WE COME UPON an island the following day. Baziras spots it on the horizon around noon — the first landmass we've encountered since leaving the Lone Islands over a month ago. Rynelf immediately begins writing out notes and measurements of its location while the rest of the crew prepares the longboats with supplies for exploration and scavenging. By the time the sun grazes the horizon, the Dawn Treader sits anchored in the mouth of the bay.
Half the crew remain aboard the ship while the rest of us take the longboats to shore for the night. I'm shocked Drinian didn't persuade Caspian to wait until morning, considering we know nothing of the island. I suppose they don't want to waste any time if it can be helped, especially with the Lone Islanders' lives on the line.
With the sunlight fading fast, we work quickly to set up camp. The longboats are dragged ashore, and the supplies unloaded. Drinian sends groups to scout the perimeter and gather firewood, pairing me with Rithar and Dusnun and sending Edmund off with Mesithis. Figures he'd separate us.
After the spectacle some of the men made of Edmund and me sharing a hammock last night, I'm not surprised. Irritated, but not surprised. Especially now that I have no way of escaping Rithar's griping.
"Should've left one of you on the ship," he grumbles, leading the trudge through the forest. "You better run off well into the trees before doing anything. If I wake up to–"
"If you don't shut up," I mutter, "I'm gonna break your kneecap."
The man scoffs but falls silent for a few minutes. I woke up in a phenomenal mood today (for good reason), and his idiotic comments have been gradually souring it all day long. At this point, I'm physically restraining myself from bashing him over the head with a log.
Dusnun crouches down to scoop up a few sticks, handing them to me with an awkward sort of smile that's meant to be apologetic. But I notice something uneasy swimming in his eyes that makes me pause.
"What?" I ask.
He shakes his head, eyes darting around the surrounding trees. "Nothing — I don't know. This forest is just...weird."
We stuff the kindling into our baskets and hurry after Rithar as he steps into a small clearing.
"Oh, this is perfect," he says, spreading his arms out as he turns around. "Nice and private and even has some cushioning," he prods the moss carpet with his boot, giving me a suggestive look. "Very spacious, too."
An annoyed groan erupts from Dusnun. "Ugh, Rithar."
"I imagine you two have a lot of catching up to do after all those years..."
My fingers tighten around the basket handles, eyes narrowing as I say to him, "You better hope you sleep as light as you claim to."
He raises a brow at that, picking up on the threat underlying my words: sleep with one eye open tonight. "Big talk," he notes before continuing through the bush. "I wonder what your dear king would think of that."
I don't have to wonder. Edmund would be the one tying Rithar's hands together while I stuffed an angry crab down his trousers. But I just ignore the Telmarine and continue to fill my basket with firewood as we complete our perimeter patrol.
When we return to the beach, the bed rolls and blankets have been laid out, and the firepits dug into the sand. I find the spot Lucy has picked for us among the scattered boulders, depositing my basket of wood beside the empty pit. The two of us get to work building a fire while Eustace — curse whoever let him come along — prods miserably at the sand with a stick. I don't think I've ever met someone so vapidly useless.
Lucy eyes me carefully as I arrange the kindling in an upright fashion. She says nothing about it, but I know she picks up on my annoyance.
"I'm sorry," I say quietly. "I'm not mad at you or anything, Rithar was just being an ass earlier."
"Ah," she nods in understanding, trying to hide her smile as she meets my gaze, "about that."
I snort, feeling my face grow warm. "Shut up."
The queen giggles, having found that situation both hilarious and adorable all day.
We light the fire and settle around it as twilight seeps into the sky. The warmth of it is almost enough to entice Eustace from his self-proclaimed space. Almost. I notice him inch toward us just a little, as if hoping to catch a warm draft.
"Arryn?"
My head snaps up from the sword in my grasp to look at Lucy, who smiles bashfully from across the crackling fire.
She asks, "Can I braid your hair?"
My heart sings with nostalgia and I'm nodding before the word "Yes" even leaves my mouth. Smiling wider than ever, she skips around the fire and sits behind me. Her fingers delicately untangle my hair as I continue to polish a blemish from the hilt of my sword. The smoke-tinged air and the popping wood and Lucy's fingers against my scalp bring me back to a night long ago in the Narnian woods I've almost forgotten about. For a moment, the rolling surf almost sounds like wind in the trees. I think, if I were to close my eyes, I could imagine we're in that clearing again.
The two of us work in silence until Edmund finally returns from his patrol. He seems to recognize the scene immediately, his eyes turning glassy and fond when they meet mine. It might have been a perfect moment if it weren't so painfully obvious who's missing.
Edmund lowers himself to the sand beside us and stretches his legs out, boots close to the fire to warm his toes. "How is the DLF, anyway?" He asks, making me smile. I forgot about that nickname the girls gave him.
"A sarcastic pessimist, as always, but Caspian still appointed him Regent while we're gone."
"Oh, I wish he would have come along," Lucy muses, wistful for her old friend. "I miss him."
My fingertips trace the curve of my sword pommel. "Me too."
The fire fills the silence, cracking and popping and spitting glowing sparks into the air. Gradually, Eustace inches closer until he's finally in the sphere of its warmth.
Drinian goes around to each fire and the groups of men around them, doing a headcount and assigning watch shifts for the night. I send a silent thanks to Aslan when he doesn't give us any. Though I do get a stern look that says keep yourself in check. Which feels a little unfair. I haven't acted out of line since the incident with the Merfolk months ago. Since then, my behaviour has been almost impeccable.
Caspian finally joins us after completing his own rounds, settling onto his sleeping mat with an exhausted groan.
I share an amused smile with Edmund, who's been poking at the fire with a long stick. As I'm about to tease the king for his old age, Caspian's eyes land on me with grave stoniness to them. The words falter in my throat, wondering what he's just heard from the men.
"Did either of you find anything strange on your patrol?" His hands are clasped and pressed to his chin as he looks between Ed and me. Lucy's hands still momentarily, halfway through my braid. She waits tensely for our response.
"I don't think so." Although thinking about it now, I might have been too distracted by Rithar's quips to pay much attention to my surroundings.
"Well, we didn't find anything," Edmund begins. "But both of us felt...sort of unsettled. For a forest, it was unusually quiet."
"Oh yeah." I recall the apprehension on Dusnun's face earlier. "Dusnun said it felt weird, too."
The king doesn't seem surprised to hear this. He just nods and looks thoughtfully into the orange flames, lips in a taut line. "Many of the men have been saying the same things. No one has seen any animals, but we've been hearing them in the bushes all night. And Rennor swears something has been watching him since we arrived."
That makes everyone — including Eustace — freeze instantly. What could be watching us?
"We have to keep our guard up," Caspian advises. "Nobody goes off alone. Keep your weapons close. At least one man will be on watch every hour until sunrise." By the troubled expression on his face, I know he must regret his decision to come ashore.
When the wind rustles the leaves behind us, everyone tenses.
I don't expect I'll be getting much sleep tonight, but still, I say, "We'll be fine." If something really is watching us and has bad intentions, they would have acted on them by now.
"Maybe everyone's just nervous about being somewhere new," Lucy adds, sounding lighthearted. But I can't tell if she believes that herself or is just saying it in hopes that someone else might.
Lucy ties off the end of the braid and lets it fall against my back. "Alright, I'm done." She scooches around to see her work from the front and smiles.
I thank the queen, running my fingers down the length of the careful braid. There are no flowers this time, for the hands that would have picked them remain too far out of reach.
━━━༻❁༺━━━
"Sefi."
My eyes fly open. Caspian is standing above me, rousing Edmund as well.
"Wake up," he hisses urgently. "Look."
My heart stops when I sit up and see the footprints. The sand is littered with them, trailing up and down the sleeping mats. Someone had been walking among us while we slept. Someone–
"Where's Lucy?"
I turn around. "What?"
Ed begins to frantically call his sister's name. All I can do is stare uselessly at her empty sleeping mat. Someone took her. They took her.
No no no no.
I seize my sword and my dagger, fingers shaking as I fasten the buckle around my hips. Almost everyone is awake now. Drinian's shouts travel down the beach, ordering the men to their feet. Panic from Edmund filters across the link, and when his eyes meet mine they're wild and terrified.
I reach out for him, trying to stay calm for both of us. "We'll get her back." I squeeze his wrist as if sealing the promise.
He stares down at me and nods once before marching toward the treeline where the trail of footprints disappears. I'm right on his heels along with Caspian, the rest of the crew following in our steps. Edmund flies through the trees, reading the forest floor for signs of disturbance. His years spent hunting and tracking allow him to pick up on the turned soil, flattened moss, and broken branches that certainly would've slipped my notice. He leads the party through the trees until we emerge in a garden.
A garden. On an uncharted, unexplored island. It makes me pause for a moment.
Well, I think, taking in the perfectly sculpted topiary and labyrinthine patterns cut into the grass, if they can create something like this, maybe they're civilized and can be reasoned with.
Weapons drawn, we slow our advance across the manicured lawn and scan for signs of the missing queen. The men silently split into teams, weaving amongst the trimmed greenery to cover more ground.
Edmund glances back at me and Caspian, his eyes seeming to say stay alert; they're here somewhere.
I flex my fingers around the hilt of my sword. My hearing, even attuned to the smallest of sounds, doesn't pick up anything of note.
At the base of a tree cut into a spiral, Ed finds Lucy's dagger. The moment he holds it up to show me, wooden spears are flying toward us through the air. I jump back as the points thud into the ground around us. Cries and shouts arise from the men.
Edmund surges to his feet, sword raised, as the thump thump of heavy footsteps close in from every direction. Without a word, we whirl to face our attackers, back to back so there are no blind spots.
But even though I heard them all around, I see nothing. Where are they?
"I don't–"
A voice booms in the air before us, "Stop right there or perish!"
Caspian pivots in search of the source. Magic flits through my mind as the only explanation when Cas's sword flies from his grasp.
All around us, the men begin to grunt and fall and lose their weapons to invisible assailants.
Edmund's back is pressed against mine in anticipation. I can't hear their approach over the yelling so there's nothing I can do when my sword is wrenched out of my hands.
"What–?"
My own blade turns on me, suspended high in the empty air. Quickly, I draw my dagger and lunge forward.
"Ha! Not so fast."
I spin toward the second voice but not quick enough. Something solid hits my cheek, making me stumble back with a flaring headache. Then my dagger is gone, too.
Rage pools in my stomach as I watch Edmund back away from yet another invisible enemy, this one brandishing his prized longsword. A quick scan of our party reveals we've been overpowered. Our men are unarmed and surrounded by floating weaponry.
"What sort of creatures are you?" Caspian demands.
"Big ones! With the head of a tiger and the body of a..."
"Different tiger!" another finishes. The only indications I have of their existence are the stolen swords and small puffs of their breath frosting in the air.
"You don't want to mess with us," the first one warns. When I look toward it, the light seems warped where I imagine its body must be.
Edmund remains undaunted. "Or what?"
"Or I'll...claw you to death!" Laughter erupts among them. But the illusion is fading, the unseen faces and bodies slowly taking shape around us.
"And I'll ram my tusks right through you!"
They're dwarf-like and stacked upon one another to appear taller, a singular leg bearing a rather large and unsightly foot. Still unaware we can now see them, they continue to spout threats and lies about their appearance.
"And I will gnash you with my teeth."
They giggle, seeming incredibly pleased with themselves.
"And I will bite you with my fangs!" One of them growls, his hair a yellow bush.
"You mean squash us?" Dusnun supplies. "With your fat bellies?"
At that, the creatures begin to look at one another. The realization that they're no longer invisible finally dawns.
"Tickle us with your toes?" Caspian watches as the stacked dwarf-things tumble and drop one another, giving up on their act.
Edmund reclaims his sword and stalks forward, drawing it on one of the creatures. "What have you done with my sister?"
He's heavily bearded with the most wild red hair I've ever seen. The wide-eyed expression on his face is almost laughable. I can't believe we were afraid of these things only a minute ago. They couldn't possibly pose a threat to us.
"Now," he gasps breathlessly, "calm down."
Ed's patience has evaporated, his stature and tone utterly commanding now. "Where is she?"
My cheek is throbbing but I march over to one of the things still propped upon the shoulders of its friends. He swallows nervously and silently offers up the sword he'd stolen from me. I snatch it from him with a stony glare and he immediately sticks his hands up in surrender.
Finally, the one pinned under Edmund's sword relinquishes information. "She's in the mansion."
"What mansion?"
His eyes dart further into the garden where the air shimmers and bends and slowly fills. Nestled among the sculpted bushes and trees, a sprawling white-bricked building emerges. Emerald green ivy crawls up its towers and peaks and blankets nearly all the lower windows.
While everyone in the garden is momentarily distracted by Eustace stumbling out of the trees, I watch curiously as the mansion's front door swings open and Lucy steps out with a strange old man in red robes.
Relief surges through me when I find she looks perfectly unharmed. Thank Aslan.
The three-limbed dwarves begin hopping about madly, muttering, "The Oppressor! The Oppressor!" Which prompts everyone to look away from Eustace and see what they're fussing about.
"Lucy," Edmund breathes.
The queen gives us a reassuring smile as the stranger rests his hand over his heart and bows respectfully.
"Your Majesties."
Lucy introduces us. "Arryn, Caspian, Edmund, this is Coriakin. It's his island."
The three of us all come to the same conclusion at the same time: we've just trespassed on this man's home. Awkwardly, we bow in return as if it might excuse the breach of etiquette.
"That's what he thinks," the red-haired dwarf butts in, challenging Lucy's declaration. "You have wronged us, magician."
"I have not wronged you." Coriakin breezes past us with a calm stride. For every step he takes toward them, they hop three backward. "I made you invisible for your own protection."
"Protection?"
"That's oppressive."
While they continue to argue with the magician and retreat from the garden, I take the opportunity to retrieve my dagger. Edmund finds it before I do, scooping it from the grass and holding it out.
"Thanks." I take the blade from him but he's looking at me with something soft yet furious in his eyes that makes me pause. "Ed...?"
He lifts his hand to my face, brushing a strand of hair out of the way. "You're bleeding" His fingers hover over the sore spot, careful not to touch it. "Does it hurt?"
"Yes," I breathe, taking his hand in mine and gently lowering it. "Please don't touch it." I can already feel the bruise forming beneath my skin.
A muscle in his jaw flexes. "Damned dwarves," he mutters.
"Dufflepuds," Coriakin corrects, strolling back toward his mansion. "Please, if you would accompany me inside, we have matters to discuss."
Caspian asks Drinian to join us as well, and before anyone can shoo him back outside, Eustace manages to weasel inside the doorway behind us. When he sees his cousin trailing behind him, Edmund groans quietly and shoots me a pained look. His devastation is so profound it actually makes me laugh a little.
The magician leads us through the grand halls of his mansion, reciting the history of his island and the generations of Dufflepuds that have lived under him by Aslan's decree. The simple-minded creatures believe Coriakin wants only to enslave them. They attempted a rebellion against him a long time ago, which they were then punished for by being turned into monopods.
Coriakin, I realize, is much older than he appears. If he's governed so many generations of Dufflepuds, he must be centuries old by now, kept alive and young by his magic. I wonder...could he have seen the chimæras?
I don't want to let myself fall victim to the burning hope in my chest, but I can't help it. He must have seen them pass through. It was only forty years ago.
When his story concludes, Lucy asks about the invisibility spell she was tasked with undoing. "What did you mean when you said you made them invisible for their own good?"
"It seemed the easiest way to protect them," he answers. "From the evil."
Edmund glances at me, seeming surprised that he knows about the green mist. "You mean the mist?"
The magician stops at a door at the end of the hall and ushers us inside. "I mean, what lies behind the mist."
The room we enter is dark and cavernous, its walls lined with book-laden shelves. A blue light emanates from the roof, where a shifting image of the sky is cast by some sort of magic. Edmund tilts his head back to stare at it while my gaze travels over the books and scrolls, wondering how old they might be.
A cat lounging in a small window set high on the wall perks up at our arrival. Its black fur is speckled grey with age, but still, it traipses effortlessly along the wooden shelves and cupboards to reach the ground.
Coriakin lights up when he spots the animal loping toward him, holding his arms out as if to embrace his oldest friend. "Siv, my love! You've grown grey!"
The cat leaps forward and I watch, frozen, as it takes the shape of a man.
He's a chimæra.
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author's note
SURPRISE HAHAHAH
arryn has finally actually found another chimæra! ahhhhh! what do you think he knows about the others? do y'all think he's the only one left, or are there more out there? is he gonna join the crew? i'd love to hear your thoughts/theories abt our new character: sivaran!
tbh this chapter turned out wayyyy longer than i intended. i really wanted to end it with the chimæra reveal but it took way longer to get to than i thought and i couldn't bring myself to throw away an opportunity for such an inredible cliffhanger so here we are with 3300 words #noragrets
anyways i don't like the dufflepuds lmao i don't like watching the dufflepud scene in the movie or reading it in fanfics and i especially don't like writing it. idk why. maybe it's the dialogue that gets on my nerves or the fact that the vibe with them is so silly when i feel like it should be more dire (lucy was literally kidnapped?) but yeah. arryn and ed are fed up with those fxckers and so am i
i have all of next week off of work! and as long as I don't take a spontaneous road trip (which, honestly, i might) i have moderately-high hopes that the next chapter should release within 2 weeks!