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Chapter 2
She comes to with an ache that seems to be everywhere and soft grass tickling her bare arms. Wait…grass?
Miranda bolts upright, head spinning like a top; at least, that's what it feels like. Vomit pushes at the back of her throat, and she has to throw herself to the side. Her heaving only makes her feel worse as she expels every last kernel of lunch from her stomach.
"What the…?" The question dangles haphazardly in the air. The fresh, crisp, earthy air. Her car vent air freshener smells nothing like this; it's cinnamon, and she can't smell cinnamon or any spice of the sort.
And since when were their trees in her car? And grass so green it hurts her eyes to look at? And did her roof expand, because it had to if the grey clouds above her head are real. And the moon! There was no perfectly round, perfectly bright moon when she left school.
A rustle has her scrambling to her feet, hands balled into unsure fists. She tries to scan the area, but her eyes won't focus.
"Shh!"
"Who's there?" Her voice rings out the instant she hears the shushing, coming out with much more confidence than she feels.
More rustling, and a few whispers she can't make out. It occurs to her to be curious, that something hiding in bushes so short can't be bigger than a child. All the same, it could be a mischievous child, and she doesn't fancy playing tag or dodging a ball.
She stands still and waits, tries to calm herself enough to breathe normally. Her patience, to her surprise, is rewarded. And she's expecting almost anything - except what comes out of the thicket of bushes.
A badger?
"Hello there. Who might you be?"
Her head shakes itself several times before she realizes what she's doing. She really must be hallucinating now, because there is no grass in her car and badgers can't talk.
"Sorry? I don't speak badger?" she mumbles, for lack of anything else to say.
"Not the sharpest sword in the armory, is she?"
And since when are people around three feet tall with beards almost to the ground?
"I'm not much for swords, honestly." Words are just falling out of her mouth at this point, and she can't be held too terribly responsible for what she says as she tries to process this strange scene, tries to will it away.
"Wait wait wait. How long have you been here?"
Is the badger really talking? Or is she actually in the hospital and under the influence of some very interesting pain medication?
"I don't know, I just woke up. Literally."
Metal scraping metal suddenly sounds in her ears, and she can't help but cover her ears and double over. The skidding car tires and rancid smell of rubber burning fills her nose and makes her want to vomit.
'There's a good girl,' the foreign voice croons into her ear the same instant she falls to her knees.
An image flashes before her eyes, one she's sure she's never seen, but one that has her scrambling away.
"Where am I?" The question comes out ragged and hoarse, but all Miranda can focus on is making the images and screaming tires go away. None of it is real, that's what she has to keep telling herself.
"You're in Narnia," answers the badger, looking more concerned than she'd like.
Somehow, this grounds her. The world stops spinning quite so violently, and the voice telling her that she's a good girl fades away.
"Narnia?" she repeats. The name feels smooth and pure on her tongue. Safe, if she had to put it in one single word.
"Newcomer, eh? Well who are you then?" The short little man with the black beard seems marginally less hostile than before. Well, he's not eying her like he'll slit her throat at least.
"I'm…I'm Miranda." She grins, because for some reason introducing herself to these strangers is so very refreshing. "I'm not from here."
"That much is obvious," guffaws the man.
"I'm Trufflehunter," says the badger (the badger is actually talking?). "And this grumpy dwarf is Nikabrik."
"Dwarf?" Dwarves were fairy tales, weren't they?
"Yes, a dwarf," Nikabrik tells her with a roll of his dark eyes.
Well, the badger – Trufflehunter – has one thing right: Nikabrik is a little grumpy.
"Sorry," she stutters. Really, she's at something of a loss. What does one say to a dwarf or a badger?
"Well no use in standing around shivering. Come on then." Trufflehunter waddles off and Nikabrik follows, grumbling and arguing under his breath.
The two exchange a few words Miranda can't make out, and she suddenly doesn't want to go with them at all. They are strangers, after all, even if they seem nice and they're mythical creatures.
It takes them a few moments to notice that she hasn't followed. Trufflehunter tries beckoning to her again, Nikabrik crosses his arms over his chest, and she stays right where she is.
"I'm good, thanks. I can manage on my own."
"Good luck with that," Nikabrik says with sarcasm that hangs heavy in the air.
"We're perfectly harmless, I assure you. And you really should not stay out here."
"Why's that?" she asks evenly.
"The soldiers, for one-"
"One of which we've already adopted, apparently," Nikabrik cuts in.
Trufflehunter shoots the dwarf a scathing look if ever Miranda saw one. Unfortunately, her amusement isn't enough to calm the fear that shoots through her at the mention of a solider. A soldier, where they want her to stay? She's even less inclined to go with them than before. A soldier likely means a strange man, a man she doesn't know who can easily subdue her.
"Please forgive Nikabrik, he's…well…"
Miranda smiles a little and fills in, despite her anxiety. "Grumpy?"
"Yes, grumpy, that's how I put it!"
"Now that we've opened a boarding house, how do you expect me to be?"
"Taking in two people in need hardly qualifies our abode as a boarding house," sniffs the badger.
"I'd rather just try to strike out on my own," Miranda finally says, breaking the little argument between the two.
"My dear, if you want to survive the night, I'd recommend against that. Telmarine soldiers won't take kindly to a solitary woman on her own in the woods. They're quite the unpleasant sort."
"You can say that again," Nikabrik seconds.
"But being in the same abode as one is just fine." She tries not to cross her arms, because that was hostile enough and she probably should not get on Trufflehunter and Nikabrik's bad sides. After all, she's on her own someplace strange (though, admittedly, it's more likely that this whole thing is a figment of pain medications or anesthesia) and she needs to stay on people's good sides as much as she can.
"He's currently unconscious, courtesy of Nikabrik here," Trufflehunter explains.
After a moment, she trudges after them reluctantly. She probably is better off in an 'abode,' as Trufflehunter calls it, than on her own in a forest. She's never even watched Survivor.
She makes a note to stay off the dwarf's really bad side.
She hums her half-interest, half-caution, and follows them until they stop facing a tree. What's so special about one tree out of the hundreds in here?
"That's cool," she mumbles to herself when Trufflehunter pushes on the bark and a hidden door swings open.
She has to bend over, almost to her hands and knees, to get in the door, but it's worth it; the tree home is cozy, with a ceiling decorated in swirls of wood that's high enough for her to stand tall.
"This is where you live?" she asks the friendlier badger.
"It's not much, but it's home," he answers with a smile.
"It's wonderful," she replies. It is; warm, and homey and rustic, with a faint smell of meat stew of some sort hanging in the air.
"The boy has the bed in there," here Trufflehunter points to a room up the stairs, past the fireplace. "But there's another room over here." He starts to gesture at another open door on the other side of the little home, but Miranda sees Nikabrik's indignation and his mouth opening to form a complaint, so she shakes her head.
"Actually, can I sleep by the fire?" Trufflehunter starts to protest, but she hushes him. "I like it better by a fire. It's cozy." In truth? It's also much easier to get away if she feels like it. Less ways for her to be trapped.
"Nikabrik, help the girl find some blankets to make her comfortable. I'm going to get some soup for our poor guest you had the decency to knock out."
The dwarf makes a point of ignoring the badger and Miranda both, opting instead for tearing a piece of bread off the loaf sitting on the table.
"This bread is so stale," he grunts.
She can't blame him there; the tear sounded dry and unappetizing, to say the least.
"Then we'll be having soup," responds the badger from what Miranda guesses to be the kitchen. "And the boy should be coming around soon."
"Yeah? Well I don't think I hit him hard enough."
"Not his biggest fan, are you?" Miranda can't help but mumble.
"No, I'm not," Nikabrik replies with a sneer.
"Nikabrik, he's just a boy."
"He's a Telmarine, not some lost puppy! You said you were gonna get rid of him!"
Miranda shrinks away from him without even realizing she's doing it.
"No, I said I'd take care of him."
Another voice rings in her head, the same sickening croon from before.
'I'll take care of you,' it whispers. Cold fear pierces her veins and all she can hear is that voice and the sound of her breathing. Was it always so ragged?
Vaguely, the noise of the badger and the dwarf quarrelling yet again registers, but it sounds like she's listening to it through molasses. It's barely even background noise.
A cold and clammy hand brushes the side of her cheek. She first thinks to smack it away, but she's paralyzed and she isn't sure why. Is any of this real? The lady on the phone said something about trauma and stress, didn't she? Was that what this was?
She can't think, all she knows is that she has to get out of here right now because he's here and she doesn't know who he is or how or why she just has to go. Just as she pushes herself up onto shaky feet, the clang of metal on metal rings through her ears and jolts her back to reality.
And reality currently means Nikabrik swinging a blade at a strange boy who's holding a fire poker like a sword and Trufflehunter frantically trying to talk them down.
"I told you we should have killed him when we had the chance," growls the hostile dwarf, pointing his sword very deliberately at the boy's chest.
"You know why we can't!" yells the badger, pointing an accusing finger at his testy companion.
"If we're taking a vote," says the boy, "I'm with him."
Miranda cracks a small grin. She has to admire the dry wit under pressure. Then his eyes dart over to her and she swallows the amusement. This is a soldier, and soldier means violence, doesn't it? That's how Trufflehunter and Nikabrik made it sound.
That's when she realizes. She could slip away, right now, and they'd probably never notice.
She takes stock of the situation, which now involves Nikabrik lunging angrily at the boy again. Here's her chance. She carefully slides her chair back, making sure her head remains at the same height, and has just started to scoot toward the door when Trufflehunter's voice cuts through the tense air.
"Enough Nikabrik! Or do I have to sit on your head again?"
Miranda inches again, and some more, and then a little more while Trufflehunter turns to chastising the boy for (apparently) making him spill the soup.
She's halfway there, already.
"And you!"
She almost jumps out of her skin at the badger's yell.
"Don't you sneak away before dinner!"
She looks back at him like a child caught putting her hand in the cookie jar and skulks back to her seat with as bright a smile as she can manage.
"You're helpless out there, and I will not be responsible for the death of a Daughter of Eve."
Apparently satisfied with his reprimands to each and every one of them, he returns to the kitchen and retrieves two bowls of soup, and then two more.
"There you go," he says as he sets a bowl down in front of Miranda. "Still hot," he adds as he puts the other in front of the boy
Miranda thanks him with a nod and an unsure smile as Nikabrik opens his disagreeable mouth once more.
"Since when did we open a boarding house for Telmarine soldiers?"
"I am not a solider!" cries the boy, standing up and puffing his chest out enough that Miranda almost comments on it. She would, if he wasn't so tall, especially compared to her sitting figure, even though he's across the room.
"I am Prince Caspian, the Tenth."
He's royalty? Miranda's sure of two things: she really needs the history and such of this place if she's stuck here on pain meds, and she's really glad she didn't say the smart remark that was dancing on the tip of her tongue.
"What are you doing here?" Nikabrik seems considerably less hostile, a miracle in and of itself.
"Running away," replies the boy, his proud gaze turning sad and heavy. He looks at the floor as he moves to replace the fire poker. Miranda softens. She knows the feeling of running away. She's not sure how, exactly, but it strikes a chord with her.
"My uncle has always wanted my throne," Prince Caspian continues, staring into the fire as his accent deepens and his voice carries even more sadness. "I suppose…"
Miranda studies his back, his posture, out of curiosity and a strange feeling of kinship.
"…I-I have only lived this long because he did not have an heir of his own."
An uncomfortable, almost penitent silence stretches over the room. Miranda uses it to withdraw. She doesn't even know this Prince Caspian; no need to get overly involved before he even knows her name.
"Well. That changes things," says Trufflehunter, quiet and respectful and sorrowful for the prince.
"Yeah. 'Least we don't have to kill you ourselves," finishes the dwarf, settling back in his chair and looking smug as all hell.
But the prince seems to take this to heart. He turns back around, his face a mask of determination, and tells the dwarf that he's right. Miranda knows better than to believe that he really wants to die. She understands the pain in his eyes that he tries so hard to hide.
"Where are you going?" cries the badger as Prince Caspian reaches over for his things and prepares to leave.
"My uncle won't stop until I'm dead."
"Which is why you're not going anywhere."
Three surprised faces turn to regard her. She's not even entirely sure why she said it, just that it needed to be said because letting someone go on a suicide mission, even in a dream, even if it's a boy she just met, is wrong.
"The young lady is right. You can't leave."
Miranda is immensely grateful to Trufflehunter for taking the attention off of her and her idealistic mouth. But the badger has a different reason, another argument to back him up.
He takes the white horn from the table that Miranda didn't even notice before now and holds it out to the prince.
"Don't you know what this is?"
The badger's paws hold the intricately carved horn like it's something sacred. A religious object, then? Miranda isn't sure.
Prince Caspian just stares, maybe because he's a prince and unused to not knowing things. Or because he's just willing to hear the badger out; maybe he was secretly, silently hoping someone would try to stop him.
Trufflehunter sighs and gestures to the bowl of soup still steaming on the edge of the table closest to the prince.
"Sit. I'll tell you over dinner."
For a moment, it looks like he'll refuse and continue fastening his armor. Miranda's eyes don't leave him, though she knows it won't do any good to stare him down. But maybe she's wrong, because he glances over at her and pauses. Maybe he respects her earlier statement, or maybe she looks stern enough that she backs up Trufflehunter, or maybe she's a nicer face to look at than Nikabrik, or maybe he sees a slightly kindred spirit in her. Whatever the reason, he nods once, replaces his things where they were, and sits down at the table in front of the soup. Miranda hides her smile when his knees bump the table just a little.
"Let's begin with introductions," Trufflehunter says as soon as Prince Caspian is seated. "I'm Trufflehunter."
Prince Caspian dips his head in what Miranda can only guess is a respectful, acknowledging sort of gesture. The badger turns to Nikabrik, who sulks none too subtly and firmly keeps his mouth closed.
"And this is Nikabrik," Trufflehunter supplies at the awkward silence. Another dip of the head.
And then Trufflehunter and the prince look at her. She tries not to squirm under the kind gazes that feel like scrutiny.
"Miranda," she says with a dry throat. "I'm…new around here."
A final dip of the prince's head, though his eyes meet hers for a brief second before he straightens.
"Prince Caspian," he says to finish the round. "But you knew that."
Trufflehunter chuckles just a little, and then they all proceed with the most awkward dinner Miranda's ever attended in her life. Nikabrik does nothing but sulk the entire time, with only a few snide remarks to offer from time to time, Trufflehunter explains the horn (Queen Susan's horn, apparently) and how it can summon the "Kings and Queens of Old, " Prince Caspian listens attentively and asks questions in all the right places. And Miranda? She sits there as quietly as she can, sips the soup, and wonders at her vivid imagination. A thought or two about when she'll wake up occurs to her too, because this seems like an awful long dream, even for painkillers.
When everyone's finished, Trufflehunter collects the bowls and gently refuses Miranda's offer to help him clean up. "You're a guest," is all the explanation he offers as he takes her bowl with the rest and goes to the kitchen, leaving her with a grumpy dwarf to her left and a slightly uncomfortable-looking prince to her right.
"You're new here?"
She's startled when the prince addresses her, and it takes her a minute to gather up an answer.
"Yes, I'm from…Earth?" she offers. "The United States of America?"
She's not surprised in the least when the names spark nothing but confusion.
"Not from around here," she finishes with a lame flap of her hand.
"You could say that again," Nikabrik cuts in, that everlasting sneer still on his face pulling his lips away from his teeth.
Okay, she gets the need to be nice to him because she's just a guest, but for heaven's sake, she's had it.
"Christ, who shoved a stick up your ass?" she mutters, half-hoping he won't hear and half-hoping he will.
The dwarf splutters and then glowers, and the prince? A glance over at him shows her that he's trying with all his might not to grin, and he's failing the battle. A tiny snort echoes from behind his lips, and it's so contagious Miranda has to swallow a smile of her own.
Meanwhile, Nikabrik has found his tongue and is enthusiastically berating her. Her only response is to sink back into her chair and cross her arms in an almost perfect imitation of his earlier poses.
"What's all that racket?"
At Trufflehunter's warning question, Nikabrik quiets his voice, but seems a little too put-out to actually stop.
"Everything's alright, I just stirred up Grumpy here," Miranda calls, taking immense pleasure (too much, she's sure) at Nikabrik's icy glare that promises some sort of retribution.
"You know, Miranda, I think that nickname might suit him better than anything I've tried to come up with."
"We might as well use it, then. It really does have the most interesting effect."
"Fine by me, dear girl," Trufflehunter returns with a clear smile in his voice.
"Looks like you just earned yourself a new nickname," Miranda tells Nikabrik with all the stomach-churning sweetness she can muster.
"To the devil Tash with you lot. I'm going to bed," the dwarf says, slamming his hands on the table as he stands and goes to his room. The slam of the door makes Miranda grin in earnest. It's just a dream, this, so why not have a little fun?
But now she's alone with the prince at the table, with nothing under the sun to talk about. She's fairly sure he has no interest in discussing how he came to be here, and she's sure she has no interest in explaining how she got here.
The awkward silence grows, as apparently neither of them knows what to say.
"How did you arrive here?"
His question breaks the silence, and Miranda tries not to grit her teeth in annoyance. The question she didn't want to be asked, and here it is.
"A mix of a car crash and painkillers would be my best guess. You?" If he asked her, she can ask him, right?
"A horse and a fallen tree at eye level."
The answer she expected to be serious turns out to be…well, she's not sure, but she likes it more than the alternative.
"And where is the horse?"
"Far away from here; I ran into the tree, and Destrier kept going." There's a hint of a smile in his voice, even if his face doesn't really reflect it too well. It puts her a little more at ease.
"Destrier? That's an interesting name for a horse."
"I named him when I was just a boy."
"You're still kind of a boy." Those words, she'd like to take back. Even if it's just a dream, insulting a prince wasn't something she wanted to do.
"And you're kind of a girl," he returns.
"Are you mocking me?" she asks indignantly, even though she's amused and a little more at ease.
"Were you mocking me?"
Are his eyes twinkling, or is it her imagination?
"I was just stating a fact. You can't be older than seventeen."
"You look to be the same age."
"I am."
"Then how am I a boy?"
He's clearly playing with her now, and she's surprisingly happy to go along.
"Because you're not a full adult."
"And neither are you."
"Never said I was."
"Perhaps."
They end up staring each other down with telltale smiles. But when she realizes how close their heads are, she pulls back. She almost forgot that she doesn't like being too physically close to people, especially people she's just met.
"You two really ought to get to bed," Trufflehunter says as he waddles back in from the kitchen, paws still wet from the dishwater.
Miranda immediately moves to the blankets sitting in a pile on the floor where Nikabrik dumped them, but the prince looks a bit lost.
"Don't just sit there, to bed with you!" Trufflehunter points Prince Caspian in the direction of the room he woke up in, the room that she's assuming to be his.
The prince looks like he'll argue, but he eventually goes where Trufflehunter is pointing without an argument. When Trufflehunter is serious, he gets his way.
"We'll be getting up rather early, I'm afraid. Prince Caspian is bent on finding the other Narnians."
That's right, she remembers some conversation about that at dinner.
She tells him that it's fine and wonders silently why she's going with them to the Narnians when there's no real reason for her to.
"Good night then." Trufflehunter leaves her then, assembling another pile of blankets across the room.
So much for her brilliant idea of sneaking out in the middle of the night. She tries not to feel disappointed, and to her surprise, she doesn't have to try that hard. They're not bad, even Nikabrik. She'll just think of him as Grumpy from Snow White and the Seven Dwarves and she'll get along with him well enough. And who knows, maybe there will be six more dwarves with the other Narnians the prince is so bent on finding.
She arranges her pile of blankets to her liking, with high sides working as a sort of cocoon that makes her feel a little safer in this strange place. And with that, Miranda curls up and tries to get some sleep.
Banana - That makes me so proud of myself, seriously. Excuse me, I gotta go dance around happily...okay dance done. Good point on the scantrons, I went back in and fixed that. Regarding the school scene, I went back and forth on that because there wasn't a lot going on, but in the end I thought it necessary to show that snapshot of Miranda's life. Thanks for leaving your thoughts!
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