That morning, the tenth (or was it the eleventh? She wasn't sure...) she'd spent on the Dawn Treader since returning from Narrowhaven and the Star Consul, Lucy over-slept. Perhaps the Star Consul had been right after all; she did seem to be over-tired and in need of rest.

She awoke with all her fingers curled around her silver alethiometer, its chain twirled about two or three times round her curved index finger, cutting off her circulation ever so slightly. Reepicheep sensed this and found that the tip of his tail was quite numb, slowly coming back to life as his mistress uncurled the chain and massaged her finger until some feeling returned to it.

Feeling strangely groggy, Lucy rose out of her cot and walked to the other side of the cabin where there was a basin for her to wash her face in. After a few splashes of cold water she didn't even bother to dry with a towel, just letting the cool drops run down her neck and into the collar of the faded gray Gyptian-style shift she was wearing for a nightgown, she heard someone knock loudly at the door.

"Lucy, child! You decent?"

She recognized the voice as belonging to none other than Ma Costa, wiped at one side of her still damp face with the sleeve of her shift, then answered, "Yes."

"You dressed yet?"

"Well, no," she admited as the door cracked open part-way and Ma Costa took in what she was wearing.

"Then hurry and get dressed as quick as you can. Come up on deck." The middle-aged Gyptian woman had, at that moment, rather the appearance of trying to hold onto a vague pretense of being stern while really thrilled and excited, holding back some sort of wonderful surprise. "It ain't very chilly; you won't need much. Just be quick about it." A long-repressed smile creased Ma Costa's kindly face as she shut the door and went away.

Curious and eager, Lucy threw on the billowy, dark purple Gyptian dress (the easiest thing to put on since there weren't any clasps or buttons or anything she had to adjust a great deal in order to feel comfortable) and, rummaging through her few things, managed to find one of Edmund's doublets that she'd taken with her out of the flat to wear over it as a sort of sweater. It wasn't in the Gyptian style, of course, but she felt like wearing it anyway; and besides, there wasn't a non-Gyptian ship around within at least eight or nine miles (give or take) of the Dawn Treader, no one to see that she didn't look the part of a Gyptian. So it didn't matter. She could wear, it seemed, whatever she wanted.

Not even bothering to comb her hair, which she hastily pulled out of her face with a borderline useless, hopelessly frayed ribbon, she scooped up her Reepicheep in her arms as if he were a cat and headed for the door. And he, feeling her curiosity and excitement, did not mind.

When she reached the deck, Lucy found that nearly everybody else was already there; Farder Coram, Emeth, Ma Costa, Lord John Faa and his many relatives and attendants, Billy Costa, Lyra, Tony Costa (who was somehow related to Billy and his mother, though neither Lucy nor Lyra were sure how since they had never actually bothered to ask), and very nearly every sailor she knew from the whole of the royal galleon. Also, all the other chiefs of the major Gyptian families were there as well.

Something was happening. It had to be important.

The deck was a sea of dæmons showing their human's earnest and keen feelings. One dæmon seemed to be missing, though. No where could Lucy spot a male seagull with a human who was the same sex as him; Caspian was not there. Neither, she realized suddenly, were Rhince-who should have been with the other sailors but was not-and Drinian. How odd! And she immediately felt horrible for not noticing their absence at once. Yet, the full deck and all the unexplained emotions and beaming faces of everybody (how much more alarming it would have been if their faces had been grave!) had been overwhelming and distracting, to be fair.

"Lyra!" Lucy ran to her half sister and Pantalaimon. "What's happening? Why is everyone looking over the railings like that? And have you seen Caspian anywhere since yesterday morning?" For she suddenly realized she hadn't seen him, not only just now, but also since then.

"It's his ship that's comin'." Lyra reached up to touch Pantalaimon's soft, snowy-coloured ermine paw. "Just look. Rhince is with him, too…and Drinian."

"They didn't go back to Narrowhaven, did they?" Lucy's eyes were wider now.

Rhince was afraid of Narrowhaven, wasn't he? Or, if not afraid, he certainly didn't like it. And why would they have to go back? And without taking her or Lyra with them! What if they'd needed the alethiometer to tell them something? A fine mess…no, maybe it was just her pride stinging; she was stuck on the Dawn Treader while they had been off somewhere, having adventures and doing important things as likely as not. She had nothing against rest, but she hadn't wanted any of it for herself since Edmund had been taken by the Ruling Powers. She did rest, but largely at the insistence of others around her, and also urges from her own weary body telling her to take it easy.

Suddenly Lyra was bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet. "Look, Lucy! There's another person on the deck with Caspian-that en't Drinian or Rhince…Who is that?"

Lucy hung over the Dawn Treader's railing and squinted. Reepicheep balanced on the railing itself, using his long, coiling mouse-tail to keep from falling over, also squinting. There was another person there; a young man, it looked like. He was dark-haired and in clothes that were either second-hand or else borrowed because, even at such a great distance, his shirt appeared a mite too big for his frame, only particularly billowy because of being over-sized.

She couldn't make out his face clearly, yet she felt she knew him. And the closer the ship came to the Royal Galleon, the more certain she felt of this. And he was squinting at her, too. She didn't have to see his eyes to know this; he seemed to be straining over the edge of the ship, with his hand over his eyes to keep the sun out, trying to see her as she was trying to see him. Wondering, is that who I think it is?

"It can't be..." It was Lucy who became sure first. It was him!

That white thing that kept flying from the railing to his shoulder, back and forth, that she was only just noticing but had half-sensed through Reepicheep's seeing it earlier on, had to be his owl-dæmon, Ella.

Edmund! Lucy couldn't believe it. She was so overjoyed that if she thought Farder Coram or John Faa would let her get away with such a thing, she would have jumped into the water and swam straight to Caspian's ship, ordering the sailors to help her on board, then rush straight to Edmund. But she knew better, so she did the only thing she could think of.

She waved to him.

From Caspian's ship, Edmund saw a little brown-headed, female figure with her dæmon on the Dawn Treader's railing, trying to catch a proper sighting of him from the edge of the deck where she stood.

At his side, Caspian finally took pity on him (or perhaps he was worried the boy would upset himself into the ocean with all that leaning and they'd have to delay everything with 'man overboard!' calls), handing the alethiometrist a golden sailor's telescope.

Slowly, Edmund lifted it and peered through.

As if by magic, there she was; he could see her now. There was his Lucy Pevensie and her darling Reep, safe and sound as he'd prayed unendingly that they would be. And she was waving to him, ever more frantically since she noticed the telescope and was aware that he recognized her at last.

Coming up behind him were Lord Asriel and Peter. Lord Asriel didn't care much about seeing anyone; Stelmaria flicked her tail indifferently at Edmund as he offered her master the telescope.

"Fine." The alethiometrist rolled his eyes and handed the telescope to Peter who looked through it, saw Lucy, and smiled. She hadn't noticed her brother yet, having only just identified Edmund, but he saw his baby sister again after all this time, waving and smiling as if her heart would burst with happiness, and a wave of contentment he had not felt in a long while came to settle upon his mind as the ship drew closer and closer to the Dawn Treader.

Edmund and Lucy met at last when the two ships were finally pulled close together enough so that the alethiometrist could leap over the narrow space between them and plop himself directly in front of his former assistant.

They were pretty shaky as they stood, unbelievably, as if in a dream, close enough to reach out and touch each other if only they weren't both secretly fearing it was only a dream and that the other would melt away if they dared to do anything except stare.

Finally, Edmund risked a word. "Hullo."

That greeting broke the spell instantly. The lump forming in Lucy's throat erupted into tears streaming from her eyes as she sobbed uncontrollably and threw herself into his arms. Reepicheep leaned against Ella, who folded one of her soft wings over his back comfortingly.

"At last…" cried Lucy, still blubbering. "Oh, Ed, when the Ruling Powers…" Her voice cracked and trailed off.

"I know," he whispered, trying to swallow his own tears and not quite succeeding. "I know. It's all right now. We're safe…shh…"

To say it was a very touching reunion would be an understatement. Only, it was so bittersweet and full of so much emotion that everybody felt much too choked up to arrive at a better term to describe that beautiful, heartbreaking moment.

There continued to be kissing and crying and embracing on both sides for a while longer, and of course Gyptians weren't at all the kind of persons to think any the worse of them for that sort of thing. But then it was cut short as Lucy noticed, out of the corner of her eye, that standing beside Caspian, Drinian, and some other middle-age man with a familiar-looking leopard dæmon, there was a young man with blonde hair and no dæmon; Peter, it had to be.

She pulled away from Edmund and took a few trembling steps towards her brother. As soon as she'd come near enough to him, he swept her up into his arms and spun her around as if she had not aged one minute over twelve in his absence.

"I missed you!" Lucy cried out happily as he set her back down.

"I missed you," he laughed breathlessly. "You don't have any idea how worried Susan and I both were when we thought something had gone wrong in this world."

"How are Mum and Father?" Lucy wanted to know, thinking of Mr. and Mrs. Pevensie, sort of wishing-though she was contented enough with seeing Peter again for the most part-that they could be there, too.

"They're doing well," he informed her. "They miss you, but they're well."

"They must have a grandchild by now…"

"That's right." Peter smirked. "You have a little nephew, Lucy."

"It was a boy, then."

"Christian Coulter Pevensie." Peter leaned close to her ear and added, "Poor chap had a narrow escape from getting named Edgemont."

Somehow, though Peter had said it discreetly, Edmund over-heard and muttered, "Good lord, what was Susan on?"

"It's all right, I talked her out of it."

Edmund had one of his arms around his half-sister's shoulders as Lyra said, "I'm surprised she called him Coulter. If I ever have kids, I ain't calling them by her name." She shuddered at the thought of Mrs. Coulter and her golden monkey, who never could, even in death, be 'mother' to her.

"I was given to understand that Susan kept the name for her father," Peter said quietly, not really wanting to get into that. He could see that Edmund was looking uncomfortable at the mention of his former namesake, Edmund Coulter the first, anyway.

There was the sound of a little throat being cleared, and a jittery-looking squirrel-dæmon shifted into a blue-jay and began nudging Ella repeatedly, trying to get Edmund's attention.

Edmund let go of Lyra. "Oh, I'm forgetting."

Forgetting what? Lucy and Lyra both wondered.

In a second they saw what he was referring to. A little girl with long dark hair using a grown man's Gyptian-style tunic as a dress on her small frame, a woolen cape of dark blue that was also much too big for her was slung over her slim shoulders. She was a pretty little thing, with a sweet round face, and at first Lyra wondered if she was a Gyptian because of her skin not being quite so pale as hers and Lucy's was. But then she wondered if it was only a trick of light because the next moment she didn't think the girl looked very Gyptian at all, just ever so slightly darker than herself in complexion, which was barely even noticeable in some lightings.

"Edmund, who is that?" Lucy asked.

"I haven't the foggiest," Edmund laughed. "We found her coming into Narrowhaven. She said her name was Gael and that her dæmon was called Pattertwig, but she couldn't tell us much else."

"I told you not to feed her," Lord Asriel grumped, speaking up for the first time since boarding the Dawn Treader. "We still haven't been able to get rid of her since you took out food from your travel pack and handed it to the urchin. Most useless child I've ever seen in my life."

"She's a bright little thing," Peter defended her, scowling. "I think she may be bilingual, since she says words I can't understand sometimes."

"All that means," scoffed Lord Asriel, "is that she doesn't shut up in more than one tongue. And I can understand what she says most of the time, most of it's absolute rubbish; she speaks English and a few different Gyptian dialects, nothing to be terribly excitable over."

"She's Gyptian, then?" Lyra said unsurely.

Edmund shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know."

Lucy found it a little hard to believe Lord Asriel's words (she recognized him not without some coldness and anger, even a bit of fear, bubbling up in the pits of her stomach, by the way) about Gael never shutting up. The poor thing hadn't said a word yet. All she seemed to do was stand there quietly while her dæmon kept on trying to get Edmund's attention.

"If there's a going to be much in way of stories and explanations," John Faa cut in suddenly, "perhaps we'd best take it below deck. We may be far out at sea, but it's never a good idea to have a wanted man out on the open decks for very long." He looked hard at Lord Asriel and Edmund. "And we've got two."

Gael appeared nervous; she seemed to shy away from everyone except for Edmund and the manservant Thorold. She would take Thorold's hand without a second thought, and she kept trying to stand as close to Edmund as she possibly could, as though she thought that as long as she kept him in plain sight she was quite safe, but she avoided Lord Asriel, Trumpkin, and Peter like they were lepers.

Lucy was surprised to see Thorold there, since she couldn't remember the Star Consul saying anything about him, although he'd mentioned Trumpkin indirectly. But, then again, Thorold was sort of like Emeth in a way, very inconspicuous and mild. He could have been trailing along with the whole party the entire time, never commenting on Maugrim or Iorek's presence or where they were traveling to, until he was nearly forgotten by everyone, even narration itself. In fact, if it wasn't for the apparent interest the mysterious little girl showed in him, Lucy thought, rather shamefully, that she wouldn't have taken any notice of him herself. Poor Thorold and his pincher dæmon.

As they went into the cabin Ma Costa and some other Gyptian women were setting out refreshments in, Lucy thought over Gael's apprehension. It made sense that she would be afraid of Lord Asriel; even Lyra, the only child who had ever even remotely had the potential to love him, feared him. Lucy hated the sight of him, too. So no surprises there. If Gael were not used to dwarfs as general rule, that might explain why she wasn't close to Trumpkin. But Peter, now that was harder to figure out. All children loved Peter; it was just something about him, and yet Gael acted as if she thought he was going to reach out with an ashen hand and drag her down into the underworld if she stood too close to him for too long. Then it struck Lucy at last, understanding it all at once. Peter had no dæmon. Gael had probably never seen anyone who didn't have a dæmon before; it was, for her, like seeing a floating head come out of no where. He was harmless-looking enough in himself, but the fact that he had no dæmon automatically made him the stuff of nightmares to this small, sensitive child. He would take some getting used to on her end.

They sat down at a long table, with Lord Faa and Farder Coram at the grandest, highest seats and everyone else lower, the servants at the lowest seats-except for Thorold, sitting at Lord Asriel's right should the brooding, expressionless nobleman need anything, and Emeth who sat with Billy and Tony Costa. Trumpkin sat next to Lyra. Lucy had a seat between Edmund and Peter (she could not will herself to stop turning her head and grinning at them both by turn). Gael was seated between Farder Coram, who she seemed less wary of than the other Gyptians, and the other side of Edmund, the one not occupied by Lucy Pevensie. Pattertwig sat in her lap in the form of a small white westie-dog, trying to avoid Stelmaria's rough gaze.

Trumpkin seemed contented, for one of the Gyptians had given him a pipe to smoke. Curious, Lyra tried to smoke, too, but Ma Costa snatched the pipe she'd gotten a hold of away from her, giving her a cuff upside the head and muttering that the child would be the death of her.

It took several minutes to get everyone to quiet down, and even longer to get Pattertwig to stop barking and saying, in between barks, "Quiet everyone! Quiet!"

Finally, Edmund and Peter were able to begin their story. Lord Asriel had no interest whatsoever in telling it, and so it was left up to them. Peter suggested that Edmund tell it, since it mostly concerned him at any rate and that everyone would want to hear what he had to say about the Ruling Powers and the unnerving information they had managed to get out of Gael.

Taking a piece of something dark that looked very like chocolate but was really only a kind of earthy plant-root Gyptians sometimes used for table decorations on the finer of their ships, trying to bite into it, then not finding it at all nice, Edmund spat out the brownish root, cleared his throat, and began his tale. Ella was perched on the back of his chair, her head turned to the side and her eyes locked on Lucy and Reep.

"Iorek led us as far as he could. Then he didn't want to go into Narrowhaven, and so he left us on our own from there. He wouldn't have been able to go in without causing a major stir amongst the townspeople anyway, he said. We didn't know what to do about Peter because of his lack of dæmon. Lord Asriel suggested one of us going into town and finding a wheelbarrow to hide him in." Here he had to stop and bite back a smirk.

Peter fought a glower; he hadn't enjoyed one second of being stuffed at the bottom of that wheelbarrow. He could have sworn Lord Asriel had hit every single crack on the town pavements with that thing on purpose. Also, Gael had accidentally sat on his head twice because she couldn't see him under the blanket they pulled over him.

"Suddenly," Edmund continued, "this little girl came running out towards us."

Gael sat up a little straighter in her chair.

"She sort of just flung herself at my legs and hid behind me."

"I suppose you'll forget to mention that I was the one who shot the two men who were chasing her," Lord Asriel grunted.

"I still say you should have wounded them, not killed them." Peter sighed heavily. "If we could have questioned them-"

"Shut up, Pevensie."

"Are you going to let Edmund finish the story or aren't you?" Ella finally tore her gaze away from Lucy and Reep to give them a sharp, irritated expression.

"Sorry, Ed."

"It's all right, Pete." Then, "Now here's the interesting part; Gael kept saying something about Dust and how the men were worried about her being dusty and how she wanted to go home because she was scared they were going to hurt Pattertwig."

"I'm not dusty, though," Gael here interjected, thankfully in English. "I had a bath the day before yesterday. One of 'em touched Pattertwig. That's not allowed."

"I don't think they meant that kind of dust," Peter said.

"Any guesses as to what they were actually talking about?" Edmund raised his left brow at the Gyptian closest to him.

"Just like at Bolvangar, how they studied them children before they…" Farder Coram's eyes widened. His tabby mewed.

"They're back," John Faa announced grimly.

"But..." Lucy couldn't understand it. "We destroyed them, didn't we? That battle…I blew up all of their equipment…ask Susan if you don't believe me."

Edmund reached over and squeezed one of her hands consolingly.

"This child is proof that if they haven't already started it up again, they clearly mean to," said Stelmaria borderline-apathetically as her human rolled his eyes and helped himself to a tin-plated mug of coffee.

"She also said something about a market in Narrowhaven," Edmund told them. "I couldn't understand what she was going on about, exactly, she was too worked up and wouldn't stick to English, but I got the idea that it wasn't the regular market place."

"The slave trade again!" exclaimed Lyra, understanding what her half brother was implying.

"The child's had a bit of a shock," said John Faa understandingly; his crow-dæmon clanked her beak. "I think she needs someone unthreatening to get the whole story out of her."

"That's the problem," Peter explained, grimacing. "Edmund's the only one she trusts for some reason. She's taken a liking to him. But everyone else…"

"Why can't it be Ed that talks to her, then?" Lyra asked practically.

"Because he can't understand everything she says when she gets excited and stops speaking English."

"Farder Coram speaks all Gyptian tongues as well as English," John Faa said, "as do I and many other higher-ranking Gyptians. But I'm afraid Gael might be intimated by us."

"Not by Farder Coram," said Lucy. "He's harmless, and she knows it."

"Very well, we'll have Farder Coram take the child into another cabin and try to get her to tell him what happened and where the men took her from."

"I don't think she'll go if I don't, Your Majesty," said Edmund to John Faa, trying not to laugh at this fairly somber moment. "She wouldn't get on Caspian's ship until she realized I was coming on board, too, and was only trying to help Peter out of the wheelbarrow…he'd gotten his foot caught on something."

"Fine," the Gyptian king agreed, "you can go with her. I just don't want to go overwhelmin' the child. So no one else, just you and Farder Coram."

"Come, Gael." Edmund rose from his chair, going over to help Farder Coram up. "We're going to speak with Farder Coram alone."

Pattertwig shifted into a pretty orange cat that looked a great deal like Farder Coram's tabby. Edmund had thought he'd noticed Gael admiring the old Gyptian's beautiful dæmon out of the corner of her eye; this imitation confirmed it.

Before leaving the room with Gael and Farder Coram, Edmund unexpectedly planted a quick kiss on Lucy's cheek. Peter arched an eyebrow teasingly, shook his head, and then pretended not to have seen anything to begin with.

"But, Lord Faa," Lyra said, crinkling her brow, holding Pantalaimon in the crook of her right arm, "there's something I don't get. How'd you know Edmund and Peter and the others were going to be in Narrowhaven earlier? Waiting for you and all."

"A star came and told us," he said simply. "She a landed right on the deck and told us where we ought to meet up with them. As soon's Ma Costa knew they were a heading back with them, she went to tell Lucy to come on deck. We all knew she was anxious to see Edmund and Peter." Then, to Caspian, "No, I see that lovesick look on your face, but it weren't Ramandu's daughter…twas a different star."

Caspian nodded, trying to act calm, as if he didn't care either way, didn't know what the king was talking about. But Lyra and Lucy both noticed he kept putting his hand in his pocket, rubbing his fingers along the pearl the Star Consul had given him.

John Faa then asked Peter if he had any idea whether or not Gael had Gyptian blood in her or else simply spoke some of their tongues.

"I think she's got a touch of Gyptian in her at least," Ma Costa put in thoughtfully. "She rather looks the part to some extent and she en't frightened of the sea, nor's she taken sea-sick from the motion far'as we know. Her voice, well, it's more land-bred than ours, course, but well…you heard her all the same…that's our kinds of tones coming from that gentle-bred child's mouth. Be darned if it ain't."

"Before they died one of the men," Peter said, too softly, looking embarrassed, "called her a bas-" He stopped and looked at Lucy and Lyra. "A name I'd rather not repeat in front of the girls. You don't know of any Gyptians that might have…with some non-Gyptian..." His voice trailed off, but just about everyone knew what he meant.

John Faa shook his head. "I would not be a knowing, not directly. No one would have mentioned it."

"Gyptians don't speak of scandals the way land-peoples tend to," said Tony Costa.

"I'm going to ask the alethiometer," Lucy decided, taking out the silver pocket watch and also suddenly remembering that she hadn't given Edmund his alethiometer back. Oh well, they'd see each other again in a bit, she'd give it to him then.

Lyra would have checked hers as well, but she'd left the golden compass back in her cabin. She didn't think the Gytpians would try to take it. After all, living on the Dawn Treader wasn't at all like living with Mrs. Coulter and her horrid monkey-dæmon.

When she looked over at Lord Asriel, though, she wished she had it with her. As always, she'd forgotten how afraid she was of her uncle-no, her father-in his absence. She was amazed-though she felt she shouldn't have been, that she ought to have known and remembered from the first-to find that she still did not-could not-trust him. She felt Pantalaimon being a coward again, beginning to tremble, and knew it was because of Stelmaria's presence in the cabin.

AN: *Please Review*