Aurum #43: Envy (Ailena, Telmarines; beginning of DY)
also incorporating Argent #39: Nail

Had they simply asked, aid would gladly have been given.

But the Telmarines were fierce, and proud, and moreover desirous of a new realm. So they did not ask, but invaded, taking advantage of Narnia's disorder. Their forces advanced inexorably, a crow's shadow creeping across the country, pillaging villages and sparing few of those they found.

When they finally reached Cair Paravel, they found it was connected to the mainland by an ivy-twined bridge wide enough for eight to walk abreast. The gates were thrown wide. No flags flew on the ramparts, and no sounds came from the empty courtyard.

But it was not entirely abandoned.

On the bridge stood a lone figure, a young woman with a fine chain clasped about her waist, from which hung a set of keys. Pale yellow hair fluttered in a wind that seemed to exist only around her. Caspian and his men halted.

"This place is not for you," said the girl, looking straight at him. "You are the man who would be king, and who will indeed be king of the nation you create, but you will not reign from our Cair. You have swept over our land like a black and silver flood, killing our people and plundering our lands, but you will not take our Cair."

Caspian chuckled. "Our coffers brim with food and treasure, we have slain your king and his court, and a thousand pyres lie burning in our wake. Who are you to stop us?"

The girl regarded him impassively. "I am the chatelaine of Cair Paravel. This place is not for you. Leave now, and you may yet be spared."

Caspian snorted, and motioned his men to advance. The girl remained unmoving as they tramped onto the bridge. Then, when scarcely twenty men had set foot on it, chaos broke loose.

The wind about the girl suddenly roared with the force of a gale, throwing the men against the parapets with a clatter of armor. In the air itself, Caspian thought he could discern ethereal forms, human in shape but not in substance, and with a curious wispiness to their outlines. The girl raised her hands, and two of them swept around and lifted her into the air, bearing her away and setting her down lightly on the far side.

On both sides of the bridge and along its full length, the sea reared up to the height of three men, hanging impossibly in the air like a wave about to break, and in the water also Caspian saw strange forms—some nearly manlike, but with hair that flowed like water, and some with the lower halves of great shining fish.

The ivy twined about the masonry began to shift and curl. One moment it was only ivy, the next moment (Caspian saw not how) a tall figure whose limbs were oddly branchlike stood there. He gestured wordlessly, and the ivy grew and grew, spreading over the surface of the bridge, digging into the cracks, vines thickening as the rock began to creak.

The soldiers cried out, clashing into each other as they fought to return to the shore. But only half had made it back to dry land when there was a great grinding smash, and the bridge in its entirety collapsed into the sea, the high standing waves crashing down with terrible force and sweeping away the remaining men.

And in the ringing silence that followed its fall, they heard the voice of the girl, calling clear and high across the water.

"Caspian, first of that name, to you and yours and your heirs to come do I bequeath this prophecy! You have come to the East in your drive to conquer, and it is from the East that your doom will come. For you have overrun the land of the Lion whose country lies beyond the sea, and he is no tame beast. Your nation will not last so much as a dozen kings ere it is overthrown. You may have conquered us, but we will outlast you. In the forests and streams, the caves and fields, the wells and mountains and winds themselves, you will ever be haunted by our presence—for we are Narnia, and we do not forget. Now get you hence, and think no more of Cair, for this place is not for you."

And Caspian, called Conqueror by those who came after, believed her.

He turned his back on the sea and led his men away. He made his dwelling far from its thundering waves, letting the eastern woods grow wild to protect his people from the ghosts and the threat of the Lion. When his great-great-great-grandson came to power and declared he would build a new palace, he constructed it even further inland, choosing as its foundation the ancient remains of an abandoned castle near Beaversdam. Men grew to fear the sea and the woods and the Lion, though many in secret still dreamed of the old days.

And every so often throughout those dark years, a note would appear fastened to the door of the castle, a reminder to the Telmarines.

We remain.

Given that dryads, naiads, and salamanders already exist in canon, I figured it would not be implausible to add sylphs as well.

Today (6-5-19) is the tenth anniversary of my officially joining FF. I wanted to do something to commemorate it. In addition, Chapter 1 of this fic has been significantly edited, expanded, and (hopefully) improved.