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They were a hot tangle of limbs and kisses in the swaying golden grass beneath them. Sunlight filtered through the trees sprinkling them in ochre sunlight as bubbling laughter echoed from their lips as they broke apart.
A smile —— wide and bright dances upon her lips as she brushes a dark lock that had fallen into his twinkling dark chocolate eyes. His hand curled around her own and pressed his lips to it, the golden wedding band on his left hand glistening in the sunlight. Her eyes automatically trailed to it. Sometimes Anna could hardly believe it —— he was hers and she was his —— that together they were King and Queen.
Their courtship had been a quick symphonic affair lasting just under a summer's past. Although they were careful not to rush into things too quickly in their relationship as they wanted it to last forever and always —— they were so sure of one another and their love that grew deeper and deeper and more pronounced with every season.
Suddenly he kissed her again and again until she was dizzy and gasping for air. It seemed that these days they had little time just the two of them after raising two little girls and organising and keeping peace throughout Narnia.
"I love you," Anna murmured to him with a smile so much brighter than any star. At her words, his eyes softened like melted chocolate at her words and he smiled in a way that he only smiled at her.
"Forever and always," He echoed softly, his fingers twisting her own gold wedding band on her finger and suddenly shifted into deep thought. The wedding rings were the ones they wore had been his once belonged to parents when they had been married.
"Caspian," Anna asked his name rolling over her tongue so gently and so lovingly he smiled at her the knowing thoughts of his mind vanishing. "It's alright, love. Stop thinking about being a King for a moment or two. Just think about me and you alone. We should enjoy it, relish in it. I can think of numerous ways of how it should occupy your thoughts."
The King laughed heartily at his wife before he winked seductively, "I'll hold you to that tonight when our two children aren't running towards us at an alarming speed."
"Mummy! Daddy!" Leonia cried to her parents her little legs carrying her as she lifted her dress skirts as she raced towards them with her light brown hair flying behind her. Leonia whirled around and noticed that her older twin sister Amora was chasing after her and let out a piercing scream crashing whilst she crashed onto her mother's skirted lap.
As her little chest heaved for air, Anna's fingers brushed away the stray hairs that had fallen into her dark eyes that matched her fathers, "What's the matter gumdrop?"
"AMORA PULLED OUT MY BRAID!" She screamed pointing to her fawn blond-haired sister behind her.
"I DID NOT! THE BAND BROKE!" Amora refuses to look at her parents or her sister in the eyes, her fingers fiddling together at her front looking very guilty.
Anna looked to Caspian who motioned with his fingers for his wife to take charge. It seemed that ever since the two girls had started arguing of lately, Anna was the one to take charge because apparently when she was mad she was scary which in Anna's mind was ridiculous.
"Now, girls, what did I tell you about telling fibs?"
Amora hiccuped, "That you will take away all my paints and pencils and Leonia won't be allowed to go to the stables for a week?!"
"And?" Anna asked with a raised eyebrow
Amora swished side to side, "We won't get any sweets after dinner?"
"Good. Now, girls, tell me what actually happened."
"Here we go," Caspian mumbled to himself, shifting against the golden grass knowing that they both had inherited their mother's tongue. Anna sent her husband a dagger-like stare that automatically changed his posture and expression into a playful grin as he reached for a ruby red apple and the dagger from the aged woven picnic basket settled before him.
"I was with Amora in the library because mummy said we could read all those special stories she wrote us——"
"——It was the one about dragons!" Amora interrupted with a wide dreamy smile, settling herself on the grass by her father who offered her one of the apple slices he was cutting up.
"Yes! And I wanted to look at mummy's special one, that daddy gave her the one about mermaids!"
Capsian's eyes twinkled as he and his wife made eye contact for a moment before turning back to their children.
"But I wanted to look at the one about dragons first," Amora added softly munching on her apple slice.
"And I didn't," Leonia confessed moving to sit next to her sister.
"So I pulled the band from her braid," Amora admitted to her parents, her eyes pleading not to get into trouble.
"That's one way to really go about it," Caspian muttered as he munched on his own apple slice before clearing his throat and glancing at Leonia who perched upon her mother's lap and Amora beside him, stealing another of the cut-up apple slices, "But there are other ways too, for example, coming to your mother and I –– so we can sort this out as a family."
Anna motioned for her husband to continue and he smiled to himself before continuing, "If this happens again, your mother will be all cranky at me, we don't want that do we, girls?"
"No," The twins repeated in unison, shifting their gaze to their blond-haired mother who rolled her eyes.
Caspian laid back down onto the grass with a smug smirk, folding his hands under his head as he spoke, growing far too relaxed, "See Anna, that's how it's done."
"Really?" Anna repeated with a fake frazzled smirk, her mind was already with ideas of how to get him back.
"Yes," Her husband replied whilst teasingly battling his eye long lashes at her.
Anna suddenly laughed, pulling the water canteen from behind her and pouring it all over his face before he could get up and escape his fate. The twins giggled with laughter and it was music to Anna's ears and warmed her heart, "That's for being too up yourself your handsomeness."
Caspian laughed at their inside joke before running his hands through his drenched hair and reached for his wife who rolled away from him and into her bare feet, lifting her sky blue skirts and darting off at a run with the twins following behind her. Caspian quickly chased after them and skilfully tackled his wife to the grass before pressing a quick kiss to her lips only to find when they both pulled away she was bubbling with laughter that made the King smile like an idiot.
"Ew!" The girls said together, their faces riddled with disgust.
Anna stuck out her tongue at them and muttered to her husband, "Just wait until they find love and I'll be all ew!"
"I don't want to think about that, Anna. They're my little girls."
"Our little girls," The Queen corrected, "I don't exactly remember you give birth to them. You only did half the job."
"Right," Caspian mumbled to his wife as they with the twins returned to their grassy spot and sat back down. The girls shared whispers before they turned to their parents with wide, cheeky, Chesire cat grins.
"Can you tell us a story?" Amora asked them.
Caspian turned to his wife with a knowing smile, "That's your department."
Anna smiled crossing her legs as she peered down at her daughters with a smile just as excited as her own, "Well, do we have any preferences?"
Leonia whispered into her sister's ear who turned to her and agreed, "We want to hear you and daddy's fairytale mummy."
Anna turned to her husband as he beckoned for his wife to continue as he moved to sit with his daughters, "I would like to hear this one, go on, Anna."
"Well, you know how I come from far far away land?"
"Yes!" The girls chorused together, lying on their stomachs with their chins rested on their palms as they glanced up at their mother attentively.
"One day when I still lived there––"
Caspian sighed in disappointment to his wife at the lack of her story-like manner, "Where's the once upon a time?"
Anna sighed but listened to her husband. "Once upon a time, in a far far away land lived a young golden-haired girl who sought a grand adventure. You see she lived a very lonely life. War had stolen her parents from her when she was a young girl and it forced her away from her father's orchards and her horse she loved very much —— to live with her aunt who was cold and cruel to her sometimes. . .," Anna glanced to her husband who answered, "Much better, now continue, love."
"So one evening a butterfly perched upon the page of the book she was reading. To save it from her aunt, she went to take the book to her window but to her disgust, it fluttered out of the room and down the hall. She walked down the hall, only to find that the butterfly had entered the forbidden room!"
The twins gasped in shock before she continued with a glance at her husband with a smile who was already smiling at her, "With a courageous heart, she stepped into the forbidden room, only to find that it was empty and covered with dust but when she turned she saw a mirror and the magical butterfly perched upon its frame. As she walked closer she saw a lion in the reflection––"
"Aslan," Caspian commented which his wife glanced at him with an annoyed look and the look on the twin's little chubby faces expressed amazement.
"And so, she touched the glass of the mirror, which vanished and she fell, falling right into a world magical called Narnia and into its ocean. . . but because of the special necklace she wore, a mermaid had clawed itself at her foot, dragging her down into the depthful waters before––"
"––A daring, heroic and handsome King called Caspian X came to her rescue as he dived from the Dawn Treader and into the waters to save her despite the disapproving protest of his trusting Captain and good friend Drinian. . ."
Anna smiled at the memory of the two meeting before she continued, "When the girl was brought to the deck of the Dawn Treader she saw magical creatures she had never seen before, but had only ever read about. As she coughed the water from her lungs, the handsome King stood before her with a beaming smile as if he was curious about her. . ."
"Mummy? When did you and daddy fall in love?" Asked Leonia.
Anna glanced at her husband, despite their years together not knowing the exact answer on his point of view, "Gumdrop, I don't think your father and I fell in love at the same time but I assure you it was sometime whilst we were at the heart of the sea."
Caspian seemed to think for a moment for answering, "It was when your mother came into my office during the storm all worried about me but I'm sure she'll eventually get to that part. It was then she started to steal my heart."
"Really? It was then?" Anna asked with a surprised bright smile.
"Yes, I believe so," The King confessed to his Queen.
"I don't know, I can't really pinpoint the exact moment. I fall in love with your father every day but I believe the moment I recognised I was beginning to feel something for him was around that time as well I believe, that is if I can remember correctly but it really rained down on me at Deathwater Island."
"A moment I noticed that she might have really felt what I felt was that your mother was jealous of a star because I called her beautiful," Caspian told their children.
"Stars are pretty!" Amora told her father.
Caspian turned to his wife with a bright smile, feeling justified.
"No, sweetheart. Your father drooled over her and it hurt mummy's feelings because he never told her that she was beautiful and mummy cared about your father a little too much at that point in time."
"Hey!" Caspian defended, "I called you radiant. . . or was it ravishing? –– long before that moment in time."
"I do not remember that!" Anna confessed, slightly angry, she would have remembered that moment.
"You were asleep," The King confessed with a slight laugh.
"When was it?" Anna asked, not being able to notice how the twins had grown bored at their parent's revelations.
"The night in the office during the storm and you –– we fell asleep," Caspian admitted sheepishly.
"See girls, I do all the hard work in our marriage, you should have seen the first time I told your father I loved him. He fell off his horse Destrier when we went for a ride together. I wish you could have seen it."
Caspian made a face at his wife as the twins giggled, "Why don't we continue the story or do you want me to tell it?"
Anna nodded along with a smile, "We both can but I feel that you'll dramatise it a bit more, so go ahead."
In that very moment, Anna felt possibly more happier than she had in all her life. She had what she had always wanted and her heart was full of love. And life was proving to be fulling and more so a grand adventure.