The Faded Portrait of a Bygone Era

Epilogue

Caspian nodded. "I shall follow your lead."

A little reluctantly, she stepped down from the dais and began to trace the path in her mind, from the great hall to the treasure room, that secret door designed to blend in as simply another wall. Her feet followed the route from memory, and soon, a familiar wall came into sight.

"There," said Margaret, "This is the entrance, I'm certain."

She pushed against the stone, and Caspian joined her. The grating sound of stone accompanied its movement, revealing an open door and a dark tunnel within.

"Well we haven't got Edmund's torch, but I'm certain I can find my way in the dark."

"Just be careful," said Caspian. "I'll not have you falling into a pit by some unfortunate accident."

Margaret laughed and made her way inside. The darkness only lasted a little while anyways, it seemed, as they came down into the lower level, where natural light had somehow found its way in over the years.

Five chests stood in their own little alcoves, with a statue of each of the five royals presiding over them.

"This one is mine," Margaret said, approaching it. She gestured to the marble statue of herself. "That's what I'll look like here in a few more years."

Caspian stepped up beside her, studying the statue.

"You look much the same to me," he said. "Certainly just as beautiful."

Margaret's cheeks burned at his praise. "Yes, well... I do believe the sculptor took some artistic license, made us all look a little more regal..."

She opened the chest and found, to her surprise, many of her old dresses, still in near-perfect condition. There were other things in there as well, such as...

"The armor I wore in the battle of Anvard..." she said in amazement. "It's still here..."

Caspian reached into the chest and pulled forth a journal, which had been hiding beneath her old favorite, a white and emerald colored riding dress.

"I see you've always been one to chronicle your adventures," he said with a fond smile.

Margaret looked over his shoulder at it.

"I'd nearly forgotten..." she said. "We'll have to take a look at it together, later... I often drew my friends, and the land around us... You'll be able to see Narnia how it was in my Age."

She took a moment to look around at the other leftover relics in the chamber.

"This is where the most valuable treasures of Narnia were stored... and evidently the Telmarine conquerors never discovered it..."

Setting her old things aside, she followed the passageway a little further, pausing at what she saw.

Caspian's footsteps came along behind her.

"Is that...?"

There on the floor, leaning against the wall, somehow miraculously intact after all these years, a portrait hung in a frame that was nearly falling to pieces. There, sitting together, immortalized in the fading colors of paint, the sharp, regal gazes of Margaret's siblings as they had been in the Golden Age stared out at her present self and Caspian, adorned in their best, their crowns clearly visible. Her own gray eyes were right alongside them, staring out at nothing, though they were nearly white from the drastic fading of the colors.

Almost reverently, she knelt and reached out to touch the edge of the frame.

"This was made just before we went back..." she murmured.