I don't own the sea, the ships, the mermaid, nor the King and his Narnians.
Beta'd by trustingHim17
He woke the next morning, hurried through breakfast—he ate with the Moles and Squirrels outside this time— and checked for any court case. There weren't any, to his delight, so he headed right towards the quarters of the Owl, Galaxah. He meant to check on the ship-building of Narnia's fleet today, and thought Ileana might have some useful advice.
He did not pause to think about other possible motivations—such as how much she might enjoy it, or how much time it would allow him to spend in her company.
"Galaxah, fair friend, might I have a moment of your time?" he called up to the Owl. Galaxah liked to sleep atop a chair in one of the inner rooms, but had placed the chair on another chair, and that chair on a table, and had just been tucking its head under its wing when Rilian came in. Its head spun all the way around and its large golden eyes blinked disagreeably.
"Who is there at this hour of the day?"
"Just a humble king with a question, good Galaxah. Where did you stash the guest Ileana?"
"Oh, it's you. Your Majesty. Well, it's a fine time to be bothering decent folk! I put her in a guest room on the east side, at the bottom of the tower, the one facing the sea. She seemed to like it. She'll be sleeping there still, if she has any sense. It's no time of day to be about."
"My thanks! Rest well!" Rilian called, slipping out the door before closing it softly. He made his way to the tower quickly. He knocked on the door and waited.
No one answered, and he realised that, if doors were not a part of the merfolk world, perhaps knocking was not either. Though he had no idea how they announced their presence.
"Ileana?" he called, knocking again. "May I come in?"
He waited, but again there was no answer. He called one more time before opening the door.
The room—one with a blue rug, a four-post bed with white hangings and a white cover, and three matching dressers with stars carved into their dark wooden tops—stood empty. Rilian glanced at the bed and frowned. There was not a single wrinkle on the white coverlet; it must not have been slept in. The menservants and maidservants did not check the rooms of guests till after lunch, in case there were any who liked to sleep in, and he doubted a mermaid could make a bed perfectly the first time she tried.
Was she gone?
He headed out of the room, trying to think. Where would a mermaid go? She had said she'd stay for thirty days—and he had not realised how much he counted on that, on a little time of lightness and joy with someone who understood the threat of the darkness. But she had promised, and…did merfolk often break their word? He realised he knew nothing about her, just the tale she had told of herself. Any more than he knew anything but broad generalities about her people. The merfolk mostly ruled themselves, a kingdom underwater with a lord.
Could she have left for a good reason? She might have heard word from her father or mother, or had been called back…he'd never even asked if her parents gave her permission to come to land.
Still, he set all that aside. His first task was to see if she could be found.
He asked the passing Panther guard if he had seen a girl with fair skin and long blonde hair around the castle, and the Panther, after bowing, had referred him to the Captain of the Guard, and the Captain, a Faun who was just coming off duty, had informed him that Ileana was currently imprisoned in their second most comfortable dungeon. The first was occupied by a visiting Calormene who thought maids were made to fulfil their master's every whim and had not appreciated getting slapped.
Rilian, disregarding the Calormene for now, tried not to let any censure reach his voice, at least not till he had heard the Captain out. "Why, may I ask, is our guest currently residing in the dungeon?"
"She was found wandering the halls, sire. The guard on duty observed her for a several minutes. She opened every door she came across. When the guard came forward to offer his help…well, sire, she asked the way to the tower."
The tower, Rilian thought. The armoury tower, the guard must have presumed, since that was the closest one. "And?" the king asked.
"Upon further questioning, as to her antecedents and purpose in Cair Paravel, the intruder responded that she was here because King had brought her here for thirty days. And forgive our scepticism if we were wrong, sire, but you have never done such a thing before, nor did she refer to you by your proper title or name. We thought to put her below, till we could investigate further. We'd bring it up when you checked with the guard before leaving today."
Below. In the dungeon, Rilian realised.
In a room without windows, nor the sound of the sea.
He ran. Down the hallway—it felt so long—to the top of the stairs, grabbing the bannister and sliding down it. He could hear the Captain's two hooves clattering behind him, running to keep up, and jumping down the stairs after him, armour clanging as the pieces hit each other. Rilian did not care.
Dungeons were no places for those who had been scarred by the dark. Rilian ran, and ran, and ran, thanking Aslan between breaths that the Squirrels loved challenging him to races. He made it to the dungeon in a matter of minutes, sweeping the key and metal ring from the hook in the hall as he passed. He had the door unlocked seconds later and pulled it open, breathing heavily. The torchlight from the hall made him a dark silhouette in the doorway, and he hoped he didn't scare her.
But "King?" came from inside, and Ileana rose from the cushioned chair. The room had a bed, a chair, and a small table, as well as two torches on opposite walls. It was not a threatening place. But Rilian had seen Ileana before she rose, had seen the way her knees had been drawn up on the chair, her arms wrapped around them, and her head resting on them. He saw the way she clutched the blue stone in her hand.
"Are you well?" he asked, taking two steps into the room.
"I…I think I did something wrong," she whispered, and Rilian couldn't help himself, he reached out and caught her hand.
"No, Ileana, lady of the sea, you did not. I'm so sorry, so very sorry. I should have told the Guard you were here. I should have made sure they knew you were my guest." He could hear some of them behind him, following him in his mad dash, and did not doubt they knew about her now. He turned and waved them all away; they left with a bow. He turned back to his guest.
"Can I—can I go out now?"
"Yes, come out," he said, and he walked backwards, pulling her with him, only to have her slow, and glance down at her feet.
"I need my shoes." He released her fingers, but she clung to him, and pulled him with her while she walked back to the bed. She'd put her shoes on the pillow, he realised, and—that must be another secret of the land she had not known, what a pillow was for, or a bed. It was a secret, new knowledge, like putting her shoes back on. She stood glancing from them to her feet, before trying to lift one foot up to her hands and slip the shoe on that way. She nearly fell.
So he took her shoes, guiding her back to the chair, and knelt to slide them on for her. "Shoes are easier to put on when you are sitting," he told her, giving her the most reassuring smile he had.
Her smile back was a small, timid thing, but he knew how to fix that. He drew her out of the fire-lit room, the shadowed hallway, up the stairs, and into the entrance. Her hand clung trustingly to his the entire way. Then they entered the courtyard.
She blinked in the bright sunlight, and let her head fall back, pale hair falling, eyes closed. The tension left her body in a rush, her hand no longer clinging, just holding, and Rilian let go a breath of his own.
"I cannot apologise enough, lady of the sea." He said it softly, so not to disturb her, but she still opened her eyes and looked at him.
"I am not that frightened. I just…did not know when it would end. Nor what I had done wrong, that I could not leave that room. I think it is like our chains, that room with its door. When a merman can no longer be trusted with the freedom of the boundless sea, for it has been proved that his heart is bent to evil, then his tail is bound in chains of stone, shaped by the water, and fastened to a large stone that he cannot keep aloft. That is what your small rooms are. But what did I do wrong, that I could no longer…walk?"
Rillian looked at her, and a doubt came again. What had she been doing? "They said you were opening every door, and seeking a tower. What were you looking for?"
"I was looking for the stars."
"You could not see them from your window?"
"I could see them; I could not hear them. I wanted to hear their song, my first night on the land. I—I missed the song of the sea. I missed the song of my parents; all I could hear was their farewell song." She looked down again, moving one foot back and forth. "I wanted to ask the stars if I was as foolish as I thought I was; to listen to their song and remember how long time is, how our foolishness isn't as great as we think it is."
"So you were looking for a tower, to seek the stars," Rilian tested, and she nodded. He wanted to believe her; to believe that's all she had been looking for. It made sense; it was likely the truth. Wasn't it?
Either way, he wanted her to smile again. And to learn more about her, to know that she spoke the truth—which meant his original plans still held. "Would you care to go and view some ships with me, Ileana?" For some reason he could not call her lady of the sea, not right then.
"Some ships?" and she frowned. "But I cannot—oh, I have feet! I can walk on the dead plants now! I can see inside that world!"
Rilian could not help it, he laughed. He remembered his own excitement to explore Bism, the world just out of reach; she shared that as well. "Yes, you can, but do not call them such things around those who build or sail in them! Name them ships, or better yet, call them by the name each ship is given."
"Which are written in large letters around their prows," she said, remembering. "Let us go!" She turned towards the entrance to the orchard, this time pulling him along. Her strength impressed him—but of course, mermaids swam with their arms as well as their tails.
Squirrels and Birds, as well as a Mole, called greetings or, in some cases, challenged the King to the race, and so it was on the way to the shore that King Rilian taught Ileana the mermaid about running, pocketing her stone for her so she did not drop it. He had to catch her every few steps at first, but more and more she found her feet, and laughed to be running. She told him it felt like swimming in a strong current, only with sticks hitting her tail at every step. She did not want to stop.
But she stopped when they reached the shore. Her eyes were on the sea, the waves cresting, and the water sliding over the sand. She took a single step towards them, then halted.
Rilian watched her, his breath catching. He knew the longing on her face, remembered it, remembered screaming from it, wrists and ankles bound in silver. He had called for Nania, the sun, Aslan—
He wondered what bound Ileana here. He began reaching for her hand—to hold her back and ask, or to guide her to the sea, he was not sure—but she suddenly turned away from the sea and smiled at him. "Where are the ships?"
She noticed his hand and reached out with her own, but he let his drop before they touched. It would not be wise, nor kind, to start rumours.
He would enjoy these thirty days, and then return to her to the sea—to her home.
"This way, lady of—lady." He turned, and felt his heart swell. Dryads grew the wood, Beavers cut it, and Giants brought it here. Here Caspian had built six ships, and now Rilian built six more. Partly to honour his father, and partly because he wanted Narnia to be able to trade at sea.
Four were nearly done, standing tall above the beach. The Giants would drag them into the water later, but for now Dragon's Mast, The Duke, The Dufflepud, and Flower from the World's End towered above the beach. Rilian had named them after listening to Drinian's tales.
Ileana threw her head back, took a deep breath, and burst out in a smile. "Race you there!" she called back over her shoulder, already taking off.
Drinian beat her there, of course; he had far more practice running. But she laughed all the same, and he laughed with her.
"Though I did not win, may I request a prize?" she asked, bent over and gasping between the smiles and words.
"Ask, lady, though I do not promise to grant such a thing to the one who lost."
She held her hand out, smiling up at him from her half-height. "My stone?"
Rilian took it out of his pocket and let it fall into her hand. She clenched it in her fingers, took a few more deep breaths, and brought herself up straight. "What should I see first?"
"Whatever you wish," Rilian answered. The sunlight on his skin, the sea air in his lungs, the laughter still echoing in his ears-he felt like he could do whatever she wanted forever.
"Then to the ships!" she called, taking off again.
She spent the morning exploring every inch she could reach. She wanted to see the two ships that were still just skeletons, protruding rafters and beams. She danced through the beams, knocking on the wood, and wondering at how thick it was. She finally boarded Flower from the World's End, checking every nook and cranny below decks, running her fingers over the glass windows, and even bouncing on the boards. Drinian had been aboard, and smiled to see her curiosity, asking the King in low tones who she was.
"A mermaid from the sea?" Drinian asked incredulously. Rilian glanced at Ileana—still trying to climb on a chair to touch the ceiling—and then frowned at his ancient friend. Drinian lowered his voice. "Your Majesty, there are tales of mermaids on land, but—they are ancient legends."
"An ancient legend, still a boy, brought me out of the depths of the earth. Should I be surprised when one walks out of the depths of the sea?"
Drinian glanced at him. "Yes," he advised quietly, and Rilian's eyes narrowed.
"Do you see something that I do not, old friend?"
"I do not know yet, my King. And that is why I do not like this."
Rilian hesitated.
Then his stomach growled at him and he shrugged. "Then watch her for me, would you, my honoured friend? I should go and fetch us lunch—all three of us, you should eat with us. I promise you—" he paused. "I promise you, this time I will heed your advice. So if you are uneasy, as my advisor—"
"I will tell you so," Drinian promised. "Go. I will watch her."
Rilian glanced at his possible friend one more time, now crouched on the floor and running her fingers through the circle of sunlight the window let in. "Watch her for her safety, as well as mine. If she is…if she is what she seems, then she is a Narnian to guard."
"I swear it."
Content with that, Rilian fetched lunch. When he came back, Ileana was still below decks, counting the nails in the wood, touching each with a finger.
"Would you like to sail in her?" Rilian asked, watching from the doorway as she crawled around. "To feel the sea rock her, and to feel her bend with the power of the wind?"
"No—not yet. I—maybe fifteen days in. But I want to see the land first. Only it is so strange to be near the sea, but not in it! Some of our homes float, the fishers who follow the currents and the shoals, but to have something so filled with nothing—it is strange!"
"Strange it may be, but for me the strangeness works the other way round! Would you like to come and have your luncheon beside the sea, and perhaps walk in the water afterwards?"
"Oh," Ileana said, sitting back on her heels and one hand touching her stomach. "Oh," she said again, and laughed. "Some things are the same on sea and on land! Yes, please, King, for I am hungry."
"Then come," and he offered her a hand.
Lunch proved messier than he expected. Once sitting, Ileana seemed unable to keep her eyes off the sea, off the waves that kept brushing the shore. She inched closer and closer to them, and sometimes her food hit her cheek instead of her mouth.
"I would love to see the sea as you have seen it," Drinian said after a while. He had watched her, eyes speculative, as she ate.
"You have never seen the sea until you've seen the world beneath it." She set her sandwich down on the sand, and Rilian took it up again with a wince, dusting sand off it and putting it on a plate before setting it back beside her.
"Why?" she asked, watching what he was doing.
"Take a bite of food with sand on it, and you won't ask why again," Drinian put in dryly. "Tell me more about the sea."
"It is very different from the land." She took one hand and dipped it through the air, up and down in swoops. "On land you cannot go up or down, not unless the land goes up or down. Or if you fall. But there are layers to the sea. Some layers are cold and strong, and the things that swim in them tell tales of things long before the birth of the living merfolk. Some layers are close to the surface, filled with bubbles and small fish and things the world drops, floating like…like this," and she picked up a handful of sand and threw it upwards. "To swim through that is the delight of most merboys. Some layers are so warm, warm enough it feels like every scale on your body is hot in the water. And the colours are different; it is harder to see them through the water, but the bright coral and bright fish—oh, to see them is a joy! Here there are so many bright colours, the leaves, the clothes, the flowers, that it is harder to notice them."
Drinian was staring at her. "You are truly a mermaid," he said at last.
She laughed, a sound that mixed with the waves. "Of course!"
"And you came on land?"
Her laughter cut off, her head swivelling back to the sea. "Yes."
"Why?"
She did not answer. Drinian did not relent.
"You obviously still love the sea."
"Of course. I will never stop loving the sea."
"Then why come on land?"
"Because she was seeking something more," Rilian put in, feeling a strange urge to defend her. But even to his old friend, the words were not easy to say, so he leaned down and poked at the sand with a stick. "She was seeking something to defeat the darkness that lurks in the sea as well as the caves."
Drinian looked from one to the other, and back again. "I see," he said slowly.
Rilian had to wonder: did he? Drinian had not liked the serpent from the first, had been uneasy—what did this old sea captain think of the mermaid who came from the depths?
Did he like her? Or was he unnerved by her? He believed she was a mermaid now-not that Rilian had doubted that, he'd seen it with his own eyes.
"How long are you staying?" Drinian asked, his words directed to Ileana once more.
She looked out at the sea once again, her eyes sad, her hands playing with the blue stone she'd kept beside her. "Twenty-nine days."
A/N: Remember how this was meant to be a snippet? I told myself that I definitely wasn't going to write every day as a single chapter. I'm still aiming for that, but…no promises. I'm losing all my arguments with this story anyway.
