Summary: At a festival in a town near Cair Paravel, your boyfriend Peter helps you fight off some strangers. Prompt #48, “Let her go!” Requested by @penfullofwordsaheadfullofstories
Word Count: 1,428
Note: Thank you for being so patient with me. I apologize for how long this took to write. Hope you enjoy!
Warnings: Being hit on by a stranger.
It is dark out. Night has fallen just an hour ago. You take your dark cloak off its hook and drape it over yourself, covering the unusually plain clothes you are wearing.
Making sure the cloak is fastened securely, you open the door to your room and peek out. You are safe. Nobody is in this hallway of Cair Paravel. Slipping out the room, you quietly shut the door behind you.
As you travel through the halls, sticking to the shadows, you listen attentively for voices. You reach the courtyard without being spotted, though a pair of guards nearly caught you a few hallways ago.
“Peter?” you call softly into the darkness. A few torches burn brightly but there are many shadows that prevent you from seeing all of the courtyard.
Shadows move in one corner and a figure steps out, cloaked in dark fabric as well.
“Here. Let’s go,” the King says, gesturing to you.
Picking up your pace, you walk along side Peter. His fingers brush against yours and then he takes your hand, warm and slightly calloused from swordfighting.
When you pass by the guards at the gate, Peter lifts his hood off his face for a few moments, enough for the centaurs to recognize him. He then puts his hood back on and walks out of the castle with you by his side.
The closest town to Cair Paravel is full of life. Even though it is night, multitudes of lanterns hang from wires above the streets, illuminating the cobblestone paths.
Today the town is celebrating the arrival of a large groups of traders.
Stalls are set up along the main streets with vendors calling out their wares. Children duck and weave between people. A laughing boy nearly runs into you but Peter pulls you away just in time.
The two of you walk around slowly, taking in the sights around you.
In the center of the town square, a raised platform is set up. Musicians play songs on the stage and people dance in front of it. Shadows move and sway to the movements. Flashes of red, purple, and other colors blur and swirl together as the dancers move to the music.
Your eyes are shining as you watch the dancers, and your foot taps to the beat of the drums.
Peter notices this and tells you that he is going to get something and that he’ll return soon. He leaves your side and makes his way to a vendor with a table displaying beautifully colored clothes.
He looks over each article of clothing and suddenly stops at one color that catches his eye. Peter lifts up the dress, the light cloth sliding over his arms. “It’s perfect,” Peter whispers.
“How much does this cost?”
The merchant looks up as Peter raises the dress. “Ah, um, that’s seven trees, sir.”
Peter nods and reaches into a pouch of coins tied to his belt. He places ten trees on the table, sliding them over to the merchant. “Keep the extra,” he says and walks away, leaving the merchant to gape at the astonishing act of generosity.
He returns to find you in the same spot, still watching the dancers
Peter places one hand on your shoulder and smiles when you jump in surprise. He holds out the dress he bought and you widen your eyes.
“For me?”
“Of course. I’m not very interested in wearing dresses myself,” Peter says with a smile. “There’s a place where you can change a few minutes away from here. Then you can join in and dance.”
You grin up at him and take the dress. The silky cloth is dyed a brilliant red. Golden designs are stitched into the main fabric. Thinner, gauzy layers overlap and you are sure that they’ll flow and spread out around you when you whirl around, just like the dancers.
“Ready?” Peter offers you his arm and you link yours through his so that the two of you are walking side-by-side.
The two of you leave the dancers behind and walk to an inn. Though it is a few minutes away, you can still hear the heavy beats of the drums and the chatter of people. The inn is crowded, the first floor full of people laughing and talking, some of them drinking spiced Narnian wine from wooden mugs.
Peter eyes the crowd and hesitates at the entrance. You step away from him, dress in your arms and wave him off. “Don’t come in here, your identity might get revealed.” Pointing to a building across the inn, you tell Peter to wait there. “I’ll meet you at that building when I’m done.” Flashing him a smile, you hurry into the inn.
You ask around for a place to change and the innkeeper directs you to it. It takes you a few minutes to change out of your cloak and simple dress and put on the red dancing dress Peter bought for you.
When you are finished, you look down at yourself and smile at the fabric flowing around your legs. Laughing to yourself, you spin in a circle and watch as the dress spreads out around you before floating back down to your sides.
You start to make your way out of the inn when a strong arm lands on your shoulder. “Peter?”
Turning, you see a tall man about the same height as Peter lean towards you with a grin on his face. He most would describe him as dark and handsome; midnight black hair, strong and sharp jawline, dark brown eyes that reflect the lamps in the inn. Though he is handsome, you are in love with Peter and–
“–hey, gorgeous, are you listening?”
You blink up at him, slightly confused. “Hm?”
“I said, ‘you look pretty, want to dance with me?’”
As he speaks, his breath drifts over to you and you scrunch your nose when you smell beer on his breath. “No thank you,” you politely decline. “I have to–”
“Now, now, where are you hurrying off to? It’s just one dance.”
You slowly make your way towards the entrance, though the guy still follows you. “Someone is waiting–”
“Come on, don’t be shy,” he says and holds onto your arm again. By this time, the two of you are standing just outside the inn.
“Please let me go. There’s someone waiting for me.” You are so close to just punching him to get him to leave you alone when a familiar voice stops you.
“Didn’t you hear what the lady said? Let her go.” Peter steps between you and the man, his back a solid wall protecting you.
The man steps back and lets go of your arm. He eyes Peter as if deciding if he wanted to take him on. “Who do you think you are to interrupt my time with this lady?” he demands.
Peter draws himself to full height. “This lady is unavailable. She is in love with me, and I with her.” He lifts his hood off his head just a little, enough to let some light illuminate his features. “And I’m sure you don’t want to harass someone who I am in love with.”
The man’s face pales and his mouth opens and closes comically. “Y-you-”
Suppressing your laughter, you step around Peter and cross your arms over your chest. Peter wraps one arm around your shoulder as you say, “He’s the King, you know. You’d better run before he arrests you.”
“M-my deepest apologies, Your Majesty.” The man trips over his own feet as he quickly bows and hurries back into the inn.
The laughter that you have been holding in finally explodes and you toss your head back to let it all out. Your head rests on Peter’s arm and your back is against his chest so you can feel the vibrations as he laughs too.
“Did you see his face, Peter?” You manage to ask between peals of laughter.
Grinning down at you, he nods. “I did. And I’m glad I got here in time. Not that I know you can’t defend yourself, but-”
Pressing a finger against his soft lips, you smile. “I get it Peter, I get it.”
Peter gently removes your hand from his face. His fingers tangle up with yours as he presses a kiss against your forehead. “Shall we go to the dance?”
Nodding, you let your entwined hands swing between you as you walk in the direction of the square. There the two of you dance to song after song late into the night.
Lucy had always been able to see more than the others. Narnia is not the beginning, but the catalyst for something bigger. Her belief grows with her sight and she can put names to the most of the things she sees.
It’s easier when she’s younger; people laugh at her imagination and the friends she makes up. No one looks at her strangely. No one whispers rumors about the beasts she dreams up while awake.
The first memory Lucy has of her sight is short and almost dream-like: she was sitting on a chair, swinging her legs as her mother got a haircut. The barber, a chatty woman who shared stories of her own children, looked over with a smile and Lucy saw feathers covering her body, turning arms into wings and fingers into sharp talons. Lucy blinked, but didn’t startle. She kept swinging her legs and looked away.
From then, she sees little things: eyes with cat-like pupils, scales and gills and webbing between fingers, a tongue just a little too long, skin a blue light enough to be mistaken as white. When she tells her family, they smile and comment on her wild imagination. Lucy stops telling them when the amused comments become worried murmurs about how she should have grown out of it.
Edmund kept teasing her, even though she hadn’t mentioned anything in weeks. She would lose her temper at first, say that she really did see them, and he’d laugh. Peter and Susan would reprimand him and reassure Lucy that he was just teasing.
Lucy looked at Edmund and sees his insecurity and his loneliness. She didn’t know what to do but take his teasing lightly and make him laugh with absurd descriptions of the new things she’d seen.
Then the bombs get too close and the four of them were whisked away to the country. Lucy stumbled into a room in search of a hiding place and finds a wardrobe that glows just a little and calls out to her.
She had never seen anything so clearly; horns, hooves, and goat legs. They didn’t disappear into a human disguise either.
When her siblings follow her into the wardrobe, they see as she does for the first time and Lucy couldn’t help but let loose giddy laughter.
They saw.
Magic ran rampant in Narnia and Lucy saw everything so clearly. Her siblings did too. She confesses, the night of their coronation, that she had always been able to see; just little things, here and there, everywhere she went.
For the first time, they believed her. Peter gathered her into a hug and whispered apologies for not listening to her. Susan braided her hair and offered to listen to all the stories Lucy stored up in her. Edmund helped her gather fruit from the gardens and solemnly swears that he’ll fight off any of the not-quite-humans she sees if they ever tried to hurt her.
They go back to England, then back to Narnia, and back again. Edmund and Eustace go with her on her final trip to Narnia, and Aslan murmured encouragement in her ears before she left.
“Be brave and honest,” he said, “You will see more than you have ever seen before. But you will endure, little lioness.”
England was different when she returned; humans and creatures walked alongside each other in the streets. The cashier at the nearby grocer was a sphinx and the principal of her school was a harpy.
Her siblings all carried crowns on their heads and magic in their silhouette. Lucy sees and doesn’t look at her own reflection. Narnia remains with them, even when Susan pushed her faith away and grew up quickly.
(This was the worse thing she had seen yet: Susan losing the glow of magic to powder and carrying a shadow over her heart. The afterimage of her bow lingered on. She didn’t know if that was a good or bad.)
Lucy began to see spirits soon after: ghosts and specters and little floating lights. Her hand passed through a passenger on a train, and she startled, leaning back towards Edmund.
She didn’t know if she was the ghost or the passenger was.
The answer hit her, quite literally, moments later.
All she saw was light; Aslan had brought them back.
