Eleanor

Why do we try to diminish human capacity by categorizing all those who live, merely for the convenience of it? Why must we focus on what seems apparent of someone's being, rather than considering life extends far past the visible dimension?

Why did I always feel this way? No one told me, so why was I ever wont to reconcile these parts of me? I am neither human nor winged. Aren't I a greater cosmic entity?

When the train hit I tried to grab onto something that would help me cling to my life. But as soon as I drifted I realized the end was coming, and I was going to be okay.

At first I felt I was floating in a vast abyss of darkness, like in the deepest caverns of the ocean but I could still breathe. I had no sense of time. I could have been drifting for ten seconds or ten years. Time suddenly became insignificant to me.

And then one moment, I was coming to a surface of water. I could see grass, trees, and blue sky above me, though the water remained dark and vast around me until I could reach my hand out and feel the cool chill of the wind on my fingers. I grasped for air. Looking down as I coughed roughly, the water had become shallow. I was standing on the rocks and branches of a riverbed.

I cast my eyes around the landscape, realizing I was completely surrounded by the trees of a forest. I trudged my way off the riverbed. The weight of my walk remained heavy until I reached a break in the trees, my vision catching the sight of overgrown grass over the vast expansion of rolling hills.

When I saw my mother, my walk began to feel light again.

She turned as wind swept up light, thinning hair from her shoulders and sent it in front of her. She was holding Jude in her arms, his placid disposition reflecting the relief I saw dawn across her face. In this dreamlike state I walked to her, realizing she was no longer suffering. Another step through the grass, seeing her smile crinkle on her face. This was the woman who believed in miracles. She was warmth radiating through a house on an ocean shore, magic running through fingers across piano keys. She was long walks in dense wilderness leading to open air.

Jude was set down in the grass as I got closer, holding his mother's thumb with his fist. I had to grasp for more air as I ascended up the hill. My heart was pounding, my ears were full of the noises of the natural world, and my mouth was dry. Looking down, I suddenly felt exhausted and overwhelmed and… without pain. But shouldn't I be happy, then? Why, with even as light as the world felt now, was it hard to finally go to my mother?

With all these thoughts pooling in and out of my mind, I felt her hand reach against my wet cheek. I raised my glance to her and instantly felt the ability to walk wash over me again. She took me into her arms and for the longest time all I knew was the warmth of her skin and the comfort of her embrace. Even the wind's soft lull dimmed in my ears.

"Are we dead, mum?" I asked of her, tightening my grip around her torso.

She kissed my temple. "From earth, yes. But we will live in peace now... in Aslan's Country." My mother paused as I loosened my grip on her so I could see her face. Yes, this was my mother. This wasn't a dream, though it felt like it. And I was not deluded, either. Finally, I could look at her without the torment of the White Witch's magic behind her eyes.

"When you sacrificed yourself in Narnia, Jude and I were sent here. We've been waiting."

"For me?"

"Yes. My miracle has arrived."

I laughed, and suddenly everything I had ever thought of her in Narnia vanished. Why did I ever try to see things in black and white, as if one easy answer could satisfy the hugely complicated questions I faced? Why are you here? Why did you do this? Why don't things feel the same, even though we are together? Why? Why? Why?

The world isn't black and white, it's a palette of mystifying blues and oranges and creams that constantly change into one another.

"What about everyone else?"

She didn't answer. I don't know why I asked, neither her nor I knew what fate awaited the rest of our family and the Pevensies.

Edmund.

I smiled fleetingly. He was the one to find me.

Gripping my mother's hand, I looked out on this world; the forest from which I had come, across the fields of grass to these knolls. Behind us were craggy bluffs dropping off to the ocean shore. A white castle sat magnificently on the edge of the cliffs in the distance, shining as if becoming anew.

And as I made these observations, a lion steadily approached from my right side.

"Aslan," I breathed, looking upon Him.

"Will you take a walk with me, dear one?" He asked. I glanced hesitatingly back at my mother.

"They will be there when you return," Aslan spoke.

I released my mother's hand. "You'll know where to find us," she said, turning and walking in the direction of the castle with Jude.

When they were decently far from me, I turned back to the lion who smiled pleasantly. We began walking towards the forest. At a loss of words, I reached my hand for His mane, running my fingers across it languidly to calm the nerves making a home of my insides.

"I saw Edmund when the train hit. If I hadn't, would he still not remember all that's happened?" I asked anxiously. Aslan smiled as we entering the forest's vicinity, tucking ourselves under the cover of the branches.

"Eleanor, you shouldn't worry about what may not have been. What is important is what you know now. Something is bothering you."

"Yes," I said, suddenly feeling sheepish. I had all this given to me, yet I still had questions. Oh, why couldn't I just enjoy these peaceful moments when they came? "I was wondering about the others… if I'd see them again..."

"You will, but you cannot torture yourself as each day passes, wondering when they will come to you. Narnia is still in need of them," He said, as my hand dropped to my side. We stood before the hidden river from where I had reached His country.

I peered at lazy flow of the water from the grass. There wasn't so much more than the fallen twigs from trees and stones to line the shallow bottom, but still a faint glimmer in the water's flow hinted it was more than what it appeared to be. Perhaps that glow showed the residual streaks of previous worlds touching all of those who had come to His country, but that glimmer was so minuscule and there for but a moment, I couldn't decipher whether what I had seen was truly real or a figment of my imagination.

"What lies in the water's depths is none of your concern. It is important now not to focus on the past or the future, but the present. The present moment will continue to roll on before you in my country."

Crouching down, I touched the water's surface briefly as ripples were produced by my fingers.

"Thank you," I said, almost surprising myself. His eyes, even dark, brought me comfort. I knew now what He wanted me to see.

My mother, Jude, and I would be up at the crack of dawn and out of the castle until the sun set on the horizon most days. On the beach, she and I would play chess on a checkered blanket, wind sweeping our hair into unsalvageable tangles. Jude, at the very edge of the ocean shore, jumped lightly across the puddles of water that formed when the waves drew back into the vast and encompassing ocean.

"Mum… can I ask you something?" I said, tucking my flying hair behind my ear.

"As long as you're not trying to distract me," my mother chided lightly, looking resolutely on the board between us as she moved her knight.

"No, of course not," I laughed. "It's just… did you always know things would turn out this way?"

"I always knew they would turn out how they're supposed to," my mother answered without a thought, and then called to the ocean, "Jude! Don't go so far! Mummy has to be able to see you!"

"I'm all right!"

"Stay close, Jude!"

The little boy trudged back from the water reluctantly. His gaze, set high above us from the tops of the cliffs as he turned, diverted my attention from the game.

"Caspian!" I called, squinting up at him. His sturdy figure looked out of the horizon, almost as if he was reflecting upon something. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing. There's something up here for you all!" He smiled, disappearing from the top of the bluff. I looked at my mother oddly. She scooped Jude up in her arms as we made our way to where the bluffs and the flat sand met, where we could walk back up from the beach.

The sun was set perfectly center in the sky above us when we reached the grass again, walking to Caspian. His gaze set itself on the figures of two leaving the forest, hand in hand, as I felt my insides twist in a knot.

My father and Sophia approached us from the field. It felt strange to be looking upon their arrival like my mother always had. A sudden shadow cast over the grass as my mother ran forward with Jude in her arms, just as I reached Caspian's shoulder.

I watched all of them wrap in an embrace.

"You're not going to them?" Caspian asked beside me.

I shook my head. "I just want to watch for a second. Sometimes when you're in the moment nothing feels real. I'm watching to make sure this is true." He smiled, wrapping his arm around my shoulder for but a moment before I couldn't wait any longer. I wanted their warmth.

Sophia was the first to break off from the rest of them and run to me, nearly causing me to collapse to the ground with the impact of her arms. When I was balanced, I kissed her forehead and held her. Out of everyone I had ever met, Sophia knew the most of what I had gone through. From start to end, she was there. It felt surreal to imagine our times going all the way back to that orphanage in London and now, we were free.

I felt another's strong embrace come to us. My father wrapped his arms around either of our shoulders before we all released each other. His dark eyes began to glass over in tears.

"Why were you there that day? At the train station…" I asked suddenly, looking between the two of them.

"We were going to surprise you," my father admitted, involuntarily making me think of James. I often wondered of my oldest brother, not being at the train station and then ultimately left on earth. I wondered what fate awaited him as well as the others. But for him, I felt the most sympathy.

"We'll see him again someday," I told them. Sophia and my father knew who I was talking about, but no sooner after that did my father's hands hold each of my arms firmly.

"Eleanor… Jane… Astley…" he murmured. I smiled weakly, overwhelmed, as he brought his hands up on either side of my face.

"I love you so much," he said, and then frowned. "I'm sorry-"

"No," I breathed, holding one of my hands against his. I shook my head. "No."

Looking upon me with a slow nod, he pulled me to his side with his arm wrapped around my shoulder. We walked to join the others towards the castle, leaving this fleeting moment in reflection, in wonder.

After dinner that night, when the sun was becoming nothing but a bright spot in the distance, low towards the ocean waters, I was walking aimlessly through the fields of tall grass. I felt an irritating itch just beneath the nape of my neck. Curiously, my hand reached backward as the sun finally disappeared from the sky. I pulled a single white feather from my back, and wondered for a moment why it was there.

I looked at the castle before retreating in the woods. The swish of grass complemented the crickets beginning to chirp as the sky turned a dark shade of blue, filled with stars and other entities of the cosmos.

Something in my mind told me I was being reckless, running without a thought in my mind, pushing low-lying branches out of my way, reaching back to pick at more feathers falling to the ground beneath me.

When I came to a bluff dropping off sharply into the sandy coast below, I felt this moment was repeating itself. I remembered the faint image of these events at some point in my past.

The forest trees behind me swished in the ocean breeze. Out far on the beach was a large rock, a hole in the middle of it large enough for someone to walk through. I sat at the edge of the cliff imaging myself running to it at this low-tide. Only small puddles of water left in the sand would cause my feet to become wet. Even once walking through the rock's threshold, I wouldn't meet the waves of ocean until continuing a little further down the beach.

When my wings were with me again, I felt grateful. I knew the wingeds' magic was gone from inside me, but perhaps Aslan allowed me to keep this piece of my past for these private moments. As I stood, the wings glowed white and stretched out so they entered my peripheral vision when I looked out upon the horizon.

Perhaps He let me keep them as a reminder that I was never meant to be one thing. Like my mother, my capacity couldn't be reduced to the limits of a single category. Like any human, really.

Slowly, I drifted from the cliff and suspended myself in the open air.

When the Pevensies came to us, I was skipping stones with Caspian on the beach. We had been out all morning, the proof of that shone in my wrinkly fingers and the grains of sand stuck between my toes. I was content regardless of the waiting I still had to do.

"One… two…two?" Caspian said dismally, the rock skimming across the water and then disappearing.

I shook my head at him. "Perhaps you've lost it, Cas. Perhaps three is where you peaked, and it only goes down from there-"

"Says you!" he interrupted pointedly. "You've gotten what, four?"

"Five."

He scoffed as my father, standing in the grass, called out for us standing far down the beach.

"Eleanor! Caspian!"

We turned from the water and eyed him on the bluff.

"Yeah?" I called back.

"Come up here!" he yelled, and then paused. "I need your…uh…help… with something!"

I promptly dropped my stone and followed Caspian away from the crashing waters.

"You're eager to leave," I noted softly, wet sand squishing under my bare feet.

"I love helping your father," he said, not even trying to sound convinced. I giggled, feeling grass replace sand underneath me as we ascended up the hill to where my father stood.

"I think you're just done with being beat by me. Sheesh, Cas. I never pegged you as a sore loser-"

"Oh, shut up."

My eyes widened happily as we stood at the top of the hill.

"What is it you need, dad?" I asked my father, though he didn't answer. He looked like he was trying to hold back a big, goofy smile. I was perplexed.

"What?" I said, looking between the two of them. Caspian had his eyes set on something far behind us. My father turned to the forest as I eyed the trees.

I shook my head. "I don't understand," I said, when my father grabbed my shoulder and pointed out towards where the trees and the grass met. When Caspian began walking forward, I squinted my eyes.

Seven figures caught my attention just outside the woods. I didn't know how to think or to feel. I just did. I began walking slowly behind Caspian, my father remaining on the hill behind us.

When I was equidistant from my father and the trees, the distinct features of each of these people were visible to me. Four I didn't recognize, the other three…

I stopped, gazing upon Caspian as he ran to these people and they ran to him, becoming a sea of handshakes and shoulder claps and hugs. I imagined this was what family reunions were like, everyone happy and glad to see one another, not interested in considering all the adversity and sorrow that each had faced at that first encounter.

When the smiles faded and I was close enough I could feel the positive energy pouring from each of their beings, Edmund Pevensie stepped forward.

There was dirt lining the sides of his face and his hair was spiked up in all different directions. Still, underneath it all was my Edmund, my Goose, looking upon me.

My mouth was agape. I wanted to speak, or at least diminish the space that still lied between us, but I felt my feet could hardly move from the spot in which I stood.

A second later, Edmund rushed towards me urgently and pulled me into him. He grabbed a fistful of my hair with one hand, holding the other at the small of my back. I was shocked. Before, I tried not to think too much about this moment, not wanting to have any expectations for what was to come. But when I did think about it, I never expected I would feel so lost. My thoughts were trying to wrap around all I had ever experienced, realizing now that every aspect of my life was colliding.

Even in his embrace, my eyes remained open and my arms held themselves, bent, in the open air for a long while.

The others were looking up us. Those I knew, Peter and Lucy, were curious about what was going on in my head. I, too, felt the same way.

And without even thinking a second later, it all clicked. I wrapped my arms around Edmund tightly. He released a heavy sigh, settling closer into me.

"I saw you," he breathed into my temple, kissing it lightly. "I missed you so much…"

"I missed you, too," I whispered, smiling when he held his hand just underneath my chin. As we separated, Lucy ran to me, and like Sophia, with such force that I nearly toppled over. I smiled, my cheeks becoming wet with glee.

I got a hug from Peter, too, and then Edmund introduced me to the others with them whom I did not recognize. These four figures, now Eustace, Jill, the Professor, and Polly, would soon become close friends of mine.

Everyone walked towards the castle. Edmund and I let them go ahead of us, leaving he and I alone by the trees for a minute. We shared a playful glance, before he grabbed either side of my face and kissed me urgently.

"I'm never letting you go again," he joked. As we, too, walked to the castle, his arm never dropped from holding me at my waist. He whispered in my ear all that had happened since forgetting about one another, about travelling on the Dawn Treader and thinking that was the end of seeing Narnia, and then seeing me a few years later at the train station which led him to the Last Battle, to the end of the Narnian world.

New friends and old- Evangeline, Reepicheep, Mr. Tumnus, the Beavers, Trumpkin, and many others- all met for a great feast that night. We were all together again. I was filled with gratitude knowing that this was what my world came to be. It seemed everything we've ever done- every moment, every sacrifice, every word spoken- they've all lead to this undying present.

That night Edmund and I, still giddy from the events of the past day, walked down to the beach out of the castle's view before the lethargic waters of low-tide.

The waters constant crashing and rolling back nearly lulled me to sleep. I was nestled in between Edmund's legs, head against his chest, with every part of me feeling totally relaxed and ready to drift off.

"El?"

"Mmm?"

He didn't say anything. I set one of my hands back in the sand so I could look up at him, but he just smiled.

"What?"

He didn't answer, rather kissed me until I felt soft sand beneath me my head, our bodies flush against one another. When I pulled away from his lips, he continued to kiss under my chin, down my neck, any coherent words rushing quickly from me. I laid blissfully and tuned into the sound of the rushing waters, feeling like a wave crashing against the shore, too.

Further down the line of these forever intertwining moments, Edmund and I grew into each other like strong vines of ivy. Not long after our wedding day, we were expecting a child. Until she came, I imagined all the pieces and combinations of the Pevensie and Astley families that would be reflected in her. I imagined all the parts of her own that would grow, too.

When she finally arrived, Edmund and I would lay together in our bed for hours just staring at her in wonder. Neither of us imaged this set of moments ever coming to be, her dark tufts of hair and dark, brown eyes leaving us in bewilderment.

One day, when she was growing into quite a curious toddler, I took her out into the woods and she asked me about the hidden river. I told her the truth of how I had traveled from it and so had her father, Aunt Lucy, and the others. She looked upon the placid waters for but a moment before her attention was otherwise preoccupied. We set a blanket down for me to sit and for her to play among the grass and small creatures of the forest. Her dark curls were swaying in the wind as she moved through the trees when suddenly, a distinct glimmer formed in my peripheral vision.

Instinctively my head turned and, in the shallow waters among the smooth stones and scattered branches, a vision of my oldest brother flashed before me.

Before I got closer, I glanced back at my daughter who was playing in the nearby grass. I bit my lip, remembering Aslan's words, but still my curiosity got the better of me as I lay in the grass with my head just over the water's edge.

His image flashed before me again and again, though the settings continued to change just as I figured his life had after we left him. I felt guilty and confused, though still the hope that I would see him again never diminished. What struck me the hardest was in one image a very familiar Pevensie, who had also been left on earth, was with him. They were walking down a rainy street, just talking. My brother was holding an umbrella over their heads.

I lowered my mouth to the water and whispered quietly.

"It's all right to forget for a while. If you want to, we understand."

The images disappeared, as if my words had blown them away from the rippling water.

"El…"

I grunted softly, rolling onto my back. Morning light streamed into our bedroom, causing my eyes to squint fiercely as they opened. I felt Edmund's cool hand run across the material over my barely showing stomach, another child on its way. I threaded my husband's dark hair between my fingers, my eyes inadvertently closing.

"Sweetheart…" he breathed, planting a kiss on my cheek. "We should get up."

I stuck one eye open for him, scrunching my nose.

"I know, I know," he drawled, as I rose and swung my legs over the side of the bed, back facing him. Standing, I opened the window beside our bed to let fresh air stream into our room just as the light had.

Edmund, still sitting on the bed underneath all the tangled sheets, was looking at me with one eyebrow raised.

"What?"

He bit his lip.

"Turn back to what you were doing."

I shook my head, confused, as I turned back to where I just been handling the knob to open the window.

He grinned when I dropped my arms again.

"What, Edmund Pevensie?"

"I can see the bump," he smirked. I looked down at my stomach, holding either side of it with my hands.

"I suppose so," I murmured in delight. I sat at the edge of the bed, playing absently with the sheets. "It seems so surreal to be having kids, Goose. Every day, it either feels like I've just met you, or I've known you for as long as I've been alive."

"Well I know I haven't just met you, for Christ's sake," he laughed, but soon his mouth formed a frown.

"What?"

He rubbed his hand over his one of his eyes, shaking his head. "Dunno." He paused. "Just thinking of all that's happened and how far we've come, my love."

"Honestly, I wouldn't ask for things to be any other way. No matter what it took to get here," I breathed, and for just a moment a thought crossed my mind, but that was long enough for me to ask, "Did I ever tell you what my mother told me when I got here?"

"No," he said. "Was it good?"

"It was so good, Goose," I answered. He moved closer to me, hand resting on my bent leg. "Well, I told you how she believed in seeing miracles, right?" He nodded. "She told me she and Jude had been waiting together, and she saw me and…"

For the last time I could ever recall, that bittersweet feeling stuck itself in my throat like glue as my words halted themselves.

Pinching my mouth and eyes shut, I shook my head. Edmund reassuringly squeezed my hand. I grasped for a breath and opened my eyes.

"She said… her miracle had arrived…" I managed quickly, and then abruptly sank into his shoulder. There were so many feelings that came to me with saying what had happened aloud. Out of all that's transpired, I needed that moment with my mother. That was the one thing I got that assured me without a doubt that all I had done was worth it. Even with all my faults, I was miraculous to her. Maybe to the world I wasn't much, but all my mother wanted to see was me. She had professed me as the miracle she had been waiting for. Everything I had done was enough. She took me, regardless of all the mistakes I had made and all the choices I wrongly followed through with.

When finally I managed to settle my breaths, I wiped my cheeks. Edmund lay us back down against the pillows facing one another. He held his hands on either side of my face and I… I felt grateful. Our daughter lay in the next room over, and another love who I hadn't met yet was settled between us and our intertwined limbs.

"I've seen miracles, I think."

"How many, Cricket?"

"Four."

"Four?" He sounded impressed.

"Yeah, four. The first was finding Narnia, rather running into it."

A smile spread across Edmund's cheeks, holding me closer.

"The second was finding you all. It was so quick that you looked past what I was or what I could have been. We were just friends. It was nice. The third was eventually learning to know that I've never had to say goodbye, not really. Only so long. When the war was over, we found one another. When we had to forget, we found one another."

"I always come back to you, don't I?"

"When my family and I seemed so estranged…I can't even make sense of it now, but it doesn't matter. I know we'll all be together again, one day. The fourth is my mother. She was tormented, misunderstood, but she came back to me like everything else. My own mother, the one who I once saw as too far gone to be salvaged..."

"There's so many more in between," Edmund whispered. I looked into his brown eyes. He looked into my hazel. As I lay with him in this infinite present, I wanted to scream out, "Remember the day we met? Remember how much trust we had to put into such uncertain things? Remember how scary that was? Everything we ever knew could have crumbled at any moment..."

But I held still.

We made it here, hadn't we?

Author's Note:

One final official thank you to: remarkables, marionofthesnowdrifts, Lesmizmaniac, SkepticallyHopeful, thequeeninhightower, and writtingmagic. Y'all are pretty cool for reviewing and following and whatnot.

Umm… so… there's a sense of relief coming to me knowing I'll be able to mark this story as 'complete'. It says on the website that I've been updating this story for about a year and a half, but this has been at least a three year project where I started writing stuff and then I just scrapped it for the longest time.

I'm not sure what else to say. I'm so grateful that whoever is reading this now opted to take this journey with me… I've been unsure and the updates haven't always been consistent (woah… remember that time I didn't update for like… five months?) but it's been fun.

I will be going back and doing an edit, but nothing too dramatic, just grammatical things I know I often miss and beat myself up about. (Pretty sure I said I'd do an edit before... I didn't make it that far...)

Thank you to anyone who's ever supported this; to those who have been following since the beginning or those who may be reading this note a year from now. I am utterly heartbroken that Eleanor Astley will no longer be a part of my writing.

I don't know what I'll be doing now, writing wise, but I'm still so proud I pulled through with this. I owe it to anyone who's ever read and supported my story for that. I love you all. Thank you so, so much.

Review if you'd like. Let me know what you thought about the end!

-Jadeyn Kate