Chasing Lights

"Is he quite safe?"

"Safe?" said Mr. Beaver. "Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the king I tell you."

-From the book of the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe

Dirt. It smelled like it. For he was covered in them too. There was only a brink of light in one side of the trench, letting him see the enclosed boulders of the trench that trapped them. The air was quite humid, and there were dusts that flew when he sighed the slightest. The crack he could see from above had rigid, sharp edges that were stained in year's soil age.

He was on his back, staring up at the dull sky that was met by the cluster of trees that surrounded it. Slender, russet columns that reached eagerly for the sky set adrift the feeling of the afternoon tensions.

The yellow earth beneath him was hard, caught on the grip of the incoming winter's chill. He rolled over, crouching and crawling trying to make sense where he was.

The faint rambling of rocks stirred in the great trench, causing the very bits to tumble in the black pit. From above, one could see that it was very dark, and from below, one could see the hopeful light. Incessant scrabbling of dirt and rocks were triggered when he began to stand up against the barrier behind him.

"Ah!" He gasped, his body scrambled back on the far end of the rock. When next to him, a skeleton laid there. Its body was clearly crushed, and its mouth, or what was left of a mouth, looked as if it were gasping for air. He sighed in relief, approaching the corpse. He was about to touch it when he heard something moan in agony. Edmund's head darted to that direction and saw something stir.

She was cloaked in shadows, and her figure was barely visible. Calla bit her lip, nearly tearing up in pain. She twisted her leg, trying to see if she could stand up. Now, she could hardly breathe. The suffocating pain and the pressing heat on her slit her ounces of breathing, turning them into ardent huffing.

"Calla is that you?" Edmund approached cautiously, crouching low as he bent down in front of her. She didn't move when his voice sought her attention. Instead, she met him with dark, unmoving eyes.

"Leave me." Calla answered reproachfully, her eyes dim and murky. Edmund looked at her shoulder and it was swelling and bruised.

"What happened?" His voice quivered, not knowing what to do. Calla shook her head dismissively, ripping a piece of her cloth afterwards.

"I can take care of myself. I am not a damsel." She stood up to go to a more concealed area, where she can clearly see her swelling wounds tied up. With the help of a nearby rock, she lifted herself up, before stumbling. Edmund caught her, but she pushed him away. The very minute his hands left her vulnerable waist, she toppled over. Her body coiled like a fetus, leaving her legs paralyzed with soreness. Edmund tried helping her, but all the more her hands refused his offer.

"I do not ask for pity." She rasped, crawling away from him.

"It's alright..just…"

"This is all your fault!" She screamed, angered that she had fallen into this situation she knew many did not come to survive.

"My fault?" He shouted back.

"I can't believe you! Why do I keep getting myself into trouble whenever you're here?"

"Because you're trouble yourself? You don't even have gratitude for my sisters who convinced the High King to keep you inside our castle!"

"I didn't need your help! I was fine the way I was." She hissed.

"Then you could've let Bane die." His voice dropped into an undertone, in a manner mixed in disappointment and wit. "Fine, then. Go suffer all you want. I shall not be deprived from what I offer." He said, kicking the rocks as he completely ignored her. Calla recoiled, thinking she could tie up the wounds all by herself. She picked up the bloodied rag and inched her way to a well-lit area, dust puffing up as she slunk herself down, biting her lip when the pain vibrated on her careless slouch.

Calla used her one arm to tie her shoulder, since the other arm was aching in relation with the sore shoulder. She curled the rag around her shoulder, but the fabric wouldn't meet the other end to be tied up with. Calla still thought she could go through this on her own. Calla urged to tie it, abruptly hitting her wound fervently, causing for it to bleed more. Both hands were sore and aching, and her fingertips began its solid twitching. Edmund's back was facing her. But he stayed still knowing Calla would only decline him. Then, her voice called him shakily.

"Edmund?" Her voice shook, since she had been tearing up from the pain.

No reply came.

"I-I need your h-help." She bit down on her lip, hoping he would answer.

Still, no reply came.

"Please." She whispered, under a coarse breath. Calla sighed in relief when Edmund faced her. He bent down beside her yet he did not do anything.

"You know what your problem is? You're too arrogant to let people help you." Edmund said.

"Help wasn't necessary before this."

"Doesn't matter." He muttered, walking over behind her. He ripped off a piece of his tunic, since the bloodied rag could have already been infected. Calla gathered her hair onto one side, so Edmund can work freely on her shoulder. "This might hurt a little." He warned, before beginning to help her tie her wound, to keep the blood from escaping the life out of her. Calla's fingertips curled into a fist when he was putting enough stress on her back. She didn't understand, why was he helping her. Did he not despise her in the first place? What was it that confused her very oddly?

Edmund finished by wrapping one of the ends to her arms, keeping it intact in its place.

"All done." Calla touched her back, feeling the fabric against her bruising wound. She felt the wet blood on her palms. Wet. Liquid. The idea seemed to fancy her. She licked her lips, and her hands massaged her throat, feeling thirsty. Edmund detected this and rummaged through his bag that fell with him. He pulled out a wooden flask they carried whenever they were hunting. Its form was shaped like a circle, and its cork was connected to the body itself by brown leather. He looked inside it, seeing only a handful left.

"Here" He said handing out to her. "It's not much, but it'll do." Calla warily took it, seeing there was only one flask left. She had already finished hers. She stared at him, confused. As if asking what was he to drink. Since his lips were no longer moist and tender, they were dry and cracked.

"Don't worry. I'll just...I'll be fine." She answered with a nod as she yanked the cork and began to drink from the flask thirstily, gasping in satisfaction when the last drop lingered on her jaw, dripping down to the dry earth. She felt so much better afterwards, yet her thirst for fresh air and cool grounds we

"I don't understand." Her voice broke the silence. "Why are you helping me? You see no reason to help after all I've done." Edmund glanced at her, finding it his best time to entail.

"It's not the reasons I try, Calla." He replied in a low voice. Its the need. For once, she saw him as a good man he really was. He did seem to posses this kind of beast inside of him, yet in the face of all aridity, there is the striving kindness that somehow survived in him. She rubbed her thumb against her palms.

"How do you think we'll get out of here?"

"How long had they been gone?" Bane asked worriedly, trotting aimlessly in different directions. "When are they coming back? Did anything happen to them? Why aren't they here yet?"

"Will you calm down?" Sabine reprimanded him.

"How can you expect me to calm down? They've been gone for quite a while now. Exactly how long does it take to scoop water and return?" He whirled around frantically. Phillip nudged Lumine, who was still bending over, looking at the wound on her hoof. Bane couldn't take it anymore. He stood up and sniffed the air, then in a second he was in a furious flurry of scampering the earth, with his muzzle glued to the rugged soil.

"Where do you think you're going?" Sabine gaited with him, attacking his flanks to get his attention.

"Escaping and whether you like it or not, I'm going away to look for them."

"Then I'm coming with you." Sabine said, trotting alongside him. Bane stopped on his tracks, blocking the path of the large coyote. "I'm worry about him just as much as you do. And apart from going the venture, someone needs to look after you. I'm clearly more capable in fending off wild beasts."

"Probably because you seem like one." Bane muttered under his breath, when Sabine had trotted ahead. The forest was quiet, and there were ceaseless, yet beautiful buzzing of crickets ushering them deeper into the isolated part of the woodland. Sabine clambered onto the barks of some trees, and chipped a few pieces of bark.

"Kind of disturbing, is it not?" Sabine said, once she had continued on. Bane followed her; ambiguous of which direction she was tracking.

"What is, exactly?"

"When the forest seems quiet." Sabine huffed. "They say only when a forest goes quiet, is when a predator is near." Bane shrugged, shaking his head in discernment.

"That's comforting, thank you." They passed a number of trees, continually breaking off in different courses. Their paws crunched dried the foliage of autumn, and even then they'd bite out a bark from each of the trees to mark where they had gone.

"This doesn't look like the right path." Sabine commented, once the mass of trees had grown so thick, it discouraged her to go in any further.

"It doesn't have to look, it has to smell like the right path."

"Maybe we've lost our way." She said after sniffing the hair. It had grown quite windy, and it had blown wisps of leaves dyed in the season's color. Bane stood up on his hind legs and sniffed the air too.

"We'll just sniff our way back if we did."

"What if this isn't the way?"

"Aye, it is! Do you not know your master's own scent?" Bane began circling her, and at the same time trying to keep track of the scent he had caught.

"Aye. But all I can perceive are rodents in this deserted part of the forest." She gestured her muzzle to the entirety of the foliage. "I say we circle back."

"That wouldn't solve anything." Bane said as he countered her suggestion.

"You're the one who insisted on this bloody expedition." Sabine growled, walking ahead of Bane seeing no point of turning back. "And we better not get lost in the daylight or I will rip your thr—"

"Sabine!" Bane ran as quickly as he could when he heard her yelp. There was a scrabbling of leaves and rocks until he slid down to clung on her neck. Sabine's paws clutched the ground, as her hind legs fought to claw the hole and hoist herself up. Bane pulled her up with his teeth, and pretty soon, a white fox emerged from the bleak hole, smeared in dirt and sudden means of panic and death. Sabine slunk herself on the ground, breathing heavily.

Bane looked at her confused, as he instinctively smelled that there was a drop as soon as he was a few feet from it.

"Why couldn't you tell there was that hole? You're a coyote. You have these massive gifts of foretell." Sabine closed her eyes when she stood up, and walked past him. Her head was held low, and her tail made subtle wags. She looked depressed and was consumed in downheartedness.

"Its alright. Tell me." Bane comforted, nudging her neck. Sabine finally faced him, ready to blurt out what was nearly keeping her insane after all these years.

Her voice dropped low. "I can't smell."

Bane stood frozen, and his mouth was paralyzed in horror. He would have been lost if he had not had his sense of smell. He never would've gotten anywhere, and neither would his life be. He used everything he knew by smelling, sniffing, detecting, telling. It was kind of like his best friend when he turns to hunt.

"W-What do you mean 'you can't smell?'" He shivered. Sabine uttered a sigh, shaking her head in disappointment.

"I was born without it." She paused. "I don't know how. All my life, I'd been trying hard to survive since I was a pup, when my mother left me. Edmund took me in when he was hunting for the first time for the White Stag."

"And Sagi?" Bane asked, thinking about her elite reasons for not having Sagi as a meal when she had first encountered him.

"I met Sagi when I was a young coyote. I was chasing him in Dancing Lawn, and when he disappeared into the burrows, I couldn't find him. When he came out, I had him locked on one corner and was about to finish him when he told me he knows I can't smell. He offered me to be his guide, and he can smell things for me when I can't. In return, I promised to protect him. Always." Sabine looked away and laid down.

"He's the reason I became an alpha. He's not like the other animals that would think I was useless." Bane prodded her shoulder.

"Aslan never creates anything useless." Bane whispered. Sabine licked his cheek.

"Thanks." Bane stood motionless. He was in a state of bliss, consummate in the ecstasy of contentment. His paws dug into the earth, and he was shivering in feelings hard to untangle. He never had this sensitivity. He never had this reaction. Except when Calla would leisurely rub his stomach on lazy afternoons when he was quite young. It was almost the same feeling on his torso, but why did he feel so…happy?

"Bane?" Sabine ushered him.

"Erm…yes?" Bane finally responded, shaking his head.

"What do you think is down there?" Sabine pointed to the dark hole. Bane sprinted to her side, wary for any future falls. He looked down sheepishly, and suddenly his eyes caught something.

"Sweet, Merciful Aslan."

"I don't see how ceaseless disputes against the rock is getting us any farther than where we were half an hour ago. I'd say just wait for help to come." Calla had both of her arms on her hips, staring crossly at the young man-acting imbecile.

"Nay. There is no help coming." Edmund roared, retorting back to kicking the boulders with his leg. "If we want to get out of here, we'd have to do it ourselves."

Calla sighed, sitting on a rock as she watched Edmund furiously try to uncover a way to get out. She had been panicking an awful lot just as well, but it soon made her tire in the means of shrieking every five seconds.

Edmund kicked the rock hardly, trying to make ladders out of the large rocks. He clutched them firmly in both his hands, and his left leg was ready to climb. Calla pressed her lips in annoyance, gritting them fiercely with her teeth. She approached the Mad King, within a few limps, and began digging deep into them. Edmund took the lion's share of the work, since Calla had been hurting. They pulled out a few obstacles, but it did nothing to help them climb up the hole.

"This is futile." Calla said, her brief work turning into a halt.

"I suppose you have better ideas, then?" Edmund replied, turning towards her yet continuing his foundation of rock ladders. He patted the rocks, making sure it was firm and stable before trying to mount on them. Edmund grew satisfied at his creation and began to clamber on them, before realizing how the rock turned out to be unbalanced. His legs grew jittery, and then the whole of it collapsed before him. Edmund coughed at the filth the dust gave off, narrowing his eyes in disappointment. He wiped his eyes begrudgingly, and buried them in his hands.

"We're not getting out then, are we?" She sighed. Suddenly, the both of them could hear something. Mumbled, and vaguely said.

"What was that?" Calla said.

"Something just talked. It must have been so faint. I could barely hear it." Then there was it again, faint mumbling and muttering, as if someone was in there. Then they heard it clearly speak.

Sweet, Merciful Aslan. Edmund stared at the opening, and began to call out.

"Hello? Who's up there?" Edmund called.

"Can anyone hear us?" Calla yelled too, their voices echoing all over.

"Edmund?"

"Calla?"

"Bane?"

"Sabine?"

"Are you sure this vine is safe?" Sabine asked worriedly. "Are you even sure this can pull them up?"

"Aye. It is as strong as a mighty bullock." Bane gritted the vine with his teeth, tying it around a huge rock residing just beside the trench. After securing the rope, he took the other end and threw it inside the hole. Edmund could see the falling rope and caught it, tugging it for extra security.

"All set?" He asked Calla, who was holding on to her shoulder.

"I don't know." She shivered as she looked at how high the elevation was. She kept rubbing her wrist, anxious to get out, yet hesitant to try.

"Don't worry. I got you." Edmund tied his hand around the rope. "Alright, I climb up first, then I'll pull you up." He reassured, gesturing to their plan. Sabine and Bane waited uneasily, as soon as they could see the ropes moving from above. Edmund was the first to start climbing. Even after the first few pulls, his knuckles began to redden, since the vine had enough friction as he slowly winched up. Soon he had made his way up, and both Sabine and Bane clenched his tunic and pulled him up. Edmund sprawled onto the ground, his breath ragged from exhaustion.

"Are you okay up there?" Calla asked, her voice resonating from below. Edmund crawled to the pit, shouting as soon as he was finished untying the rope on his wrist.

"You're next!" Edmund hollered. Calla nodded and heaved a sigh before holding onto the rope and preparing herself…and her shoulder for this. She groaned a bit, when she had clung herself onto the rope and Edmund started pulling.

"Almost there…" Bane urged, anxious to see her. She was almost on the top. She could smell the grasses tinted in pulsating autumn colours, the sun bursting in an exquisite way when it strikes the cluster of the flashes of red, yellow and orange.

Then suddenly, the rope snapped.

"Quick! Grab other vines!" Edmund yelled when he heard Calla's amplified shriek. In between the ends, the vine was nearly snapping in half. Its skin had grown thinner since it must have been years of age a vine. She was dangling in the twenty foot sized trench, and pretty soon, the vine had to give up sooner or later. Calla could hear it slowly snapping, and each second, she is dropped a few feet lower when the vine kept swaying.

"There's nothing left!"

"Grab her, Edmund! She's almost at the peak!" Sabine hollered, growing frantic.

"Hold on to me!" Edmund yelled at Bane and Sabine, who nodded and proceeded to bite on his boot. Bane held onto to Edmund, trying to weigh him down so he can reach down to Calla. Calla gripped on the vine very tightly, her eyes shut until she could hear Edmund and that his arm was extended towards her. She shook her head hesitantly.

"Its too far! I can't reach it!" She cried in a hopeless tone.

"You can! It's the only way or you'll fall down!"

"I can't, I can't…" She muttered, trying to bury her face in her reddened knuckles.

"You have to trust me!" Edmund urged her. In a matter of seconds, the vine snapped completely in half. Calla screamed at the sudden panic she felt. Edmund was quick to react and immediately thrust himself forward, grabbing Calla's extended arm. He held onto her, as she stared at him in disbelief. She looked down at the vine that fell, accompanied by a log that fell when Edmund threw himself down. She watched as the log broke into halves, and were later crushed by the number of rocks that collapsed when it collided with them. It could have been her. She would have been crushed, and died.

Bane and Sabine pulled the both of them up. Edmund rested his back against a tree, feeling the free air and the cool wisps of trees that blew into his rugged hair. Calla gathered her legs, and was twitching in horror. Her breaths were fast and uneven, and she turned completely pale.

"Why won't take my hand? Why won't you trust me?" Edmund asked, demanding an explanation. Calla didn't pay attention. She kept her eyes focused on the hole, concentrating on what could have been. All the dreaded horrors, all the impossible pasts, it was quite too much from everything she had experienced, and if this were only the beginning, how was she to survive, if she can't even trust herself.

"Like a mighty bullock, huh?" Sabine kicked Bane, who rolled his eyes.

"We best be moving back to Cair Paravel, yes?" Edmund stated, wiping his tunic from the sprawls of dirt.

"Alrighty then, who'd like to be the first to explain to High King Peter what happened?"

Thanks so much who held on to this story even if it wasn't updated regularly:D

Shoot me now! ErisedRose22164 just favourited my story! I can't believe it! *fangirling* haha thanks so much! I love her, she's a really great writer!

Any suggestions guys? Feel free to leave a review or just PM me! I really hope you like this chapter:) Rememeber...

Good ducklings review...and they will be adored.

-DawnD (I know I changed the summary again! Expect changes again in a few weeks when I get better ideas:))