"Watch where you're going luv" said a man who had nearly rammed his vehicle into the girl.
"I'm sorry" sighed Lucy.
Lucy raced across the street to Susan, who was speaking to a geeky boy at the newspaper stand. In actual fact she had her eyes fixed on the newspaper in her hands and had only uttered one word to the boy, who was really annoying.
"Susan! You better come quick!" shouted Lucy. Susan slammed her newspaper down, glad that she had an excuse to get away from the weird boy. With that, they ran across the street hand in hand towards the railway station, where they were supposed to take a train to their school.
Once they were in the dimly lit and overcrowded station, they were greeted by the sight of a few boys fighting with Peter - a mess of limbs and clothes and punches. Soon Edmund pushed his way through the chanting crowd and ran in to join the fight.
"Edmund!" screamed Lucy, all panicky. How she wished that they would stop it right at that instant.
"Break it up!" A few officers shouted, shoving the boys away from each other. "Act your age!"
With that the fight had ended and the crowd of children had scattered away, leaving the four Pevensies trudging towards a nearby bench with their mass of luggage. They never fancied the start of a new school term, for it meant early mornings and lessons and homework and late nights, and the fight just made it worse.
"You're welcome" Edmund said sacastically as he slammed his briefcase onto the bench.
"I had it sorted" said Peter.
"What was it this time?" asked Susan, obviously annoyed.
"He bumped me" Peter said crossly.
"So you hit him?" Lucy questioned, disappointment written on her face.
"No! After he bumped me, he tried to get me to apologise. That's when I hit him" explained Peter.
"Why can't you just walk away?" Susan hissed. Peter's poor attitude since the time they came back from Narnia had always gotten on her nerves.
Peter shrugged, "I shouldn't have to! Aren't you guys tired of being treated like kids?"
"Erm, we are kids" Edmund pointed out as he slouched further into the bench.
"Well, I wasn't always..." he paused, remembering all his adventures in Narnia, "it has been a year. How long does he expect us to wait?"
"I think it's time to accept the fact that we live here. There's no use pretending any different" said Susan, throwing her hands up into the air. Her eyes darted to behind Lucy and she gasped at the sight of the geeky boy walking in her direction in a rather weird fashion.
"Oh no," she rolled her eyes, "pretend you're talking to me" she said, turning to Edmund so that the back of her head now faced the boy.
"We are talking to you" Edmund said.
Lucy shot up from her seat suddenly. "Ow!" she shouted.
"Be quiet, Lucy" hushed Susan, trying her best not to look back at the approaching geek.
"Something pinched me" Lucy whined.
"Hey, stop pulling" Peter said to Edmund.
"I'm not touching you!" exclaimed Edmund, his eyes growing very big. He had always been accused for everything and was rather sick of it.
"What is that?" Susan asked, having felt a pull on her leg too.
"It feels like ... magic" Lucy said, her mouth tugging up into a smile.
The four siblings held hands. An ordinary train raced pass them, but what was extrodinary was that it was pulling away the tiles and walls of the train station, and the four of them were the only ones who seemed to notice. The luggage, the seat, the lights, the entire train station vanished in a blink. The four siblings, still holding hands and pale faced, stared in awe at a beautiful beach.
The four royals stepped into the sunlight, taking in the magnificent view of the beautiful sea. The water was a dazzling shade of blue and it's waves calming and soft. Lucy and Susan exchanged smiles, before racing towards the sea and kicking off their shoes and pulling off their socks on the way, running their toes through the fine sand and soaking themselves into the clean sea water. The boys followed suit.
Soon, all four of them were playing in the sea, engaged in a fierce water battle. They splashed the cool salty water at each other, making all of them soaking wet. Lucy even tripped on herself and fell butt first into the water.
Edmund was soon distracted by something in a distance. Ruins rested on a great hill just beside the shore, which had a great deal of wallflowers and moss crawling over the remains of bricks and concretes. Though it seemed like nothing much now, Edmund was sure it had been a magnificent structure before it had crumbled.
"Where do you suppose we are?" he asked.
Peter raised an eyebrow. "Well, where do you think?"
"I don't remember any ruins in Narnia" he stated.
***
Amethy observed as the four mysterious people hiked towards the ruins. When they came close enough to probably spot her very easily, she retreated into the shadows, behind a huge column and observed quietly like she always liked to do.
"I wonder who lived here" she heard the youngest girl say, who looked up at the dozens of apple trees that stood before her.
Just then, the other girl bent down to pick something up - something that gleamed in the light. She stared at it for a while.
"I think we did" she breathed.
The younger boy with dark brown hair and chocolate brown eyes voiced up, "Hey that's mine, from my chess set" He proceeded to inspect the object, which was a little chess knight made of pure gold.
"Which chess set?" The eldest boy asked.
"I didn't exactly have a solid gold chess set in Finchley, did I?"
There was a moment of silence as they all tried to piece everything together.
"It can't be" Lucy whispered, running over towards a dais, beckoning the others to follow.
"Don't you see?" she asked, positioning her siblings in a straight line on the dias.
"Imagine walls," she pointed, "and columns there! And a glass roof!"
No one said anything as they all looked around intently. Soon, everything started to make sense to them.
Susan realised that the supposed hall they were standing on was exactly the same shape as the one at Cair Paravel. Peter, on the other hand, saw what used to be a flight of steps that led up to a balcony overlooking the sea - and Cair Paravel was located next to one. Edmund recalled the planting of the apple orchard outside the gates of Cair Paravel.
Their eyes lit up when relisation suddenly dawned on them, "Cair Paravel" they all mumured.
Amethy watched as Edmund bent down to inspect a boulder-like structure. His brows furrowed when he ran his hand across the rough stone.
"Catapults" he said.
"What?"
"This didn't just happen, Cair Paravel was attacked" he said, frowning.
Peter gave a look of disbelief. Then his eyes grew wide like he remembered something, before he starting counting steps from the dais towards a wall. He stopped in front of the stone wall and started to push it towards the side, revealing a hidden wooden door.
The other Pevensies, who were clueless as to what he was doing at first, remembered that it was the door to their ancient treasure house and rushed up to Peter. They tore the rotting door down. Then, Peter ripped a piece of his shirt off before wrapping it around a fallen branch.
"I don't suppose you have any matches in there, do you?" asked Peter.
"No, but would this help?" Edmund smirked, taking out a flashlight and tossing it once.
Peter laughed, "you could have mentioned that a bit sooner!"
Amethy could not help but giggle a little. But she stopped abruptly when the younger boy looked her way and retreated behind the column entirely.
When she looked back, the four of them had already entered the door, leaving the place stagnant and quiet like before.
***
The Pevensies rushed down the stairs leading to the ancient treasure chamber, with Edmund leading the way with his torch. They counted exactly sixteen steps, confirming that this very place was indeed once their home, Cair Paravel, where they had once reigned as Kings and Queens of Narnia. Their four chests and statues of themselves were still below, all covered with a layer of dust but still beautiful as before.
"I can't believe it. It's all still here" Lucy gasped, running over to her golden chest and blowing off some of the dust which flew up like silver mist into the air. Then, she opened her chest slowly, revealing all her treasures and prized possessions.
Lucy pulled out one of her dresses and measured it on herself. A large amount of it brushed the floor. "I was so tall"
"Well, you were older then" said Susan.
"As opposed to a thousand years later, when you're younger" laughed Edmund, a smirk plastered on his face.
Susan started rummaging though her chest for her ivory horn Father Christmas had given her the last time in Narnia.
"What's wrong?" they asked.
"My horn. I must have had it on me on the day we went back" she said as disappointment spread on her face. The horn was precious to her, for it was a gift from Father Christmas and it was enchanted with the ability to bring help to you whenever you blew on it.
Peter opened his chest, taking out his sword and drawing it. He looked at his sword and admired how it still shone a bright silver like in the past. For once in a year's time, Peter felt like a true King again.
"When Aslan bares his teeth, winter meets it's death" he read.
"When he shakes his mane, we shall have spring again" continued Lucy.
At this point a frown had spread across Lucy's face when realisation dawned on her. "Everyone we knew... Mr Tumnus and the Beavers... they're all gone" She was near to tears.
"I think it's time we found out what's going on" Peter said, putting his reassuring hand on Lucy's shoulder.
***
Amethy watched as the people emerged from the secret entrance. She counted - one, two, three? There was only three of them.
Where was the oldest boy with dirty-blonde hair?
Right then Peter had spotted Amethy behind the column and was already stalking towards her from the back. He reached out and drew out her sword from her side swiftly, making Amethy turn around. She could feel the cold metal against her neck as his blue eyes met her violet ones.
She leaned back against the column and lifted up her chin calmly, annoyed at his suspicion.
"Who are you?" he asked.
"I believe that I am not obliged to answer you" spat Amethy.
"How should I know if I can trust you? Calormene? (wait, you don't look like one...) Telmarine?" he questioned.
Amethy rolled her eyes. Then in one swift movement she pushed her sword from her throat and ducked down before rolling over to Peter and pinned him chest first against the column.
"Peter! What are you doing?" asked Edmund, who was running in their direction. Susan and Lucy followed behind.
"She was spying on us" Peter accused.
"'Observing' would be a better verb to use. And you tried to kill me!" Amethy said, still keeping a firm grip on Peter.
"Could we talk things out?" Lucy demanded.
Peter shrugged before lowering the sword - it was still in his hand - and Amethy decided it was safe enough to let him go. He returned the sword to Amethy.
"Sorry," said Peter, rubbing the back of his neck. Then he mumbled something along the lines of "A girl actually pinned me against a tree..."
Amethy cleared her throat. "I actually heard that, sexist" she spat. Peter looked at her wide eyed and kept his mouth sealed.
"Who are you? I mean, I don't remember any humans in Narnia" asked Susan.
"Call me Amethy. And I'm not a Daughter of Eve" she answered, earning curious glances from the four of them as she sheathed her sword. She looked up and caught Edmund staring intently at her. He looked away as soon as their gaze met. She paused for a while.
"And who are you guys?"
"You don't know?" they chorused.