Disclaimer: I don't own the Chronicles of Narnia. I'd be writing all this on a 14 karat gold laptop, if I did, though!
a/n: Okay, I know that you all want Caspian. I do too, actually. Preferably in my room, surrounded by scented candles and red rose petals with his crown on. Only…his crown on. But be patient, he is on his way, I give you my word as a word-weaving whiz kid.
And this is a long one, but it's my favorite so far…
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Chapter 5: The Belly of the Whale
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Caitlin was standing completely still, up to her shins in water. In her hands was a haphazard net that she'd constructed out of strips of denim from the jeans she had from home, and it had settled on the bottom of the river so much that it was hard to tell where it stopped or started.
She'd been in this position for several minutes, and her neck began to hurt minutely from looking down into the water for so long. To her left, on the riverbank, the pups were all watching impatiently for another fish to make its way into Caitlin's clever little trap, hitting one another if they made so much as a squeak that could scare them away. Their Big Sister, as they'd started calling her, suddenly caught sight of a long, silvery fish as it made its way lazily around the calm waters at the base of a small waterfall. She smirked devilishly as it unknowingly inched towards her, but she remained motionless.
At long last, the unfortunate little creature had wandered into the net's grasp. Caitlin waited a lengthy minute to be sure that she would catch it, and then yanked the net out of the water and catapulted that evening's supper towards her waiting fans.
"Yippee!!" yelled one of the pups as he jumped to catch the fourth fish of the day.
Caitlin smiled and dragged her net out of the water. "Is that enough, do you think?"
One of the girls nodded. "Mummy only ever needs three or four to feed everyone."
"Maybe, but Big Sister eats even more than Poppa…" another otter sibling muttered, making Caitlin laugh in surprise.
"You, little brother, need to learn tact! One doesn't just go around commenting on a girl's appetite, unless he wants a slap on the head!" Caitlin said playfully before hoisting the basket of fish over her shoulder and nodding for the pups to follow. "Come on, I suppose we should start heading back."
The pups gave their best attempts at pitiful faces, but Caitlin just rolled her eyes. "If we get back with enough time," she said temptingly, "I might feel like going for a swim. But that's only if you all -"
Caitlin hadn't even said that they had to behave before the pups were scampering up the riverbank at a high rate of fuel consumption. She fell in behind them, catching up with their little legs with a few long strides of her own. She'd learned that the pups were very easy to tell apart after a second glance; sure, they were all brown on the top and white on their bellies, with the bottom half of their face being the color of fresh cream, but each pup was a slight bit different. Alo, for example, was the biggest of the pups. He was a tad darker than his siblings and had quite a rebellious streak. Pike was the other boy, easily set apart by a white spot that was set over each of his eyes and his tendency to whine. Mera could often be seen competing with Pike for attention, or trying to avoid getting mud on her fur. She had a dark ring around each of her ears that made her easy to pick out. And finally, there was Dush, the youngest of them. She was the only timid one, with the fur over her nose being dappled enough that it looked like she had freckles. It was her that had suggested that Caitlin share their mother, and it was Dush that appeared most often to help her Big Sister, keeping close enough to seem like a part of Caitlin's shadow. So, as Caitlin watched, she was able to see that Alo was gaining on Pike's slight lead in the race towards home, with Mera griping that it wasn't fair because they were both bigger and had longer legs and Dush just following along and trying to keep the peace.
Her mind caught itself as she watched the little furballs run to and fro, and she forced herself to remember that her time with them was only temporary until she found a way home. She'd been with the otters for nearly three weeks by that point, and as more time passed, she found it harder and harder to summon memories of home or her life there. And yet, despite the surmounting feeling that it was a fruitless cause, Caitlin relentlessly kept herself aware of who she was, where she'd come from, and why she had to go back.
It was most definitely growing more difficult to remember who she was, though; her reflection on the river's surface was changing at a rapid pace from the pale, short-haired girl she'd been upon arrival. Her skin, which had been so pale it nearly glowed in the dark, was now sun-kissed and a tad darker, with no sunburn in sight. (That had been a blessing in itself, with all of her time outside with the pups; she'd always gotten torched on every single beach vacation since birth to the point that she resembled a boiled lobster.) Her hair had changed as well, growing rapidly from just below her chin to just past her shoulders. The sun had lightened it quite a bit too, from the color of dead grass to a pretty shade of gingery blonde. Even slight waves were beginning to show in her hair as it grew. It was all rather surreal, actually; she was beginning to suspect that the air in Narnia was enhanced with Garnier Fructis.
Despite her whirring thoughts, Caitlin trudged along without giving away any inner disarray. Already, she could see the den less than a minute away, where the kids had already arrived and were waiting for her most impatiently. They observed as she set the fish just inside the doorway and gave a quick greeting to Mrs. Otter, then slowly turned around and made a big scene of stretching and yawning.
She sighed dramatically, and the pups braced themselves for her saying that she was too tired. But without warning, their Big Sister broke out into a run so unexpectedly that she left the pups scrambling to catch up with her. "I'll beat you all there!"
"Nuh-uh!" Alo said dramatically, leading the race towards the little lagoon that was further upstream.
It was a quick yet heated race, since the lagoon wasn't even five minutes up the river, but somehow it still ended with Caitlin 'tripping' just a few feet from the finish and Pike taking the victory with plenty of whining and complaining from the others.
Caitlin let the little ones jump in first and do a bit of splashing before she stepped into the shallows to join them. To the left of the pool was a mudbank that the pups used as a makeshift waterslide to rocket into the water and surprise one another. This part of the stream got quite deep, almost up to Caitlin's chest, but without much of a current pushing them towards the little rapids further downstream, it was perfect conditions for an all-out splash fight.
Pike attacked his siblings mercilessly, splashing with his strong back legs and getting them all right in the face; the rest of the pups wiped the water from their eyes and joined in the fun just as enthusiastically, but something had frozen Caitlin in her position on the outskirts of the frenzied game.
Dush, in her odd awareness of others' feelings, noticed her Big Sister's absence almost immediately and swam over to her with a look of concern.
Caitlin was staring at her hands, a look of resignation alighting in her celadon eyes as Dush approached. Something was obviously the matter, Dush realized as she saw the jumbled feelings written all over the Daughter of Eve's face. "Big Sister? What's the matter, did you hurt your hand?"
The girl looked up at Dush, as if just realizing where she was, and shook her head. "Um, no Dush, nothing's the matter. I'm just sort of sleepy."
The pup nodded sympathetically. "You were out in the sun a lot today, and Mummy says that can make you tired."
Caitlin nodded, still distracted. "Yes, I suppose that's it…I'm going to sit out for a little bit, okay hun?" She didn't wait for a reply from her semi-aquatic sibling, but instead stood up and walked out with her hands in front of her like she was holding something precious. The other pups soon dragged a concerned Dush back into their shenanigans, leaving Caitlin alone with her thoughts.
It was stupid, she realized, to feel the way she did as she looked at the two slippery circles that were in her hands; she had been in Narnia three weeks, and they had barely hung on that long. They were certain to fall out eventually, but now that they had… Caitlin could scarcely function as she realized that the thing she'd taken most for granted back home was now lost to her: her silly little contact lenses. She'd had them for so long that she'd nearly forgotten what it was like to have everything look like a bad Impressionist painting, so blurred and distorted. She could only see the movement and colors of the young pups just a few feet from her, and she couldn't distinguish a single blade of grass from the riverbank that she sat on, just a mass of green and brown.
And still, she stared. Some hopeful thought whispered that if she stared and thought long enough, she could figure out a way to fix the miniscule tear in them, or clean them in something that wasn't pond water, and then be able to see perfectly again. She looked around her once more, wondering if she could function in a foreign world without being able to see it, wondering if she could
survive if she couldn't see a threat coming, or questioning if she could protect the pups if a predator was too far away for her to see.
It was a long, long time that she sat there; the pups played and lounged and talked amongst themselves for close to an hour, until the sun had started to rejoin the horizon in the west, and still she sat, weighing pro against con. She would close her eyes in thought, then open them up and squint around at the darkening forest, or poke at the lenses where they were drying out on her palms.
Finally, she stood up on unsteady feet. "We need to get home, pups." That was all she said before she turned around and headed in the direction of the den. Long before then, Alo, Pike, and Mera had realized that something was wrong, just as Dush had; for once, there were no protesting comments or complaints. The pups filed out of the water and walked on either side of their Big Sister. If they saw her squinting or taking abnormally deep breaths, they didn't say anything out loud or to one another. Fireflies were beginning to come out in earnest for the first time since winter ended, but if anyone noticed it, they kept their observations to themselves.
Soon enough, Caitlin realized that she was in front of the Otter home, and that the pups had already gone inside, and that Pike was holding the door for her with a fretful look on his furry face. His Big Sister tried to give him her trademark smirk, but her lips wouldn't hold a happy curve. She leaned into the doorway, enough to see Mr. and Mrs. Otter setting out five more plates of food. "You don't need to put my dish out yet. I'm going to stay outside for a while, since its so nice out."
Just like their children, if her surrogate parents noticed any turmoil in their guest's demeanor, they gave nothing away. "Very well, dear one. We'll keep a plate warm for you until you come in." Mrs. Otter said softly, and Caitlin nodded in silent gratitude before turning around and closing the door behind her.
It was still bright enough that Caitlin could maneuver herself around the lighter parts of the forest without too much trouble, but shadows began to form nightmarish shapes and creatures to her muddled eyes, causing her to stay in the sunlight if at all possible. After a few minutes of walking and making sure that she could make her way home by following the shape and sound of the river, Caitlin stopped her robotic pace and dropped to her knees in the mud of the riverbank.
With one shaking hand, she burrowed her slim fingers into the wet earth and began to clear away a small hole. The only sound around her was the river's trickling and bubbling, as well as her breathing as it got choppier and more strained with emotions she, for once, could not control. Within minutes, she had dug away enough earth to fit her arm up to the skinny elbow, and with dirty fingers, she scraped the shriveled contact lenses from her sweating palm and into the damp darkness. As she moved her hand to replace the dirt, she found that she was even blinder than she'd been a moment before as tears welled in her eyes and a horrible pain started in her throat as she tried to calm herself. It was useless to try; the only way she eased the pain was to let out the strangled sobs that had been leeching the happiness from her every minute of every day that she'd been away from home. They wracked her shoulders, tugged at every muscle in her body, until her arms stopped supporting her and let her fall sideways in the dirt.
As mud worked its way into her hair and skin, her mind threw hundreds of little thoughts in her face. She realized that she'd stopped wearing shoes only a few days after arriving in Narnia, took in that she hadn't even seen the winter clothes that she'd come in since that first morning with Mrs. Otter and had actually tried to forget about the itchy wool peacoat and the jeans that were now unrecognizable in the form of her fishing net. She wore clothes that Mr. Otter had bought cloth for, from a merchant in some Narnian market, and that Mrs. Otter had sewn together for her with Narnian thread and a Narnian needle. Her face was even distorting itself to resemble some creature of the Fey, with bright eyes and long limbs. What did she retain from her old life? When had it become her old life? When, exactly, had she begun to surrender to her twisted fate and submerse herself in this unfamiliar world? In what moment had she started to let her mind erase the little details of home, and then the bigger ones, and then whole memories as they turned to a foggy clash of homesick feelings and worries that ate away at her?
Every venomous thought was like a kick to the stomach, and Caitlin let the salty tears run rampant down her face, into her mouth, into the earth, through her hair. Her knees had long since dragged themselves up to her stomach, and now she lifted a feeble hand to drag the rest of the dirt over the last morsel of connection between the old and the new. Her tears turned silent, but still violently quaked through her body. It was surprising how tired she'd made herself, and suddenly Caitlin realized that it was quite easy to cry yourself to sleep.
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There was no way to tell how much time had passed when a familiar sound reached Caitlin's ears. She tried to open her eyes, and after a moment the dried tears dissolved and let her eyelashes separate. She could feel how heavy and swollen her eyes were, and could still feel the pain in her stomach from where her muscles had been abused by her brutal catharsis. The sound came again, and Caitlin could not pinpoint how she knew the noise, and yet she knew it somewhere deep inside of her. She tried to focus her vision, but slowly remembered why it had become so impossible and felt her face contort with more sadness. She saw that soft light was now around her, and realized that she must've slept through the night on the squishy ground. As she tried to sit up, her heart stopped as the light that was supposed to be sunlight actually moved, so that it was in front of her, followed closely by the sound that was eating away at her.
And then, one shining memory whispered to her what it was. Sleighbells…
Caitlin raised her eyes slowly to the source of the glow, and even though she could only distinguish the figure's colors and familiar shape, she knew exactly who the source of the deep chuckle and brightest of reds and greens belonged to.
"Hello, Ms. Caitlin Elysium." Father Christmas said softly, holding out a mitten-soft hand to help her stand up. "I say, you look a bit worse for the wear, my dear." He said all of this with such a calming
voice that Caitlin didn't respond as he brushed mud from her clothes or hair away from her face until, by magic, there was none at all on her person.
She squinted up at him, just basking in the childish feeling that had risen like champagne bubbles inside of her. "How…"
"How is this possible?" the jolly man finished for her. "Well, little one, it was a mere five days before Christmas before you came here, and I could not bear to have such a lovely young lady be so far from home without her enjoying Christmastime. If anything, I am far overdue for a visit, right Ms. Elysium?"
Caitlin was thrown off by the usage of her last name; it had almost been lost to her in the time since she'd been home. She spoke up softly, still fearing that the happy spirit that had taken her under his warm arm was a hallucination. "For…for so long, I've been told you aren't possibly a real person. I always wrote you long letters, and wished for things, and wanted to meet you, but you never came, just like they said. But now you're…you've actually come to find me this time, instead of me looking and hoping to find you."
Father Christmas nodded. "Yes, my dear, this time I have come to find you. But you're hardly a child enough anymore to let yourself trust your ears or your blurry eyes and know that I'm really here."
Caitlin suddenly couldn't look at the elf. "When I realized you wouldn't ever come, I stopped being a frivolous child and had to grow up. That's what my parents said."
A mitten-covered finger tapped her nose kindly, making her look back up at the rosy face. "You have always been governed by your own logic, Caitlin. I do not believe that you ever stopped being a child, since you still found ways for so many things that your world deems impossible to be reality."
She smiled softly, finding it hard to remain so sullen in Father Christmas' presence. "Especially you, Santa."
He laughed, deep in his belly. She noticed that it really did jiggle like Jell-O, much to her delight. "Yes Caitlin, especially me. You are proof that even a nineteen-year-old can remain happily like a child, and such a kind and good one in your case." Caitlin realized that she was now tucked under a lovely embroidered blanket in his sleigh.
In his hands, from nowhere, was a small wooden box with a red ribbon on its lid. "For you, Caitlin." Father Christmas said cheerfully as she took the small thing in her newly-clean hands.
With a silly grin, Caitlin tugged the ribbon off of the box and stuck it to the top of her head like her parents had done on the home video of her first Christmas. The box came apart with little effort, revealing a small, glinting something with a silver chain attached to it. Squinting, Caitlin picked up the long chain and brought the glittering object right in front of her eyes. At its top was the face of a snarling beast, mouth wide and fanged in its ferocity, elaborately framed by delicate metalwork. The creature's one menacing eye was a luminous garnet. The bottom was a straight and narrow band of iron that was cold under her fingers as she held it. "This is really intricate, wow." She murmured, looking back up at the jolly elf. "What it is, a necklace?"
Father Christmas shook his head, still smiling. "No, no, my dear; it is a key." He spun the key's shank so that Caitlin could squint at the little teeth at its end. "This is a very special key, Caitlin. It is called the Everkey, and it is the only one of its kind to ever have been forged."
Caitlin looked at the key again, skeptical. "What's so special about it?"
His blue eyes twinkled like a happy child's at her question. "This key is able to open any secret place, any lock, or any door that the possessor wishes to behold, as long as they do so with honest intention. I give this to you knowing that you will not use it to plunder or steal, and that it will be of great use to you while you live in Narnia."
Blonde eyebrows raised with fascination as Caitlin looked at her gift once again. This time, she squinted harder to see the detail around the animal's feral teeth where the skin was drawn back, noticing another odd feature that she'd not glimpsed before. "What's in the little beastie's mouth? It looks like got dented." she said, pointing a finger at the little abrasion in the metal.
"That is a keyhole, little one." Father Christmas said. The teenager gave him a look of disbelief, but peered closer. Indeed, it was in the telltale shape of a keyhole.
Caitlin frowned. "Why would a key have a lock? Decoration?"
Father Christmas chuckled. "The key itself has a lock that must be unlocked by another, smaller key. No single man - or woman - should ever wield full power over anything; that is an ancient Narnian belief. The Everkey, therefore, is useless unless unlocked by its counterpart, which would be held by another in order to keep any particular person from becoming too powerful."
Realizing his meaning, Caitlin huffed in disappointment. "Then it's worthless?"
The elf smiled and patted Caitlin's shoulder. "Only for now, my dear, I promise you. As I said, you will have need of it in the future." With a mighty groan from the sleigh, Santa climbed in next to Caitlin and took up the reins. "Well now, you've been away from home long enough. Let us get you back to the den."
As the sleigh jolted into motion, Caitlin realized that she had no problem calling the otter den her home anymore. It took longer to get back to the den, it seemed, than it had to blindly maneuver herself through the woods earlier. She sighed. "I'd be stumbling around in the dark if you hadn't come along." She said with a wistful smile. "It's too bad you didn't bring any contact solution."
The last part had been said with no real expectation, but Caitlin looked away from the blurry forest rushing by as he laughed. "What?" she asked, thinking she'd said something stupid.
Underneath them, the sleigh had stopped in front of the Otter's den. Father Christmas turned to her as she climbed down from beside him, still giving his deep belly laughs. From inside the den, scrambling feet could be heard as Mr. and Mrs. Otter rushed outside to see the source of the strange noises.
Mrs. Otter let out a frantic "Caitlin! Oh, thank Aslan you're not hurt!" and then she and her husband seemed to realize the sleigh and reindeer and red-nosed Yuletide joy-bringer, as well as the fact that Caitlin was almost eerily clean.
Father Christmas waved at the two stupefied otters with a warm smile. "Hello, Otter."
Mr. Otter gave a shaky. "F-Father Christmas."
"You are truly a good soul to have taken Caitlin in as you have." The jolly old elf said cheerily. "The young lady is eternally grateful to be living as your guest."
"We're…honored to have her with us as well, sir." Mr. Otter said sheepishly, winking at Caitlin good-naturedly.
And then, Father Christmas was taking up the reins again and ruffled Caitlin's hair affectionately one last time before the reindeer had ascended into the starry sky, still glowing like the brightest candle.
Caitlin watched him go, the champagne-bubbly feeling sticking to her despite the elf's absence. Suddenly, though, Caitlin realized that she could still see Santa as he rose higher, that she could see him at all. She turned around to her otter family in a rush, and laughed gleefully when she was able to see them clearer than she ever had before. "I can see!" she cried. "I can see, oh my gosh!"
The two otters behind her stayed silent, completely confused by her outburst, but still realizing that the fact that she could see was a significant change from her previous state.
"THANK YOU!! THANK YOU SO, SO MUCH!" Caitlin yelled, cupping her hands to the sides of her mouth in the direction that the sleigh had disappeared. She waved at the retreating spirit even after she lost sight of him.
Behind her, Mrs. Otter took Mr. Otter's paw in hers. Their eyes met, full of happiness, as they watched their Daughter of Eve prance about as if she had not a burden in the whole of the world.
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Hooray! That took half my life to write, but still, hooray! Review please, that'd be lovely, and no worries, we see Caspian extremely soon! Love always, a stiff-handed Fausta