Caspian knelt before the High Queen. He was slightly in awe of the mighty wings that suspended her in the air even as she wept, but his heart yearned for her. He knew that she needed some comfort, and strangely, he knew exactly what to give.

" My lady, do not weep for your words about me. Nor weep for all the sorrows that my people have done to you." He reached down and lifted up her face. Fiery eyes met his black ones, and he was aware of the great dissonance of their races. She was a mighty queen whose wings beat the wind into submission, and he was a King who was still afraid of his own people. But in the union of their eyes, they become one and understood each other. And so he said, " My family has paid for the treachery they wrought in the age when they betrayed your trust."

Elain gave him a look of pure fire, tears still dripping from her eyes. " They broke the oath of armistice. They came to us, my counsellors and I faithful in our application of it. We were unarmed. But they were armed though we could see nothing. Two daggers to the heart of Tumnus—" her eyes flickered to Peter as he gasped sharply. " And then Orious hamstrung and the rest of them, their warm blood flowed in a pool about my legs. And then," she started sobbing again, " and then, the catapults. They crashed demonically into Cair Paravel. They destroyed my home and ruined the blessing of my family upon Narnia."

Caspian was crying with her and his hands held her upper arms, while behind them, Peter gripped onto Edmund as they sought to understand what had happened after their departure. How soon had it happened? Just after or many years? Tumnus was still alive so it mustn't have been long.

Caspian wiped his own eyes against his shoulder while his hands gently swept her away. " I know what we did to you. My father told me of the evil that we had done. He told me that if he could undo the wrongs of the past, he would do so. He often spoke of how he wanted to bring the Narnians back. He had a pet project of rebuilding Cair Paravel." He comprehended the disbelief in her eyes. " We know that we built our reign upon treachery. And I know, that with each successive Caspian, the name and the legacy of the one who betrayed an innocent people will be embraced and acceptable to his people. So, forgive us, and if the only thing I can achieve with my appointment as King of Narnia, is removal of the guilt on my line, let it be so."

Elain's tears stilled; she focused the heat of their weight upon him and was quiet. They slithered to Peter on whose face grief and remorse was truly written. She saw the mournful heads of the Narnians who remembered, or recalled, when she had been High Queen. And she realized that she, the daughter of Aslan, had not acted as any kin of Aslan should. " Your guilt was wiped out in the first generation. The only thing was, I've lived so long that I'd chosen to forget that truth. I was bitter then; it seems that time has made me revengeful and cruel."

Caspian shrugged off her apology and raised her from the floor. He was powerfully assisted by her wings, and he gave a slight shiver of delight as he felt the soft downy feeling of her feathers.

Elain suddenly bowed to him and with her the other Zephrys. " I, Elain, High Queen of the Zephyrs, do acknowledge and welcome King Caspian X of Narnia. Let it be known that I, though a Daughter of Aslan, had forgotten the forgiveness and control which is due any person, much more a fellow cousin. So strange, I know my father so intimately, yet I struggle to remember that my temper and my passion must not rule me. I am as variable as the winds I soar upon—to my sorrow."

Caspian grinned at her, glad he had her support, " You were faced with a brutal reminder of how your kingdom was lost. What is more, this is the place of your father's victory over the White Witch. Such a place must have many pangs adjunct."

Elain nodded, " Lyra, summon the commanders. We have a battle to plan with the King of Narnia." She then turned to Peter who was composing himself and had finally released Edmund, whose arm was sure to bruise. " Oh, you're invited too, your Majesty."

Peter gave her a wry look and then turned to the Stone Table's remnants which functioned as a military planning center for the Kings.

Edmund pointed out their positions. " Should battle be engaged, we will issue from both sides of the How. Our goal is to surround and disorient. The griffins and the archers will snipe until we have engaged. Now, of course, we are only considering this as last resort, should the Telmarines not keep their word."

Lieutenant Lyra interjected from her perch besides Peter. " I would consider it a definite outcome. From what King Edmund has said of the Lords's reactions to the challenge and Miraz's own deficiencies, it seems like full-blown battle will the only choice left to them."

Edmund looked at her with interest. " What do you mean, Lieutenant?'

" I agree with your assessment. They have to see Miraz as a weak and ineffectual leader. Not one year into his reign, and he's already plunged them into a civil war. They know that Caspian is the rightful king; the fact that he's been able to secure Narnia's agreement only enhances his validity. Combine that with the knowledge that an ancient king, no matter how young, has returned—that is only one more reason why they should not keep their word and they should enter into a battle."

Edmund gave her an impressed look which he shared with Caspian. " You remind me of how Peter spoke when he and I were fighting the giants of Ettinsmoor. He had the whole reason why we should trust them worked out just like you. You have an equal mind for strategy."

Lyra blushed and then looked at the King. She gave him a shy smile before speaking to him timidly. " My mo—" she stopped, glancing at Elain. " Her Majesty trained me in strategy through your own battles. It is an honor to plan a battle alongside my—" she stopped again, blushing. " My king."

Elain looked at Peter who could not believe the compliment that Lyra had inadvertently paid him. It seemed that despite Elain's sense of disgust with him, she still thought of him as a good king and a worthy man. " Thank you, Lieutenant. I am sure that you have bettered my strategy with your own fearsome talent."

Elain's features were stressed and then she spoke. " Right! Now that we've laid out the plan of attack and defense, we should consider semantics. Peter, do you believe that you can win? The duel, I mean?"

" Do you doubt my skill so much? You forget that I was ranked the best." He told her, moving closer to her side.

" Second best, your Majesty. You forget that King Edmund was the greatest swordsman in the land." Elain told him, her ice like features appearing to thaw a little as she warmed to the subject. " What I meant was how long has it been since you handled a sword? Conditioning must be maintained or you will not have the victory of your opponent even if they are older than you. And before you say it, the spirit of Narnia and Aslan upon you will not suffice. You barely survived fighting the Witch."

Peter's eyes locked with hers and he gave a noncommittal shrug. Yet still the glance was not broken, and every other person suddenly became aware that they were intruding on a private conversation.

Elain picked up the first chord. " Peter, how long has it been?"

Peter's eyes dropped, scanned the floor and runes of the Stone Table, and then found the encouraging features of his brother; Edmund nodded at him, silently exhorting him to be brave. The truth was what she valued most.

Peter closed his eyes and then hesitantly spoke, " It's been a year. Since I held a sword," he added as an afterthought.

Elain gasped and color came to her cheeks. The ice queen had melted, and the high atmospheres of the Aerial had finally come to earthly warmth and fire. " A year, Peter?" She gasped unevenly, trying to control her breathing even while comprehending what he had said. She had put away the mantle of queen and had accepted the torture and agony of a lonely wife. " I don't know what I thought it would be. Aslan knows that I never hoped it would thirteen hundred years for you. I couldn't bear it that you'd left, but to imagine you dead, turned to ash and nothing? That was torture. But only a year, Peter?"

Peter yelled at her, " We didn't mean to leave. I would never have left you like that!"

" Yet you left, Peter!" She shouted back. " I knew that you didn't choose to leave your home, your kingdom." She raised her head, her wings straightened. " But yet you left. You who were a wise and noble king, you didn't think it through enough, and so you went back through to War Drobe."

Edmund tried to say something. Lyra's soft hand upon his shoulder stopped him and he looked down at her.

Her lips moved quietly, " We are not wanted here. The time for planning has ended. Reunion comes."

And she drew all of their viewers away from the High Queen and King.

Peter, meanwhile, looked at Elain in disbelief. " You think that I went through the War Drobe because I wanted to? That I chose to get stuck in England?"

Elain shook her head, coming closer to her husband as her sorrow and anger burned brighter. " No! I do not think that you meant to get stuck. But Peter, I would have understood. I would have acknowledged that you wanted to see your home. That you wanted to be one with them again. But Peter, had you lost that wisdom which so denoted you, that you could not think through the consequences of your desire?"

Peter shouted, " I didn't choose to go back to England in any sense. If you think that, you are mad. Stark, bloody mad!"

Elain's eyes flared in a liquid flame, and Peter felt his spirit become clouded in the smoke of their joint blaze. " So, you didn't want anything that it had to offer? You didn't miss your mother and father?"

Peter shrugged. " Of course! I missed them! But not enough to leave forever."

Elain leaned against the Stone Table. She was gasping again and Peter desperately wanted to take away the pain that cloaked her. " Peter, then why did you wish on the White Stag? Why didn't you want me to go with you? And when you wished, why didn't you make certain that you could come back? Peter!" She held onto his hand as she began to become faint. " Narnia needed you! I needed you."

Peter knelt by her side and gazed at her in surprise. " Elain, we didn't catch the stag. We didn't wish on it. Aslan brought us back to England. His voice, his power led us to the War Drobe. We had no choice in the matter. He is Aslan; he is the reason we were separated."

Elain's shock showed on her features and Peter was intensely worried that she was going to faint for sure. Her wings fluttered and the feathers glowed only limply in the fire-lit chamber.

Peter lifted her features so that her fiery eyes looked into his own and their hands were entwined. " And he's the reason that we were brought back."

Elain sighed, her breath ragged and morbid. " I missed you. I never thought that Aslan would have taken you away from me. Especially when—" she stopped and looked up at him alarmed. Then like a scared child, she clung to her husband. " Peter, you can't leave again. You, he can't take you from me again. Peter, please, promise me that you won't leave again. That you'll refuse to go!"

Peter scooped her up so that she was sitting on the Table. His hands bracketed her waist against the cold stone, and his shoulders supported her drooping hands. " Elain," he spoke the word as though invoking a sacred oath. " Though these hands no longer can bend a bar of iron nor create a spark from flint, they will still hold you up, enabling you to reach the air. Though these shoulders quiver beneath a shield, they will bear you for miles and support you when you're weak. Though this body is no longer a warrior's, a man's, it will still love you as a man loves a woman and cherish you as a warrior cherishes a woman." He bent his head to hers and felt her tears and knew that the fire had dimmed. " Elain, you are my wife. We are never apart even when millennia separate us. You were always by my side in England; you were always by my side here. There is only one thing that I love and trust more than I love you and trust your love for me. That is why I cannot promise never to leave you. Physically, I will be miles away." He pulled her even closer, their chests flush and their spirits mingling in an ancient hymn of love. " But when I do what Aslan desires, my heart is always with and near you."

Elain was openly sobbing, her head caressed on Peter's shoulder. " I've been so mad for so long. I wondered why you wouldn't tell me that you wanted to see your family. You'd never hidden anything from me. And I was angry and betrayed by the Telmarines. Peter, they took my kingdom, my home, my hope. They destroyed the throne of the High King. And when I asked my father, he said, ' The High King will never again sit at Cair Paravel'. Peter, I thought that meant you would never come home again. You would never be mine. And I had so much I wanted to share with you." She hesitated. " Peter, that day you went after the White Stag, I was planning a banquet to tell you: you're a father!"

Peter pulled back away from his wife and looked into her eyes, daring her to say that she was lying. " What did you just say?"

Elain cradled his cheeks and held his gaze, blue contained in blood. " Peter, you're a father. You have a daughter, a beautiful Zephyr, who is just as terrible as her father in battle."

" You speak the truth?"

" Have I ever lied to you?" Elain inquired, her whole body thrumming with love for her husband.

Peter suddenly hurrahed, and tearing her from the Stone Table, he spun her around in a dizzying dance of delight that send gilt feathers flying into the flames and causing uproars of fire that embraced the room with magnificent joy.

Peter set her down and then taking her in his arms, he kissed her. A kiss that stole her breath and made her cling to her husband as her only support; a kiss that caused him to bring her as close to him as humanely possible. And then they stood united so that they appeared to be one.

Peter spoke against her hair, " When can I meet our daughter?"

Elain smiled, her lips touching his neck. " Not until after the duel, Peter. Not until then."

Peter felt confused and was going to address it when she pulled away. She gave him a look as ancient as the world and then gazed at the crypt. " Strange, I've spent so long being angry at you when it was really my father's fault. And I'm not even mad at him."

" You and I both know that to love Aslan is to not question. If you truly love him, you cannot enter into that kind of wrath."

Elain leaned back against him. And then she turned and took his hands in her own. " Come. This is not a place for lovers."

And the High King followed the beautiful Queen who, despite years of anger and misplaced broken trust, still knew the true meaning of serving Aslan, of loving him. The High King and Queen were united. Ageless love, as mirrored by the broken Table, had won.

Welcome to the third chapter of The Magnificent, a Father. I've truly been enjoying writing this book and I hope that you all are loving it as well. I just want to greet my readers and tell them that I am so thankful for them and for their encouragement.

So this wasn't how I wanted this chapter to go at all. The news about Peter being a father was going to go in about two chapters, but it just turned out that way. So, I'm learning to go with the flow.

I do want to ask y'all: who do you think that Peter's daughter is? Honestly, it's pretty obvious, but it might not be. As long as Peter doesn't know it, that's fine.

Enjoy the third chapter and please review, comment, vote or message me. I would so appreciate it. Thank you!

Living for Christ,

JettaLee