A Tale of a Voyage

Disclaimer: I own the cousins only.

Chapter 3: Near-Fainting Cousins and Lost Lords

My bliss was interrupted by Jade's voice asking, "What's Narnia? And I might not know much about Hannah, but I don't think she lives here." I turned in time to see her shrug. "Oh, well. Your cousin makes no sense sometimes, Rose. Come on; let's go find something to do!" Jade hauled Rose off, leaving Faith standing there alone. I glanced over at Faith, who looked to be on the verge of tears. Here we go again. Not that I blamed Rose; it wasn't her fault! No, I was mad at Jade. Before I could go stand by Faith, Edmund beat me to it. I smiled and stayed where I was. "Who's Jade, Han? And why doesn't she like Faith?" Lucy asked.

I sighed. "Jade is Rose and Art's cousin. She's not mine, Faith's, or James's, though."

"Your family is complicated."

"I know. Anyway, she and Rose used to be good friends, before Narnia, that is. But they rarely saw each other. So, when they were together, they played by themselves, and often, though without realizing it, they left Faith out. Art and I lectured Rose several times on not doing that, but she did anyway. Not that she meant to hurt Faith, of course she didn't mean to, but she did nonetheless."

"Oh." We were silent for a few minutes. Then William asked me, "Hey, Hannah? I know this might be a bad time, but why did you call Narnia your home? Have you been here before?"

"No, it's as good a time as any. Yes, Faith, Rose, Art, James, and I have been here before. The girls and I came during The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, and the boys joined us during Prince Caspian."

"Oh."

Art cleared his throat. "You forgot to mention that you and Faith are queens."

"Wait, what?"

I glared at Art. "I was going to spring that on him later, Arthur."

"Sorry," he said.

"Why do I not believe you?"

"I don't know; probably because I'm not."

I shook my head at him before turning to Will to explain. "You see, during the Golden Age (which is what the Pevensies' reign was called), all of us grew up and kinda fell in love and got married."

"What?!"

"I'm not done. Rose married a knight named Michael, and Faith and I married Ed and Pete, respectively. That made us become Queen Faith the Bold and High Queen Hannah the Brave."

"Oh my." Will looked like he was about to faint.

"Yeah."

"Did anything else happen that I should know about?"

"Um, we had kids?"

"What?" all three boys exclaimed.

"Why didn't you tell us that?" James asked.

"You never asked!"

"True," Art conceded.

"Anyway, I had 2 girls, Mary and Abigail. Faith had Martha and Marcus. Rose had twins, Lily and Arthur."

"OK, please, save any more surprises for later! I'm about to have a heart attack as it is!"

"Will do," I said, grinning.

"Are you going to stand there and talk or would you like to get some dry clothes on?" Caspian asked.

I shook my head. "Why didn't I think of that?" We laughed and he led us to his cabin, where he lent Ed, Will, and Art some of his clothes. "We'll need to find some of the crew's clothes for you girls to wear; I don't think these will fit."

"That's fine."

"We'll be going to the Lone Islands; you can get new clothes there."

"Of course." I smiled at Caspian as we left to find dry clothes.

Half an hour later, we were dry, and Caspian and Drinian explained why exactly they were on this voyage. "So, you're looking for seven lost lords, and they might not even be alive?" Edmund asked.

"Sounds insane, right?" Caspian replied, grinning.

"It could be called that, yes."

"Ed, remember, we've done some insane things ourselves."

"True, Hannah."

"Very true!" Faith said.

"You don't have to rub it in, Faith."

"I probably did more insane things than you did, you know."

Edmund considered that for a moment. "I suppose that might be correct… not the least of which being marrying me."

Faith rolled her eyes. "Really, Ed? I married you because I love you. Not because I'm insane." Edmund smiled at that and leaned over and kissed her forehead. I swallowed around a lump in my throat. Never again. Never again can I playfully flirt with Peter in Narnia. I quickly swiped some tears out of my eyes. No use crying over spilt milk, as the saying goes.