maybe a few minutes, maybe an hour (as it seemed to Lucy), the queen woke up. She opened her eyes and looked at the girl, who sat on the bed, staring at her with the face wet from tears.
"What's wrong?" Jadis looked at her in question. Lucy couldn't stop shaking.
"Don't you remember?"
From Jadis' astonished face Lucy realized she really didn't. Unsure, she told her what she just saw.
"I have seen it before, and then you also couldn't... I was so worried!" She burst.
Jadis embraced her and stroked her hair.
"I don't remember." She replied, musing. Lucy could feel her tension.
"It was just a nightmare. Right?"
Jadis smiled.
"Yes. Just a nightmare."
She let Lucy put her head on her chest and soon she noticed how the girl was falling asleep again. She however didn't. She lay there with her eyes open, and stared at the ceiling, and then at the window as the sky started brightening.
The next day Jadis announced they should go back to their trainings.
"I realize that the other matters occupy us greatly and it is safe to say they also give you a certain form of exercise, but that one won't help you in a battle." She smirked pleased, seeing Lucy blush at those words. She couldn't resist mocking her a bit, but softened up immediately when the girl closed to her.
"Then you better train me well." Lucy gave her a long kiss and without further comments she grabbed the sword and pointed it to her chest.
"The little queen gets more and more bold with every day, isn't she?" Jadis blocked her a few seconds later and pinned her to the ground, enjoying the feeling of having the girl right under her. She resisted the temptation of cutting her clothes apart with the sword and stood up.
"Will you resist me for the entire minute at least once?" She mocked mercilessly and received Lucy's series of attacks, still easy to handle. Very easy.
"Are you teasing me for a distraction?" Lucy was irritated, although the constant desire didn't let her to be angry for long. But Jadis was simply too fast for her.
"Is it working?" Jadis smiled sweetly. Lucy had to admit it did. Why not use the same method?
"You should be careful. Challenging a woman can have various consequences." She jumped forward, avoiding Jadis' sword with a quick pirouette. She placed herself behind the queen and with a fluent movement she tangled the sword in the fabric of Jadis' dress. It worked. The surprised queen turned around a second too late. Lucy jumped at her with her entire body weight and threw her out off balance. They both landed in the snow.
"How am I do..." Before she finished the sentence, Jadis managed to turn them around so she was now on top. She sat on Lucy and pinned her hands to the ground.
"Slightly better." She let go of her, giggling. But Lucy could see the impression in her eyes. She took advantage of it immediately. With another jump, she found her sword and again tried to attack Jadis from behind. The queen laughed and blocked her, but this time Lucy was faster and she maneuvered herself to a safe distance. They looked at each other for the next minute, each waiting for the other to start.
"If I manage to block you, will you tell me more about Aslan?"
It worked. Jadis froze and lost her grip on the sword. Lucy would have won, but Jadis turned around furiously and throwing the sword to the ground (so strongly that it hid almost entirely in the ice), she hissed "how dare you!" and started to walk away.
"Jadis! Please!" Lucy didn't mean to surrender easily this time.
"How can you train me, if you yourself can be thrown out of balance by one word?"
Jadis slowed down and for a moment Lucy hoped she would turn back. But she didn't. Lucy watched her going towards the palace and tried to bring herself to balance as well. This couldn't just end like this. Not after... holding back the tears, she also headed to the palace. Inside, she found Jadis standing in the living room. The queen must have noticed her presence, but didn't show it. She stared at the window. Lucy took a deep breath.
"Forgive me."
Silence. Lucy didn't dare to come closer, she leaned over the wall and trying to control her shaking voice, she asked.
"Do you trust me?"
This made Jadis turn around. She was clearly surprised by this question, but still didn't speak a word.
"Because I do. Trust you. I trusted your word the first time we met and I also kept my word. I believed Asbjørn when he said you have changed. I did everything you asked me, I betrayed my best friend and gave him forgetting potion. I fell in love with you although my brother keeps saying the worst possible things about you. But now I ask you. Do you trust me?"
Her voice broke in the last words; she couldn't help it. No matter how stubborn she was, hiding emotions was Jadis' talent, not hers.
"I cannot answer you, little queen," Jadis spoke unexpectedly calmly. Finally, she turned around. Lucy stepped forward and stopped, hesitating. Jadis gazed back at her with an unusual expression of uncertainty.
"I haven't trusted anybody for centuries. It doesn't come easily."
Lucy nodded, relieved. Jadis wasn't angry anymore and that was more than enough.
"Well, I do. As I said, I do trust you and I love you. That means I need to know more about you if we are to be together." Again, the expression of a surprise on Jadis' face. "Don't you want it?" She asked silently. What would she do if Jadis says no? Could she ever come back to Cair Paravel and have a normal life? After everything that happened? Lucy waited for Jadis' answer with a bumping heart, holding her breath.
For a long time Jadis was quiet, so long that Lucy couldn't see anything as her tears were again out of control. Then the queen did something unexpected. She opened the coffer and took out the scrolls, the ones that Lucy brought the other day.
"Alright." She said.
Lucy looked at her with question.
"I will give you answers. But to your other question first. Then you can decide, if what you are asking me now is still relevant."
She took Lucy by the hand and pointed the manuscript. The girl hesitated. The last time she barely touched it and it didn't end well.
"Don't be afraid," Jadis guessed her concern. "With me here, nothing will happen to you. I will make you watch, but not participate. It will be like watching the moving pictures in your home world." Although Lucy didn't understand what she meant exactly, she nodded.
The world before Lucy's eyes changed. She was standing in a green wood, a wood that looked somewhat familiar. Lucy looked around and the formation of the land, the stream nearby and finally the big stone in front of her made her gasp.
"Aslan's table..." she whispered.
"Yes..." To her surprise, Jadis was standing next to her. They both watched the past Narnia as invisible guests, like you watch somebody else's dream. It was strange for Lucy to see one Jadis standing next to her, and another Jadis, closing to the Table, surrounded by dwarves, foxes, wolves and bears. In one of them Lucy recognized the young Asbjørn and it made her feel instantly better.
The other Jadis slowly walked to the Stone Table and suddenly all the creatures around her thrilled, some of them sighed, or screamed, or whispered with excitement, pointing one direction. A big lion appeared on the stone, quite suddenly, nobody saw him approaching, from one moment to another, he was just there. There were even more creatures behind him. Fauns, dryads, various animals, crowded behind Aslan, trying to see clearly what was coming. The two crowds were finally standing in silence, in front of one another and the two leaders closed to each other so much that now there were barely a few meters between them. Lucy could see the other Jadis proud and angry, yet shaken somehow. She could tell she was afraid. The Jadis beside her was silent and stern. Lucy wanted to take her by the hand, but the queen pointed the scene before them.
"Watch out now."
"I am asking you again, Jadis. What is your answer?"
"Never!" The other Jadis hissed.
The lion roared, so loud that the trees shook and the crowd at Jadis' side stepped back, covering ears and heads, but the crowd behind Aslan on the contrary, jumped forward. The battle started. The other Jadis was powerful and fast, no attacker was able to even touch her and soon various stone figures started to replace her enemies, and the lion stood there and watched. When Jadis seemed to be winning, he jumped. He landed directly over her, covered her with his huge body and for a long while Lucy couldn't tell what happened exactly. There was just a chaotic mass of swirling bodies in combat, sometimes the lion shape appeared among them. Once she managed to see a glimpse of Jadis trying to free herself from his grasp. The crowd around seemed to slow down, now she could see Aslan very close, holding Jadis down, he was lying directly on her, pinning her hands to the ground with his huge paws. Jadis struggled and suddenly this struggling started to look disturbingly familiar to the current Jadis' nightmare. Lucy could see her fear and only thanks to the queen next to her, who grabbed her by the shoulder, she didn't jump forward.
"Everything could be different." Lucy heard Aslan's voice. This time the tone was gentle, but why the lion kept on holding Jadis like this? Lucy reminded all the moments Susan and her played with him, she rode on his back and stroke his golden mane. She was so happy then. The view before her didn't fit the Aslan she remembered.
"I... will... never..." The other Jadis struggled more, which caused him to hold her tighter. Suddenly she screamed with pain and at the same time something white jumped at Aslan from the other side. Lucy saw Asbjørn with two more bears trying to grab Aslan's neck. They didn't manage to hurt the lion, but made him stand up and free Jadis. Who quickly composed herself, grabbed her wand and aimed at him. To Lucy's surprise, Aslan didn't fight back. He stood there, calm again, looked around, then his eyes stopped on the bears, still protectively surrounding Jadis.
"All people of Narnia, hear me and obey my words. You let the witch confuse you and turn you away from me. Narnia is divided and the peace is disturbed. I am calling you now, turn back from evil and return to me! I am calling you for the last time. Turn back from the witch and come back to me!"
The two crowds murmured, discussing Aslan's words and Jadis still held her wand high, ready for the attack.
"You have lost here, lion." She said after a while, loud and clear, so her voice was heard in both groups.
"I will never obey you, neither those, who just saw the truth. You are the evil of this world, but these furry idiots are to blind to..."
The roar of Aslan drowned her voice and all the animals covered theirs ears or curled up again, as the lion's roar caused also a powerful blow of the wind. Like a hurricane, it squalled through the forest, breaking some tree branches and the smaller and lighter creatures got thrown up in the air and fell down to the ground painfully as the wind was gone. So was Aslan. Lucy gazed at the current Jadis.
"Keep watching." She told her.
The old Jadis jumped at the stone table and spoke, and this time her voice was so loud that Lucy could feel the ground shaking.
"Narnia is mine. No more Aslan. Now I am your queen!" She raised her arms and Lucy could feel the air getting colder. After a while the first snowflakes covered the grass and the animals were escaping in panic, because Jadis started turning into stone everybody who didn't kneel before her.
"Then I froze the land." The current Jadis said and the vision ended.
Lucy took a deep breath. Nothing whirled or made her dizzy this time, she just realized they were standing in the palace again.
"What did Aslan ask you at the beginning?"
There was a long silence before Jadis replied.
"He wanted me to…," she hesitated, "… to accept him as my king." Never before Lucy heard this shaking in Jadis´ voice.
'Why didn't you?' She wanted to say, listening to her inner child's that still thought about her childhood meetings with Aslan. But the adult Lucy understood. To her relief Jadis didn't oppose when she took her hand in her own.
"You should have told me earlier." She whispered. She felt Jadis embracing her with the other arm. She clung to her.
"No, I shouldn't have. You were not ready."
Lucy looked up to see her eyes.
"I am now."
She felt the queen's embrace getting tighter.
