Unlikely Ties | Caspian & Arista
The mermaid watched Caspian with a keen eye – the last thing she wantedwas to take her attention off of him and then for something to happen to her orto Maria. The last thing she wanted was for him to kidnap her and kill her –even if she had been imagining horror stories like this since the moment shecame upon land with her governess. She bit her bottom lip and swallowed thelump in her throat as she attempted to keep her balance whilst not clinging tothe king any longer. She didn’t want him to take that in any way other than thefact she needed him to stay standing.
Arista was somewhat glad that Caspian knew of that. If he hadn’t knownshe would have happily have told him because she would havedone anything to get out of this time on the surface. All she had to do waskeep telling herself to think of this as an adventure. She may haveto be doing this to observe Narnia and the Narnians but it would be like if oneof them gained gills and went down to Atlantica… even if that observationwouldn’t end in possible marriage. The idea of marrying this man in the end ofher adventure didn’t settle well with the mermaid turnedhuman.
She knew one of her goals in life was to settle down, marry and havemerchildren but that was that. Arista wanted to have merchildren.What would happen if she was to marry Caspian? What would happen if she hadever gotten into the situation where she would have to produce an heir for him?Not only was she completely clueless about being a human – but what exactlywould marrying a human King and becoming a Queen for another world be like? ‘Urgh…’ Arista attempted to not dawn on it much longer. She didn’t see this being theend result in her own little experiment. She would give Narnia a chance… butshe wasn’t sure about marrying this King, even if he had been very nice to her.
Arista saw his attention was back on her governess and all she could dowas breathe a breath of relief. Finally his attention was off of her and shecould relax – the last thing she needed was to feel like she was walking oneggshells around the King. At the mere thought of Maria heading back toAtlantica and Arista being there with Caspian and these other men on her own… wellit didn’t settle well with her. In fact it churned around in her stomach andmade her feel quite queasy.
“No, my Lord, I was here to accompany Arista to the surface.” Mariareplied and Arista could have throttled her. She couldn’t have bought her a littlemore time? Couldn’t her governess have at least attempted tosuss Caspian out a little bit… even to know that she was leaving Arista in goodhands? “Now that I have done that I have the long journey back to Atlantica tomake myself.” Arista grumbled recalling the swim to get to here. Maria wasright. The swim was the longest journey that she had made – even as one on ofAtlantica’s fastest swimmers. She was tempted to tell her dear friend thatperhaps she needed a guide and would help her home… but that wouldn’t do anyoneany good when there was an alliance to form.
Finding herself in a tight embrace, Arista let go of Caspian and heldonto Maria with a small thank you, although inside she was screaming not to belet go. Arista knew that once Maria was gone she was on her own. She may bearound all these men but she was but that… on her own… she was theonly merperson and all of Atlantica’s wellbeing when it came to an alliancewith Narnia was on her shoulders. “Have a safe journey.” Maria spoke as she lether go and Arista nodded her head before wishing the older mermaid the same. Atthat Maria said her goodbyes to Caspian and his men before diving back into thewater, with a slight glow to show her legs merging to her glorious tail.
Soon the glow was gone and Arista sucked in a harsh breath. She realisedjust how that may have sounded so attempted to keep a straight face and notshow that she was actually rather scared. It should have beenobvious though – this was her first time properly away from home… and not justthe palace, but Atlantica in a whole. Turning to face the King once more, stillslightly wobbly on her newly acquired feet, Arista kept her hands out flat toeach side for balance before attempting to gain his attention completely.
“We should get going then.” She spoke, trying to be assertive, althoughshe knew it probably wasn’t working. “If you have a long journey to make.”Arista licked her lips as she glanced around the island once more – it was sobeautiful, she could have just stayed there all her life and she would havebeen rather happy. ‘Or… we have a long journey to make.’ Thefact that she was going to be on his ship and heading to this ‘Cair Paravel’was something that Arista had to begin to get her head around.
Receiving Maria’s response Caspian nodded his head in understanding. From what he had been told it was only going to be Arista accompanying them back to Cair Paravel. Secretly he wished that the other mermaid was accompanying them, however. If this treaty was not to work then he had no idea how he was going to get in contact with the King of the Sea. Cornelius might know of a way…
Caspian was jerked out of his thoughts as Arista moved away from him and over to the governess. He stayed where he was as the two exchanged goodbyes and even said his own before Maria dove into the water. Yet again soft gasped escaped from his men as they watched her change back into a mermaid and swam away. Noticing Arista’s small struggle to walk Caspian moved forward and offered her his arm. He had a small feeling that she was going to turn him down but he had an idea on how to get to do as he wanted.
“Yes, we’ll be leaving in a moment,” he said, ignoring her assertive tone. “But we must replenish our food supply. We have acquired a few more people than we thought we would have on this journey and therefore we’re running low. Right now is our only chance to do that for a long while.” And there was no way he was going to pass up the chance of an endless supply of food for his men and subjects aboard the Dawn Treader. Aslan’s Table was a fantastic find on this journey and he was sure the noble lion would encourage them to take as much food as they needed. Turning to Drinian he said, “Have the men prepare to gather some food. I wish to speak to Arista alone for a moment.” Drinian nodded his head before turning to the men and began to give out orders.
Turning his back on the men and making sure to block them from her view Caspian released a small sigh as he went over what he wanted to talk to her about one more time. “Now,” he began in a soft voice so their conversation wouldn’t be heard by the others, “I do understand how you feel about this situation, it might not seem like it but I do. Which is why I wish to only ask one thing of you- please, just give my people a chance.” That was all Caspian wanted. He could careless about marriage personally but he would not careless for his people. If there could be some sort of advantage for them by forming this alliance with the merpeople then he would do it for them. “As long as you do that then I’m willing to find another way for this alliance to work that does not involve us being married and you being back in the sea.”
Sighing once again and licking his lips quickly he said, “I just wanted you to hear that. Like it or not, the two of us are going to be spending time together for these next few months and I wanted you to know my motives.” Caspian glanced over his shoulder at the crew to make sure that they were still busy preparing the barrels and crates for the food they were about to go and get. “Now come, we need to get you used to walking on solid ground before we leave. I’m afraid once we’re at sea you will be on your bottom for the whole trip if we don’t.” Seeing how off balance the blonde was only made him believe that she wouldn’t fair too well on the Dawn Treader. There was also no doubt in his mind that if she did end up sitting down for the whole journey that he would have a miserable mermaid on his hands and that was the last thing he wanted.
“You may call me Caspian as well,” he said with another kind smile and offered both of his hand for her to take. He didn’t see why they needed to use titles when they were both of royal birth. And has he said earlier, they were going to spend much time together so they might as well get used to addressing each other with no formalities.















