The Chronicles of Thalia

Dawn Treader: Chapter 1- The Ocean

In all 16 years of my life in England, I have never once had been to the sea shore. Today that was all going to change. I tap my foot nervously on the floor of my cousin's automobile, squished between my two little cousins and anxiously watching the horizon for any sign of the ocean. I was ready, I thought, to have another taste of the home I'd left behind. Maybe I'd even get through it without thinking of Edmund...

Well, there went that. Wave goodbye as it flies out the window, little William! Give it a kiss on the cheek and hopes it finds Edmund!

Aslan, how I missed him.

And the other Pevensies too, naturally. It had been as long as I had seen Susan and Lucy as it had been since I'd seen Edmund, though I had run into a busy Peter in London a few months ago. But otherwise, it had been a year since I had seen the Pevensies. A year worth of wishes and heartache and nightmares. But today would be different. Today I was going to the shore. It was going to be beautiful.

How right I was.

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"Lee!" I hear my older sister call to me. "Don't let Willie go out to deep!" I'm sorry, last I checked it was YOUR job to watch William, dear sister. I should be given award for all of the things that I could say but don't. An award, I tell you. But because I love William considerably more than rebelling against my old maid sister, I snatch him up, teasing him about sea serpents who would gobble up little boys who didn't listen to their cousins. 

"I don't wanna get eaten up, Lee." He cries to me.

"Then you stay next to your mum and cousin Diana, okay?" I say, putting him down next to my sister. "Evelyn, I'm going to swim a little bit." I say, now addressing my favorite cousin, a woman in her late-twenties, who much resembled her mother, Aunt Polly, but was much nicer. William ran up to her, shrieking.

"No, mummy, don't let her get eaten up by the sea swerpents." Evelyn gives him a surprised look, wondering where a 6 year old could get such an idea. I hurriedly swim off before she realizes the guilty party. Let her husband straighten the little boy out before bed tonight, I'd done them a favor, really. Now he'd be sure to stay close enough to shore that he wouldn't drown. I'm in such a hurry that I don't bother looking where I'm going and I end up running right into another swimmer. I look up and my jaw drops.

"Caspian?" I ask incredulously. In front of me was a young man of 18 or so with brown hair and dark eyes, a little paler than Caspian as I had last seen him. But it was a nearly perfect resemblance.

The boy looks rather confused. "Wha- no. My name is Ben."

I feel myself turn bright red. Of it wasn't Caspian, he was in Narnia. "O-oh. I'm aw-aw-awfully sorry, it's just y-you look ju-ust li-like." I stutter, because now that the shock has worn off I realize how attractive the young man before me is. 

He smiles. "It's quite alright, it happens to everyone."

Unsure of what to say, I just smile and nod and then turn to swim away, but his voice stops me. "I told you my name, it's only fair that I should learn yours."

I turn back to him. "It's Thalia... Thalia Rose."

"Well, it's wonderful to meet you, Thalia Rose. In fact, it's rather sad that I shan't get to know you better." My jaw drops. Wait a minute, was he? Did he? 

"I don't see the harm of talking just for today," I say after a moment of debating. His face lights up and I allow myself to swim a little closer to him. "I'm awfully sorry for running into you earlier."

He chuckles. "Don't worry about it, Tia. Is it alright that I call you Tia?"

I nod, quite liking the change of nickname. Lee gets rather old after a while. "Though I find it rather unfair that you should get to give me a nickname though I haven't one to call you."

He shakes his head, "I'm not fond of many of the nicknames that come out of Benjamin."

"What?" I ask jokingly. "You're not fond of the nickname Benji?" 

He shakes his head. "'Fraid not. But I'll tell you what, you see that reef out there?" He points to a small reef about 10 yards away. I nod. "If you beat me there in a race, I'll let you call me any nickname you want."

"Even Benji?" I ask, eyeing the reef.

"Even-" Before he can finish respond, I take off full-speed to the reef. I hear him laugh, chasing after me. I'm going to win this one, I can feel it. I'm halfway to the reef when something catched my ankle. I try to shake it off, in too much of a hurry to bother to stop, but it's grip tightens. I stop now, and from a distance I hear, "You alright there, Tia?" 

Before I can respond, whatever is holding my ankle pulls me under. I panic. Kicking and flailing wildly, I scream as best as I can under water, hoping Ben makes it in time to save me.  Just postpone drowning long enough for Ben to make it over to me. Just postpone- the grip disappears, and I realize after a five second delay that I am free to return to the surface. I swim up quickly, breaking the surface quicker than I should have considering how deep the thing felt like it had dragged me. I had just broken the surface when a pair of arms wrap around me.

There are two possibilities, another creature with intentions of drowning me, or Ben. Both terrify me, and I begin to thrash again.  "Whoa, there. I'm trying to save you." A deep voice says. "Ben, let go!" Wait a minute. Not Ben's voice. 

"Ben?" The voice asks.

"Caspian?" I hear a female voice call. 

"Edmund?" I ask, turning around. 

"Thalia?" He exclaims. I fling my arms around him, dragging both of us back under the water. I'm too happy to care. I was in Narnia again, and more importantly, I was with Edmund.