The past few days had been long, harsh, and depressing.
Since Coriakin explained the task, they had to perform to defeat the green mist, every single member of the Dawn Trader's crew had sunk into the most hideous weariness. And as time went by the fights and discussions among them were becoming more and more common, even when the subject of those disagreements was irrelevant. And now the wind too had deserted them.
Was this voyage a colossal mistake?
After several hours lying in bed, he accepted that that night he wouldn't be able to sleep at all, so he decided to take advantage of his insomnia and do something useful. He stood up, changed his clothes, and up to the deck he went.
As he felt the salty breeze of the outside, King Caspian the X, naively fixed his gaze onto the Narnian banner of the ship, hoping to watch it wave with pride, but he immediately realized that he was mistaken: "the wind's long gone", he thought, and his hopes were about to go as well. Stubborn as he was, he kept his eyes fixed on the banner a little longer, raised a prayer to the skies, and when he finally looked away, something caught his attention.
But it was not "something" he saw, it was "someone," someone standing still, very close to the rail. It was too late for anyone to be awake unless it was a guard, and if it was, he had to scold him for leaving his post..., or maybe he could offer to take his place instead.
He started strolling towards that person, who immobile, was watching to the dark nothingness ahead, and as he approached it, he began to recognize a delicate and feminine figure. She was one of the few creatures on board that still smiled at him with sincerity but, what was she doing all alone so late at night?
"Lucy?" He asked, and as she heard his voice, she gasped.
"Caspian, hi." She answered when she recognized him, and in doing so, she took away her hand from her dagger.
"I'm so sorry, Lu. I didn't mean to startle you." He tried very hard not to laugh at her reaction, so fierce coming from such a small person.
"It's OK," she said, smiling. "I was distracted, and I didn't hear you come near me. You didn't scare me. I just..."
It was like something about him caught her attention all of a sudden. She stopped talking, and instead, she stared at Caspian in a way so intense that made him feel very uncomfortable.
"Is everything OK, Lu?" he asked. "It is a bit late for you to be wandering around the ship. Don't you think?" He was trying very hard to distract himself from that sensation of discomfort Lucy's gaze was burning on him.
"I could say the same thing to you, Your Majesty."
He laughed. That was the joyful tone of hers that had always made him happy. Lucy was the only person on that ship that could make him laugh so easily.
"Don't worry about me, Caspian. I wasn't wandering around, I just couldn't sleep," she said.
"I know the feeling," he answered, but as she heard his words, she looked away hastily and stared at the dark nothingness again.
"No, I don't believe you do." She said, and her voice acquired an unpleasantly bitter tone that he'd never heard before. "Forgive me, Caspian. I didn't mean to be rude" she sighed, her eyes away from him "it's just that so much has happened on these past few days... everyone seems so gloomy... and I... I guess that I just needed some time to be alone and it's been difficult to find a moment before".
"Please, do not ever apologize to me for trying to find a moment of peace," he said as he walked a bit closer. "I didn't mean to intrude, Lu. If you want, I can go".
He looked at her, smiling, but her eyes were fixed on a distant spot on the sky that he couldn't reach.
"I would really love to be alone," she whispered, and he realized that the odd tone of her voice was starting to make him worry.
"Well then, I leave you at peace, my Queen," he said gravely, but before he could start walking away, she placed her hand on his.
"I want to be alone, Caspian, but I don't want you to go. Not now" and that sensation of discomfort arose again.
"What's going on, Lu. Please tell me," said the King touching his shoulder against hers and then he took his hand from hers with the excuse of petting her head. But she stood there, in silence. "You know you can trust me, right, Lu?" He hated her being sad.
"It can make your darkest dreams come true," she whispered.
"Are you concerned about what the Mist can do to us?"
"It seeks to corrupt all goodness" she continued still looking away from him.
"Come on, Lu. You don't have to worry about anything. I'll find a way to fix it. I promise."
"I am not worried," she declared "I'm afraid. I fear what may happen to us." Why didn't she look at him?
"Fear? You?" he said. "But, you are Queen Lucy, the Valiant!"
He was expecting to hear her laugh, to see a sparkle of joy on her eyes, but instead, she groaned angrily. He wouldn't have believed that such a sad and annoying sound could come out of such a joyful child if he weren't there to witness it.
"No, Caspian," she said irritated "I was the Queen of the Glistening Eastern Sea, now I'm just a scared child whose memories of a past life keep on tormenting her."
"Lucy," he said, looking at her completely troubled by her words, but she seemed decided not to look back at him again.
"I was valiant; I was strong, fierce, powerful, and beautiful. But now I'm just... I am a kid again!"
Her hands were crisped against the wood, and her face hinted how much she was suffering.
Damn the mist that was making her beautiful soul hurt!
"But Lucy, you are the most amazing, beautiful and brave young woman I know," he said. A caustic smile appeared on her face, and she closed her eyes.
"Coming back to Narnia made me so happy, you know?" she said. "But learning that more than a thousand years had passed since we first arrived made me so miserable," what was happening? "Getting to know you brought back the most beautiful memory of the Golden Ages, but watching you look at her the way you did... that was just too much. Watching you as you fell in love with her broke my heart in a thousand pieces."
"What are you talking about, Lu?"
"You don't know how difficult it is to have memories of a life you will never be able to live!" she deliberately ignored his question. "You can't imagine how terrible it is to have feelings that do not belong to your actual self but to the person you were before."
"Lucy," what was she trying to say?
"I wished to be like her!" she shouted. "No. For a moment, I wished I was her, and by doing so, I put this world at risk." Her entire body started trembling. "If I had been her I would've never come to Narnia and Aslan would have never returned; the Telmarins wouldn't have conquered this land, and I would have never met you. If I would've been her you wouldn't be the King," she closed her eyes and breathed heavily. "If I would have been her, Narnia would still be having a sad winter. But if I would have been her," she opened her eyes and looked at him with a kind of intensity that belong not to the kid but to the Queen, "If I had been her you would have looked up at me, and you would have loved me because no one on this world could ever compare to me."
"Lucy... I" how was he supposed to answer to that?
"No, you don't have to say anything."
She turned to face him. He was imprisoned by her gaze. She placed one of her gentle fingers on his lips, and without looking away, she outlined the shape of his eyes with a tender caress.
"Your eyes are so similar to some Queen Lucy used to love" he was petrified as she kept on recognizing his face with a caress that made him very nervous. "Your lips create that same smile she was so fond of" she smiled sadly. "You are the living portrait of the one man she ever loved" her voice broke. "But it's me the one who has to face the punishment The Valiant received when she left him. I am the one who has to pretend to be happy while you suffer for a woman who will never be me. Don't you see it? I am sick of pretending I'm a happy kid!"
Her eyes were filled with tears and deciding not to let him see her suffering she took him by the shirt and hide her face on his chest. He didn't know what to do. He loved her as a sister, and he knew that it was the mist that was talking through her body. It was painful to watch her agony, and though her confession disturbed him, he knew her pain was real, and it was clear that he never meant to be the cause of her tears. So he let his love for her lead the way, and he embraced her, and delicately pet her hair and started comforting her.
"I am sorry if I made you suffer, Lu. I didn't know," she sobbed, "I..."
What was he supposed to say? How was he supposed to react to a love confession from a person he cared about with all of his heart but that he wasn't in love with?
But, the truth was, she never said she loved him. She had feelings for someone who lived many years before he was even born; he was just unlucky enough to look a lot like that man.
"It is not your fault that you have his face," she said. "It's not you who I suffer for. The calormen soldier of my story surrendered to Edmund a long time before the telmarines conquered Narnia. Your bloodline didn't even exist when a rebel soldier gained the heart of the Valiant Queen".
"Did you love him from the beginning?" he asked, intrigued.
"No. The first thing I felt for him was suspicion. He was part of an army that had sworn to kill my brothers and kidnap my sister."
"A soldier from Rabadash's army," she nodded.
"He was taken to Cair Paravel alongside with many other prisoners. It was my duty to take care of their injuries, but he was even more stubborn than you are," she opened her hands and placed them flatly against his chest. "He was the only one who didn't allow me to tend to his injuries, and he refused to take any food even when anyone could see he was starving. He said he would let himself die unless my sister personally took care of him. And well, since she was the way she was... we had to force him to save his life".
"Susan would have never let an injured man die!" Caspian felt the need to defend her, and when Lucy heard his words, she started sobbing again.
"Edmund had to immobilize him so I could give him a drop of Aslan's medicine. In his delirium, he kept on saying that the suffering of his kind could have been avoided if his King would have never set an eye on our Queen, or if she would have been wiser and less arrogant.
"Susan isn't..." but she didn't let him talk.
"For the very first time in my life I wished I was more beautiful," her voice broke again. "If I would have been prettier... If only I would have been The Gentle and not The Valiant, maybe then Rabadash would have loved me, and maybe then everything would have been different".
"Would you have accepted his hand in marriage?"
"Of course not! But I would've found a more delicate way to refuse his offer. I would have found a way to..."
"Tell me more about the soldier," he asked, trying to make her think about something else.
"If you want me to tell you how wonderful and handsome you are..." they both laugh. "At the beginning, he was rude to me, ungrateful even. He didn't trust me at all. How could he? But then, I gained his respect, and before any of us could realize it, we were friends. He helped me to take care of the other prisoners and... I tried so hard to make him smile. I do not know how it happened, but one morning, I realized that my days started after I heard the melody of his laughter."
"Did your brothers know?"
"They did. Edmund knew before I did. He was always better at understanding my feelings. He gave me the chance to enjoy my ignorance (and he laughed so hard at me because of it) and then he stood by my side while I discovered the wonders of love".
"What about Peter?"
"He knew too, but he kept his distance. For many months, when we were back in England, I thought it was him who planned everything, so we went back home. I was convinced that he would've preferred to be a child again rather than letting one of his sisters be with a calormen soldier. The Magnificent King Peter, I thought, couldn't stand the idea of having one of her noble sisters in love with an enemy; but when I asked him after I tried to come back for the thousandth time, he told me he would have never put my happiness at risk".
"And Susan?" she sobbed again.
"It was her who started the rumors of the White Stag. It was she who convinced Peter to organize a hunting party. It was she who broke us apart. She left him to rot on a dungeon with no one to grant him his freedom."
"You're lying!" he said, feeling the rage grow inside of him. "Your sister could've never done such a thing" her words hurt him. He pushed her away. It couldn't be right. Susan, his Susan was not a cruel person. "She would've never done anything like that. You are lying, Lucy, you are lying!"
At that moment, when he pushed her away from him, the green mist started to cover the deck and surrounded them, but none noticed it.
"Well, she did!" she said, looking at him directly in the eyes, she was crying out of pain and anger."I do not know why she did it, and I don't believe she meant to hurt me, but she did. It was her who took us away from Narnia".
"I don't believe you" Susan was a caring and gentle woman who had loved him..., but then again, she had preferred to go back home than to rule by his side.
"I don't care if you believe me or not! But it kills me to see how you worship her" her eyes mirrored her pain. "Can't you see? It was her who sent me away from the man I loved. It was her who condemned me to be a kid again" she was trying very hard not to scream. "He loathed her, but you love her. He used to look at her with the same kind of disdain and accusation that you are using against me now. A thousand years ago your smiles and love belonged to me. Why can't you see it?! My punishment for abandoning him (even when I didn't want to) is watching him love her through you!"
"Stop it!"
"No!" she yelled. "Everybody loves her. You became an idiot after you saw her beauty. But it is me the one who knows how far she can go for vanity".
"I said, stop it!" he walked towards her and grabbed her arms and shook her hard. He couldn't stand anyone talking badly of the one he loved.
"It is the second time I see that deep sadness mirrored in your eyes, and both times she was the one to blame." She looked at him defiantly. "It was her beauty that led us to war and marked your eyes with pain and despair."
"You say that only because you are a stupid child who wishes you could be as elegant and graceful as your big sister," the mist was growing thicker. "You say that because you are in love with someone who gave his heart to her." Lucy laughed bitterly and looked at him with contempt on her eyes.
"Do you dare to think I'm in love with you?" that was not the sweet Lucy he knew. "No, Caspian, I do not love you. I am in love with the real owner of your face. With the one who was, in fact, worthy of being called a King," he resented that. "He was not the mock of a man you pretend to be, in love with someone who doesn't love you back, living under the shadow of your glorious father. King Caspian, the X, do not deserve my love or my suffering, but a calormen soldier did!"
They were both trembling with anger. Caspian let her go, hurt in his pride, but a small part of his heart whispered that Lucy was in more significant pain and in deep need of a friend. When he released her, she fell to the ground.
"It seeks to corrupt all goodness," she whispered, her face covered with tears. "I don't want this trip to corrupt my spirit and pervert the love I feel for my family, for you and for my soldier," her rage had become a desolation. "Caspian, please, do not let the only thing that's good in me fade away."
His heart woke up from its stupor, and then he saw in front of him a kid that needed comfort. He walked towards her, kneeled before her, wiped her tears away, and closing his eyes, he leaned his forehead against hers.
"My father died when I was very young," he said "but I still remember his talk about the golden ages of Narnia and the reign of King Peter, his brother and sisters" he smiled. "I wanted to be like them, you know? I wanted to be like them so bad. It was my father who told me about the legend that said that they may come back when Narnia needed them the most. I spend days imagining what I would do if I were lucky enough to meet them. I wanted to see if King Peter was a better fighter than I was. I wanted to hear the wise and humble words of King Edmund. I was eager to meet the beautiful Queen Susan... but what I wanted the most was to be able to contemplate the powerful magic that surrounded Queen Lucy, I admired her courage, her compassion, her love for Narnia..., I loved her innocence and kind heart even before I met her".
"How disappointed you must have felt."
"I did. Yes. I expected to meet the great kings and queens of Narnia..."
"But you met us instead. Four young and powerless kids," he smiled.
"Peter didn't seem so magnificent, Ed... well he was Ed, you were the most adorable young lady I've ever met, and Susan..., my world went upside down the moment I laid eyes on her." He took a deep breath. "No, the high kings and queens of Narnia were not what I was expecting, but their essence was still the one my father had talked about" he kept silence for a moment. "I am really sorry, Lu," he opened his eyes and caressed her cheek with a trembling hand. She didn't look back. "I knew you remembered your past in Narnia, but I never imagined being a child again could make you suffer so much."
"I'm sorry I took it all out on you."
"Narnia made my wish come true, you know? I met the kings and queens, and they are my friends. You are my friend," he sighed. "And I do believe you are gorgeous," he said, caressing her face. "I admire the person you are becoming" a tear rolled down her cheek. "And I am certain that if we would have met on a different..."
"Sh. Please don't say that" she whispered. "Being Lucy, the kid, I know that a man like you could never set eyes on me, and even if I make the purpose of gaining your love, I don't know for how long will I be in Narnia this time." She smiled. "But as Lucy the Queen, I long for the days when your eyes lit every time you saw me, I miss the times when your lips murmured words of love" she stopped because she didn't want to cry again. "You must not apologize for not loving me."
"But I do love you," he said sincerely. "Tell me, you know I love you."
"I know" the real Lucy was coming back and as she did, the green mist started to fade away. It was almost dawn. "And I love you too, Caspian."
She opened her eyes and saw her reflection on his. She was feeling much better, but he still looked at her with concern.
Wanting to put an end to that night, he stood up, and she followed. None of them knowing what to do, but then she hugged him tight, her arms around his neck.
"Promise me you won't let fear win," he asked.
"Fear? Me?" she said, smiling. "But I am Queen Lucy, the Valiant!"
The mist faded away, and the first rays of sunlight surprised them as she caressed his head, and he held her waist tightly.
"Promise you will come to me if you feel poorly again, Lu," he asked. "I promise I will take care of you, and I will always find a way to help you," she smiled.
"The only thing I ask from you, Caspian, is your help so we can defeat this. Let us save Narnia one more time and forget about everything else".
"I promise, my valiant, beautiful and magical Queen Lu."
He heard her laugh and felt as she started to move away from him, but before she left his arms finally, she stole a fleeting kiss from his lips.
"I had to do that," she whispered. "I had to be sure you are not him" then she smiled and started walking away.
Yes, he thought, if time had been kinder to them, it would've reunited them when she was older, and he could've loved her fearlessly.
"Wait. Lucy," he called. "May I know his name?" she smiled and her eyes glittered with joy.
"His name was Chlamash, my calormene soldier."
Watching her happy again made him glad too.
He decided to stay on the deck so he could watch the sunrise, and while he was there, he remembered another tale his father had told him. It was about how the first Caspian had conquered Narnia in loving memory of his grandfather, a calormene soldier who had sought refuge in Telmar after he escaped from a Narnian prison, broken-hearted because magic had made the woman he loved (and her family) disappear from his world forever.