"What do you know? You build flying machines and you walk on water,
and yet you know nothing about life!"
"I know that a life without love is no life at all!"
~ Ever After

This was going to be a short snippet…

I don't own Narnia, Korean legends, or the Sailor's Necklace.

Beta'd by trustingHim17

There is a legend carried on the waves of the Narnian sea. The merfolk hear it, know it, and repeat it to each other. They take it as a warning.

The legend says any mermaid foolish enough to give her heart to a land dweller must earn his love in thirty days or feel her breath cease forever.* For only love can sustain her if she stays on land. And no mermaid can bear returning to the sea, even to save her life, if her love lives on land.

It does not happen often. The merfolk swim near the shore, sing to their sovereigns, and scout ahead for the ships, but they do not remain there. Their hearts are always drawn back, and back, and back, to the land beneath the water's surface. There are the plants that wave with the tides, the pink coral walls building themselves in the roughest waters, the dark seaweed growing like towers, and the light that pierces. There is home. Even though they repeat the legends, the merfolk seldom worry about falling in love with a land-walker, for why would they even look above the sea? There is too much to love in their own world.

But all legends have their earliest beginnings in ordinary lives, truth and fiction bound together, and so it was proved, when a mermaid fell for a prince.

The prince you have heard of, or heard part of his story: Rilian the Disenchanted, the son of a star, the boy who heard light sing, who was stolen away from light and song and hidden for ten long years. He gave his heart to a snake and yet, at the name and help of Aslan, killed the snake and won himself free. Rilian the Disenchanted came back, laughing heartily in a snow dance, weeping sorrowfully at his father's deathbed, and taking up his rule with a willing heart. He was Aslan's own, and Aslan's king, and a good man.

But sometimes captivity leaves shadows; sometimes a cruel love makes dark fears. King Rilian ruled for ten years, ten good years, and Narnia prospered. Rilian danced the snow dances, gave feasts, taught laws, added to the Faun's music in summer, and settled disputes with the wisdom of the wise. The Narnians loved their laughing king, and the sorrowing loved him even more, for he knew how to weep with them as well as to laugh.

But he did not choose someone to love. Nor did he let his heart fall for anyone.

Some of the Owls, with much whirring and fluttering and yet much wisdom, pointed that out to him, and he laughed and said he had chosen all of Narnia to love. The Owls clucked, and the Marshwiggles shook their heads, but none contradicted the king, and only the few who knew him best—Captain Drinian, old and wobbling, and a few other of his father's companions—noted the look of sorrow on his face.

The king had loved once. He had loved the wrong person, and that love made him a slave. Now he was back, he was free—but he feared being caught again. Yet he wanted to be loved, and he wanted to love; he longed for a love like his parents had. That night after the Owls' council he walked the parapet of Cair Paravel, looking up at the stars. Light, he thought, light and music, were the best ways to banish fear.

They helped him. To think on the light instead of the dark is always better. But there is another legend, another story, another truth, and it says love is what casts out fear.** Only that did not seem to be of much help to the king who paced the parapets, fearing love.

And tonight he could not hear the stars, not clearly. Their song barely touched his ears on the fingers of the wind; the stars must be quieting their chorus. His mother would have known what that quieting meant.

Rilian walked the lengths of the rampart one more time, hoping for more; but the wind ceased, and so did the song. Turning from his mother's sky, his eyes fell on his father's sea. And the hungering in his heart hammered through his veins, reaching his brain, calling to be near at least one of his parents. To live with their legacy on this night when he remembered he had no one to love. So he left, walking down the stairs of the tower, grabbing a simple coat, and setting off for the shore.

A row of small boats, pulled out of reach of the high tidewater, rested on the sand. The king removed his boots. He ignored the wide rowboats meant for groups, the rafts of logs meant to be poled, and instead hoisted a coracle onto his shoulder with one hand, grabbing a pair of oars with the other. Then he walked down to the water.

The King stood there, just for a moment—listening to the sound of the waves. The music of the stars sang to his soul, but the rhythm of the water rested his heart. He lowered the round coracle, pushing it further into the sea and following after it. The water washed over the tops of his feet, cool and yet welcoming in the way it roamed over him, splashing his ankles. He went further in, and further, feeling his pants grow wet as well. When he reached the water just below his waist, he hopped in the boat and settled on the hard bench, picking up the oars.

At first he lost himself in rowing, pulling back each stroke and leaning with it, timing his breathing to it, feeling the boat under him race faster and faster. His father was the sea-farer. Rilian belonged here too. He turned parallel to the shoreline, rowing beside it.

But a shadow fell over him, and he flinched. He looked up—Cair Paravel stood above him.

The moon shone on it, and the stars filled the sky behind it. Standing in the light, it cast a shadow over him.

Rilian leaned on his oars, taking in a deep, sea-filled breath.

"You go quite fast, man of the land."

Rilian dropped an oar at the sound of the rippling voice, and it clattered against the wooden bottom of the boat. He searched the shore with wary eyes.

"I am sorry," the voice sang again. "Most land dwellers notice us as soon as we surface."

Rilian turned to look at the sea beside him, and there beside his shoulder, with two white hands resting on the side of the boat, a mermaid looked back at him. Her yellow hair was so pale it looked nearly white, and two sky blue eyes shone even in the starlight. Her sea-shell white face looked open, questioning, and a little sorry; the moonlight glinted off the light opal scales that covered her shoulders like short sleeves.

She was the most beautiful thing Rilian had seen in ten years. He shivered.

"I am sorry for scaring you," she said again, letting her hands fall away from the boat. Her body fell backwards as well, to land with a gentle splash on the water. She floated there, farther away than she had been. "I came to listen to the song of the stars, but they are quiet tonight."

Rilian wrested back his control. He was a king, schooled in living passionately, but letting wisdom temper his reactions.

There was little wisdom in continuing fear. She was but a mermaid, a Narnian, one of his people. He would give her the courtesy and care she deserved.

"Do all merfolk listen to the stars?"

She had stopped paying attention to him, her eyes on the stars. At his voice she startled, her torso coming up straight, her tail waving beneath the water.

"My apologies, lady, for scaring you," he said, and meant it.

"It is but a just return for what I inadvertently did to you, man of the land." She wiped a strand of wet hair from her face. "The merfolk all come to listen to the stars one night each month, on the night of the full moon. Then their music pierces the water, and we rise up to sing with them. But every other night…" she paused. "It bothers my parents and my sister, that I try to hear their song. My loved ones would rather listen to the song that rules the tides, the chorus of the undercurrents."

Rilian caught his breath. His father had been the sea-farer, but perhaps even he had never known the water had its own voice. Or had he? "Why would you not desire to listen to a sound such as that?" What he wouldn't give for a chance to hear it, even just once.

Though she smiled, a sigh escaped her. "My egg rolled away from the sand-nest my mother made for it. The undercurrent hit my shell and broke it, sweeping me away; I was hatched in the midst of their voices. I heard my father's voice second, and my mother's voice third; the voice of the sea sang into my heart before my gills pulled in their first water."

"Then…did you grow tired of its song, daughter of the sea?" Rilian asked, trying to fathom that, watching the waves lap around her waist. She looked so at home in the water. If she had listened to it since that young—but surely, a chorus of water, a song that ruled the tides, that matched the moon once a month—

"No," she whispered. "No, I did not grow tired of it."

And Rilian grew still, hearing the echo of tears in her voice; tears and fear. There were no tears on her face, but her voice held the sound of water disturbed by stones and mud. "Tell me," he said gently. "I will listen with a good heart."

She fell back, into the water. It splashed around her head but did not hit her face; her long hair floated in the moving waves. "The voices of the sea are many," she whispered at last. "I chased every voice I could. The ebb and flow near the shore, high and light, rising to crash before dying away. The song a hundred strong in the River of the Tallest Mountain, where I chased it to the peak, just to hear its final notes; the sounds on the deep water of the Valley of Rest, soft and still; the—" she choked. "I heard them all. And I followed them."

Rilian drew closer to the edge of the boat. "Where did they lead you, lady of the water?"

"To the Dark." She brought her hands up to her face, and her tail waved, rising out of the water and smashing back into it, pushing her away from the boat. She turned in the water, swimming suddenly around the boat. "I went to the edge of the dark, at the bottom of the water. I didn't mean to—I was just following the song!" She slapped her hands over her ears. "I didn't mean to!"

Rilian felt cold. The Dark. "You heard its song." The fear in her voice, the fear of a living creature struggling to breathe under the weight of so much nothing, of trying to back away from the immense, empty blackness—

He also knew the dark.

"It grabbed my tail." Her voice brought him back to the present, to the star-lit sea, to the mermaid with tears turning to pearls on her cheeks, dropping in small circles into the water. One of his Narnians, in pain. "I—I sang. I sang the only song I could remember that was as large as the song of the Dark. I sang the song of the moon and the stars."

Rilian let out a breath. "I have also walked the walls above, seeking the song of the light. They are little lights, the stars in the sky, but the darkness has never been able to put them out."

The movements of her tail ceased, and she turned once again to look at him, wonder on her face. "You, a land walker, can hear the song of the stars?" She swam a little closer. "You also know the darkness cannot put them out?"

He smiled. "One of the Four left a poem from their world, and I have never forgotten part of those words. 'Above all shadows rides the sun / The stars forever dwell. / I will not say the day is done, / nor bid the stars farwell.'"*** He reached out and patted her shoulder.

"I will not bid the stars farewell." Her voice grew firmer. "I will not."

He nodded, withdrawing his hand. "Neither will I." She caught his hand before it was fully back in the boat.

"Thank you," she told him, still holding his hand. "I come to listen to the stars here, because I heard—I heard that our King knew something about the darkness, and I hoped to meet him some day. But I do not think he could help me more than you have. Thank you, land dweller. I hope to see you again." She let go, diving back into the waters and was gone before he could bring up any words to respond.

King Rilian did not sleep long that night. But it was not the nightmares that kept him awake, nor loneliness of a room by himself and no family, but rather the memory of a mermaid, crying, and the way the fear in her eyes changed to wonder. He had thought to sleep well, having helped another Narnian, but by morning he felt like pacing.

He had known beauty like hers before. The comparison made him uneasy. They feared the same thing. That's why she had that effect on him, surely. Just because he felt like trusting her, drawn to her, moments after meeting her, didn't mean it was magic—

She was a Narnian. Not an enchantress looking to take the throne. She hadn't even known he was the King. Surely she meant him no harm.

Either way—he had done what he was called to do, as her king. He had helped her.

Rilian resolutely put her out of his mind and went to eat breakfast.

The distraction worked, for a group of Dwarves came for breakfast, dirt on their fingers and full mouths grunting as they argued about whether or not a new mine should be opened. Rilian listened with a smile—the Dwarfs would settle it among themselves without any help from him—till they started arguing about how deep it should get, at which point he shook his head, excused himself, and left for the courtroom.

It was dark in the depths of the earth, the depth they were planning on reaching, and he had no desire to think about that this morning. Not when he could still see the fear in her eyes, if he let himself.

Court did not have anything interesting that day, just two minor cases about marketplace fights. Rilian, seeing the young age of the offenders, conscripted all seven participants in a chase to train Cair Paravel's guard. It seemed a much better use of their energy, and the two Cats, three Dogs, and two Sons of Adam enthusiastically agreed.

Rilian would have to settle it with their parents first, of course, but they promised to bring their parents to the Cair tomorrow. Rilian rose, stretched, and decided to visit the marketplace himself.

Not the shoreline. Not the boats, and the water. No, he had no reason to go there. Though he knew he wanted to.

So the King set his crown on the side table by his throne, brushed his hair out of his face, and went out.

People stopped him, of course, some just with a curtsey or bow, some with a cheery good morning that he heartily returned. This Narnia, this joy and bustle and life, satisfied his soul in ways that rested his fears. Narnia had so much good in it.

The market buzzed, fairly busy that morning, with two Galman ships in harbour and a clan of Dwarfs having surfaced to bring their wares. Rilian grinned. He heard the voices of fierce, argumentative Dwarfs and the free swinging tones of the sailors, mixed with the sounds of Beast after Beast. In addition to the noise, he saw the world filled with the sunlight reflecting off of the water, the metal earrings, and the sword hilts. There could not have been a greater contrast to his ten years in the silent underground. He shook them off and went forward. Fewer people noticed him, at least till he got close, but the laughter and jokes he exchanged with his people kept his spirits high.

So when he felt a gentle touch on his elbow he thought it just another Narnian, wanting his attention.

And so it was, of course. Still, when he turned and saw pale golden hair falling below the waist, fair white skin, and two eyes still as blue as the sky, his own eyes went wide.

She gave a rueful smile. "I am sorry for scaring you again," she said, letting his elbow go. "I several people touching and thought—"

"No, no, I just did not expect to see you, lady of the water!" Rilian glanced down, and saw two bare white feet in the dust, toes curling. She wore a white dress made of sails that had rope for shoulders, and he looked back up to her face. "You came on land? You don't have a tail?" he asked, a bit incredulous. He had never heard a legend of such a thing.

"I did," she said, smiling. But a shadow fell over her smile as she added, "I am here for thirty days."

"Thirty days! And you can walk?"

"Yes, though I practised it under the water first. I admit I like my tail better; the water does not hurt its scales as much as the land tears at these feet." She glanced ruefully down, then back up again, and the smile lit her face. "But I wanted to see you again."

"If you are here for thirty days, lady, we must get you proper footwear. Come, I will take you—" he grabbed her hand before he thought, looking over the heads in the crowd for the appropriate stall. "There! Centaurs make the best shoes, which I find ironic since their own are made of metal, and often their heads are lifted to the sky instead of the ground, but none debate their skill." He felt her hand pull in his and looked back, to see her walking slowly, mouth a little tight, her arm stretched all the way out to reach his. "Your feet hurt?" When she nodded, he hesitated. "Would you permit me to carry you, lady?"

A smile touched the corners of her mouth. "Like a merchild in her mother's arms?"

"It would save you pain. But the shop is not far, and if you would prefer to walk, you may."

She glanced around the market, watching the others. "It is not what others normally do, is it?"

Rilian had a sudden image of the sailors carrying each other—or funnier, the Dwarves, and laughed, loudly enough the people close by smiled as they glanced his way. "They do not."

"Then I shall walk as well." She took another step forward, and another, their arms no longer stretched out. Rilian slowed to match his pace to hers, nodding at a Bear who bowed his head.

"How far is the place where we will get shoes?"

"A mere forty or so steps. Bear with the pain, it will ease. We will get the shoes with the softest cushion, and walking will no longer be your dread. I thought of you this morning," he added, pulling them both to the side and out of the way of the band of sailors. He frowned when they whistled at the lady by his side.

"You thought of me?"

"Yes. But I did not expect to see you. I did not know the merfolk may walk on land."

She laughed, and his heart beat faster at the sound, as cool and thunderous as a wave. "We keep many secrets. It is our law, so that the wars of the land may not reach into the waters. Only the very foolish start a war for a place they cannot live, with an enemy they do not know. So I may only show our secrets, not tell them." She glanced up at a passing Centaur, eyes going up and up. "I did not know there were so many things on land that were secrets to me."

"Then why are you here, if not for curiosity?"

She smiled again, like light on the water. "I came to see you." She winced as she stepped on a stone in the dirt, and her smile vanished.

"Bear with it; we are halfway there. By the way, lady, I did not catch your name this past night. May I have it?"

"Ileana. I am sorry I did not give it; I found you easy to talk to, and forgot many of the customs of the land walkers. And yours?"

Rilian clapped a guard from the palace—a Faun—on the shoulder as they passed.

"Good shopping, my King!" called a Badger, and Rilian raised his other hand and waved back.

"And to you!" he called. "Rilian," he said to Ileana. He felt her hand pull on his again as she stopped.

"Rilian?" She asked it slowly, her eyes wide. "King Rilian?"

"The same."

He felt her fingers tremble, and she began to pull her hand from his. He held it more tightly, keeping his longer, broader fingers wrapped around hers. "Please don't pull away," he asked her, as softly as he could. "I still haven't bought you shoes yet, or a dress, or shown you the marketplace. I think you'll like it."

She paused. She did not take her hand away, but neither did her fingers wrap back around his. He suddenly missed that child-like trust.

"Please tell me what you're thinking." He lowered his voice, bending down to catch her eyes, trying to make a space for just the two of them in this busy, bustling place. "Does it matter so much that I am the King?"

She looked at her feet, head down till he could only see the top of her head with its pale hair. "I think I am rather a fool." It sounded like a wave of pain, and he didn't understand it.

"Why? You said last night that you thought the King might understand the dark, that you hoped to meet him. Now you have. Am I—am I not what you hoped for?"

"You are," she answered quickly, her head coming up, her hair tossing in her haste to reassure him. "The poem you spoke last night, the kindness you showed, the way you know the dark, yet are repelled by it, and seek the light—I wanted to find you again."

"Then stay. Stay for thirty days. I promise, Ileana, I will send you home with more memories of the light than you have now."

The shadow passed over her eyes again, but she dredged up a smile and pushed it back. "Why?"

"Why?"

"Why would you take the time, take thirty days, to be kind to a mermaid from the sea?"

Rilian hesitated. "I too have known the dark." He felt his own mouth begin to frown, knew the shadow reached his own eyes. "I would lift that fear from any of my people, if I could. And in lifting it from you, I may find a way to banish my own."

She looked at him for a few moments longer, more intensely than any Narnian had watched him for a decade. "Then I thank you," she said at last. "There are thirty days."

"Thirty days," he agreed. He smiled, hoping to restore her joy. "Let's start with shoes."

They bought the shoes, bright red ones with cushions on the inside soles, and then Rilian took her to a dress shop and let the resident Naiad fuss over her, buying her a simple blue dress that shimmered in the sunlight. Afterwards he asked if he could show her the marketplace, remembering how it lifted his spirits that morning.

They did not hold hands as they walked. But the King glanced over at her, seeing her curious eyes watching all the different creatures, taking everything in like she had taken in the music of the sea.

"Haven't you seen most of these types of people before?" he asked, curious at her fixation.

"Oh yes, but—forgive me, Your Majesty. I did not mean to address you so informally."

"Please, say what you think. As you think it, as it first springs to your lips. Is the Lord of the Merfolk so formal, beneath the sea?" She smiled, but did not answer, and he sighed. "Perhaps I ask what you may not tell."

"No, King Rilian of the Land-Dwellers. I only smiled because you thought I'd met him. I am but a single, wayward mermaid, and have never even seen the Tower of Coral. I know nothing of kings or lords, nor how they should be addressed."

"Then call me simply King, as you would a name, or King Rilian." He found himself hoping she would pick the first one, shorter and unique to her.

"King," she tested, her lips once again smiling, and Rilian smiled with her, hearing the title on her lips.

"You were going to tell me why you find the marketplace so curious, lady of the sea." He slowed, noting her glance caught by a stall of smooth stones and shells, and steered them off the street, between the stalls.

"Pardon? Oh, of course." She tore her glance away from the coloured rocks and looked again at the bustling street, at the four Squirrels bounding by, the single gloomy Marshwiggle in his pointed hat, and the troop of armed mice following them. "On ships, your kind seems so frail; a thin dead plant all that stands between you and the world you cannot survive. But here on land, you walk as though you owned the world."

Rilian laughed, and then shivered. She frowned. "Did I upset you?" She touched one of his hands with ten gentle fingers, cradling it.

"That is indeed how we walk, fair mermaid. But I know the dark that dwells beneath the earth, and that but reminded me of how little we truly own the land on which we pace."

"Oh, I did not mean to—forget such thoughts," she coaxed. "Look at the Narnians around you; listen to them talk and argue and laugh, like the seagulls in the air on a sunny day!"

Rilian looked back at the market, but he could suddenly see it twice; one as a King, his people happy and busy and thriving; and one as a stranger, watching hands gesture, mouths open to breathe, and nothing but air between each person. How strange to a person where arms must swim, who breathed water, and had water as an ever present barrier.

"They are very alive," he said, breathing out. He turned back to her and smiled, and her smile answered his, her fingers tightening.

But that might do her harm, were someone to see it; it would set all of Narnia talking about her. Rilian withdrew his fingers, and then, seeing her face fall, and wanting to restore it, asked, "Would you like to buy a stone to remember today by?"

She chose a blue stone. The two spent the rest of the day at the market, Rilian introducing Ileana to all the people he knew. Her laugh came more and more often, the more people she spoke with, and Rilian reached the end of the day realising he enjoyed it far more than most.

He took her to Cair Paravel quite late. First they stayed outside, gazing at the sunset from the top of Cair Paravel's cliff. She watched the changing colours, leaning against the bottom of the stone wall, smiling, and telling him how light remained the same over water and over land. After the last colour faded they went inside, her eyes going wide at the swinging door. There he reluctantly surrendered her to an Owl—a being she had never seen before. She seemed unable to stop herself from teaching out to touch its feathers, once it nodded its permission, and snatching her hand back once it started hooting with laughter, since her gentle touch tickled it.

Rilian the Disenchanted slept without any fear of the dark, filled with the joy of the sunny day, and with seeing his land through new eyes.

*Taken from several Korean legends.
**I John 4:18
***The Two Towers, when Frodo and Sam are captured by the orcs.

A/N: I'm not giving up on The Walker. I started this thinking it would be a short snippet-it's twenty pages now and I'm only on day 24-but it's what my head wants to write at the moment, so when it's done I'll go back The Walker.

Also, this is my first time writing a romance, so...no promises on it being done well.