AN: Here's the last chapter, more tweaked than any of the others, but Elinda and Peridan have developed as characters since I first wrote this. Thanks for reading!
Burnt are our homes; exile and death
Scatter the loyal men.
Yet ere the sword cool in the sheath
Charlie will come again.
XXII.
Telmar
The Thirty-Fourth Year of Chief Belisan
The air in the valley of Telmar cooled swiftly once the sun set behind the mountains, and Peridan and Lucy hurried to get back before dark. The next morning, Peter felt a good deal better, and Lady Gree pronounced his marrow properly thinned. After breakfast, a boy arrived from Kahuna Lodge, inviting King Peter and Queen Lucy to come and negotiate a treaty.
They sat on straight-backed chairs at a table pulled up to Chief Belisan's great throne and discussed terms. It took most of the day, but at last they hammered out an agreement in which Narnia got cows and leather, silver and turquoise, while Telmar got horses and silk and steel. Also, Telmarine youths could come to Narnia to be trained as knights, and if they brought a cow and a calf with them, they would be provided with a mount. To seal the bargain, High King Peter of Narnia presented the chief with a Dwarf-wrought sword and a bolt of Dryad silk, and Chief Belisan, King of the Mountains gave Peter, High King of Narnia a hammered leather belt with silver buckle and three cows, two with calves and one that would freshen in the fall. The chief also gave Lucy a necklace wrought of silver and inlaid with turquoise stones.
As for Peridan, (Belisan said) take him and good riddance. (When Lucy told Peter of Peridan's wish to come to Narnia, Peter got that look on his face that meant he had an idea, but he merely said that it was a good plan.) Lady Gree beamed when Peridan asked her blessing and if she wanted to come, too.
"Aye, son. Go to Narnia and learn of this Aslan. I am too old to travel across the mountains and learn new people, but you are no older than was Glen your great-great-grandfather when he came to Telmar." She glanced at Lucy. "Marry a good woman, and bring your children back to visit."
"Aye, mother. I'll do my best."
They rose the next morning before the sun touched the tips of the western mountains and loaded Chrysophylax with the sack of buckwheat, the loaves of bread and the skins of milk Gree had given them.
"Don't forget my mountain gold!" said Chrysophylax, and he wouldn't budge until Lady Gree found a pouch for his glittery stones and Lucy secured them in one of the packs. The Winged Horses pawed the ground, eager to be off, and Loneruff let off a long, joyful howl that woke any remaining sleepers in town. Peter announced that he would do the chivalrous thing—let Lucy ride on Chrys while he walked with the cows and Wolves—and Lucy suppressed a smile.
Lady Gree embraced them all in turn, and Lucy really was sorry to leave, even if Chief Belisan was a rude old man. Lady Gree was tiny, but she was comforting to hug, and Lucy thought she smelled like a mother. "Come back any time," she whispered. "I'll have milk for that dragon of yours, and we'll talk story again."
"I will," Lucy whispered back. And she would, she knew.
The cows with their calves didn't want to move through the mountains at more than glacial speed, but Narnia was calling and Peridan had a sharp stick with which to poke them along. They made reasonable time, and got home on the fifth day. King Aran had gone home, but Susan threw a great feast anyway, and there was storytelling and dancing and singing and laughter late into the night.
Peridan was an instant favorite, dancing with all the ladies of the court, even Mrs. Twinkletacks and Lady Windspring, the Centaur physician. Lucy found him a quick learner at the Narnian circle dances and reels, and in return he taught her a Telmarine jig. One by one, the rest of the revellers realized that Queen Lucy and Peridan of Telmar were face-to-face, jigging as if their lives depended on it, and the great hall fell silent to watch the contest.
On and on they jigged, as the fiddlers scraped and the kithara players plucked madly at their strings, until at last Peridan called to the Queen (loud enough for all to hear, and without missing a step),
"A truce, my lady?"
"Aye!" she returned, grinning and breathless, and they bowed to one another. The weary musicians laid down their instruments and flexed their fingers, the buzz of conversation began again as the crowd drifted to the tables for more wine, and the contestants collapsed into chairs, fanning themselves.
It was then that Maid Elinda of Bearclaw Keep arrived through a side door, breathless and blowsy and trying to slip unobserved into the seat next to Lucy's.
"I heard you were back and came as quick as I could!" she said, squeezing Lucy's arm.
"I missed you!" said Lucy. "Next time, your mother mustn't give birth just when we're leaving, and you shall come with me, and we'll leave poor Peter at home. Is baby Antha well?"
"Shall we go on a quest and be knighted? She is quite well, thank you, and mother sends her greetings."
"We shall! But oh, I've been terribly remiss, and must introduce you to our latest visitor. Elinda, let me present Peridan of Telmar, of the ancient line of Frank before the Winter and come to Narnia for training as a knight. Peridan, this is Maid Elinda of Bearclaw Keep, descended from Charles the fifth son of Frank the First and my dearest friend beside my sister."
Peridan rose to greet Elinda and bowed very low, kissing her hand, though his eyes never left her face. "I am honored to meet you, Maid Elinda," said he, and his voice was low, so low that even Lucy could barely hear.
Elinda flushed and lowered her eyes. "And I you," she replied, her voice equally low. "Perhaps we shall train together when I am at Cair Paravel."
"And when I am a knight"—he'd winked at all the ladies that night but Lucy thought he suddenly seemed shy—"might I someday carry your favor?"
"No knight has yet carried my handkerchief in the jousts," she whispered, looking up at him. "I think . . . when you are a knight, I think I should like it if you did."
Lucy looked away. The dancing had resumed, but it seemed to be winding down, and as the song ended, Peter's chair scraped and he rose.
"Let us have a tale!" he called. "The night is yet young!"
Beside Lucy, Elinda stirred and seemed to notice that her hand was still in Peridan's. She pinked again and quickly withdrew it. Peridan straightened.
"My liege, I know a tale!" he cried. "Shall any listen?"
"What tale have you?" said Peter.
"A tale of adventure and strange lands, a sequel to the tale of King Frank the Lost."
"We listen. Tell us your tale."
"Peter?" Lucy heard Susan whisper.
"Yes?" he whispered back.
"Don't you think he looks rather a lot like—"
"I am Peridan," he said, raising and deepening his voice so it would carry through the Great Hall. "Peridanian Gree, Gria Arla, Arlia Olvin, Olvinian Glen, Glenian Drake."
"Shh," whispered Peter. "He's starting. Of course he does."
XXIII.
England
The First Year of King George VI
"And then what happened, Grandma Susie?" cried Lucy.
Grandma Susie handed a now-untangled square of knitting back to Susan. "Well, we asked everyone in town. Each person had his own opinion about what we should do, but even Mrs. Finch didn't know anything about little Frank."
"Did you ask the police?" said Edmund, looking up from the toy soldiers he was commanding.
"Yes, we did, and we placed advertisements in several papers, but they went unanswered."
"So you kept him!" said Lucy, who could listen to Grandma Susie tell stories all day.
"Well, at last we decided that the good Lord had sent him to us. We wanted a son, and Frank wanted a home. I've always wondered what happened to his family. We decided to do the thing properly, and christened him in the church as Frank Colin Pevensie, with my schoolfriend Mabel Ketterly and her husband for his godparents, and he called us Mother and Father."
"What did did Mrs. Finch say?" asked Peter.
"Oh, she said that nothing good would come of it. He certainly was a queer boy, and it took him awhile to stop talking about that lion, but he has grown into a fine young man—generous, courageous, fair, and he's always been gentle with animals. He married a good girl, and they aren't doing too poorly with you young ones. All in all, I don't think I could wish for a finer son than little lost Frank."
XXIV.
Narnia
The First Year of High King Peter
"What happened in those two years?" asked Peter when Timeseer fell silent.
"Many things," said the Centaur, staring into the dying coals of the fire. "Many terrible things. The Northern Queen remained all winter at Ravenswood, and though she went back to the north for the hottest month of summer, she returned when the leaves began to change, bringing with her more of the bird-women and wolf-men, as well as horrible creatures never before seen in Narnia. The Freed Narnians ran wild again that summer. Almost all the remaining Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve left Narnia, some for the Islands, some for Archenland. In the autumn, King Drake married Queen Jadis."
Edmund had been poking the fire again; he looked up sharply and his knuckles turned white on his stick.
"Yes," said Timeseer. "Afterward, he must have realized some inkling of who she was and tried to fight back. Perhaps he contacted the King of Archenland and asked for help, but already his new wife had grasped far too much power. Shortly after the New Year she took him down to the Stone Table and killed him there."
No one said anything.
"That winter was the bitterest ever, and Milophylax the Dragon flew over the mountains to Archenland, where he was killed by the King of Archenland and his knights."
"Was that when the Winter began?" said Susan.
"No. Though late, spring came. By that time and without Milophylax to rouse them, most of the Freed Narnians had decided that Drake was the one against whom they had really been revolting, but now he was dead. They called Jadis a second Swanwhite—Snow-white, some said, and truly, her beauty had not the warmth of the legendary Queen but the chill pallor of snow—and they heralded her rule as the beginning of a new peace.
"But as long as the Prince, now Narnia's true king, was still hidden within her borders, the witch's powers could not take full control. This she soon realized, and systematically hunted down his guardians—those secretly calling him King Frank the Seventh. Nightshadow and Sootquill she captured and killed on the Stone Table, but the boy himself was kept well hidden.
"Then, one terrible day, not long after a joyless Christmas—the first Christmas in Narnian history for which Father Christmas had not come—she and her wolves found them. They tore the entire sett apart, turning whomever she saw to stone. Every tunnel was followed, every corner searched. Clearscry and Mrs. Twinkletacks, who were there that day with our young King—then just three years old—were turned to stone with all the Badgers. Perriwig the Dwarf, who went often from his mine-shafts to the sett, was not there, and for all we know escaped. Young King Frank was never found."
"Where was he?" said Lucy.
"I do not know. Mrs. Twinkletacks tells me she was teaching him to hold up three fingers for his age when she heard the wolves growling and snapping overhead. She looked up, and then a warm breeze blew through the place where they were sitting, though it was winter and underground, and it carried the scent of springtime and sunshine."
"Aslan?" said Lucy.
Timeseer nodded. "She looked to see whence the breeze came, and when she looked back, Frank was gone. Then the witch and her wolves were upon her."
He stopped speaking and gazed again into the coals.
"What happened next, sir?" asked Peter at last.
"The witch, furious, turned a lot of other Narnians to stone, including the Centaur prophet. And so the Long Winter began. That is my tale."
He bowed and drained the last of his wine. The tale had put all into a solemn mood, and though they clapped and thanked him, they sat in silence for a long time.
At last Lucy, her chin in her hand, spoke. "I wonder what happened to King Frank the Lost. I wish he had grown up here and killed the Witch."
"Though we do not know what would have happened if young Frank stayed in Narnia, Aslan always keeps his promises," said Timeseer quietly, "and I believe he kept his word to Queen Althea."
"But how?" This from Susan.
The Centaur smiled a rare smile. "You have filled the four thrones of Cair Paravel, those of Shale and Birk, Wren and Silva; you have brought the death of the witch and the end of the winter; and you have restored Narnia. Where Aslan took the boy-king I do not know, but it was I, the Centaur Prophet, who blessed the twin princes, and it is I who say this:
"You, High King Peter, are as blond as the good Narnian Kings of old. Like King Frank the First, you lead your people in peace and in war, and are generous with all you have. Queen Susan, you are the true successor to Swanwhite—as the witch, with her frozen beauty, never was—for you have the warmth and love that made Swanwhite's reign such a bright time of peace. Already your people love you, and I have seen that you love your family and your people with the gentle tenderness of a mother.
"You, King Edmund—as Clearscry the Eagle remarked on the morning after the Battle of Beruna Ford—you have the walnut-brown hair and freckles of young King Frank; and Aslan has given you the wisdom to give his people fair and impartial justice.
"And last, our golden-haired Queen Lucy. Young though you may be, you are courageous and valiant—and already you look a great deal like your grandmother."
Original prompt we sent you:
What I want: I love new places (countries or settlements never mentioned in the books) and lesser-known mythological creatures. It's always fun to see an outsider's view of the Pevensies (or any of the Friends of Narnia, for that matter). In that frame of mind, I also love the slow gathering of clues by the children's parents that leads to the eventual realization that there's more to those kids than meets the eye. I do prefer action to introspection.
I have a sweet spot for AUs - dark, technologically advanced, gender-swapped, what-ifs... I'd list specific ideas, except I'd probably never stop.
Other than that, I'll leave this pretty open in terms of characters and time periods and the like. Go crazy - I'll love it.