Work Text:
The next minute or so was very confused. There was an animal roaring, a clash of steel; the boys and Trumpkin rushed in; Peter had a glimpse of a horrible, grey, gaunt creature, half man and half wolf, in the very act of leaping upon a boy about his own age…
“You’re bleeding,” said Peter.
“Yes, I’m bitten,” said Caspian. “It was that - that wolf thing.”
-- Prince Caspian, Chapter 12
First: A flash of swords, a cry of command, legends turned to flesh.
Second: A wound, not deep, just below the elbow of his left arm.
Third: A short, sweet smile that does not hide the sadness in her eyes.
And wasn’t that what his nurse had always told him, that the most important things come in threes?
+
For all its mythical properties, the cordial of Queen Lucy does not actually heal all wounds. But she spends a drop regardless, one bead of glistening red atop the torn flesh of Caspian’s forearm. She does not look up as they wait, her attention entirely devoted to monitoring the bite. Caspian cannot bear to look at it so he watches her instead, both of them silent and tense until at last she lets out a long and slow sigh.
There’s a lump in his throat. He swallows and pulls his arm away roughly. The skin below his elbow feels hot with pain and disappointment.
Her eyes flicker up, and he looks away.
“It’s fine,” he tells her quickly. “It’ll heal fast enough on its own.”
She gives him a short nod. She must have known even before the drop rolled from her bottle, or why would she have warned him of her cordial’s fallibility? She does not apologize, for which he is eternally grateful, but simply says, “I’ll find bandages,” before slipping quietly away.
(Later, he will look back and recognize the importance of this moment: not for the numb horror of the incurable wolf-bite, but for the first quiet stirrings deep within his heart.)
+
The moon rises and the moon falls,
the moon waxes and the moon wanes,
the moon sings in his blood and Caspian
cannot
refuse its call.
+
“You don’t need us anymore,” Lucy says during a stolen moment after the coronation. Caspian hasn’t said anything at all but she’s guessed his thoughts from the steady longing in his gaze. And now she lays a hand upon his arm, her fingers so close to the still-healing wolfbite. “You’re the king and you’re Telmarine and Narnian both, in spirit and in body. You have the loyalty of your peoples and a wise cabinet of advisors made from both cultures. You will do well.”
He can’t look at her, not when she is turning him down. So he stares at her hand. “I do need you,” he confesses. “Not because you are a Queen of Old, but because you are you.” And when he risks a glance upward, he sees the tear before she wipes it from the corner of her eye.
“I will miss you, Caspian,” she says simply, and that is all.
She told him both sides would accept him as king because he is Telmarine and Narnian both, and this is true. But she did not warn him that the wolf would grow restless in the skin of a king, that the beast would chafe against protocols and responsibilities, that he would wake on the mornings after a full moon in the wilderness leagues from the castle.
The wolf seeks open horizons and teaches Caspian to yearn for the same.
The moon sings its siren song and Caspian sets sail for distant shores.
+
Caspian tells his council and crew that he sails to find the fates of seven lost lords. This is the truth, but not all of it. There are tales among the oldest of the Old Narnians of a magic that can be found at the edge of the world itself: a red-hot elixir that will cure any ill. Like Queen Lucy’s cordial but stronger, they say.
He discovers something far more precious in the open sea before the voyage has hardly begun. There’s frantic splashing and shouts and a rescue and then, dripping on the deck of his ship—
“You’re back,” he says to her, still hardly able to believe his eyes.
She’s small and wet and dressed in very strange clothes, and he’s never been happier to see anyone. And the smile that lights her face is like a ray of sunlight that pierces his very heart.
“I’m back,” she says.
+
They race towards the end of the world together: a wolf hunting for a cure, a girl straining for the sun. Together, they stand at the bow of the ship or perch in the crowsnest, eyes seeking the horizon. Sometimes, they tell each other stories from their respective worlds, but sometimes it is enough to sit together in silence. There is no need for words between them, for they understand each other on a much deeper and more intimate level.
Islands rise from the ocean like scattered jewels and, at every one, they climb the highest peaks together. There is no need to say why; both look the same direction once they reach the summit.
Onward they sail, and the end of the world ever closer. The ship dips between waves and Lucy stumbles a little, and Caspian automatically reaches for her hand. His grip is tight, and she does not pull away.
The beginning of the end of the world can be found at a little nondescript island that smells of dim purple. There are new wonders in the place, same as nearly every island that has come before, like old ruins and once-lost lords and a mystery to be solved.
There is another wonder that shines like clearest diamond when she smiles. When she speaks, the air shivers. Lucy looks to Caspian and sees that he feels it too, this connection to the daughter of a star.
They watch a bird place a gleaming red coal on her father’s tongue, but the star’s daughter tells them this is not the cure to seek. “Sail to the end of the world,” she tells them, “and you will break any curse. But beware: some enchantments are stronger than others, and the breaking of them may come at a price.”
+
As the ship treads dawn in a sweet-water sea, Lucy tells Caspian, “I looked, you know. In the magician’s book of spells. But I couldn’t find anything to help you.”
“I think what I most want now can’t be found in any book of spells,” he says. “And if it were not for the enchanted lords who sleep even now at that feast-laden table, I would bid us turn back before it was too late.”
She blushes a little, but his eyes are fixed on the water below and so he does not see. But he hears it in her voice when she tells him, “I know what you mean.”
+
The sun grows large in the sky,
The moon grows large in the darkness,
And the wolf howls his most secret fears to the horizon he seeks.
+
There is a current that bears their ship to a sea of white lilies and from there to a distant shore and a towering wave. A rowboat is lowered, with a little coracle in its bow. “It’s time,” says Lucy’s brother, and they make their farewells.
“I did not think you would heed my warning,” says the star’s daughter when the Dawn Treader returns to her island.
“Some cures are not worth the price,” says Caspian.
“Besides,” says Lucy, “If I had left with my brother and cousin, I would not have seen you again, fair lady.”
+
The last of the seven lords are awake at the star’s table. There is a feast of celebration and much merriment until deep into the night. Before the celebrations are over, three figures slip away from the feast to sit together on a cliff facing back towards the west.
“I do not think I want you to leave,” says the star’s daughter.
“Then come with us,” says Lucy.
“We would be honoured,” says Caspian.
+
Once, Lucy stepped past a lamppost and left her kingdom behind.
Once, Lucy stepped through a tree and left her heart.
This time, upon reaching the eastern horizon of the world, she looked to the man at her side and decided she was not ready to leave again.
Now, balancing upon the deck of a ship that cuts a course towards Narnia and home, she watches Caspian and the star’s daughter and knows she made the right decision.
Like the sun and moon and stars, they orbit each other.
Like the sun and moon and stars, they are three and they are one and they are whole.