Rumpleteasza: FINALLY, the end is in sight… Sorry, I'm not talking about fanfiction at all, I'm doing the little livejournal bit I usually indulge in before most of my stories. I'm going on holiday in less than a week, I've got eff all to do for more than a year and in five hours every single one of my A-level exams will be finished! Now all I need is for Jonny Rhys-Meyes to ring me up and say "Run away with me. I am mesmerised by your beautosity" and I will be in the land of the very fab, in fact beyond the valley of the fab and entering the universe of marvy.

So yeah. This is an odd little blast from the past, as I rediscovered the joys of Narnia, recovered from the slightly unfocused "whu…?" feeling Amy Fortuna's Puddleglum/Rilian pairing gave me, and bounced back to remember how I always thought Lucy and Caspian would make a pretty cool couple. I blame SAICHO-18. She kindled it all off again with 'Rendition', her re-write of The Dawn Treader, and if you haven't read it yet then you're a very bad person, SO GO AND STAND IN THE CORNER AND THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU'VE DONE. That's it. Go on. Go.

It's not been beta'd or anything, it was just a spur-of-the-moment piece of oddness. Enjoy.

Rain

For some five days they ran before a south-south-east wind, out of sight of all lands and seeing neither fish nor gull. Then they had a day where it rained hard till the afternoon…(The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, chpt. 8)

Lucy was leaning on the rail of the Dawn Treader on the port side, looking back to the gilded dragon-tail of the stern. The curled shape was silhouetted – it was dusk, the sun had set behind it not ten minutes ago, but already the sky was darkening. Dusty peach on the west horizon, cotton-wool clouds blushed rose, and the sky was mauve with a curious post-sundown haze. I can't imagine a purple sundown in England, she thought placidly. Even if there were, it wouldn't be the same, somehow. Narnian sunsets always do seem different, magical…

The mauve sky threw a strange light on the deck; not an illumination, exactly, because there was no certain point the light seemed to come from, not even the west. There were no definite shadows. The world simply seemed to have taken on a new and unusual tint of colour. And so calm! Not a breath of wind. Her long pale hair, almost silvery in the twilight, did not so much as stir a single strand. The ship hardly even rocked; it sat quietly and sleepily as if some gigantic hand had placed it there carelessly, idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean.

Lucy looked directly upwards. The mauve colour was darkening by the minute; she could almost fancy the west was a huge plughole in the bowl of the sky, draining purple out like water, until all that would be left would be dusty midnight blue. The warm air would have been oppressive, had there not been such a profound sense of peace and stillness. The sky hung like an inverted bubble. Lucy was alone on deck. No-one could steer, because the Dawn Treader was not moving. The only watchman was in the mouth of the dragon-head of the bows, and he was separated from Lucy by the neck of carven wood. Lucy was not lonely. Everything seemed gentle; the almost non-existent bob of the ship, the dim timbers of the deck, the soft depths of the sea, the huge expanse of the sky. As she watched, pinpricks of stars winked into view, forming constellations she knew by heart; the Leopard, the Ship; yet in reality hadn't seen for thousands of years.

She heard the footsteps all the way up the ladder, through the hatch, and across the deck, before she heard the voice behind her. "What, Lucy? Star-gazing, and alone?" And though it was soft, it seemed unnaturally loud in still air.

"Hello, Caspian," Lucy said dreamily, not turning around. Her eyes were fixed to the point of light in front and a little to the left of her; the Spear-Head, the Narnian North Star. It shone clearly, but gently, like everything else that evening.

She felt Caspian's weight on the wood as he leant on the rail next to her, tilting his head to gaze at the Spear-Head. "If we were not becalmed," he observed, "I should say we are directly on course. To what or where that course leads, though, I have no guess…" his voice trailed off.

Lucy tore her mesmerised eyes from the Spear-Head to look at him. "Caspian! Surely you're not nervous?"

He caught her smile. "Well," he admitted, "not nervous… apprehensive, perhaps. Anticipating."

"Reepicheep would be outraged to hear you. But then," she smiled fondly, "who could ever match the valour of a Talking Mouse of Narnia?"

Caspian gave her a sideways glance, his lips twitching upward. "What was it your subjects used to call you, your Majesty? Was it… oh, by any chance… Queen Lucy the Valiant?"

"Oh, Caspian! Me, match Reepicheep!" The thought was almost funny. "Could you? Could any Telmarine?"

"You are not a Telmarine, though." He looked at her with thought in his eyes, a piercing expression that made the words die on her lips and her heart give an odd thump. "You are – a legendary Queen, a ruler of the Golden Age, the destroyer of a powerful witch…" he trailed off, looking deeply pensive.

Lucy's mouth felt dry, somehow. "That wasn't really me, you know. It was Peter, mostly, and Ed – they fought in the battle, Ed even broke her wand – and of course Aslan. He was the one who really defeated her, who made things happen. Me and Su," she said in a rush, "even Ed and Peter, we – we're just ordinary. Really. You wouldn't look twice at us in our world."

Caspian was quiet for a while. Lucy studied the sky in front of her, now velvety blue, tracing the constellations with her eyes, feeling strangely flustered. The air of peace was still present, yet she seemed to have temporarily been encased in an invisible bubble that kept it from her. She concentrated hard on following the lines of the only shape that echoed the heavens of her own world; Orion the Hunter.

"I would," said Caspian quietly.

Lucy was jolted out of her reverie. "I'm sorry?"

Caspian stood up straight and stared hard at the sky. "Tarva, the Victorious?" he inquired, pointing to Orion.

"Oh- yes," Lucy confirmed, turning back to the stars. "Do you know, the curious thing is, we have the exact same constellation in my world? We call him Orion the Hunter."

"A single constellation!" Caspian said. "How strange. No coincidence, surely…"

"No," Lucy said, frowning. "It is strange… and what's even stranger, I never really thought about it when we ruled here. I sort of… began to forget, or forget to care about, everything outside Narnia. Do you know, when we were found the wardrobe again after all those years, I didn't even remember it was the same way we came in? I never even thought about the constellations… I wonder, how many things are the same? I suppose it would take a long time to find out."

"A long time? By the Lion, too long, and you would surely have forgotten to count before you spent even a year here." Caspian's tone had a hint of audible remorse. "One world or another, you cannot have both…"

Again, Lucy was puzzled by his manner, so different to how he behaved with his crew, but before she had time to think about it Caspian was jogging towards the bows and beckoning her to follow. "Come on; we shall see better with the focs'le below us, and star-gazing is as fair a way to spend this night as any other! Here," he said breathlessly, heaving himself up and reaching down a hand to help Lucy. She took it, but clearly out of courtesy, as she proceeded to swing herself over the ledge with extraordinary ease and lightness.

"Well!" said Caspian, laughing. "I see I'm still presumptuous, I should surely have learned by now that you need no assistance in such matters!"

Lucy's wide grey eyes were difficult to see in the growing darkness, but he could tell that her smile reached them. "If I were the kind of lady you're used to, Caspian, I'm sure I should have put ashore at Narrowhaven and refused to sail a yard further."

Caspian glanced at her curiously, picking out her dim shape against the dark hulk of the tiller. "Ah, and what of the gowns the Lady Bern offered you the loan of? I wondered why you refused them."

The shape of Lucy suddenly jerked backwards as she laughed, and a flurry of fair hair became visible. "Oh Caspian, you ought to know better than that. They were darling, yes, but those beautiful clothes for aboard a ship? If they hadn't been soaked during the twelve-day storm, they'd have been dirtied and torn on Dragon Island, probably trailed all through the Goldwater pool, and if not any of that, they would be ruined from weeks of wear." Her dim shape moved to finger the dark linen of her hunting-bodice. "No, hunting clothes are much better, and I'm sure she wasn't offended."

"I noticed her Ladyship couldn't help but add a few feminine touches nevertheless," Caspian observed, repressing a smile, remembering how Lucy had tactfully removed the additional lace trimming when they had re-boarded the Dawn Treader. The shape of Lucy giggled. She shifted herself away from the tiller, directly in the centre of the raised deck, and lay back to look directly up into the sky. Raising an arm, she moved it languidly, joining the stars with her fingertip. Caspian couldn't help but smile, though it was dark and did not show. He shuffled across the boards, more noisily than Lucy, and lay back to watch the constellations she was tracing. Her finger was pointing to a familiar shape low on the horizon.

"Tell me of your Tarva – Oran? Irion?"

"Orion the Hunter," she said lazily, for the feeling of peace and stillness was settling over her again. "It's really quite a sad story…"

"But a story nonetheless; will you not tell me?" he asked. Caspian, Lucy, the ship; everything was merging into the darkness now, and the bright points of the stars seemed like the only thing they could look at.

Lucy was silent for a moment. "Well," she began softly, "long ago in our world – I mean mine, of course – there were people we call the ancient Greeks, and they believed in many gods and goddesses-"

"Gods and goddesses? Like the old river-god and his daughters? The nymphs and dryads?"

"Just like that. Oh, the dryads… I do miss them, Caspian. I should so like to see them again, but we mayn't be going back to Narnia any time soon… and I did so used to love talking to them. You are lucky!" She sighed.

Caspian shifted in the dark, turning towards her. When he spoke, his voice was quiet. "You awoke them."

"What?" Lucy said, startled.

"When you were called into Narnia by Queen Susan's horn. You awoke the dryads as you were coming to my aid."

"But – but that wasn't me! I was only murmuring wishes – it was Aslan who truly woke them!" she protested.

"But Aslan told me it was you," Caspian said gravely.

It never occurred to either of them even for a moment that Aslan would lie. The very thought was shameful, ridiculous.

"But I have interrupted your story. Go on, please."

Lucy pushed her disorientation aside with a great deal of effort, and continued. "Greek gods… some gods were more powerful than others, and the most powerful of all were the Olympians, and there were twelve of them. There were two Olympians who were twins, brother and sister. Their names were Apollo and Artemis."

"Were? Are they not still?" Caspian inquired, head turned towards Lucy, even though it was dark.

"Well, they're only legends," Lucy admitted, "but the stories are good to tell. I learnt these from the Professor… but anyway. Artemis was the goddess of the moon, of archery and hunting. She-"

"Perhaps I should begin to call you Artemis."

Lucy was about scold him crossly that she couldn't tell the story if he didn't stop interrupting, when she realised what he had said. "What – what do you mean?"

The dark shape of Caspian put his hands behind his head and stared above. "I know the stories of the Golden Age. I thrived on them as a child. You rode as an archer to the wars – a very rare thing indeed. And look at you now, all in the hunting-dress the Duchess Bern gave you!"

Lucy didn't quite know what to say. "Well – I –"

"But by all means, the story," said Caspian quietly.

"Yes," said Lucy, a little flustered. "Er – Artemis. She used to go out every night with her nymphs, and spent hours in the chase. And one night, while she was in the woods, she saw someone else, who had just thrown a spear at a huge stag and killed it with one shot. It was Orion, a mortal man.

"She watched him, and was impressed by his skill. So she came to him and asked if he would share her hunt. She and Orion became great friends. But Apollo watched them and was jealous of his sister's friendship, and furious that she spent so much time with a mere mortal. So he tricked them. One day, while Orion was out swimming far from the shore, Apollo challenged his sister to an archery contest. He told her to hit the small black shape she could see far out in the water.

"Artemis did, and of course her aim was perfect. Orion was killed. When Artemis found out what her brother had done, she cried for so long over the death of her friend that her tears formed a shroud around him, and sparkled so brightly that the light reached even her father Zeus, the King of the gods, on Mount Olympus. He saw his daughter's sorrow, took pity on her and immortalised Orion forever, using Artemis' glittering tears to set him with stars in the night sky."

There was silence for a while, until Lucy wondered if Caspian had fallen asleep. But just as she was about to move to touch his arm, he spoke. "Lady, you move me."

Lucy sat up, taken aback. "I must have, you've suddenly turned all formal! I thought we'd just agreed that I'm not a lady- oh!"

She said 'oh', because at that moment she realised the ship was bathed in silvery moonlight. She hadn't even noticed it appear while telling the story of Orion. Caspian's coronet glittered as he sat up also, his expression startled. The sky was pitch now, and the stars very bright. The sea glinted. The moon hung low on the horizon, very big and rather strange-looking.

"Moonrise," Caspian said softly. "And a hunter's moon, too. Bigger than I ever saw."

Lucy murmured, "Her beams bemocked the sultry main, like April hoar-frost spread; but where the ship's huge shadow lay, the charméd water burnt alway a still and awful red…"

Caspian turned to her curiously, his eyes reflecting the shimmering water. "What, a poet, too? Is it not enough that you should be skilled in archery and battle, a legendary Queen whose hand was fought over; now I find you are a poet and a bard, too?"

Lucy blushed. "It's not mine. It's one I read last term in school. It's called 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner'; quite fitting, I suppose."

Caspian's eyes twinkled. "And does the fate of this mariner echo our own?"

Lucy laughed. "I hope not! In the poem, the ship is driven by a storm to the south pole, where the only live creature is an albatross which visits the sailors every day for food. But the Ancient Mariner kills the albatross, and the vengeful spirit of the south drives the ship up into the pacific ocean and becalms it on a burning ocean for weeks and weeks… and then a skeleton ship with a Death and a NightMare come and gamble for the sailors' lives, and every one of them but the Ancient Mariner drops down dead. And the pale moon and the angry sun watch it all, and lightning falls in rivers, and the Ancient Mariner is made to wear the dead albatross about his neck as a sign of his wickedness, and sea-snakes crawl across the surface of the ocean… it's a little frightening," she admitted. "I didn't like it much when I first read it, but it's a fascinating story."

A haze on the sky's horizon made the sea blur at the edges. Caspian stood and leaned over the deck rail. "Why did the Mariner kill the albatross? Are they not signs of good fortune in your world?"

"Yes," she shrugged. "No-one knows. There isn't a reason. The 'destructive sin of humanity', I think my schoolmistress said."

Caspian leaned out past the dragon-tail and gazed at the moon. "Can you remember more?"

"No," Lucy said, twisting the ties on her bodice. "Only that bit about the moon and the water. I thought that bit was pretty."

"Ah, pretty!" Caspian looked round, his mouth widening to a grin. "So you are a lady…"

Lucy swatted him playfully. "Alright, you beast, I admit it! Do you think I didn't like being made a Queen? That's what dreams are made of!"

Above them, thick purple clouds began to swell from the horizon and drive towards them. Yet still there was no wind.

The grin had faded from Caspian's face. He didn't answer.

Lucy frowned, and touched his arm. "Caspian…?"

"It's – it's-" he struggled to find words. "Oh, I don't know, I've managed not to think about it what with all the adventures we've had, but… it's so strange!" His voice sounded a little hoarse. "One minute I'm talking to you like an old friend, with more ease than anything, as if you were just – just a girl, but then you say something that reminds me who you really are; a Queen, a Legendary sovereign of the Golden Age, defeater of the White Witch, present at the very moment Alsan was killed on the Stone Table, and the very moment he rose again!" He looked down at her hand where it was frozen motionless on his arm, and touched it lightly.

"This very hand – existing so many years before, in such great times! I thrived on the stories of your reign for my entire childhood," he said softly. "I dreamt about living in the Golden age with you and your brothers. And for you to be here – telling me stories! Reciting poetry! And at times I remember who you are, and that should I not be on my knees before you?"

Lucy couldn't speak. The words stuck in her throat. As Caspian's touch trailed lightly over her hand, something deep within her tried to hide itself.

No stars could be seen now, only a dense ceiling of bruise-purple cloud, apart from where the moon shone through a velvet-black window. A low rumbling reached their ears and made them jump.

"That came on quickly…" Caspian said thoughtfully, standing up and surveying the sky. "There's no wind down here. It must be in the ether."

"Perhaps we'll have another storm," Lucy said, eager to change the subject.

"Not like the last one, hopefully!" Caspian laughed. "Poor Drinian would be at his wit's end…"

"He does seem to get awfully uptight," Lucy observed. "Last time he wouldn't even speak to me without roaring for me to stay in my cabin and shut the door and not get in his way."

Caspian smirked. "It may clear up, or pass us over."

"Well, if it doesn't," Lucy said a little crossly, "you're not to shut me below deck again for days as you did last time. I'm not an object to be coddled for fear of breaking – you said yourself there weren't enough hands on deck. I went on months of voyages when me and Ed and Su and Peter reigned here. I can help, I'm not–" she struggled to find words, "a little girl!"

Caspian looked at her. Lucy at once felt ashamed of her outburst and hoped he might make a joke of it, but all he did was look back out to sea and say, "I know."

"I'm sorry," she said awkwardly. "I didn't mean it to come out like that. What a pig I must sound – but you know, it's been awfully strange in my world since we returned. I've thought about it a lot lately. I spent years in Narnia – golly, I was twenty-three when we rode to hunt the White Stag and got back into our world! And I'd learnt all kinds of things; swimming, hunting, archery, dancing, riding… oh, we did so much… and the maddening thing is," she went on in frustration, "that at soon as we get home, all that learning just… disappears. I could remember that I'd ridden and hunted, but I couldn't do it any more.

"And when I come back into Narnia… oh, I can hardly describe it – it's like all that learning is rushing back into me, and I find I can do all those things, and I feel like a proper Narnian Queen again." Lucy breathed deeply. "There's something about the air of this world that makes you – well, not older, exactly, but… wiser. More able. I don't know. But in my world, I'm just a kid, a little girl. When I come here, I'm something else." She turned away from the rail to face Caspian, who was looking at her intently. "Do you know, it's the strangest thing: I know what I'll look like when I'm grown up, because I've already grown up. So what age does that make me? Am I in my thirties now, if I add on how long I spent in Narnia? Or do those years not count? Or do they only count here, but not in my world?" She sighed in frustration and looked up at the sky, which had become a heaving mass of thick cloud. The water stayed like glass, though, and the sail hung flat.

Caspian was still watching her quietly. Lucy felt embarrassed again. I've made another silly outburst, she thought, felling her cheeks going pink. What on earth is the matter with me tonight?

"I didn't know you had these worries," he said softly. "I'm glad you spoke of them to me. It's strange for me, too, as you know. But," he said, smiling suddenly, "I have mind only to treasure this company while it lasts, for I know not when Aslan might whisk you back to your own world."

Looking up at him, Lucy couldn't help but break into a smile too. "You're right. Time in Narnia is too precious for me to waste worrying about how we got here, or when we'll get back. I-" but she broke off suddenly and gave a little squeak as a huge droplet of rainwater splashed onto her nose, making her start in surprise. Caspian laughed, and suddenly leaning forward, wiped the droplet away with unexpected tenderness.

They looked at each other. Caspian's hand lingered on her cheek. The air seemed to have been drawn from their surroundings, as if the whole world was holding its breath, and in the protracted and expectant stillness Lucy could hear a heart beating. It was not her own.

But now sound filtered back in as more droplets began falling, huge big droplets that soaked whatever they hit. Lucy laughed in delight, turning her face upward. It was such lovely rain, big fat splashy raindrops that are deliciously warm and yet refreshing, too. There was no wind, so it fell straight in a steady downpour. If Lucy had ever been in a rainforest monsoon she might have thought it similar, except this was gentler, and less humid.

"What nice rain!" she said happily, her face still turned up, but coughed as the water got into her mouth. Caspian laughed again. His honey-fair hair hung in dripping strands already, and droplets ran off the tip of his nose. Lucy couldn't help giggling, though she knew she must look just as bedraggled. "Come on!" she shouted over the noise, grabbing his hand and jumping down onto the deck. Caspian, believing her to be heading for the main hatch and down below deck, was startled as she pulled him to a stop in the middle by the mast, holding out her arms and looking up. "Oh, what lovely rain," she sighed again.

"O, lovely rain," he teased, mimicking her. She turned to him and giggled, her grey eyes glassy.

"Caspian! Are you mocking me?"

"Faith, no!" he answered, pretending to be shocked. "Faugh, I would not dare mock a Queen." And with a twinkle in his eye, he took her hand and twirled her into his arms.

It was Rhince who, noting the King's absence below decks, ventured up to find him. On opening the hatch he paused; firstly, because the steady downpour streamed over his head and wet him through in moments, and secondly because over the rush and drum of the rain, he could hear laughing.

Curiosity and the realisation that he couldn't get any wetter than he already was made Rhince clamber through the hatch and onto the main deck. When he saw the scene before him, he blinked a few times and rubbed his eyes, wondering if he wasn't seeing things.

King Caspian the Tenth and Queen Lucy the Valiant stood on deck, soaked to the skin and barely visible through the rain. And they were dancing. Dancing as any lord and lady might at a summer ball in Cair Paravel, laughing unabashedly, their clothes hanging from their bodies in wet folds, their hair waterlogged and tousled. They seemed not to notice the rain that poured unceasingly over them. The boards of the deck almost swum with water, but still they danced, and as Rhince watched in astonishment, his king lowered Queen Lucy into a dramatic dip, his eyes mischievous as she giggled breathlessly and held on round his neck to keep from falling.

Rhince was brought back to reality by the unpleasant sensation of water trickling down the back of his neck. As quietly as he could (which in fact made more noise than it usually would) he tugged the hatch back up and swung himself down the ladder, closing it softly behind him.

And still Lucy and Caspian danced, until their feet were sore and they could hardly see for the rain, and the night was only a few hours from ending, and they could dance no more for sheer tiredness.

"Here," whispered Caspian, handing Lucy a lamp, which she hung just inside her cabin door. "Lay out your clothes tonight – or for what's left of it," his eyes sparkled, "and they can be dried in the galley tomorrow."

Lucy looked down and giggled quietly, though it sounded loud in the sleepy stillness of the dark ship. "I think it's too late for that." A substantial puddle was collecting at her feet.

Caspian smothered a laugh, appraising his own similar state. He lit another lantern, this one for himself, and smiled at her with a strange softness in his eyes before starting down the passageway. "Goodnight, Lucy."

"Wait, Caspian," she called softly. He turned and looked at her questioningly.

Padding quietly to him, she reached up and pressed a soft kiss to his cheek. "Thank you for dancing with me," she whispered huskily, then whisked into her cabin in a flurry of wet hair and clothes, and shut the door quietly.

Caspian stood still for a moment, his cheek tingling, staring at the door, his breath oddly quick and shallow. Then, not realising he was smiling, he turned slowly away and made his way to the galley, leaving the passage in darkness.

Outside, the rain poured steadily down.

FIN

Ah. Bless their tiny cotton socks. Anyhow, Lucy and Caspian do not, have not and never will belong to me (boo, hiss) no more than do Rhince, Ed, Su, Peter, Reepicheep, yadda yadda yadda. The Ancient Mariner is a very excellent poem and so was obviously not written by me. It was created by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, surprisingly in a drugged-up opium-filled haze, as I interestingly found out a couple of months ago. I have no idea who Greek legends belong to. Greeks? I don't know.

At times I tried to write this story in the style of C S Lewis, but I gave up after a while, because while his style is fine in its own right, he never really goes as deep as I like to, with descriptions and feelings and little subtleties, character development and so on and so on. I tried to keep the dialogue in the same style – forties middle class – but that's about it. The notion of the Duchess Bern offering Lucy clothes will not be found anywhere in the book – I just wanted an excuse to get Lucy into a cute little mediaeval hunting outfit. Yes, it's superficial, but it's always heartbreaking to think of our lovely Lucy all got up in 40s clothes. And not the quirky, cool, funky kind of 40s clothes, either. We're talking down-to-the-knees-frumpy-school-uniform. I envy you Americans, you don't know the horror school uniform instils. Pleated calf-length skirts… ugly ties… boater hats… woolly cardigans… mon dieu!

One more thing, and then I'll stop butchering the story with author notes (too late). As you may have guessed, I am not basing Lucy on the actor in the BBC's tv version of the Narnia chronicles. The BBC had Lucy played by a small, dumpy, squat girl with a very whiny temperament and dark brown hair in a terrible pudding-bowl bob. No offence to her, I'm sure she's actually really nice in real life, but… crikey.

Hope you enjoyed. More Lucy/Caspian goodness to come from me soon. Cheerio.

Rumms x