#dear darling heart-daughter of Aslan

[queenlucythevaliant]

There was a park a few blocks away from Uncle Harold and Aunt Alberta’s home in Cambridge where Lucy would often wander that summer when she wanted to be alone. She’d tuck a book under her arm and call to Edmund, “I’m going!” and then she’d go find herself a tree.

Branches waved gently, like fingers against the sky. Lucy would settle herself on her favorite bench and try to read, but sometimes she just found herself gazing at those branches. When she was sure the park was empty, she’d succumb to her most fanciful impulse to get up and walk among them. Wake, she’d think, and imagine the faces that each kind of tree would have.

Lucy knew it was fancy, but it wasn’t delusion. She could tell the difference. After all, it had been truth that first set her on the path to Narnia, dismissed as both delusion and fancy.

At school she read Shakespeare and Charles Dickens. She painted Prospero with Coriakin’s coloring, high wiry brows and sun-wrinkled skin. She gave him long fingers, an imaginative touch—Coriakin’s had been rather short and stubby—and heard the poetry in her own voice. She read aloud to her friends sometimes, just picked up wherever she was and read while Marjorie and Josephine curled up under blankets with mugs of hot tea.

“It sounds better when you read it,” Marjorie mused. “Even if it is musty old Shakespeare.”

There were glimpses of gold in puddles on the pavement, and Lucy found herself glancing up as though she expected to find Aslan in her periphery. He wasn't there, of course, but the sunset shot light into the street and made it shine. Aslan wasn't in the chapel at school either, but the bells pealed golden every hour. He wasn't stalking beneath her dormitory window, but there were fresh footprints in the snow.

Lucy was sure that if only she could remember the spell for making hidden things visible, she'd find her whole world cloaked in tawny, velvet gold. Aslan in the kitchen, Aslan in the sky at dawn. Aslan in the faces of her friends, who laughed when Lucy said fanciful things but who listened rapt when she read aloud.

"I swear, you and your read-alouds, Lucy Pevensie," grinned Josephine as the cover fell shut. "Why, it's almost as though you believe in all the stories! You're not theatrical, just credulous." So Lucy leaned back and taught her friend how to tell if someone was lying, or delusional, or if they had a marvelous truth to tell.

On lonely weekends, Lucy begged Professor Digory to take her with him to Oxford to see the great stone halls and the towering cathedral and she loved the way the angels’ sloping wings looked against the sky. Wake, she whispered as she passed by graves and monuments to those long dead, and imagined that she might see Aslan pacing behind them, ready to breathe them back to life.

[queenlucythevaliant]

Lucy Pevensie, summer 1948

Find the Girls on the Negatives: Searching for the Origins of Stunning Photos Found in a Thrift Store

[maaaddiexo]

Chapter Four | Peter Pevensie

[Red Series Book One: Roses]

Synopsis: With World War Two ravaging the world, no one is safe and no one is happy.

Despite their protests, Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy Pevensie are evacuated from London and sent to live in the English countryside with an old professor. Scared and unhappy, only the youngest Pevensie child remains optimistic and ends up sharing her hope with her siblings in the form of a wardrobe that takes them to Narnia, a different world where they are the only form of hope to bring an end to an evil witch's reign of terror.

Rosemary Bennett has no more hope left in her heart. Her brother and father are off fighting for their country, the former having gone missing months ago, and her mother ignores her, preferring the company of a bottle over her own daughter. Giving up seems the only logical plan of action. But when it finally comes to carrying it out, she's transported to a different world, with talking animals and a prophecy that doesn't involve her. Unsure as to why she is there, she must navigate a new world and ponder the possibility that maybe - just maybe - she doesn't actually want to die.

*Warning: this book deals with depression and suicide. Though mental illness isn't what this story revolves around, the act of suicide and depressive thoughts are intertwined with the plot and act as 'backseat drivers' to the novel.

[Chapter Five] [Series Masterlist] [Masterlist]

Curled up in a chair with a blanket laid over her, Rosemary sipped at her tea, not caring if it burned her tongue and throat because at least she would be warm. Also, if she was going to eat fish, she didn't want any taste buds.

Once Mrs. Beaver was comfortable in the other chair, she turned to Rosemary. "Ask away."

Rosemary had no idea where to start. She was sure she was still in shock, and she was definitely delirious. A beaver was talking for God's sake.

"Are you sure I'm not dead?"

Mrs. Beaver nodded once, sure of herself. "Positive, my dear. You're in Narnia. Why do you believe you're dead?"

Rosemary couldn't immediately bring herself to answer Mrs. Beaver's question. She had no idea her suicide attempt would fail so she was absolutely humiliated by the prospect of failing at the one thing she had been so determined to do. If only Daniel could see her now.

"I jumped," was all she said. Mrs. Beaver clearly understood what the two words meant by the quiet 'oh' that slipped past her lips. "Thank you for saving me though. I know I didn't want to be saved, but I appreciate the gesture all the same."

Mrs. Beaver perked up at that and smiled softly at the Bennett girl. "No disrespect, but even if I did know, I still would've saved you. I haven't known you long but I can already tell that you are a lovely young lady. Someone that I would be proud to call my daughter."

The tears fell suddenly and Rosemary's lower lip wobbled. Mrs. Beaver had no idea how much her words meant to Rosemary. It was her mother's avoidance and ignoring act that had pushed Rosemary to jump off that cliff so even though she hadn't known Mrs. Beaver long, she felt more loved by Mrs. Beaver in that moment than she had in a long time.

"Thank you," Rosemary whispered. "That means a lot."

Mrs. Beaver reached over and patted Rosemary's hand. "Of course my dear. Glad I could make you feel a little better."

Wanting to stop crying and move on from the subject, Rosemary asked another question. "You said we are in Narnia but...I have no idea what or where that is. I don't recall it being on any maps."

"I can't really describe it - Aslan would be the best option - but Narnia isn't on your maps because it belongs to a whole other world."

"How did I get here then? I jumped off a cliff in England and somehow I end up in a completely different world?"

"That is something I don't have the answer to. I wish I did so I could tell you, but I don't. But I do know that Narnia has a will of its own, and if it needs something, it will get that something. I believe that when you jumped off the cliff and into the water below, you were somehow transported to Narnia and came in through the Western River. That's where I found you."

"How do I get back to England?"

"That's a question for Aslan, whom we can try and get you to. Beaver will know more about that so you can ask him when he returns."

"Thank you," Rosemary smiled gratefully over the brim of her cup. "I understand this is a whole other world - still working on the whole believing part - but does it follow a different seasonal pattern? I mean, it's late summer in...my world, but it's winter here."

"Oh, it's been winter for the past hundred years in Narnia. Ever since the White Witch began ruling Narnia. She calls herself the Queen of Narnia but that's just rubbish. Narnia is only ever right and good when a child of Adam and/or Eve is on the throne. Not some stuck up witch."

Rosemary shouldn't have been surprised by the notion of magic in this other world - she was having tea with a talking beaver for Heaven's sake - but she was. The shock obviously hadn't worn off yet.

Rosemary wasn't sure what to say to that. "Well, at least your dam is nice and toasty."

"Yes. I suspect Beaver misses the warm weather so he makes it dreadfully hot in here." Mrs. Beaver made a show of waving her hand like a fan in hopes of cooling herself down and Rosemary giggled.

"Considering I almost froze out there, the blistering heat in here doesn't seem too bad."

"And would you look at that - Beaver's actually helpful for something." That made Rosemary laugh and she had to put her empty cup down before she dropped it. Who knew that some new company would lighten her spirits so much so quickly?

Over the next couple of hours, Mrs. Beaver made a lot of tea for the two of them and she entertained Rosemary with stories of Narnia - both good and bad. She told Rosemary tales that had been passed down over the generations about all sorts of things - Aslan the Lion, dancing trees, mermaids, and more.

By the time the sun had finally disappeared behind the towering trees and the sky began to darken, Mrs. Beaver had begun to pace. "He should've been back an hour ago. Ugh, he's probably out messing around with Badger. They always lose track of time when they're together. Sometimes, I think he's more married to Badger instead of me."

Rosemary recalled playing with Daniel before he left for war. They always lost track of time when they were doing something together - whether it was reading or playing hide-and-seek. "I'm sure that's it Mrs. Beaver. My brother and I were a lot like that too."

The lady beaver paused at the new information. All night, Rosemary had been avoiding talking about her life - aside from mentioning that in her world, everyone was at war. The war to end all wars, Rosemary had called it. But before Mrs. Beaver could ask Rosemary about her brother, she heard voices outside and bristled. "That better be Beaver."

Marching outside, Mrs. Beaver called out, "Beaver, is that you? I've been worried sick! If I find out you've been out with Badger again, I-" Mrs. Beaver lost her voice as not only her husband came into view, but four children. Four human children. Two sons of Adam and two daughters of Eve dressed in oversized fur coats trailed after her husband, marveling at the dam. "Those aren't badgers."

"Hello, Darling," Beaver kissed his wife on the cheek but she barely payed attention, moving closer to the four children.

"Oh, I never though I would live to see this day! And now not only Rosemary but you as well!" Quickly changing gears, she swatted her husband on the shoulder before smoothing herself down. "Look at my fur! You couldn't give me ten minutes warning?"

"I'd have given you a week if I thought it would've helped," Beaver teased, snickering behind his paws. Laughter bubbled up in Lucy and she let it loose behind her sleeve. Peter smiled briefly. His mother and father used to tease each other like that before his father went off to war.

"Oh, come inside, and we'll see if we can't get you some food. And there's some civilized company inside so that should cheer you lot up."

"Company?" Beaver gawked, trailing after his wife. "We never have company."

"And yet, now we have two parties. And they're all human!"

"There are other humans here?" Lucy wondered, following after Susan. "Mr. Tumnus made it sound like there weren't any other humans here."

"There aren't - oh, excuse the mess. Rosemary was brought here just like you four were. Except, well, her journey was a little wetter."

Inside, Rosemary had heard the entire conversation - thin walls in a dam, she supposed - and had gotten up from her chair to make some more tea. There was a small hole in the ice by the wall that acted as both the water supply and the way in and out of the water for the Beavers. She dipped the kettle into the water and then moved over to the stove to turn it on. After pulling out as many mugs as there were, she went back to the chair she had spent the last few hours in and pulled the blanket over her shoulders.

By the time the Beavers and Pevensies entered the home, she was already fast asleep.

[Chapter Five] [Series Masterlist] [Masterlist]

[emeraldbirdcollector]

Homecoming

Not HP this time, but an older fandom. Dreamed this last night, had to write it down. 

I was twenty-one when I was left completely alone in the world. No, not completely - there was Charlie, the boyfriend I’d stayed behind for while the others left on their trip - and he put his arms around me and let me cry my heart out when I heard the news, my parents and brothers and sister killed instantly in that horrid train crash. But the last of all my family, till I made a new one.

A year of change, that was, for me and the world - King George had died of lung cancer earlier that year, but by the time I entered my mourning, the nation had left its behind, and was delighting in our new young, brave, and beautiful Queen.  My parents and uncle had left me a bit of money, enough to get through nursing school, though we had to donate my uncle’s old house to the National Trust, as the taxes were too high. I kept his old wardrobe, though. Maybe I was hoping…but no matter, I’ve had a good life.

I married Charlie, after all, and he was always a sweet and loving husband to me. He worked his way through medical school while I was training to be a nurse, and we set up a small practice in a little town in Wales, lovely and green, with the most beautiful gardens. I can’t live without flowers, and greenery, and a bit of life around me, and London was so crowded, the air barely breathable.

Fifty years we’ve lived here, and more, and by now I can say that most of the adult population of this town took their first breath in my arms, or Charlie’s, and many’s the wrinkled, fragile hand I’ve held while the last breath slipped from dying lungs. We’ve treated their little illnesses and given them armor against the big ones, vaccines for all the terrors of my youth, measles and mumps, whooping cough and the biggest devil of them all, polio. I speak Jonas Salk’s name in my prayers every evening.

Four of my own, I’ve had, too, three boys and a girl, all thriving and wed, with children of their own now. Patrick’s a doctor like his father, Andrew a teacher, and Edward paints landscapes that sing of a magic I half-remember, and makes a living from it too. And my darling daughter, named for my long-lost baby sister, is a writer who spins tales of fantastical worlds and talking creatures, the delight of children and adults around the globe. I’m so proud of them all.

They’ve just been, for Christmas, a whirlwind of delight and kisses, grandchildren and presents and laughter, and all gone home again, leaving the house quiet and still. Lucy seemed reluctant to leave, this time, almost as if she was afraid she wouldn’t see me again. Maybe she will, maybe she won’t - at seventy-five, one never knows, does one? Charlie passed five years ago, and it’s only me, now, in our little cottage, but I’m content, I’ve had a good life, and I’ll go when it’s time and not before.

It’s late. Time to drag my creaky old bones to bed. Ah, for the days I could bound up these stairs two at a time. I’ll draw a bath, perhaps, have a pleasant soak, and then the soft blue dressing gown I love so - my favorite color, blue as the sky, blue as the gowns I wore when I…oh, but my mind’s rambling again. Bed, now, and sleep - old women need their sleep, after all.

I wake, startled, when the wardrobe opens of its own accord, and something impossibly large leaps onto the bed with me. Paws, huge paws, bigger than any housecat, and soft golden fur, a mane, an unbelievable sight - and I know him, I know him, and I’m weeping into his fur, holding on to him with both my arms and sobbing for joy.

“Daughter, daughter, has it been so hard?” His voice is gentle, a rumbling purr.

“No, no, I’ve had a good life. I’m not complaining, I’m just so glad to see you again!”

“And I you, my dear daughter. I am sorry you were left behind, little love, sorry to have left you all alone, but there is beauty in this world now that would not have been had you come with me then, when the others did. You have done well, dear child.”

I think of my children, of the souls I’ve brought into this world, cared for, and comforted as they left it. I think of Patrick’s strong, gentle hands, Andrew’s patient kindness, Edward’s brush drawing light and color in its wake, Lucy’s sparkling eyes as she reads her stories aloud. I think of Charlie, smiling at me till the end, calling me his joy and his light. “I’m glad I stayed.”

He nods, his mane brushing my cheek. “But now, dear daughter, it is time to go.”

I pull myself onto his back, leaving my body and my old age behind, and grip his mane with fingers made of light. “I’m ready.”

He leaps, one single bound from one world to the next, and we are in brilliant sunlight, in a meadow full of flowers whose colors are brighter and richer than any I’ve ever seen. My sister is the first to reach me, impetuous as always, leaping from her horse and pulling me from Aslan’s back, calling my name through laughter and tears. “Susan! Susan! You’re here, at last!”

Peter and Edmund and our parents aren’t far behind, and I’m lost in the middle of a huge family embrace…until I see the one figure hanging behind, the one I hadn’t quite hoped to see here, here in the world I left behind for his sake. He looks young, as he did when we were twenty-one, and so am I, a wave of long dark hair swinging behind me once more as I run to him and throw my arms around his neck. “Charlie!”

“You never told me you were a Queen, darling!” He laughs, bends to kiss me tenderly.

“I thought you knew,” I tease, and turn my head to regard the great lion standing at our side. “Thank you, Aslan. It wouldn’t be home without Charlie.”

“I know, dearest daughter, I know.” He shakes his mane at me, affectionately. “There are no permanent separations, my dears, not here.” The words are a benediction.

Home. I am finally home again, for good this time - but I’m not sorry I stayed behind, once, no, not even sorry I lost everything for a time. I had a good life, I truly did - and now, it is time to start the next.  

[queenlucythevaliant]

This is ABSOLUTELY Lucy Pevensie and she's perfect 🥰

Knight_personal work by JADE

[benbarnesescape]

A Letter to My Love

Requests:  Hi dear! I finally remembered what i wanted the Caspian Imagine to be about hahaha Could you do one where caspian wife is giving birth to their first son and he's waiting outside the bedroom where she's giving birth and he keeps thinking everything they have been through? Maybe how they met, how was their courtship, wedding, the coronation of his wife, all that stuff and finally how he reacts when he finally hears his son cries and enters the room and meet his wife and son hahahhah I know its quite specific but I love the way you write and how well you describe everything

A/N: OMG this took me forever @ladyblablabla but I literally rewrote three times before I decided this was the sweetest way to capture what you envisioned. I hope you love it as much as I loved writing it and that it was worthy of the wait. I literally listened to Lovesong by Adele probably thirty times writing it because i think it's a song that captures the way Caspian would love his wife. Enjoy!!!

Warnings: None

Permanent Tag List: @la-fille-en-aiguilles, @starless-skyox @livelearnandtravel

My love,

You always ask me how I fell in love with you. What was it that pulled me into the enigma that is you. I must tell you, my dear, that it was your smile. It was bright as you walked along the courtyard that young spring day, laughing along with your ladies in waiting, your hair pulled back in coils and curls, falling along your back.

It was your smile that had captured my attention.

I loved the way you smiled at everyone, didn’t matter who they were, as you talked among court leaders about ways to expand the lands of Narnia. It was they way you smiled at me, your eyes barely flicking and taking me in, before walking past me as though I was no one. You did this for weeks and I wondered what I could do to have your eyes fall on me longer, your eyes tugged into that perfect smile.

I knew from the start that I wanted to look at that smile forever.

So I spent endless days plotting with everyone I knew at court on ways I could get your attention. Reepicheep spent hours giving me silly sonnets to sing to you, but unlike him I hadn't the gift of song ( I know, my darling, that you would disagree).

I spoke to Dr. Cornelius about the problem and he had told me simply to be myself. You and him were good friends, I was later to discover, and he knew that you had found me as charming as I you. Yet, at the moment, I couldn’t bear do that.

I was a king who had no idea how to rule a kingdom. What if you saw that, the way I believed my advisors had, and laughed at me. What if you took my ramblings of my love for stars as that of man who needed to keep his head out of the skies and more in reality? What if you found me lofty?

That my love, was what kept me from you. Pure insecurity and fear.

Yet it was you at the end, as it always is, who approached me. I was training in the courtyard with my men and little did I know that you had been watching me train on bow and arrow. An area that was not unfamiliar to me but also not my strength. Not like swordplay was. It was you that had picked up the cache of arrows behind me, aiming at the target with ease and hitting it. It was you that smiled at me when I turned in disbelief, the bow still placed against your flushed lips, a proud smile on your face.

That smile that always made my heart skip a beat.

You that walked toward me, instructing me that I pulled too much to the left when I aimed and that you would be more than happy to show me how to correct the error. We practiced until twilight, until my hands were blistered and you offered me a spot at your father's table for dinner, where we chatted for hours, our laughter filling the large space.

Later, my most trusted man Lord Drinian, had teased me about how smitten I was with you. How large my smile was when your hand caressed against mine, or the way my skin flushed when your breath tickled my ear as you whispered funny jokes to me. He meant to tell me out of shame but I knew, I knew from the start, that I had to make you mine.

That I loved you and I belonged to you.

From that night, I made a point to have you know of my intentions. I sent flowers to your chambers, spent endless hours showing you my library and the many gifts Narnia's had bestowed on me on my travels. Went on long horseback rides with you in the forest where we joked and chased each other like school children. You never let slip your feelings of me until a cool fall evening, where we snuck out with each other to watch a star shower. You had told me that your favorite constellation was that of Scorpio and his story of Orion. How you would also plead to Aslan to form a constellation just for me if someone took it upon themselves to kill me. How you worried every time I left the castle to travel on the Dawn Voyager, worried that someone would steal me away from you.

You looked at me with tears in your eyes and I couldn’t think my heart could fill with as much love as it did in that moment.

I remember that we kissed for the first time, my chapped lips pressed against your feathery ones as my hands gripped your face, wanting to memorize the way you tasted. You always taste sweet, my darling, like the first taste of strawberries in the summer.

You always asked me what had passed after that, when I made my love for you known to your father. I never spoke of it, nor did he, because we didn’t want you to….distance yourself from him. But now that he is gone from this world I find that I must share it with you.

I never can keep my secrets from you. I hated to keep this one.

He didn’t want you to marry a king. While he respected me, was loyal to me, would fight for me, he didn’t want me to marry you, his daughter. Didn’t want you to get trapped in court life. Didn’t want you serving a man who could only serve his country. Didn’t believe that I was capable to do both. He found me naive and young and restless and he thought you deserved someone older, wise and calm.

It was why he had you taken from the castle for months, leaving us only to the device of pen and paper to communicate our love. It wasn’t until he saw that my absence in your life was breaking your spirit. How your smile no longer lived on that angelic face.

So he relented.

That, my love, is how special you are.

I remember our wedding day. I remember watching you walk down the long aisle, that smile on your face, your eyes looking into mine. It didn't matter that my groomsmen teased me months later at my tears, that I was a softie. You were beautiful and they knew it.

I remember the way your hands felt against mine, small and shaky as your father gave you away. Remember stealing a glance during prayers, watching as your eyelashes caressed your cheeks under the evening light. Remember the way you danced at our reception afterwards, drunk on wine and love, as your arms wrapped around my neck. I whispered how unlady like you looked, teasing you because I knew you didn’t care and you kissed me. Claimed to the world that I was yours. You were mine. You whispered later it did not matter what the world thought of you just what I did.

My darling, I think the world of you.

You ask me, when I’m out at sea like I am now, how I pass the nights. If it ever gets lonely now that you can’t travel at my side. Of course my luv, the nights are the longest without you in my arms. I am spent staying up late at night thinking about our wedding night and the nights to follow.

I remember the way you looked the night we became one. The way your hands caressed mine in reverence, touching and exploring my body as I watched you. The way your lips puckered before my own found them, claiming them for myself. The way you felt, warm and full, how I couldn’t get more of you. The way you sounded, your whispered sighs filling the room as my hands entwined in your own. I love the way you look before you give all of yourself to me, body shaking under my own.

I love all of you.

I remember the way you looked during your coronation. When you officially became my queen. The way you wore the colors of Narnia, the dark burgundy and gold colors against your skin as you walked down the aisle alongside me. The proud way you held your chin at other lords who came to watch the festivities. The way that I saw men bend to your beauty alone, not knowing the strength behind your words or the talent behind your arrow.

You were meant to be my equal.

I remember recent months past, hearing the sounds of your screams echoing against the cold, drab walls of our castle. The way the servants hurried throughout your chamber doors in whispered tones, never making eye contact as they bought sheets and buckets of water to comfort you. For two agonizingly long days I sat outside our doors, barely sleeping, my hands in my hair. Worried for you. Worried for our child.

But you are strong, my love. You both are.

It was the sound of the scream that broke me from my zombied state. The way it resonated high pitched and strong and the relief of your handmaidens. The way the head nurse ran out to me to announce that we had produced a son. I don’t remember running into to the room, waiting properly for the handmaidens to clean days of your battle.

I locked eyes with you, you who was exhausted and were wearing that smile. Our son in our arms, nestled safely against your breast. The doctor assured me that you were in good health as that of my son but I cared naught to hear. I just needed to feel you, kiss my lips against your sweaty forehead before looking down into the creation that even Aslan himself would argue mirrored the beauty he had created on earth.

Caspian the 11th.

I miss you, my sweetheart. I miss you and our son. As the winds draw me closer to you, closer to our family, I write this to you, in my cabinet under candlelight. The ship is quiet and the groans of the wood echo against my ears. How I long to hear your voice. How I long to feel your lips.

How I long to be in your arms again.

Forever Yours,

Caspian the X

[queenlucythevaliant]

Lion-hearted girl

Concept art by Justin Sweet // Prince Caspian, C.S. Lewis // Lion photo by Charl Durand & Holliday Granger in The Borgias (fancast for adult Lucy), color grading done by me // Acts 13:22 // illustration from Aslan's Triumph by Deborah Maze

[queenlucythevaliant]

rush together with their hands held out

Lucy found Marjorie Preston having a panic attack in the lavatory one day and told her to be brave. This was how their friendship began.

Lucy wrapped her arms tight around a girl she barely knew and whispered, “Deep breaths” into her hair. She inhaled deep, held it, breathed out slowly, slowly, and eventually Marjorie began to do the same.  

After a long time, Lucy stepped away from Marjorie, who was no longer shaking. Yet her face was still pale and stricken, so Lucy took off the bracelet she wore on which a lion-shaped charm was hung. She gripped Marjorie’s hand and released it, then clasped the bracelet around Marjorie’s wrist.

“There,” said Lucy. “Do you feel braver now?”

Marjorie returned just the faintest hint of a smile. “A little,” she replied.

Marjorie was a year older than Lucy, but to look at them side by side no one would have guessed it. Lucy was tall for her age, held her head like a hero, and laughed with a practiced ease; Marjorie was small and slight and her smiles always seemed as though they might shatter at any moment. It wasn’t hard to understand why. Lucy’s father had fought in France, but Marjorie’s father and two brothers were never coming home.

A few nights after giving her the bracelet, Lucy invited Marjorie to come watch a meteor shower with her. They snuck out of their dormitories and got in terrible trouble for it the next day, but that night the moon was new and the sky dusted with stars. Glittering, the meteors fell through space and the two girls exclaimed for joy at the sight of them. They stretched out on the grass and Lucy told fairytales and Marjorie smiled stronger than she had in years.

The next day, they started eating breakfast together. Soon, Lucy counted Marjorie Preston among her dearest friends.

.

In the pages of the magician’s book, Lucy saw Marjorie riding a train beside Anne Featherstone. Anne had been Marjorie’s friend before the war, but hadn’t wanted her wan and grieving. Lucy had wanted her though, and now Marjorie smiled for real again.

“Shall I see anything of you this term?” Anne was asking, “or are you still going to be all taken up with Lucy Pevensie?”

Marjorie tilted her head just a fraction. “Don’t know what you mean by taken up” she replied.

“Oh yes, you do. You were crazy about her last term.”

“No I wasn’t. I’ve got more sense than that. Not a bad little kid in her way. But I was getting pretty tired of her before the end of term.”

As she spoke, Marjorie fidgeted with something on her wrist. She still wore the lion charm bracelet.

The lightning-rage that came down on Lucy’s head was swift and violent. She seethed at Marjorie's betrayal until she read the next spell and her spirit was refreshed.

.

“I don’t think I’d ever be able to forget what I heard her say,” Lucy told Aslan. She was pressed against his golden side for comfort and for courage.

“No, you won’t.”

“Oh dear,” whispered Lucy. “Have I spoiled everything? Do you mean we would have gone on being friends if it hadn’t been for this—and been really great friends—all our lives perhaps?” She looked up into Aslan’s eyes now, stern in reproach yet infinitely kind. “—And now we never shall?”

“Child,” said the Lion, “did I not explain to you once before that no one is ever told what would have happened?”

It was neither a yes nor a no. Lucy’s valiant heart trembled at the thought.

.

She was dreading what would happen when she returned to school the next term, when she saw Marjorie again. Marjorie, of course, did not know that Lucy had overheard what she said to Anne, but Lucy knew, and Marjorie had still spoken the words. The prospect of no longer being friends and that of continuing on as though nothing had happened were equally dismal.

Yet when Lucy had finished unpacking her things and was headed downstairs for supper, she caught sight of Marjorie and was suddenly shaken to a stop. Looking up at her from the landing was not Marjorie Preston, but the Sea Shepherdess she had glimpsed from the Dawn Treader’s rail.

The quiet, lonely look on her face was just as Lucy remembered it. Her dark hair was an iridescent violet in the light, her skin a lovely olive, and her dress pooled around her ankles as though pulled by the current. For that instant, Lucy felt sure that Marjorie did not only resemble the Sea Shepherdess; she was the Sea Shepherdess, plucked from the crystal waters of Narnia's last sea to stand on the steps of a British girls' school.

“Lucy! I’ve missed you,” Marjorie called from the landing. The smile on her face was small and quiet, but no less strong for being so.

At once, Lucy felt her legs move beneath her, and then she was rushing down the stairs two at a time to throw her arms around her friend.  

[queenlucythevaliant]

When Lucy returned to school for the spring term, Peter sent a war poem. It dropped from the crease of his letter into her lap, as unexpected as a firebomb.

“On Receiving News of War,” the title read, and Lucy’s heart lurched. She was sixteen and Peter was twenty-one. The war had ended three years ago and he had only been a British soldier for a matter of months before he was discharged. Now, this poem came: words from the Last Lot, the 1914 war. Lucy picked up the loose page and read.

ON RECEIVING NEWS OF THE WAR

Snow is a strange white word;

No ice or frost

Have asked of bud or bird

For Winter's cost.

Yet ice and frost and snow

From earth to sky

This Summer land doth know,

No man knows why.

She looked up in shock. What did Peter mean in sending this? Was it only that it made him think of their first days in Narnia, white and frozen under the White Witch’s curse? He could not have missed the title. Lucy worried her lip between her teeth, considering. Her brother did not often use words idly.

Red fangs have torn His face.

God's blood is shed.

He mourns from His lone place

His children dead.

O! ancient crimson curse!

Corrode, consume.

Give back this universe

Its pristine bloom.

Oh. Yes, alright. That made a certain kind of sense. And there, at the bottom of the page, was a single line writ in Peter’s hand. “Variations on a theme,” he had written, “only I’m not yet certain what theme it is. Do you have an idea?”

Several, in fact. Lucy’s mind lit up in an instant, all a-whirl with memory and typology. She wasn’t a child any longer, and in small bits her many battles came back to her. Peter, she was sure, remembered even more of Narnia’s wars.

Yet Lucy remembered the ice of Lantern Waste on the first day as though no time had passed at all. She remembered the crimson of Aslan’s blood. She remembered the thaw. In her mind, those things had nothing and everything to do with Britain’s last war. Nothing: the two worlds were as different as King Arthur and Winston Churchill. Everything: because maybe Arthur and Churchill were not so different after all.

That night, after a trip to the library and with a book of poetry on her desk, Lucy composed her reply. “Another variation,” she wrote, and carefully copied out the lines.  

All the dead kings came to me

At Rosnaree, where I was dreaming,

A few stars glimmered through the morn,

And down the thorn the dews were streaming.

And every dead king had a story

Of ancient glory, sweetly told.

It was too early for the lark,

But the starry dark had tints of gold.

The poem was called “The Dead Kings.” Peter was not dead, but Lune was and Cor was. Caspian was. It was easy to imagine them appearing in the trenches and whispering their stories into the ears of British soldiers.

“Caspian would have liked the notion, I think,” Lucy said thoughtfully.

Peter leaned back in his chair and smiled. “Yes. Come to think of it, I rather like it myself. If I were the dead king, I mean.”

“It’s strange—I think these were meant to be sad poems, the way they were written. The world unwillingly cursed and the ancient kings dead. Yet when you apply it to Narnia, I don’t think it’s terribly sad at all. Maybe a little melancholy, but hopeful too. Like I know something that the poet doesn’t.”

“You do know something that the poet doesn’t,” answered Peter.

“I mean about war and dying and all. It’s all so distant for me, you know? And yet I often suspect that I know secrets that some men who actually fought couldn’t guess at. The hopeless men, maybe. In Narnia it was all more beautiful. Having lived there elevates even war and death, in this world.”

“We were, both of us, soldiers once.”

Lucy nodded.

“How about this one, then?” Peter shoved his book across the table, nearly upending the cream along the way.

The drab street stares to see them row on row

On the high tram-tops, singing like the lark.

Too careless-gay for courage, singing they go

Into the dark.

“Simple,” said Lucy. “Singing on the way to war is courage. Singing in the dark is just about the bravest thing a person can do. Just because these boys go into the battle without knowing what it’s really like doesn’t make them any less brave for going, or for singing.”

“You would know,” her brother smiled fondly.

With tin whistles, mouth-organs, any noise,

They pipe the way to glory and the grave;

Foolish and young, the gay and golden boys

Love cannot save...

“It makes me think of Susan,” Peter murmured.

“I can see that. Our love cannot save her, only Aslan’s.” Lucy frowned thoughtfully.

“No, no—I mean I wonder if that’s how Susan thinks of us: foolish children still playing games where singing in the dark means anything at all. Gay and golden, but naïve and careless by the same token. Too caught up in notions of courage and glory to realize that we live in a world where good people die.”

“Oh Peter, you don’t really think?”

“She told me once she’s afraid that we’ll never grow up, did you know? I wondered if she meant that we would always be like children, or if she worried we might die young. Sometimes I still wonder.”

“It wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world,” said Lucy. “To always be child-like, or even to die young. Not by half.”

Peter snorted. “You might not mind dying young, but I’d certainly mind it. You’re my little sister, Lu. If you die young, it means I’ve done something wrong.”

“Well of course I’d mind! There are so many things I mean to do once I’m grown up. But I’ve always thought—ever since Father Christmas handed me that dagger—that I might. As long as I died for something, it wouldn’t bother me. I think I could be a rather good martyr.” She winked across the table.

“Don’t you dare. If Aslan has short lives in mind for either of us, we’ll drink what we’re given. In the meantime, let’s both of us focus on growing up well.”

The next week, Lucy went with Marjorie Preston to the mail room. It was Marjorie’s birthday and she was expecting a parcel from home, but Lucy was also privately hoping for another letter from Peter.

An abundance of riches awaited Marjorie: an enormous box that the two of them had to lift together. Thus, Lucy tucked Peter’s letter under one of the box’s flaps as they carried it, and it was Marjorie who tore open the envelope when they reached the dormitories.

“What in the world is this?” Marjorie exclaimed, waving a poem under Lucy’s nose. Lucy snatched it away and hungrily read the words, considering how this variation fit Peter’s theme. Then, she noticed that Marjorie was still beside her, tapping her foot impatiently.

“My brother sends me war poems,” Lucy explained hurriedly.

“That’s strange.”

“Do you think so?” Lucy considered. “Well, no matter.”

WAR GIRLS (here Peter had added “& VALIANT QUEENS”)

Strong, sensible, and fit,

     They're out to show their grit,

   And tackle jobs with energy and knack.

     No longer caged and penned up,

     They're going to keep their end up

   Till the khaki soldier boys come marching back.

"Does he mean you?" asked Marjorie, wrinkling her nose.

Lucy laughed, but didn't dispute it. She went to fetch some paper and a pen.

On they went for the next several months, passing poems back and forth in their letters. Some of them were hopeful and some despairing, some sad, some darkly funny. It was a dialogue in a war that Peter scarcely remembered, and Lucy even less. In time, Tennyson and others from before the Last Lot worked their way in. Even Shakespeare made an appearance with several selections from the Henriad. Spring lurched into summer which tumbled into fall. Peter turned twenty-two in August and Lucy was seventeen in November.

Then, at dinner at Professor Digory’s house one night, the specter of a Narnian king appeared before them. Before they left, Peter found the poem he was thinking of in the Professor’s study and gave it to Lucy.

Horror of wounds and anger at the foe,

And loss of things desired; all these must pass.

We are the happy legion, for we know

Time's but a golden wind that shakes the grass.

“Does it feel different this time?” he asked once she had read it.

“Yes,” replied his sister, “and no. It feels obscurely like it did the night Aslan died. Like something is hanging over us.”

“I think this is the end,” Peter said bluntly. “He said we wouldn’t ever go back to Narnia, yet here we are. It feels like the end. Do you remember what it was like the night before a battle?”

“Yes. I didn’t before, but I do now. Like we had to gather up everything inside ourselves and name it. Fear and courage, love and memory.”

Peter sighed. “We ought to get going. There might be ice on the roads tonight.”

Lucy went into the closet and fetched her coat. Peter followed, moving a fraction slower than usual.

“Peter?” Peter turned and looked at Lucy, who was standing in the doorway with her fur-trimmed collar turned up around her throat. “It was a good poem, Peter. The right poem. Time’s but a golden wind that shakes the grass…”

Golden. Golden like Aslan’s mane, which they both so dearly longed to touch once more. Lucy tossed the poem round and round in her mind all that evening.

Before he and Edmund left for London, Lucy slipped an envelope into Peter’s pocket. “Read it on the train,” she told him.

Peter nodded. “I have one for you too.”

It was the last conversation they shared in the Shadowlands, though neither knew it at the time.

When Lucy unfolded her poem, she recognized the words. It was her favorite war-poem, which she’d first sent to Peter months ago when their correspondence had begun.

Sombre the night is:

And, though we have our lives, we know

What sinister threat lurks there.

But hark! Joy—joy—strange joy.

Lo! Heights of night ringing with unseen larks:

Music showering on our upturned listening faces.

It almost made her want to giggle, how well Peter knew her. Lucy thought of him and Edmund together in London; she ached for Susan, who had chosen not to join her siblings in their last battle for Narnia. She breathed in deep and thought of music on the way to war.

Death could drop from the dark

As easily as song—

But song only dropped,

Like a blind man's dreams on the sand

By dangerous tides;

Like a girl's gold hair, for she dreams no ruin lies there,

Or her songs where a lion hides.

That last couplet was wrong. Peter had changed it. The poem ended with, A girl’s dark hair and kisses where a serpent hides, but Peter had written gold and lion instead.

When Peter unfolded his own poem on the train, he found only a single stanza, annotated on nearly every line.

It didn’t pass— (His will be done) it didn’t pass-  (His will be done)

It didn’t pass from me.

I drank it when we met the gas  (His will be done)

Beyond Gethsemane! (His will be done)

The train halted and the whistle blew. Peter shook Edmund awake beside him, and together they went to unbury the rings.

 .

 Poems referenced: “On Receiving News of the War,” Isaac Rosenberg; “The Dead Kings,” Francis Ledwidge; “Joining the Colours,” Katharine Tynan; “War Girls,” Jessie Pope; “Absolution,” Siegfried Sassoon; “Returning, We Hear Larks,” Isaac Rosenberg; “Gethsemane,” Rudyard Kipling

[queenlucythevaliant]

Professor Kirke remained at the small dining table after the last of the dishes had been cleared away, puffing clouds on his pipe. It was strange, thought Lucy: he had a faraway look in his eyes, as though some tiny aspect of his reality had shifted over dinner and he was struggling to accommodate it.

“I wonder what he’s thinking about,” murmured Lucy to the others. Edmund shrugged and Eustace (who had only met the professor that night) said nothing, but Peter chuckled merrily and patted Lucy on the arm.  

“You’ll find out soon enough, that’s certain. He got that look in his eye when you were talking about the Island of Dreams, Lu. No doubt he’ll call you into his study for a lesson later on.”

It was a little more than a week later that Peter’s prediction came true. Professor Kirke seated himself across his desk from Lucy with an enormous tome of poetry spread out before him. “Have you heard The Rime of the Ancient Mariner?” he inquired.

Lucy shook her head. Yet rather than muttering about the state of the schools as she had expected, Professor Kirke simply smiled beneath his whiskers and began to declaim:

“It is an ancient Mariner /And he stoppeth one of three —"

Lucy leaned back in her seat and fixed her attention on the words as best she could. Once, she’d spoken in such a register as queen of Narnia, but now she was only a girl of ten and unaccustomed to the flowery language of Romantic poetry.

“At length did cross an Albatross,

Thorough the fog it came—”

“Oh!” cried Lucy. “Is that why you wanted me to hear this poem?”

“Just so,” the professor replied. “Your account of the Island where Dreams Come True bears a marked resemblance to The Rime, beginning with the presence of the albatross. In this poem, the albatross bears a symbolic connection to Jesus Christ himself.”

“How peculiar!”

“I thought so too. Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote this poem in 1797, in a time when sea voyages to the polar regions were very much like your own voyage to the end of the world. The albatross had only lately been described in writing, but he wrote it coming out of the desolate fog to guide sailors to safety. And Coleridge was a neo-Platonist! Fog and ice are very much like darkness, the way he uses them here.”

“A neo-Platonist?” Lucy asked, wrinkling her nose.

And now came the Professor’s customary muttering. “Yes. What do they teach in these schools? You may read darkness and fog both in Coleridge as something between ignorance and innocence, with the Sun as a symbol of Reason. Does that make sense?”

“A little,” said Lucy, who privately didn’t think it made much sense at all but was eager for the professor to continue the poem.

“It ate the food it ne'er had eat,

And round and round it flew.

The ice did split with a thunder-fit;

The helmsman steered us through!”

Lucy hadn’t meant to interrupt again so soon, but the words were out of her mouth before she was really aware that she’d spoken them. “So it really is just like in Narnia! It guides the ship out of the ice like my Albatross guided us out of the darkness.”

“Yes.” Professor Kirke was entirely unperturbed by the interruption. “Precisely.”

“How lovely. Isn’t it interesting how you just know when birds are trustworthy?”

The professor chuckled. “You may change your mind in a few stanzas. Shall I go on?”

“Please.”

Lucy returned to her concentration as the mariner recounted how a good wind had sprung up after the Albatross and how it had stayed with the ship and perched on the mast sometimes for evening prayers. Yet the mariner must have looked unhappy, for the groom interrupted to ask him why.

“With my cross-bow/ I shot the albatross.” Professor Kirke paused here in his telling and looked very hard at Lucy.

It took her a long moment to understand. “The albatross isn’t dead, is he?”

“He is.”

“I thought you said he was like Aslan.”

“And didn’t you see Aslan die?”

Lucy opened her mouth, but closed it a moment later. Open again, “But why did the mariner kill him? Doesn’t he give any reason? The witch killed Aslan because she was evil and trying to conquer Narnia. Why would the mariner kill the albatross when it’s done nothing but help him?”

“Perhaps,” the professor replied, “the Gospels are a simpler comparison here. ‘I shot the albatross’ has the same kind of blunt irrefutability as ‘And they crucified him.’ There isn’t any excuse, which I think makes the confession all the more powerful.”

Lucy sighed. It was exhausting trying to keep this all straight. “I suppose that makes a kind of sense. But then we’re trying to think on three different levels of parallel—the poem, the Bible and Narnia—which isn’t very pleasant.”

“And yet, it’s necessary if one wishes to understand deeper meanings. We can pause for tea, if you’d like?”

“No, that’s alright. I think I’m keeping track well enough for now. I say though, is this what you do with Peter all day?”

The question seemed to catch Professor Kirke off guard, for he let out a sudden, loud burst of laughter as soon as Lucy asked it. “Yes, after a manner of speaking. Shall we go on?”

“Ah! well a-day! what evil looks

Had I from old and young!

Instead of the cross, the Albatross

About my neck was hung.”

It was a difficult thing to imagine and Lucy wondered if Aslan’s albatross was unusually large. Aslan was always bigger than she expected him to be, so it would not be strange if he took the form of an unusually large albatross. Yet the more Lucy considered, the more sense the image made.

“It must have been at least three meters,” said Lucy. “The albatross, I mean. Mine was more like four, from wingtip to wingtip. It would be a dreadful weight, but I suppose that’s the point. The mariner can’t carry it, can he?”

“I think you’re right,” said Professor Kirke.

A smile tugged at Lucy’s cheeks. It was lovely to hear the professor give such an unequivocal endorsement of her analysis. Galvanized by the success, she continued, “I thought of a cross when my albatross appeared out of the darkness. There’s something in the proportion of the body to the wings, and in its stillness of it as it glides through the air. My albatross tore away the darkness. But here—it’s like the mariner carries his albatross like he thinks that act can save him from what he’s done.”

There was a glittering in the old professor’s eyes then, and suddenly Lucy realized that she wasn’t struggling with the poem’s language anymore. Maybe it was because she’d been listening to it for the better part of ten minutes, but privately she wondered if Narnia’s magic might be working on her somehow. Perhaps this poem contained some quality of the rich Narnian air.

“I looked to heaven, and tried to pray;

But or ever a prayer had gusht,

A wicked whisper came, and made

My heart as dry as dust.”

Lucy shut her eyes and remembered the fighting-top of the Dawn Treader. The night-mare life-in-death was a black abyss, and all her own nightmares had been there in it. There had been monsters, of course, and the idea that even if she ran down to stand beside Edmund he might become a monster himself. But somewhere in all that dark, there was a Lucy who never spoke to Aslan again. She’d imagined herself in Lord Rhoop’s place, trapped forever in a state of endless fear-without-courage, because she could not call him.

“That was my night-mare too,” she whispered. “Not being able to pray.”

She saw the professor’s lips thin beneath his whiskers and wondered at it. “You’re wiser than you have any right to be,” he murmured. “Ten years old and your greatest nightmare is alienation from God. What a marvel you’ll be when you’re grown.”

Well then. Lucy didn’t have any notion what to say to that. She half expected that if she tried to reply, she might start crying.

“Might I ask—what did you do then? Until the albatross arrived, once you realized that you couldn’t pray. How did you react?”

And that was a question she could answer.

“But I could pray! I did. I whispered, ‘Aslan, if you ever loved us at all, send us help now.’ And that was when the albatross came. I didn’t talk about it after—it was too much my own for me to share it, really—Edmund knows—but well…”

The professor made a sort of choked noise in his throat. “Perhaps it was the only nightmare that the island couldn’t bring true.”

“But there have been times,” continued Lucy, “when my heart was too dry to speak with Aslan. There were whole years when I was queen that he didn’t come at all.”

It was with a much softer voice that Professor Kirke resumed his reading.

“A spring of love gushed from my heart,

And I blessed them unaware:

Sure my kind saint took pity on me,

And I blessed them unaware.

 The self-same moment I could pray;

And from my neck so free

The Albatross fell off, and sank

Like lead into the sea.”

Here, the professor lapsed into silence. Lucy thought that the poem might be over, but when she peered across the desk at the page there were columns of stanzas still left.

“Even after all these years,” he whispered, “some things still remind me of my own days in Narnia.”

He’d told the children his story before, of course: beginning with how he met Aunt Polly and concluding with the origins of the wardrobe. Aslan had not condemned him for bringing the White Witch to Narnia. Instead, he’d had loved Digory enough to shed tears and sent him home with an apple so beautiful that it healed his dying mother.

“Grace,” Lucy whispered into the hush. “Of course. Maybe this is the moment where Aslan leads the mariner out of the darkness.”

Professor Kirke exhaled heavily. The faraway look in his eye lessened a little bit, and at length he read on.

“The spirit slid: and it was he

That made the ship to go.”

Never had Lucy felt Aslan’s presence more keenly in his absence than during those last days as the Dawn Treader had sailed over the still, clear waters at world’s end; like Aslan himself had been drawing them towards himself by some great, invisible rope.

The closer they’d come to his country, the more tangible his spirit had been. When at last she glimpsed those green mountains beyond the waves, Lucy’s very bones understood that Aslan had made the still seas bring them there.

A voice spoke out of the air concerning the mariner, and Lucy remembered the piercing silence of the Last Sea. Of the voice, the mariner said, “He loved the bird that loved the man/ Who shot him with his bow.”

Not for the first time, Lucy wondered about Aslan’s father, the Emperor-beyond-the-Sea. What did he say to Aslan when he left that land of high mountains to return to Narnia and die at the Witch’s hand? What did he think when Aslan went flying across the lily-covered seas on feathered wings to rescue their little ship? If Lucy had crossed that final threshold with Reepicheep, would she have met the Emperor there?

“The voice is his father,” Lucy said, voice brimming with certainty. “The albatross’s father, I mean. The Emperor-beyond-the-Sea.”

“I know,” the professor replied. “And beyond the sea is just where our mariner meets him.”

“Do you think the mariner knew that the albatross loved him?”

The professor stroked his chin again, and a ghost of a smile played across his features. “If the mariner didn’t know it when he shot him, he certainly knows now. But come, we’re nearly at the end of the poem.

“Swiftly, swiftly flew the ship,

Yet she sailed softly too:

Sweetly, sweetly blew the breeze—

On me alone it blew.

Oh! dream of joy! is this indeed

The light-house top I see?”

“There’s one more thing I haven’t told you,” Lucy said. “Something so bright and mysterious that I’ve not even told Edmund. When the albatross came, it—it spoke to me. And I wasn’t afraid anymore.”

Professor Kirke leaned forward, but his words were, “You needn’t tell me what he said if you’d prefer not to.”

Lucy nodded slowly. Somehow, she knew that if she tried to describe “Courage, dear heart,” she would fail. There was nothing, no word or image or music or poetry in this world or any other that could convey what that moment had been. To speak of it at all would be like dancing about architecture.

“I was the only one who heard him,” Lucy whispered. “It was my prayer, and he spoke to me. I wonder how this poet knows what it was like?”

“I think he knows the same way I do, in my own way. Coleridge lived a difficult life. He was a laudanum addict when he wrote this, for one thing. When the Divine voice speaks into our darkness and we feel his breath on our faces, it binds us together with every other person who has ever been rescued by an albatross that loved us. We don’t know what he says to other people, but we know how the breeze feels.”

The professor returned to his reading and concluded the poem while Lucy sat in astonishment and let the strangeness of the last hour wash over her.

“…A sadder and a wiser man/ He rose the morrow morn,” and with those words Professor Kirke shut the book. The heavy pages fell with a thud, and with bright eyes he looked at Lucy. “What do you think of it?”

“I think,” said Lucy slowly, “that it was a beautiful story. The very best kind.”

What she did not say, but what she was thinking, was that it reminded her of the story she’d read in the Magician’s book: the one about the cup, the sword, the tree, and the green hill. The two tales had no common points of reference, but they left her with much the same feeling.

“But why do you think Aslan came to me as an albatross?”

Professor Kirke harrumphed. “I have been asking myself that same question ever since you spoke of it. Why indeed? I wonder whether perhaps in part he appeared that way so that you would come back here and read ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,’ and come to know him better by it. If nothing else, I do not think it was a coincidence.”

Yes, perhaps, but the answer still felt incomplete. “Maybe it’s a stone in the bridge he talked about,” Lucy said. “Maybe he only wanted to show me—to show us—that he’s here too. In this world, in this time, and in all others. Maybe it’s like you said, and there’s an albatross for every person who’s ever been rescued from the darkness.”

[queenlucythevaliant]

She was ladylike and lively, not "the type you would expect."

Some of the oldest members of court still remembered how as a child Queen Lucy had always been black and blue from practice yards she wasn't supposed to visit as often as she did. Raffin the Dwarf, who'd been the royal armorsmith back in the day, could tell endless stories about her: how Lucy had stolen swords and sparred with the boys; how she'd been slight and quick and laughed as she sparred; how she'd sometimes even beaten her brothers. It had taken all the High King's force of will to pry the sword and dagger out of his little sister's hand and replace it with a bow.

But even so, Alabast the unicorn, who'd carried her wounded from battle once, claimed in his old age that she'd scarcely ever ridden astride. "She was still a lady, for all that she was a warrior. She wore skirts and armor both," he would say. Peridan remarked that in the command tent she'd had none of the masculine coarseness of the other commanders. She had a temper occasionally, but she did not elbow or jostle to make herself heard. When she spoke, everyone listened.

She laughed loudly and often. That was the main thing that everyone said. The archers, the commanders, the beasts and the centaurs and the giants and the satyrs all said she had a great, carrying laugh that could be heard up and down the battle column.

With a braver heart than many and a slot-shot to respect.

"Queen Susan wins her tournaments and Queen Lucy her battles" people would sing in praise of their sovereigns. While Susan had the better aim in the precise, level field of a fairground, Lucy was dauntless with hell all round her.

The old archers said they never served under a captain that was her equal. Queen Lucy held on whatever ground her archers were stationed. She placed herself as far forward as the High King would allow her. The rows behind her would speak of her small figure poised among so many tall warriors, of her braid being tossed about below her helmet, gold like the Narnian standard.

Hardrum, an old centuar who had been fierce with a flail in his day, told his children about the day the Narnian army had fallen back from the mouth of the River Shribble. "Queen Lucy covered our retreat with no more than fourty archers at her command. I remember seeing her when I galloped past. She was firing arrows two at a time, with a lioness's snarl on her face."

And I guess she'd once decided this was where she'd like to be,

"Why?" Tumnus asked her once. Lucy was growing older; her spun-gold hair had threads of silver in it, but she had yet to hang up her bow.

"When I was a child, because I wanted to be brave," Lucy answered thoughtfully. "But now, I think, I just want to be the sort of person who doesn't put down her weapons until Aslan asks it of her."

When Lucy and the others disappeared beyond Lantern Waste, Tumnus told stories about his best friend: how brave she was, and what kind of person she'd decided to be.

And I thought, if she could do it, why not me?

[queenlucythevaliant]

When I was in late elementary/early middle school, I wrote a handful of “letters” to Lucy. Functionally, they were just journal entries, but I addressed them to her. I’d love to have a conversation with her—Lucy at my age, or near enough to it (because strictly speaking, I’m older now that she was in LB). I’d love to just hang out with her, talk about our lives, our families, our loves, our spiritual journeys and relationships with God.

I don’t quite know if this will make sense, but in a way, it feels as though Lucy is my Sea Girl. If she were real—if we saw one another—I would know her at once, and I would run to her with my arms out and embrace her.

Discussion #17

If you could talk to a character from The Chronicles of Narnia for one day, who would you want to talk to? What are some things you would say to them, or questions you would want to ask? 

[queenlucythevaliant]

The Pevensie Siblings

High King over all the rest

The tender-hearted big sister

The traitor who mended

And a dear, darling heart-daughter of Aslan

[queenlucythevaliant]

Lucy tells God to shut up

There’s a brief moment at the end of LWW—one of Lucy’s most human—that the Disney movie cut in favor of “they all hug:”

“There are other people wounded,” said Aslan while she was still looking eagerly into Edmund’s pale face and wondering if the cordial would have any result.

‘Yes, I know,’ said Lucy crossly. ‘Wait a minute.’”

I consider this one of the most direct statements Jack makes about human nature in the whole of the Chronicles, one that I think children benefit from hearing early.

When God speaks to us, in our broken humanity, more often than not our reaction is to tell Him to shut up.

Another short story I’ve had in my mind as long as I can remember: When my mother was a teenager, she was ice-skating hand-in-hand with a friend when she heard the voice of God audibly say, “slow down, you’re going to crash.” She responded: “No. He’ll laugh at me.” A few moments later, she fell and badly injured her face. Each time she’s told me that story, from the time I was very little, she’s finished, “… and looking back, I am absolutely confident that man is basically evil. Because my knee-jerk reaction to a warning from God was to say, ‘No.’”

Nothing as dramatic as either Lucy’s or my mother’s story has ever happened to me, but I know well what it’s like to tell God to shut up. I’d imagine that most Christians know it too. Sometimes, it’s insistently ignoring the conviction of the Holy Spirit. Sometimes, it’s a negative reaction to something you encounter in Scripture. Regardless, it’s very human. Like Sarah’s laughter when God promised her a biological son. Often, we do not react to the voice of God with the obedience and delight that we ought to have, but with rebellion and incredulity.

Which is why (or, I should say, one of the reasons why) Lucy’s reunion with Aslan in PC is one of my favorite sequences in the series. This time, when Aslan commands Lucy to do something she’d very much rather not, she does not say, “shut up.” She tells him that she doesn’t want to and asks if she really has to—which is not wrong, Jesus Himself did it—then takes a moment to gather her strength from Aslan, and says, “alright, I’ll do it your way.” And then she does.

Each time I read Lucy saying, “I’m ready now” I think, Oh Lucy, how you’ve grown. Each time Aslan responds, “now you are a lioness,” I remember that although fallen man is basically evil, redeemed man is capable of great things.

[queenlucythevaliant]

"It isn't Narnia, you know," sobbed Lucy. "It's you. We shan't meet you there. And how can we live, never meeting you?" 

"But you shall meet me, dear one," said Aslan.

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Concept art by Justin Sweet // The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe illustration, Joey Chou // Prince Caspian illustration, Pauline Baynes // The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe cover art, HarperCollins 2007 // The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe illustration, Christian Birmingham // The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe cover art, Pauline Baynes // Aslan’s Triumph cover art, Deborah Maze

[queenlucythevaliant]

Translation from Portuguese: "Our guide is Aslan; and he was present when the King ordained that the letters be engraved; and he already knew of all the things to come, including this one."

"So great is my love for you, Aslan"

Aslan and Lucy by johncastelhano

Artwork found here.