This chapter's bulletin board of honor sends thanks to romantic.dreamer26, chnoelle, mel, aramoorn, Dean's Leather Jacket, and…Haylee…being a tool…once again. Love you all like a fat kid loves cake!
I have a love/hate relationship with this chapter, but that's all I'm going to say. I'll let you decide for yourselves.
Chapter Nine: Give Me My Sin Again
Bad. Bad. This is very bad.
I sprinted through the tunnels as fast as I could possibly go. Actually, I probably managed to push myself even faster than my body was able to go, propelled by adrenaline and another emotion that coiled around my throat and made me want to scream; fear, not for myself, but for Caspian. I knew that he was in danger, and I cursed myself for not getting help the moment I heard that first, terrible voice.
So bad. So very, very bad bad bad.
I burst into the forge and didn't stop running until I'd reached the four royal siblings. They all looked up from their discussion when I appeared, gasping, in the middle of their circle. "Bad…danger…Caspian…White Witch!" Not so eloquently put, but you can't really blame me. I was terrified and out of breath. At the words "White Witch," they exchanged a meaningful looked.
"Where?" Edmund asked urgently.
"Stone Table!" I cried, pointing behind me. They took off through the forge and down into the tunnel with Trumpkin and I at their heels. I skidded to a stop in the doorway while the other five didn't even pause. My eyes were glued to the scene in front of me. The White Witch had one hand extended through the ice, reaching out to Caspian, who seemed completely entranced with his left hand raised before him. I forced myself to look elsewhere. Edmund was locked in battle with a terrible looking wolf-beast. It snarled, and the Witch glanced up, then looked back at Caspian.
"Come on," she murmured.
The hag fell to one of Susan's arrows, and Lucy held her little dagger to Nikabrik's throat only to have her arm twisted behind her. The nasty little dwarf disarmed her and shoved her down to the ground. He stood over the young girl, the knife in hand, and I instinctively ran through the chaos and threw myself down in front of her with one protective arm out to keep him from coming any closer.
"Out of my way, girl!" Nikabrik ordered. "I've got a little queen to dispose of!"
"You're not touching her!" I replied with a glare.
He sneered. "I'll just have to kill you both then!" He swiped at me with the knife just before his body went rigid, and managed to knick my palm with the tip of the blade as he collapsed. Trumpkin stood behind him, holding a bloodied sword. I glared down at the lifeless Nikabrik and pried the dagger from his hand, handing it to Lucy as we stood up. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Edmund slice the wolf right across the face while they were both airborne.
"Thanks," Lucy said gratefully, looking from me to Trumpkin.
I shrugged. "No biggie." I looked down at the dead dwarf. "Never liked him…"
"Stay away from him!" My head snapped up at the sound of Peter's shout. I saw Caspian fall to the floor on his left, and realized that he had shoved the prince out of the way. Peter held his sword out towards the White Witch threateningly. I ran to Caspian's side and fell to my knees beside him, flashing back to the first night I had arrived when we had fallen off of the horse.
"Peter, dear," the White Witch greeted fondly. "I've missed you." As I helped a very dazed Caspian sit up, I watched her reach out to the young king with a sickly sweet smile on her face. "Come now. Just one drop." One drop of what? Caspian, leaning heavily against me, cradled his left hand in his right. I saw the gash in his palm and it all clicked together. The Witch wanted to be resurrected, but she needed human blood to do it. So she got Nikabrik and her nasty little minions to lure Caspian in and trick him into bringing her back. A vicious anger gripped my heart, and I subconsciously held him a little closer. Calm, I had to stay calm. It wouldn't pay to lose my temper again- not now. Not when the battle was so delicately balanced on the edge of a sword. If I lost it, I wouldn't be able to keep myself from doing something that could ruin everything. The White Witch wasn't ready to give up. "You know you can't do this alone."
Peter lowered his sword a fraction of an inch. He seemed to be falling under the same spell that had held Caspian. I wanted to yell at him not to fall for it, but my voice failed me. All I could do was watch. The tip of a sword appeared through the ice, piercing the White Witch in the chest. More of the blade slid into view, and she threw her head back in a silent scream as the wall shattered. I saw with a twinge of fondness that Edmund was standing on the other side, his sword still raised. He really was an incredible boy. A regular badass. If I were a few years younger I would've been all over that. Ahem. Anyway…
Edmund gave Peter an incredibly humbling look. "I know," he said. "You had it sorted." He sheathed his sword and walked away. I smiled. Go Ed! Caspian seemed to suddenly realize that he was leaning heavily against my chest and sat up quickly, looking slightly embarrassed. He wouldn't meet my eyes.
"Are you okay?" I asked.
"Yes," he replied, still avoiding my gaze. I sighed heavily.
"Sure you are," I mumbled. "Don't move." I stood up to go in search of water and scrap cloth. The forge seemed like the best place to look, as I'd filled the big stone basin myself a few days ago. When I walked into the room, Lucy was trying to console a sulking Peter. I guess he was put out that he had shown that little bit of weakness. Quite a hit to his ego, apparently. Tch. Men. I walked over to the water basin and picked up the wooden pail I'd used to fill it. I dipped it into the water, filling it about halfway, and then looked around for Trufflehunter, figuring he probably had bandages of some sort. I found him sitting next to Trumpkin against one of the walls, talking in a low voice. "Um, sorry to interrupt, but would you happen to know where I can get bandages?" I asked.
Trufflehunter looked at me, holding the bucket of water, and jumped up. "Oh, yes." After assuring Trumpkin that he would be right back, he rushed off in search of the bandages.
I stood awkwardly next to Trumpkin for a few minutes before I noticed the sad look on his face. I realized suddenly that he and Trufflehunter had been close friends with Nikabrik. It must have been hard to be the one to kill him. "I'm sorry about Nikabrik," I said carefully.
Trumpkin didn't even glance up. "It's all right," he said. "It had to be done."
"I'm still sorry that you had to be the one to do it," I replied. He shrugged.
"Here we are!" Trufflehunter appeared at my side with several bandages in his paws.
"Thanks," I mumbled as he gave them to me. "I'll um…see you later then."
"Of course, of course." Even when he was grieving, that little badger still managed to keep his chin up. I wish I could say the same thing about myself. One argument put me out of action for days. I'm pathetic.
When I returned to the chamber, Caspian was sitting with his back against the Stone Table. "I thought I told you not to move," I scolded. He shrugged, still cradling his hand in his lap. Rolling my eyes, I sat down beside him, setting the bucket and bandages down next to me. "Let me see your hand." He seemed surprised that I meant to tend his wounds, but placed his left hand in mine palm up. I say wounds because when I sat down I noticed a hole in his sleeve that was ringed with blood. It looked like something sharp had grazed his shoulder.
I dipped one of the larger pieces of cloth into the water, squeezed out the excess liquid, and gently started to clear the blood away. Neither of us said anything. The silence grew more and more tense until I finally sighed and asked, "What were you thinking?"
Caspian had enough grace to look ashamed. "I wasn't."
"Well, clearly!"
He jerked his hand away. "I was just trying to do something that could help us!"
"Help us?" I scoffed. "Caspian, I'm not stupid. I heard everything, and it seemed to me like you were more preoccupied with helping yourself."
"You were following me?" he snapped.
"Yes, I was following you!" I raised my voice as a warning. "I was going to see what I could do to make you feel better after that stupid fight with Peter! That's what friends do, Caspian. They help each other! They lean on each other! They keep each other from doing moronic things like what you almost did!" I grabbed his hand, which was bleeding again, and wiped at it a bit less tenderly.
"You're right," he said softly after a few tense minutes. "I'm sorry. I should not have listened to Nikabrik."
"No, you shouldn't have. And you especially shouldn't have listened to those two…things. I've never seen anything that screamed "evil!" more than them."
"I know." Caspian leaned his head back against the stone table, closing his eyes. "I was just so…angry."
"Why are you suddenly so adamant about killing your uncle?" I asked, my voice softening.
He breathed in deeply and let it out in a long stream of air. "He killed my father."
I stopped in the middle of wrapping his hand and looked up at him. "That's terrible," I whispered.
"Yes, it is." Caspian opened his eyes and stared up at the ceiling. "And the worst part is that, for the longest time, it actually seemed like he might care about me. When I was little, Miraz would hold my hand and walk around the courtyards with me, and we would just talk." His jaw clenched. I looked down to finish tying the bandage into place. "All that time, he knew what he had done. He knew that he had murdered my father and yet still pretended that he actually loved me."
I could feel my heart tearing open. When it came to empathy, I was completely bipolar. When I'm sick, the only pain that matters is my own. When I'm not, the pain of others rips me open. With Caspian, it was somehow magnified. I didn't know what to say. I knew that "sorry" would not help. He was still a proud person, and I knew he wouldn't want my pity. I let out a long breath. "Take your shirt off."
Caspian whipped his head around to look at me, his exotic eyes wide. "Excuse me?"
I rolled my eyes dramatically. "Get your mind out of the gutter. You have a cut on your arm and I can't bandage it unless you take your shirt off."
He relaxed a little, but his cheeks were flushed. "Oh. Is it really necessary?" He seemed really uncomfortable with the idea. It took me a second to remember that Narnia was still stuck in the Renaissance.
"Caspian," I said calmly, "where I come from, I can walk down the street in the summer and count eleven men not wearing a shirt. And while I'll admit I wish some of them would keep theirs on…" I shuddered, plagued with visions of old men in their underwear getting the morning paper. "…I'm used to it."
His eyes narrowed. "You're used to it?"
"Yeah. It's completely acceptable in my world. I've even touched a guy's chest before. Oh! Scandal of scandals!" That was the wrong thing to say for two reasons. One: because it made me think of whose chest I'd touched, which would be Nathan's, and two: Caspian didn't like hearing it. Oh yeah, I forgot, he's a jealous bitch. My bad.
"Fine," he said, shortly, and pulled his shirt over his head.
Maybe I should've let Trufflehunter handle this one.
My brain totally shut down for at least sixty seconds. I couldn't help but stare. I mean, I'm only human, and Caspian was…well…beautiful. For the first time my eyes were able to follow the curve of his neck down over the slope of his shoulder. The line of his collarbone led down to the smooth, coffee and cream-colored skin that covered his well toned chest. No one would ever accuse him of not taking care of himself. I fought against the instinct that told me to reach out and touch his skin- find out for myself it was really as soft as it looked. My eyes traced over his flat stomach all the way down to the "v" of his pelvic bones and the thin line of dark curls under his belly button that disappeared into his trousers. I swallowed, hard, and forced myself to look up, which was when I realized that he had been watching me watching him.
"S-sorry," I mumbled, blood rushing up my neck to collect behind my cheeks.
"I thought you said you are used to it," Caspian said, looking rather smug and doing that I'm-so-sexy-let-me-raise-my-eyebrow-at-you thing again.
"What are you smirking about? It's not like you're the first one." It was mean, because I knew it would irk him, but I was embarrassed and when I'm embarrassed I get defensive and when I'm defensive I get mean.
He surprised me, though, by merely smiling and reaching up to brush a lock of hair out of my eyes. "I don't care who was the first one, querida, as long as I get to be the last."
I gasped, loudly, and distracted myself by rinsing out the damp cloth. When I turned around to start wiping away the dried blood on his arm, Caspian was looking down at his lap with a ghost of a smile.
"I'm sorry," he said. "That was far too forward of me."
"It's fine. Don't sweat it. I was the one ogling." My hands were shaking as I cleaned the wound, and I prayed that he wouldn't notice. Tossing the bloodied cloth aside, I grabbed a dry one and pressed the middle of it against the cut, winding either end around and around until only a few inches were left on either side, then tied them together. Without really thinking about it first, I pressed my lips lightly against his shoulder right above the bandage.
Caspian looked at me with this weird, almost awed expression on his face. "Why did you do that?"
I shrugged. "To make it better." His eyebrows drew together. "When you were little and you scraped your knee or something, didn't your mother ever kiss it to make it better?"
"I…don't know," he replied softly. "She may have, but I don't remember. My mother died when I was very young."
"Oh," I said. "Well, when I was a kid, I used to think that my mother's kisses were magic because they always made the hurt go away. It was probably all in my head but, I guess when you're a child all it takes is a little faith to make anything possible." I sighed. "But then I grew up, and her kisses weren't magic anymore. They couldn't heal everything."
"She must have passed the gift on to you, because my arm feels better already," Caspian said with a smile.
"Really? Well, in that case…" I lifted his left hand and kissed his palm above the bandage.
"You have a cut too," he said, taking my own left hand into his.
"Oh, I forgot about that 'coz it's so small," I said. "Nikabrik did it- just a knick, really. Doesn't hurt that much."
Caspian looked up. "Perhaps you should kiss it."
I shook my head. "Magic kisses only work on other people." With a shy smile, I added, "But maybe you could give it a try."
He stared at my palm for a few moments, then looked up at me with an almost mischievous smile. "If I profane with my unworthiest hand this holy shrine, the gentle fine is this: My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand to smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss," he quoted, then brought my hand up to brush his lips softly over the small cut. Wow, how much time was he spending on this stuff? Didn't he have a war to fight? An army to lead?
I smiled, and quoted in reply. "Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much, which mannerly devotion shows in this; for saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch, and palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss." I lightly pressed my injured left palm against his.
Caspian laced his fingers through mine, and I had to try hard just to breathe. "Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?"
"Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer." It was turning into a competition of who would go farther, but I wasn't sure who was winning, or if anyone really was.
"O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do; they pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair." He pulled me closer by our laced hands, then let go so he could brush the back of his fingers over my cheek.
"Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake," I replied in a shaky, breathless voice. Caspian was so close I could feel his breath on my lips. Neither of us moved. I don't think I could have even if I'd wanted to.
"Then move not, while my prayer's effect I take." He seemed to be answering my very thoughts. His voice dropped to almost a whisper. "Thus from my lips, by yours, my sin is purged." Every molecule of my body was hyperaware of him. Every sense was completely overrun. I could see his dark, smoldering eyes, feel his warm breath move across my cheek, smell the musky scent of his skin, and I could have sworn I heard his heartbeat, though it may have just been my own pounding in my ears. Only one sense had not yet been introduced to him. I was trying, desperately, to pull enough courage out of my body to just let go and melt into him the way I so wanted to. If I was just a little braver, I might have been able to lean those few extra centimeters and close the distance between us.
I didn't have to.
Caspian's fingers brushed over my cheek and wove through my hair, gently cupping my neck just below my ear- I could feel the interruption of the cloth brush against my jaw, breaking the warm plain of his palm in half. Slowly, as if he meant to give me a chance to resist, he pulled my lips to his. The heat of his mouth sent bolts of lightning down my spine. He gently slipped his right arm around my waist and eased me into his lap. I let the fingers of both of my hands entangle themselves in his silky hair as his tongue slipped past my pliable lips. I was trembling from his touch, his thumb gently caressing my cheek, his other hand moving across my back, easing the tension from my muscles until I could fall easily into the mold of his embrace. I didn't know it could be like this. All those times in the darkness of Nathan's basement- I would trade them all for just one kiss like this one for the rest of my life. Where Nathan was sloppy and forceful, Caspian was tender, curiously exploring without being invasive.
Now, this is a kiss.
A small sigh escaped my lips when he gently eased them away from his. I didn't open my eyes. I could have gone on for hours. "Then have my lips the sin that they have took," I breathed.
"Sin from thy lips?" I could hear the smile in Caspian's breathless voice. "O trespass sweetly urged. Give me my sin again." He pressed his lips to mine once more, but only for only a moment.
Reluctantly, I leaned back and let my eyes flutter open to meet his. A small smile appeared on my face. "You kiss by the book."
Caspian frowned. "This is the part where I find out that I cannot have you," he said, sadly.
I was trying to think of something reassuring to say, but my nightmare from the night before came rushing back to me. He was right, I realized. This is not my home. I can't stay here forever. At some point, I knew I would have to leave. I thought of Dana and Jo, my mom and dad, aunts, uncles, grandparents. I couldn't just leave them all behind. But then there's this. I looked at Caspian, who had taken my left hand and started to wrap it despite the cut being only about an inch long. Whatever this was, it was stirring up feelings that I didn't understand. Strong emotions that heated up and boiled over in bubbles that burst open inside my heart. What was it about him that made me want to stay? I realized I had nothing- no soft words or gentle phrases- to offer him for reassurance. If I told him I'd always be here, I'd be lying. I couldn't make him a promise that I already knew I couldn't keep.
"Oh! Sorry!" Peter's voice interrupted my depressing revelation. "I…didn't know anyone was in here." He glanced between Caspian and I with a weird look on his face. I realized what a compromising situation we'd been caught in and scrambled to my feet as Caspian pulled his shirt over his head.
"No, no, it's fine," I said nervously. "I was just bandaging him up." I held out the extra cloth to prove it. "See?"
"Yeah…" Peter replied doubtfully. Aw, shucks. Busted. If he knew something had happened (which he obviously did), he didn't say anything. Caspian brushed past both of us, and I watched him disappear into the tunnel as little piece of my heart broke off and followed him. Maybe Haybra wasn't crazy. Maybe there was more to this Soul Bond thing than I was willing to admit, even if it sounded ridiculous. I mean Soul Bond? Seriously? What is this, the SciFi channel? I was starting to feel like my life was just another episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000. There must be two humans and a robot making fun of me somewhere.
"What do you know of anything but your own suffering?" I asked myself- Sense and Sensibility again. I need to get some of my own material, because it's starting to make me miss my sister.
"What?" Peter asked. He must've thought I was talking to him.
"Nothing," I replied. "Just thinking out loud."
"Oh." He walked around the Stone Table and sat down against it, looking up at the carving of Aslan.
"Um…should I…leave…?" I asked.
"If you want. I don't care." He shrugged without looking at me.
"Okay." I walked across the room. Before I got to the doorway, Lucy appeared in it. She smiled at me as she passed and I returned the gesture before she walked over and sat down next to her brother.
"I wish he would just give me some kind of proof," Peter said. I paused in the doorway.
"Maybe we're the ones that need to prove ourselves to him," Lucy replied. I smiled to myself. That little girl was wiser than Gandalf and Dumbledore combined, I swear. Turning around, I almost collided with Susan.
"Peter!" she said urgently. "You'd better come quickly."
"What's going on?" I asked as we followed her through the tunnel, then the forge and then into a passage I'd never been in before that sloped up rather than down.
"The Telmarines," Susan replied. "They didn't waste any time coming after us." Oh, shit. The tunnel did a full 180 as it went up, and we came out onto a rock outcropping- the highest one, and probably the only one that you could get to from inside. Caspian was already there, along with a round, bearded man I'd never seen before. They both looked back as we approached. When we drew up alongside them, I gasped and a fresh wave of fear rolled over me, quickly turning into panic.
Telmarine soldiers, thousands of them, were gathered into neat square regiments in the field. I saw with a terrified shudder that they also had catapults. Really, really big catapults. "Oh…my…" I breathed, unable to finish the phrase. Someone's hand wrapped around mine, fingers laced, gentle and strong and comforting.
I didn't have to look.
I knew it was Caspian.
:) …that's all that I can say. Reviews!
Lurve,
Gina
