She was seated at the bluff's edge, silhouetted against the red of the sunset, and Erlian briefly wondered which of her minders had let her wander away this time before remembering that his sister was no longer a child. He approached cautiously, slow and loud, careful not to startle her. She gave no sign that she heard him, but then that was her way.
He settled himself next to her, watching her from the corner of his eye; the way her chestnut hair had fallen from its plait to toss in the wind, the way her too-thin arms were wrapped around her knees as she hugged them to her chest, the way the rich fabric of her dress bore signs of rough wear and little care. And her eyes- they never once turned his way, despite the fact that they were the only two on the bluff.
"Aislinn…"
"It's not time yet," she said quietly, still looking out to where the sun was falling behind the western mountains. Erlian harbored a brief hope that she was talking about coming down from the bluff, but her next words slew it mercilessly. "Not time yet, but soon, soon; all darkness and waves."
And that was the way it was with her. The king's poor mad daughter, she'd been called in her youth; prone to visions and bouts of silence and the rare lucid comment, she'd been born half-sane and doomed to spend her life regarded with an equal mixture of fear and pity. And that was no way for anyone to live.
But Aislinn hadn't cared as a child and didn't care now; she lived in a world that was made up by the future as much as it was by the past and present, and she spent too much time trapped in her own curse to care much what her father's court thought of her.
Erlian cared.
She turned to him, then, and regarded him with those startling grey eyes that seemed to look through a person rather than at them. "Erlian," she whispered. Her eyes raked him up and down, as though searching for something. When she caught sight of his tunic, she paused. "Never wear red." One pale hand reached over and stroked the bright scarlet of his shirt. Her fingers hesitantly traced the golden embroidery on his sleeve.
"Never wear red," she said again, though this time the words were louder. She pulled her hand away as though stung and turned her eyes back to the west. "It pulls all the color out of your face. Red like rubies, one two three, onto the blue, but it doesn't form purple, oh no, just crimson into mud on the blue and the Giants can see that, you know."
Erlian shivered, wishing he could take Aislinn back to Cair Paravel with him, away from these wild places. But that wouldn't do her any good, he knew; she'd always been worse near the sea. Shaking such thoughts away, he summoned his voice from where her words had chased it to and gave her the news he'd come to deliver. "Sereth and I have had a son, Aislinn. You have a nephew, and Narnia has a prince."
He didn't expect any acknowledgement and he didn't receive any, but his sister had deserved to know that she was an aunt. They sat in silence a few moments more before Erlian began to get chilled. He made to rise, knowing Aislinn would come down from the bluff in her own time and not a minute before.
"Erlian." Her voice was sharp, clearer than he'd heard in years, and it froze him where he sat. "I am glad; for you and for Sereth."
"You should come see him. Sereth would be glad of it, and Tirian should know my sister." The words tumbled out before he could stop them, born of desperation and a hope that news of his son had sparked sanity in his sister, however brief.
"I- Tirian?" Her voice lost its clarity again. His smile faded. "Tirian… hair like gold, catching the firelight, but that's soon gone, covered by darkness. But that's gone, too, just a shadow, a shadow through the door." She paused. "He won't be long afraid."
The last of the red faded from the sky as Erlian rose. "I'll give your congratulations to Sereth. Aislinn… I am sorry."
And then he was gone.
Aislinn remained. "Soon." She looked to where Erlian had disappeared, to the east. "It's just a shadow. It doesn't mean what you think."
And night fell.