AN: I just wanted to say again I am so sorry that it took me so long to update before. And
as one reviewer pointed out, to then leave you on a cliff hanger! I am so cruel – sorry!
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Even as the arrow pierced the heart of the dragon, Susan could feel that something was wrong. As she looked into his deep brown eye, suddenly she recognised him. Her heart knew him even though her eyes were telling her differently. And Susan the gentle of Narnia had learned to trust her heart before even her own eyes.
As the dragon crashed to the beach before them, the rest of the archers paused in their fight with the other dragon as they heard the gentle Queen cry out.
"Caspian!"
Indeed, the other dragon did not seem in need of vanquishing at all as it almost fell from the sky and scampered to the side of the first, the low growls it emitted sounding as if he was desperately trying to tell them all something. Susan didn't heed the warning shouts of her family and the crew as she also sped to the fallen dragon's side.
"Lucy" she called her sister desperately over her shoulder.
"Quickly … your cordial!"
But Lucy, whose heart was never far behind anyone else's in telling her the truth was already at her sister's side. Unstopping the small crystal bottle, she handed it to her Susan.
Susan almost weeping with the need for speed, and much to the chagrin of her brothers, climbed up on the dragon's foreleg so that she could reach its mouth. Stretching she tipped the bottle so that one drop of the precious cordial dripped into the dragon's mouth.
The dragon, who had been labouring for breath, swallowed and let out a long breath, causing Susan's hair to stream back behind her. But she did not flinch, because with that came a smell that hinted at the undefinable scent that spoke only of Caspian.
"Caspian!" Susan gasped.
The dragon raised his head, looked around at Susan's family and the crew of the Dawn Treader on the beach and nodded. He attempted to raise his claw to smooth back Susan's hair which had settled over her cheeks, but at the last instant remembered Eustace's attempts to wipe his own tears and lowered his leg in frustration.
Meanwhile Reepicheep had approached the other dragon and was examining his eyes.
"Eustace?" he asked.
Everyone turned to the second dragon and saw there, gazing out at them with frightened blue eyes, Eustace Clarence Scrubb.
In reply Eustace nodded energetically and his tail waved vigorously. It was not his fault that his tail lay in the shallow waters of the beach, nor was it his fault that the sailors standing nearest, received their yearly bath rather earlier than they had planned.
Peter approached both dragons and smiled at them reassuringly before turning to Captain Drinian and the crew.
"I think it would be best if the crew returned to the ship Captain" he said.
"My family and I will stay with our cousin and the King. We must think on ways to restore them both."
Seeing the crews worried looks he continued.
"I am sure that there is something that can be done. If you cannot trust in this, then trust that Aslan will find a way."
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Later as they all settled around the campfire that was started by not one but two accommodating dragons, Susan looked across the beach at Caspian who had withdrawn from the others and was sitting someway up the beach seemingly staring at the stars.
Getting to her feet, she walked determinedly towards him. She had told Lucy that she had difficulty talking to Caspian because he was so handsome as to be distracting … now was her chance.
"Although I think Aslan" she muttered under her breath.
"Had I known that this would be your solution, I would never have complained in the first place!"
Caspian hearing her near swung his head towards her as she approached. He had moved away from the others so that he could think. Much as he was distressed at being turned into a dragon, he could not help but think that he deserved it. He had become a tyrant to his people. The very people that he had sworn to protect, who he had fought to rescue from his uncle.
His uncle, that is where it had all started. When Peter had refused to kill Miraz and had handed him the sword he had misunderstood. He had thought that the High King was handing him the sword so that he could take his rightful vengeance on his uncle.
But he had misunderstood. Peter was giving him the chance to start out his reign with an act of forgiveness and mercy. To show both the Narnians and the Telmarines that he was able to forgive and move away from the past. To let them see, that in the future they could move forward together.
That was not to say that Miraz did not deserve to die.
He had killed Caspian's father, the rightful King.
He had usurped the throne from Caspian.
He had attempted to kill Caspian.
He had hunted the Narnians to near extinction.
Yes … he deserved death.
And if Peter, or Caspian, or any of the Narnians for that matter, had killed him in single combat or in battle, it would have been deserved.
But to kill him in cold blood, to summarily execute him in front of his army as he knelt in supplication before Caspian. That was another matter.
And that killing, had started a vicious cycle. Had made the Telmarines afraid of him. Their fear had made them wary of Caspian and this wariness had deepened Capsian's mistrust of them.
Had he just talked to them, things might have been resolved. But in the end, it had been easier to continue on the path that he had started when he had killed his uncle.
Judging, not trusting.
Meting out punishment before reflecting if it was deserved or even needed.
Caspian choked back a sob. He did not deserve the title of King.
Did not deserve the Gentle Queen who now drew near.
As for Susan, now that she was able to talk to Caspian without fear of him interrupting, without the distraction of wanting nothing more than to be in his arms, could not think of what to say to Caspian.
Should she tell him that he had acted wrongly in killing his uncle?
Aslan and Peter had told him, he knew it.
Should she tell him that he should not have sold his people into slavery?
How could he not know this? Of course he did.
Then it came to her.
Caspian did not need to be told what he had done wrong, to be lectured and chastised again.
No, what Caspian needed now was to be guided and supported on the way forward. In how to move past his mistakes and become a better King.
Susan settled down on the beach, between Caspian's front legs.
Caspian shifted to draw her closer, bring his wings forward to shelter his Queen from the chill wind.
Susan smiled at him and the smile, Caspian reflected was bright enough to melt even a dragon's heart.
Taking a deep breath, Susan started.
"Do you want to know what Aslan said to us on that last day?"
Caspian nodded his head.
"He told us that you were in danger. That he feared for you, that the road you had started down could lead to you becoming the very thing that you had striven so hard to save Narnian from – a tyrant. He told us that we needed to return so that we could save you – save you from yourself.
Aslan told us that he had planned for us to return to England and never return to Narnia. The very thought of that broke my heart. That I might be torn from my true home and never allowed to return.
The first time, when we were torn out of Narnia without warning and returned to England as children once more. It nearly killed me! Not physically, but the real me, who I was inside, who Narnia had allowed me to become. I coped by burying that self deep inside. Smothering it in logic and facts. I built walls so that no one could see inside. See the me who was withering in that cold hard, unmagical world. See that I was screaming inside. Screaming not just for the loss of Narnia, but for the loss of myself.
When I returned to Narnia, I knew in my very marrow that we would once again be forced to leave. So I kept those walls up. Kept them hard and strong so that I could not be hurt again.
But then you appeared and bit by bit you chipped away at those walls, until they began to crumble. They crumbled and fell. And I was glad, because, even though I knew it would hurt even more when I left. At least I had lived. At least I had something to regret.
You saved me Caspian.
You saved me from myself.
And needing to come back and save you as you had saved me.
That saved me too – saved me from erecting those walls again.
What might I have become if I hadn't needed to come back to save you Caspian. I cannot bear to think of it. In trying to keep the hurt at bay, I may even have tried to forget Narnia. To forget that I had once lived in order to numb the pain of the shadow life that I was forced to return to."
Susan, who had been looking down at the sand, tracing patterns in it as she spoke as if afraid to look into Caspian's eyes as if afraid that glimpsing his eyes, the eyes of her love in the dragon before her might distract her from speaking, now looked up into those same eyes and saw love and understanding there.
"So now I am back, back to save you as you saved me. I am not saying it will be easy. But I am here, standing beside you, ready to help you move past this, to make amends and move into the future. Together we will make you the King you were meant to be!"
Susan stopped and checked herself before she said what she had been going to say next. That she might be sent home again. That Aslan, once again, once their task was done, might send them ho … no not home, Narnia was home, might send them back to England.
And then … then her heart would break!
Caspian gazed at Susan as she suddenly stopped talking, sensing that there was more that she had been going to say, but with no way to coax it out of her, speechless as he was. Instead he curled his wing more securely around her and settled his head beside her form. She was right, it wouldn't be easy. But with Susan and her family by his side he could and would make amends and move forwards and fulfil the potential that Aslan had seen in him when he had allowed him to fight to restore Narnia to the Narnians.
He would make Aslan proud.
Make Susan proud.
With these thoughts in his head Caspian fell asleep with Susan wrapped in his embrace.
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"Of course you are not the first dragon that I have met, Eustace and you are certainly not the most ferocious …"
Eustace turned his head to look at the noble mouse before him. To his surprise, after everyone had fallen asleep, when he had not been able to due to the pain in his arm from the golden bracelet, Reepicheep had come over to him and without fuss or fanfare had kept him company.
Eustace while listening to Reepicheep's, undoubtedly diverting exploits, was forced to do a lot of thinking, a lot of reevaluating.
He had always convinced himself that he was, if not perfect, at least always in the right. But looking and really reflecting on how he and his cousins had acted, he was forced to compare his actions to theirs, to really see himself how others saw him And the picture he was presented with was not to his liking.
True … he was no slaver King. He was no traitor as his cousin Edmund had been. But he was something, someone, who took no joy in life. Who was more interested in being right than doing right. More concerned with what he got out of others rather than what he gave to them. In this he reflected bitterly, looking at Reepicheep as he reenacted out a battle for him between his legs, he had been outdone by even a mouse. He had been nothing but rude and dismissive to Reepicheep, and yet here the mouse stood, neglecting his own rest to see Eustace through his first night as a dragon.
"Aslan willing Eustace, you too will find a way to prevail …"
Aslan … that name! Eustace had heard it mentioned many times and had gotten the impression that it referred to the Narnian's god. Roberta and Harold had discourage religion, viewing it as impractical. And Eustace, every time he heard the name had turned away. Accompanied as it had been by a feeling of dread in his stomach.
Strange, now it brought an entirely different feeling. Comforted by name of Aslan and by the small mouse's presence, Eustace drifted off to sleep.
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Both dragons awoke to find themselves lying on a small strip of beach which appeared to be in the middle of an otherwise empty ocean. Although it had been dark and stormy when they had fallen asleep among their friends, here it was sunny and still and utterly empty apart from themselves.
Both felt that they had been called in their dreams by the voice that they loved most in the world.
Caspian thought that it sounded like his father's voice, but that was not quite right.
Eustace was reminded of the voice of a kindly teacher, who he remembered had encouraged him to think outside of the narrow box that his parents had constricted him into. But that could not be right. That teacher had been transferred long ago and her teaching forgotten and cast aside. Strange that he had not remembered her until now.
"Caspian, Eustace"
The voice came again from behind them and spinning to what a moment before had been empty sand, the dragons beheld him.
Alsan!
That's all for now. Thanks for reading - please review even one word will do!