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~ Less Than Nothing ~

~o0o~

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"It can't be."

And she is taken back.

Back to a world she knows better than England. Back to a world she walked barefoot, whose paths she danced down with her hands lifted to the bright yellow sun— her sister's sun. These ruins are not what she knows, so they simply cannot be. That much she argues with herself. She knows of a glorious palace, spires casting great shadows upon those who exist beneath them, beautiful flags draped on the morning and evening breezes coming off the ocean. Regal ships anchored at harbor, waiting to be decked and stocked to sail to any destination their monarchs might desire.

She does not know these crumbling walls, ivy-grown and time-corrupted. She does not know this expanse of tumbled grey marble blocks, streaked from exposure to the elements and blighted with lichen and moss by the years.

Oh how the hate and anger and betrayal rises hot and quick and fast! This grass is betraying her, this ruin has betrayed her— her eyes and her voice are betraying her by giving way to her childish emotions! Oh, why are they still children? Did they not leave as men and women; should they not now be returned to their true forms?

She stands, trembling like a newborn fawn on spindly legs, before the little knobs of marble lifting feebly over the blades of overgrown grass where her throne once rose on a marble dais, smooth and graceful and beautiful.

"Cair Paravel."

And in her brother's voice – her beloved brother; how well she loves him, how true was his leadership and how bright was his rule! – she hears an echo of her own agony. They do not look at one another, instead they bow their heads and look to the ground, as if ashamed for something that is not their fault.

But all at once a command – no, no a question, a query too naive to dare be asked, but the High King dares it because his title gives him leave – comes to her ears. Softly, and filled with grief.

"What happened here?"

She does not want to think— does not desire to let her mind wander down such treacherous paths, for who knows what agony they will unleash if she gives them power? And yet still she turns sharply to look at him; years of listening to his command before battle strike true, and she cannot ignore that faint echo in her brother's too-youthful voice. He is her High King, and she must listen to him. So she follows after Peter, who follows after Edmund, who has wandered away from where his throne once stood.

She knows he mourns differently from them. The Just King, the poet, the playwrite. His grief is faint upon his face, but it cries out in the depths of his eyes, and when he looks to them from where he kneels beside a great boulder of rough-hewn stone, she can see just how far into his soul this has rent him, and it claws at her own.

'How could Aslan have allowed this to happen?' his eyes question quietly, though she sees the storm hiding behind the calm. He says something, but she does not hear. She is tuned to the wind and the distant crash of the breakers upon the beach, listening for the music she hears in her memory playing clearly down through the years.

Panpipes and flutes, harps and lyres, tambourines and deep dwarven drums; she can hear them all, a swirling whirlwind of music flowing around her, rising, swelling, before lifting to the sky and clashing with the clear, pale blue of the heavens in tragic harmony.

But then all at once is the wind. The lonely, whistling wind. And she watches her brothers quarrel over torches, both Narnian and English. Part of her broken emotions laughs, sadly, at Edmund's attempt to lighten their somber mood, but it sparks and dies, like a match when the feeble flame meets a puff of air and is extinguished.

She cannot muster false cheer, not now.

Peter exclaims something joyful, and she turns to him, hearing the surprise betwixt the melancholy and the struggle against his confusion. He does not understand why Aslan has allowed things to be as they are, she is sure, and he will punish himself because of something uncontrollable, and hurt himself twofold. He has done it in the past, and she knows him well enough to know he will do so again. Such is the burden of a High King— the troubles which befall your nation are a weighty iron chain about your neck, a heavy oxbow bearing down on your shoulders.

"I can't believe it's all still here," he said.

'What is all still here?' she thinks as they converge onto their chests, the golden set King Lune presented to them on the Yuletide before they disappeared through the wardrobe. There is nothing here for them but rot and ruin and rusted armor or tarnished and frail weaponry. Nothing but shattered remains of a regal kingdom! How different would things be, had they never left?

The others eagerly take to their belongings, kept well-preserved by their subjects.

It is only as she reaches out and touches her dagger and her cordial that something cruel strikes her; a serpent's bite to her heart. She turns to Susan, beloved Susan, the gentle queen, who shall perhaps understand this indescribable sorrow assailing her.

"Everyone we knew. . ." and her voice breaks as her heart does, "Master Tumnus and the Beavers, they're— they're all. . . gone." Her chest heaves, and she tries courageously not to cry as she finishes. (she mustn't cry, she has come so far without crying, and if she cries now she will be undone, and she cannot let that happen; she is the Valiant one, if she breaks it will unsettle her siblings, and she must be strong for them if for nothing else!)

"When Aslan bares his teeth, winter meets its death."

She looks to her brother, and sees him brandishing his dear sword Rhindon. It is still beautiful, its magic keeping it untarnished even after all this time. He does not take his eyes from it, and she knows he is trying to be magnificent, strong and encouraging, but all she wants is to run to him and embrace him (as awkwardly as she could in this girlish form) and whisper in his ear that it is all right to cry when standing in the face of pain. She has seen him, the great warrior, reduced to whimpers, whittled down to nothing, after war and death and the terrific clash of battle, and she wants to help him, but she can't, and it hurts. How can she help when she cannot ease her own agony? So she answers softly to his unfinished verse.

"And when he shakes his mane. . . we shall have spring again."

He says nothing in reply, but that is all right, because she knows there is nothing to say. They grow quiet again, drifting like rudderless ships on an open sea, each turning inward, each questioning what has become of the land they loved, and what is to become of them in it now?

A faint smile comes to her face as she reaches into her chest, stroking the pendant on a gown she once loved. It is gold and ivory, this gown, with lace at the throat and upon the cuffs of the billowing sleeves. As she reaches deeper, her fingers strike smooth wood, and she pulls from underneath folds of expensive clothes a simple rosewood box— her case of rings and jewelry. She lifts the lid, pulling a single ring from within. It bears her emblem, a lioness.

"I think it's time we found out what's going on here."

She turns to Peter, because she hears it in his voice, and then, to see his face. . . her fragmented heart drops. He is preparing himself for war, and she knows that he will not come out of this easily. But she cannot think about this too long, she must find a dress. Edmund comes out from some dark passage, and she sees that he has taken some of his clothes and made them fit, long trousers tucked into tall boots and an under-tunic girded at the waist. She smiles somewhat, because he is wearing what amounts to bedclothes— at least they would have been considered such in their day. Clearly these aren't their days any longer. The sun they were familiar with set on that time, now a new one rises. And they do not know it.

As Peter goes off, a bundle in hand, she fumbles through the gowns in her chest, and her hands come back from it empty. All her dresses are too big. . . nothing will fit her the size she is now. A hand rests on her shoulder, and she turns her head to stare into Susan's eyes. The Gentle Queen smiles.

"Come, I'm sure we can cut something down," she cheers, but there is a hollowness in her facade, and it is telling.

The Gentle Queen does not feel the need to be gentle. Lucy watches her curiously, noting the bend of her fingers as her graceful hands flit above the mass of gowns. They yearn to curve against an arrow's fletching, to fire and not miss the intended mark. Few times has Susan ever thirsted for battle; this is perhaps the second time Lucy has ever seen her long to fight. Maybe it is fitting that in a world turned upside down the Gentle Queen is now become the Fierce Queen.

At last, Susan pulls up a simple dress, and Lucy stares. It is the gown she wore to the Battle of Anvard, crimson skirt with silver-blue beneath. It is too long, the sleeves are too big, but she was fifteen when she wore it, and she was not quite a woman then, though she was no longer a girl after that day either.

They try it out, and though it is too long, it will do. Susan takes her dagger (but firsts asks permission, as always) and cuts the hem (it is uneven, but they do not have time for careful measurements), and the ripping fabric brings her back to Anvard, to that day when a Calormene Prince dared wage war against an ally and friend of Narnia.

The scarlet skirt tore then too, and she looks down as Susan pulls the dagger through the patch Mrs. Beaver wove carefully over that old rip, cutting the skirt in half almost. She never would have thought that the tear made by a Calormene scimitar would be the guide her sister would use one day.

And then Susan stitches the hem, not perfectly, but carefully. Lucy is a queen of Narnia; ruined though their palace is, and forgotten though their kingdom may be. She will not step into the unknown, and possibly into battle, with a ragged hem.

They cut the sleeves, more carefully this time, for Susan believed in their day that a well-cut sleeve marked a well-bred lady. How can she say otherwise, when Susan dashes tears off her cheeks when she thinks Lucy is not looking? At last they finish the stitching and the hemming. Susan asks her to twirl, and she does. The skirt is askance, but there is little they can do now. The left sleeve is perhaps a hairsbreadth longer than the right, but she really doesn't mind, Susan has done her best.

"It-it's good." Her voice is wobbly, but she forces down the sob.

"I . . . don't think— truly?" Susan stares intensely at her, and for a moment she thinks that if her older sister cries she will too, and if that happens she will never regain her fragile balance between sadness and calm. So instead of using her untrustworthy voice, she nods, brushing her hands down the front of the gown.

"One thing more," the Fierce Queen murmurs, and turns back to the chests. But she goes to her own, not Lucy's. "Here." She holds out a silvery-blue vest of brocade, patterned in golden thread. It was simple, but simple is all they have left.

"Help me lace it?" she whispers, because it takes all of her strength to speak even that loudly.

And Susan does. It covers the old scarlet and white bodice of the gown perfectly. Lucy takes up her dagger and her cordial onto her belt, and she is ready. They clasp hands and leave that room together, not looking back. Susan's arrows rattle in her quiver, and Lucy remembers the thrum of the war drums so long ago. . . She never thought she would long for that sound, but she finds herself longing now.

A/N:

This little vignette stems from my intense watching of PC the awhile back (also the other day, since I'm sick. . . and wanted to watch it). I noticed that sometimes Lucy's dress looks really, well, awkward for lack of a better word. And the hem seemed to be somewhat longer one one side than the other, especially in that scene where she's nearly mauled to death by the black bear. I was going to cover the whole of the Prince Caspian adventure, but I was forced to put a hold on this fanfic due to illness, and when I came back to it I thought this would do as a stopping spot.

Please tell me what you think!

Happy reading,

WH