A Note for Alanna

Alanna,

It's possible we may need to be a tad nicer to Caspian in your part of the bet. Such as only hide most his clothing, not all. I'm uncertain how. But I feel I should do something kind, as he did ask me to marry him yesterday.

I should have dressed as a boy sooner, apparently.

Did I mention he asked me to marry him?

Ever yours,
Lucy Pevensie, who may be dropping the Pevensie at some point in the future

P.S. On second thought, if your husband can stand it, my fiance probably can, correct?

playing catch-up

The dream was always running ahead of me. To catch up, to live for a moment in unison with it, that was the miracle.
-Anais Nin

---

Some nights she dreams and Susan's there.

Some nights she dreams and no one is.

Some mornings, she wakes up and doesn't open her eyes until Caspian's left for the horses, for all she normally rose early, because she doesn't want him to see that she's troubled.

---

It's a familiar forest. She had her first kiss (the first time through) here, she remembers, and sits on a rock.

(He was very proper, and a knight, and she felt it was a very nice experience, and liked him rather well, though he never proposed. She's not half certain that wasn't part of why she liked him.)

She knows exactly what's through the trees, and her hands are in her pockets (she never had pockets here) as she walks towards it, and smiles at the sight of the gates.

There are still four thrones, and she stands in front of them for several moments.

She doesn't sit on the one that was most familiar, once. She just walks behind them and over to the left, through an archway. One two three turns up a flight of stairs, up several more, down a hall, and there's the door to the room that was hers.

Is hers, really.

She doesn't have pockets anymore, she notices, and lifts the skirts as she steps inside.

It's still her room, and she smiles widely at the sight of it, setting crown aside on the chest of drawers.

And for several minutes--for forever--she sits and just breathes in the scent of old wood and flowers from the gardens outside, and--over all of it--the sea outside her window.

Eventually--after a moment, or eternity, or the few hours she's been sleeping--she stands and goes to the window, and it's miles away (hundreds or thousands, she doesn't know) and for all that, like an Eagle, she can see two forms walking on the beach, blonde hair on both catching the sun.

They'll be here soon enough. For now, she leans on the sill and watches them walk, growing just a little closer. And then she steps back from the window and stretches out on the bed.

---

And it's just a dream she wakes up from.

But she can still smell flowers and the sea.

And it's one of those mornings she waits, until Caspian has left to see the horses, before opening her eyes.