I don't own Narnia or the Pevensies. I might go back and edit this later.
Forty minutes later, the castle had finally settled down into relative order. The wedding guests, unnecessarily informed that there would be no wedding that day, had retreated to their rooms to gossip nervously about what would become of them under the new (old) king. Vareth had begun the process of weeding out the guard – he'd momentarily stripped all but a few he knew personally of their weapons, and nearly all had given them up quite willingly, eager to prove their loyalty to him. Until the investigation of a few suspected of involvement with Vareth's overthrowing closed, the majority would be on leave – there were no real threats from which to defend the castle, anyway.
The servants had been released on holiday for at least the day, given how hard they'd been working the past few weeks, and the magicians had happily taken down all the ridiculous magical decorations around the castle. Abruptly, everything looked much more real and much more welcoming; sunlight rather than false light lit the corridors, the trees bore only the fruit they'd grown and the city beyond the castle gates was exploding with celebration following the magical announcement of Vareth's return. Danya's prediction had proved true – the people were glad to have their better king back.
Inside the castle, in a cozy room with a glass ceiling (magically supported), a slightly exhausted group of unlikely allies had finally sat down to figure out what had happened and what ought to happen next.
"I hate to ask this," Susan had said, "But do you mind starting from the beginning? Lu didn't have the time to explain when I saw her before."
As best they could, Peter, Edmund and Lucy explained how they'd come to find her – Aslan's message, the rings, the dark world from which Timothy had come, their journey across the Void, and here the first mystery came in. When Lucy explained how she'd woken up to catch Timothy stealing the two rings from her belt, they looked to him. He was seated next to one other man dressed in black, who he'd introduced as his king; Lucy remembered the crown of bone in the audience hall and shivered, then noticed it had changed to silver and started slightly.
"Firstly, Queen Lucy, I apologize for frightening you," said Timothy, sounding sincerely regretful. "And I know you must have all thought I was doing it out of impatience, to go back and open up the other world, but I say to you truthfully, I had every intention of aiding you to the end of your quest. It was a dream that came to me, Majesty; I knew then I had to take the rings. I didn't think you would believe me, and so I made to take them in the dead of night. I knew it was imperative I do it as soon as possible."
"What sort of dream?" Edmund questioned from where he lay sprawled in a cushy armchair.
"A message, really," Timothy replied, casting a glance up at the sky through the ceiling. "A message from the Great Lion."
"You know of Aslan, then?" Peter asked in confusion, across the low table from the older man, seated on a long couch beside his sisters. "But I thought he was a lion only to Narnians."
"Well, Your Highness, that's the thing…I am Narnian. All of us are, actually. We're all Narnians."
"What?" said Susan, baffled, looking from Timothy to his companion, the old king. "But how is that possible?"
"Allow me to explain," the grizzled old man cut in. He was a very grave-looking fellow with a slightly unruly silver beard and tired, noble blue eyes. "Some hundreds of years ago – I can't say how long it has been in Narnia; it may be that you have never even heard our story. But a very long time ago, a great war was fought in our country, against a terrible sorceress from a land called Charn."
"You can't mean the White Witch," Lucy said, frowning confusedly.
"Some did call her that, yes," nodded the king. "You know of her, then?"
"Of course we do," said Peter. "We fought her, too, in our own time. It's only after we defeated her that we could restore the kingdom and ascend the thrones."
"Then you are indeed the fulfillment of the prophecy," smiled the king, his eyes sparkling with understanding. "Narnia had grown insensible to the old warnings. In that age, we let the Tree of Protection fall into disease and decay, and when it finally fell, war was upon us, from an enemy we could never defeat. We lost that war, and it was then that the White Witch banished every human in Narnia to this unknown world, where we laid in wait more than a century for rescue. She wished to prevent the prophecy from coming true."
The room was silent a moment – it was a lot of information to process.
"So every person in your world," Lucy began slowly, trying to see if she understood. "Every person was once a Narnian, many many years ago. Timothy…in a dream, Aslan told you to go and rescue your people, and to lead them back into this world? Is that right?"
"That's right," Timothy agreed, smiling. "After I took the rings, I went straight back to the other world – I remembered which pool it was; the water is darker. With a purpose, I could still remember who I was, not like I'd forgotten after being there so long in the first place. I came to King Ollen and told him I had found a way out, and he believed me because I was so very filthy after the Void, and there's no way to get that dirty in his world. So we gathered everyone, and I told them the situation, and we armed ourselves and came back to help you."
"But didn't you reappear in the wrong city?" Peter frowned. "I thought the rings would take you to the same place in each world each time."
"They did, actually," Timothy nodded. "But a massive army can be a useful bargaining tool. We convinced those last wedding guests they could wait and the magician took us over the Void by Wren. I see we arrived just in time, though."
"You certainly did," Susan nodded. "Thank you. We can't say it enough times. You saved all our lives."
"And you saved our kingdom," said Danya, speaking for the first time. She and Roche occupied a smaller couch. "Our thanks for that as well."
"But it was your king who brought an end to the battle," the old king, who Lucy assumed was King Ollen, pointed out.
"How did he escape, anyway?" Lucy asked curiously – it had just occurred to her that the last time she'd spotted Vareth, he'd been in prison, manacled; certainly unable to get up to the throne room on his own.
"I enlisted some help from the smithy," Danya shrugged. "When the servants saw what he'd done to Roche, they finally decided they had nothing left to lose. We'd agreed to revolt, with Vareth's support, but we never needed to once your army showed up."
"I think I'll need to hear this all over again before I understand it," Susan said, blowing out a long breath.
"I think I'm hungry, and that takes precedence," said Edmund randomly.
Susan stood up decisively.
"First things first, then, food. We can figure out what happens next later," she agreed.
"Well come on, then," said Danya with a smile, helping Roche up – he was still weak after his ordeal, despite the cordial. "We have a whole feast made for a wedding that never did happen. I'm sure we can dig you up something or another."