Heaven and Earth - for fardell24
Title: Heaven and Earth
Author: mrstater
Recipient: fardell24
Rating: PG-13
Possible Spoilers/Warnings: mild sexuality and very minor spoilers for Prince Caspian, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and The Silver Chair
Summary: With each new discovery she makes about him, she yearns to explore him as fully as he would explore the universe. She can only hope that she can be world, universe enough for him.
Author's Note: Novelverse, as per request, but I hope it's okay that my Caspian looks like Ben Barnes. ;) Thanks to my lovely beta, [redacted] for untangling my gnarled sentences. :)
Heaven and Earth
When the sleepers wake, Liliandil greets them with calm courtesy, and then goes up the hill to keep watch for the Dawn Treader.
She never doubted that the King of Narnia would break the enchantment, but she cannot deny that the quickening of her pulse, the shortness of her breath are the result of no small measure of uncertainty as to whether he will return to claim his promised kiss. For even as he had gazed upon her as a man bewitched, and spoken pretty words to her of fairy tales and princesses, she had felt his restless energy, seen the wanderlust in his dark eyes, and wondered if this doughty adventurer really could be content to sit at throne with wife and heir, or if he would not find a yet fairer love than she across the Eastern Sea.
He had not, after all, even asked her name.
All these cautious thoughts, however, do not stay her from leaping up at the first glimpse of purple sail billowing above the rise of the hillside. The wind catches the flag of Narnia, unfurling it with a snap to reveal the proud red lion romping across the field of green; Liliandil imagines that emblem flying over a castle perched atop a seaside hill such as this, announcing that the King and Queen are in residence. She turns to go and find her father so that they may trek down to meet the Narnians and--she hopes--their King as they come ashore, but stops in her tracks.
There, in the green field, stands a golden Lion.
"Sire," she says, falling into a deep curtsey, but finding herself unable to avert her eyes from his splendour. "I keep watch for a King, but never thought to meet the King Above All Kings. Forgive me."
Aslan purrs, and without her seeing him move toward her, his great muzzle brushes against her cheek.
"My Shining One," he says in a Voice that rumbles inside her, though she is unsure whether he actually speaks at all. "Your heart sought me, though your mind knew it not."
Liliandil feels certain that if she could but look upon the Lion to the end of her days, she would be filled. Even so, she cannot release the dream of the raven-haired young King without a pang, and it is in a smaller voice than usual that she asks, "Are you come to tell me that King Caspian has sailed to World's End?"
"I am come, dear Daughter, to tell you your story."
She bows her head. "If it pleases you, Aslan, I will hear it."
Another warm kiss from the Lion's mouth, and his amber eyes look deep into hers. "It would please me first to hear what you would have your story be."
A few moments ago Liliandil could have answered without hesitation, but now that it seems unlikely her future holds a Queen's crown, she must give the matter some consideration. Still, the sea beckons her gaze, and she turns to look out at the Dawn Treader dropping anchor in the bay. With her great carved dragon's wings curled around the ship's belly, she looks like a swan bobbing gracefully in the waves.
"Will a ship sail again to these far shores?" Liliandil asks.
"Nay, Daughter of Stars. Not while your life should endure."
Watching the longboat descend from the ship with a dozen or so of the men aboard, though they are too far away to make out their clothing or faces, Liliandil at once knows her mind. "Then still I would sail to Narnia with the Dawn Treader, whether or not the King is aboard."
"You would leave your father Ramandu?"
"We shall be parted soon enough," she replies, quietly, her gaze drifting up above the Dawn Treader's mainsail, where the first stars of evening twinkle palely out from the deep pink fading into purple. "Father will grow young again while I am yet a young woman, and rise once more into heaven with his kin, while I would remain here, to live my long life in solitude. So you see, Sir, why I would go to Narnia."
"Your life will be shorter in that mortal country," Aslan says in a voice so deep that the earth trembles beneath Liliandil's feet. "And your heart will be broken so that you will not believe it may be put whole again."
She turns to him, and meets his honey-hued eyes which reflect the tears pooling in her own. "But I would not be alone."
"It is not good for man nor woman to be alone," Aslan says, "whether in sorrow or in joy. The good people of that land shall carry the sorrows of their Queen as their own, and your joys also shall be theirs also. And in you shall be the fulfilment of the King's yearnings, his world entire."
Liliandil blinks. "Do you mean--?"
She whirls around and peers down at the boat, and catches the sun's glint off a gold circlet worn by the tall, dark-haired man at the prow.
All talk of sorrow forgotten, she beams a smile at Aslan--
--only to find that he has gone.
She hurries down the beach, out into the surf, not minding that the hem of her dress drags in the water and not considering until it's too late that this is neither her usual way nor the most dignified one for greeting a King. But Caspian smiles handsomely as his men row the boat into the shallows, and demonstrates rather less-than-kingly decorum himself as he leaps from it, the waters yet coming up to the tops of his sea boots and soaking his breeches and the bottom of his leather coat. For an instant as he rushes toward her against the outward-rolling waves, Liliandil thinks that perhaps he will catch her in his arms and kiss her passionately on the lips, and the prospect makes her feel a little less steady on bare feet that are already a bit unsure on wet sand that squishes between her toes and shifts with the ebb and flow of the tide.
The King of Narnia, however, stops just short of her and adopts a courtly demeanour despite his drenched clothes. "My Lady."
Liliandil makes as elegant a curtsey as she can manage whilst stood in the surf with a sodden hem. Her momentary disappointment at his not having made the grand romantic gesture of her girlish imaginings is quashed when Caspian's fingers--callused by sword and rein, roughened and slightly gritty from his months of exposure to the sun and wind and the salt of the sea--clasp her hand and raise it to his lips. The contrast of his weathered masculinity with the tenderness of the kisses he presses to each of her knuckles in turn quite takes her breath away; the warmth of his breath on her skin is an intimate detail she never considered in the long weeks of his absence when she indulged herself by imagining the moment of his return to claim his prize, though the intensity of his dark gaze, which never wavers from hers as he bestows these kisses is exactly as she recalls from her first encounter with him.
That memory, along with that of the brief, flirtatious dialogue that had accompanied it, emboldens her to address him in a similar manner when he eventually raises his head--though he doesn't let go her hand.
"Is that the kiss you would claim for dissolving the enchantment of the sleeping lords?"
Hand tightening around hers, Caspian draws her closer against him, the thin, sheer fabric of her gown whispering against his trousers. She watches with interest as the tip of his tongue darts out to moisten his lips. Just as he inclines his head toward hers, his eyes dart sidelong and his smile tilts boyishly, belying the sensual moment just shared.
"In front of the men, Lady?"
Behind him, the men of whom he speaks mill about the shore, some of them barefoot and paddling in the shallows, adjusting to their land legs once again; they make an effort at allowing the King a private reunion with his Lady--though their grins and poorly stifled chuckles indicate that any sense of being alone is illusory. Recalling the Lion's own words about her people's--these people's--joy being her joy, Liliandil is about to inform Caspian that she doesn't mind an audience, when he addresses her again.
"And I think it would be most unconscionable of me to beg a kiss of you when I have not first shown you the courtesy of asking for your name."
Laughing, Liliandil tells him--but she falls silent at the look on his face when he hears it. If he'd looked happy to see her before, that emotion, written in a broad grin, pales now in comparison what he apparently feels as he looks upon her now. Though unsmiling, there is a brilliance to him, shining on his face, in his eyes, as if reflecting a blaze of white light.
"Stars and lilies," Caspian murmurs. "Heaven and earth. My heart broke to turn back from the Silver Sea, whose waters taste sweet and bloom with lilies fair. But here I find once more what I yearned for there."
So closely do his words echo the ones Aslan spoke to her that Liliandil wonders if Caspian, too, received a visit from the Lion.
"Drinian," Caspian addresses the ship's captain, who has been lingering back with the sailors but now snaps to attention. "We will winter on this island with Ramandu and his daughter."
The men cheer at that--though not with quite the gusto as when Caspian cups Liliandil's face in his hands as delicately as if scooping a lily from the still sea, and touches his lips to hers.
~*~
That night, the awakened lords having absolved any lingering fears of falling under enchantment, the King and the Dawn Treader crew tuck into the newly laid feast like men who have not eaten in weeks--which, Caspian informs Liliandil, seated at his right, they have not. They'd drunk liquid light from the Silver Sea, and it had sustained them as they floated along the tranquil current to World's End. Liliandil eats little enough herself, her appetite suppressed by the fluttering in her stomach that hasn't relented since he first kissed her hand.
Equally distracting is the talk of the men. In her solitary existence here with her father, she's never heard so many people talking and laughing at once, and though she enjoys the happy din of it and looks forward to a lifetime of such amiable dinners, she finds it quite impossible to concentrate on anything pertaining to the actual meal for trying to catch all the different threads of conversation. One subject, in particular, captivates her.
"The people of Narnia thought the voyage to find seven missing lords was all very well and good..." announces one of the older sailors, who looks less grey and grizzled than the last time Liliandil saw him, before he'd partaken of the waters of life; clearly he's partaken of a good deal of the good wine, too. "...but they hoped even more that our handsome young King would return from his voyage with a bride, as well."
Liliandil steals a sideways glance at Caspian, who meets her eye with a bashful smile and nudges her knee with his beneath the table.
"We thought he might take a fancy to the Lord's daughter of Galma," the sailor goes on, "but she was short-sighted and freckled, and the King found that off-putting."
"It would seem some my men speak as freely as the wine flows," Caspian interjects, his smile thin now, his voice low but yielding a quiet authority that silences all at the table, which is underscored as he stands, gaining the advantage of height over his seated men as well. "Will my Lady walk with me, lest the salty talk of sailors cause her to reconsider the offer of my hand?"
Though his demeanour is still rather imperious, Liliandil catches the sparkle in his dark eyes meant only for her that makes her heart hammer heavily in her breast. Smiling, she takes his outstretched hand, and he leads her off from the table. For a moment the crew continue to sit in silence, duly chastened, but just before Caspian and Liliandil slip out of earshot, the sounds of merriment touch her ears once more.
They, however, walk silently--a comfortable, companionable sort of quiet, Liliandil thinks, wondering if Caspian, too, is content to think about how their fingers twine together, the contrast of his skin against hers. He leads her all the way down to the shore, where the boat is tied off.
"What say you, Liliandil?" he says, as he gives her a hand up into the boat, not releasing her until she is seated. "Shall we commandeer the Dawn Treader for ourselves and maroon the scallywags here?"
"Do you fancy a pirate's life, your Majesty?"
Unexpectedly, Caspian's boyish grin falls into a scowl. "It is in my blood," he mutters.
He turns from her to untie the boat, then bends to push it down the shore, grunting a little with the effort. Liliandil is about apologise for offending him, when the boat slips into the water with a plash, and Caspian hops in gracefully, though clearly still agitated, and takes the oars.
"What old Darien said about the Lady of Galma," he says, not quite meeting her eye, "I assure you, my reasons for not paying court to her were not so shallow as I may have hinted to the men in jest."
"I never believed they were," Liliandil says, pleased to see that her reassurance causes the lines ease from his forehead. She allows herself a playful addendum, "Though I am curious as to why you deem me a worthy Queen. Apart from my perfect eyesight and clear complexion, of course."
Caspian makes no answer and pulls the oars through the water, mustering only a thin smile which soon fades as his gaze drifts beyond her shoulder; again Liliandil fears having misspoken. She wonders, briefly, if the young King's moods, apparently as changeable as the sea, are what Aslan referred to when he spoke of the difficulties she would have in Narnia.
But her royal suitor is all charm and tenderness once more when the remaining crewmen have hoisted the boat up onto the main deck of the Dawn Treader, and she forgets her misgivings as she looks all about her surroundings.
"Oh, but she is a beauty!"
She glimpses Caspian's beaming smile and proud stance, hands clasped behind his back; but then he moves to run a hand along the carved railing, almost caressing the wood, and she remembers his touch and longs for it again.
"I shall give you a proper tour of the ship by daylight, if you like," he says, "It's impossible to fully appreciate her details in this light. She's worked all over by Dwarf artisans, you know." He catches her hand and leads her to the mainmast. "For now I should like to show you the part of the Dawn Treader that is most breathtaking by night. I take it the daughter of a Star knows no fear of heights?"
She follows his gaze up to the crow's nest, and when she pronounces, "The higher the better!" his wide grin flashes in the moonlight.
They climb up to the platform and find, as it is designed for but one lookout, that they must stand close together, for which Caspian at first apologises, until Liliandil teases him that it is a hardship, indeed, to suffer the close proximity of her handsome suitor. She is, in fact, glad of his nearness for a reason that has naught to do with romance; the bobbing of the ship as the waves swell into the bay and the wind at this height make balance quite the feat, even though she has no fear of falling. He stands behind her, slipping his arms about her waist, and holds her against the frame which, through his garments--fine land clothes, linen and velvet, not his sea leathers-she can feel is lean and well-muscled, and when he speaks she enjoys the low rumble of his voice against her back.
"Long have I loved the stars. When I was a youth, my tutor took me up to the highest tower of my Uncle Miraz's castle to stargaze. Not long before I came into my throne, the planets Tarva, Lord of Victory and Alambil, Lady of Peace, danced together--almost as close as you and I stand now."
Liliandil covers his hands with her own, her fingers fiddling with his signet ring, and turns her head to look up at him; his beard prickles slightly against her temple.
"That was a most fortuitous sign," she says, awe stealing throughout her as the greatness of this man, and the significance of his reign, are made clearer to her.
"It was a great comfort in that time, when I was but a boy, an untried warrior facing a mighty army, to know that greater forces than my sword fought with me. Yet the longer I rule, especially as Narnia enjoys peace and prosperity, the easier it becomes to forget that..." His eyes search the sky, brightening as their darkness reflects the starlight. "But these stars are strangers to me."
Liliandil returns her attention to the heavens. "They are my kin."
"Have you ever met them?"
"No," she replies, smiling at his keen enthusiasm; she is relieved that his introspective, slightly self-recriminating mood has passed--for now, at least. "But I feel I know them well, through my father."
She takes his hand in her own, guiding it upward to point out the stars to him, and he leans in to her, his cheek brushing against hers, as she tells him their names and their stories.
"During our sojourn here, I shall speak with your father about the stars," Caspian says after she has spoken at length. He leans his chin on her shoulder and sighs--not in guilt or resignation as before, but out of longing. "I yen to navigate the heavens as I have navigated the seas, to visit other worlds as I have explored these distant shores. Do you know that King Edmund and Queen Lucy came hither from a round world? Can you imagine such a thing as walking upon a round world? What is it like, do you think, to live in the upside-down parts? Has Ramandu gazed down upon such worlds and seen the people going about upside-down?"
Liliandil laughs as she turns in his arms, but stifles her amusement when she sees his face and realises he is entirely in earnest. "I am not the expert my father is, of course, but I think perhaps it is something to do with direction being a relative concept."
Caspian's eyebrows twitch together, and his hands fall to his sides. "Relative to what?"
Liliandil glances down, and when Caspian follows suit, she rocks back on her heels, hitching up her skirt above her ankles, and wiggles her toes. "Our feet."
For a moment he considers this, then his features register enlightenment and he grins broadly at her. "I say! What you mean is that if you viewed a planet from the perspective of flying about in space, you'd not have the ground to orient yourself. Therefore up and down are arbitrarily assigned designations."
"Quite so."
Caspian's pleased expression falters slightly as he glances away. "King Edmund must have thought me quite the idiot when I talked to him of the upside-down countries."
"I am certain he thought nothing of the sort. I don't."
Caspian takes her hands and brings them to his lips. "My Lady is very kind."
"I believe it is a good thing for the King to be curious about the world beyond his realm."
He kisses her gently on the lips, then, lingering for a moment with his forehead resting against hers and their hands clasped between them, before drawing back.
"It is no good thing for the King to allow his curiosity about the world to become an excuse to escape that over which he has governance," he says.
That brooding look is in his eyes again, and it leaves Liliandil rather at a loss as to how she's managed to strike a chord with him so many times in the course of this conversation. Perhaps Aslan was mistaken about her being the right Queen for King Caspian.
"Is that the reason you undertook this voyage?" she ventures to ask.
Caspian releases her hands and moves to stand beside her, leaning his hands on the railing. His eyes now peer down at the dark waves below rather than on the starry sky.
"You wondered why I deemed you a worthy Queen. I think what you were too tactful to ask is what my true reasons for rejecting the Galmian lady."
"Do not feel you must speak to me about that which is not comfortable for you."
He raises his head, his eyes imploring her. "I have need to unburden myself--if you are willing."
"I am," she replies. "Not only willingly, but gladly."
It seems such a small thing, the offer to listen, but Caspian looks so supremely grateful that Liliandil thinks she may not have made so many missteps tonight as feared, that this is one Queenly duty she may, after all, show herself capable of carrying out.
He takes a moment to collect his thoughts and organise them into words, and at last speaks.
"I have never known what it is to have a family. Now that I am King of Narnia, I discover that one of my duties to my people is to marry and establish a line of kings that will bring stability to a land that fears falling once more into disorder and become vulnerable to such tyrants as my forebears--or worse--and I can only think of my Uncle Miraz and Aunt Prunaprismia. I witnessed little love between them, nor even any tenderness until she bore him his son. Perhaps it is craven of me, but I detest the thought of being trapped in such a marriage as that, formed of a political alliance rather than the union of hearts. I could not bear to be married and yet remain as alone as I have ever been. And so I embarked upon this voyage, in part to delay the fulfilment of that obligation."
Silence hangs between them for some minutes after Caspian ceases talking, as Liliandil works through all he has admitted to her. He means to confess to her a weaknesses of character, but his words have rather the opposite effect. Her heart stirs in sympathy for the life of loneliness he has led, realising that even now, on the Dawn Treader, he has few in whom he may confide, except perhaps Lord Drinian, because of his position of authority over them. King Edmund and Queen Lucy must be the closest Caspian has ever had to true, equal friends--and now they are gone, forever, he says. More than anything, Liliandil wishes to fill that void in his life--and in turn, to be filled by him.
"You are wise to know your own heart so well," she says.
But Caspian shakes his head. "Aslan...came to me at World's End and showed me my heart."
"He came to me, too."
"Did he!" The dark eyebrows rise in astonishment. "What did he say?"
Liliandil hesitates, unsure whether Aslan meant his words for her alone, or to be shared with Caspian. The hardships he spoke of--were they hers alone to bear, or would Caspian face an end to the victory and peace foretold by his Narnian skies? In either case, it couldn't do to burden him further now, when he already bows under the weight of his own feelings of guilt and falling short as King.
"That is my story," she replies, and hopes he doesn't take it amiss.
He chuckles and straightens up, dragging a hand through his dark hair before leaning back against the mainmast. "And so he would say."
"You gain no political advantage if you marry me," Liliandil says. "The lone inhabitant of this island shall soon resume his place in the heavenly dance, and the island itself is too far from Narnia to be considered a viable acquisition for resources."
Caspian regards her for a moment with obvious admiration, which pleases her, and then his eyes twinkle. "You, on the other hand," he says, leaning his shoulder into hers, "stand to benefit greatly from the union."
"It is not the crown that benefits me, but the man I would wed. I am as pleased to give you a family, Caspian, as I am to receive the one you would give me." Her eyes drift up to the stars, the very ones she identified to him as aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, and a sudden breeze kicks up from the sea, chilling her bare shoulders. She folds her arms around herself. "I, too, know something about what it is to be alone."
A heartbeat, and then Caspian's hand is on her shoulder, turning her to face him, and he cups her face in his long-fingered, callused hands as he did earlier, though he does not kiss her. "I knew when first I set eyes on you that you were a great lady."
It is she who closes the gap between them, arching up on her toes and sliding her open palms over his chest to settle on his neck. The skin above his silken collar is warm, and she feels the rapid beat of his pulse, the roll of his Adam's apple in his throat as he swallows. She cannot stop herself making a small sigh of pleasure against his mouth as the patch of beard beneath his lower lip scratches deliciously against hers, and with each new discovery she makes about him, she yearns to explore him as fully as he would explore the universe. She can only hope that his own low sounds, the tightening of his embrace as he pushes her back against the mainmast to deepen their kiss, mean that he feels the same about her, that though he must put an end to his days as King Caspian the Seafarer, she can be world, universe enough for him. And then his hands slide upward on her waist, so that they just brush the undersides of her breasts in her thin, sheer gown.
With a gasp, Liliandil pulls her mouth from his, but Caspian merely transfers his lips to her jaw and blazes a trail of kisses along it, lingering at the sensitive hollow beneath her ear before furthering his exploration down to her neck.
"If you feel duty-bound to return to Narnia," she says between breaths, "do not feel you must tarry here for my sake. I would go with you at once if you asked."
"Impatient, my love?" he murmurs against her collarbone, raising his eyes to her as his lips continue to work their magic on her skin.
Liliandil buries her fingers in his thick hair--unsurprisingly, it is coarsened by the sea, though she can imagine it slipping like spun silk threads through her fingers back in Narnia--and lifts his head. "I have waited for you these many weeks."
This obviously pleases Caspian. He presses his lips once more to hers in a gentle, sweetly lingering parting kiss, and then straightens up to his full height.
"I fear a mutiny should I command my men back on the ship to eat sea rations after so brief a shore leave. But that does not mean you and I must wait to marry." He pauses, his eyes darting away, and his lips tugging in a small, self-conscious smile before he meets her gaze again and says, "You do accept my hand, don't you, Liliandil, Lady of the Stars and Lilies? You consent to be my Queen, and my dearly beloved wife?"
"I do."
He enfolds her against him, and they gaze long at the stars that shine down upon gently rolling silhouetted hills of the island.
Fin
Original Prompt that we sent you: A short story set during The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, exploring an island not seen in the novel (or movie), or Caspian/Liliandil courting (novelverse).
Prompt words/objects/quotes/whatever:
What I definitely don't want in my fic: Incest (Ed/Lu Yuck!) or same gender pairings.
Author: mrstater
Recipient: fardell24
Rating: PG-13
Possible Spoilers/Warnings: mild sexuality and very minor spoilers for Prince Caspian, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and The Silver Chair
Summary: With each new discovery she makes about him, she yearns to explore him as fully as he would explore the universe. She can only hope that she can be world, universe enough for him.
Author's Note: Novelverse, as per request, but I hope it's okay that my Caspian looks like Ben Barnes. ;) Thanks to my lovely beta, [redacted] for untangling my gnarled sentences. :)
Heaven and Earth
When the sleepers wake, Liliandil greets them with calm courtesy, and then goes up the hill to keep watch for the Dawn Treader.
She never doubted that the King of Narnia would break the enchantment, but she cannot deny that the quickening of her pulse, the shortness of her breath are the result of no small measure of uncertainty as to whether he will return to claim his promised kiss. For even as he had gazed upon her as a man bewitched, and spoken pretty words to her of fairy tales and princesses, she had felt his restless energy, seen the wanderlust in his dark eyes, and wondered if this doughty adventurer really could be content to sit at throne with wife and heir, or if he would not find a yet fairer love than she across the Eastern Sea.
He had not, after all, even asked her name.
All these cautious thoughts, however, do not stay her from leaping up at the first glimpse of purple sail billowing above the rise of the hillside. The wind catches the flag of Narnia, unfurling it with a snap to reveal the proud red lion romping across the field of green; Liliandil imagines that emblem flying over a castle perched atop a seaside hill such as this, announcing that the King and Queen are in residence. She turns to go and find her father so that they may trek down to meet the Narnians and--she hopes--their King as they come ashore, but stops in her tracks.
There, in the green field, stands a golden Lion.
"Sire," she says, falling into a deep curtsey, but finding herself unable to avert her eyes from his splendour. "I keep watch for a King, but never thought to meet the King Above All Kings. Forgive me."
Aslan purrs, and without her seeing him move toward her, his great muzzle brushes against her cheek.
"My Shining One," he says in a Voice that rumbles inside her, though she is unsure whether he actually speaks at all. "Your heart sought me, though your mind knew it not."
Liliandil feels certain that if she could but look upon the Lion to the end of her days, she would be filled. Even so, she cannot release the dream of the raven-haired young King without a pang, and it is in a smaller voice than usual that she asks, "Are you come to tell me that King Caspian has sailed to World's End?"
"I am come, dear Daughter, to tell you your story."
She bows her head. "If it pleases you, Aslan, I will hear it."
Another warm kiss from the Lion's mouth, and his amber eyes look deep into hers. "It would please me first to hear what you would have your story be."
A few moments ago Liliandil could have answered without hesitation, but now that it seems unlikely her future holds a Queen's crown, she must give the matter some consideration. Still, the sea beckons her gaze, and she turns to look out at the Dawn Treader dropping anchor in the bay. With her great carved dragon's wings curled around the ship's belly, she looks like a swan bobbing gracefully in the waves.
"Will a ship sail again to these far shores?" Liliandil asks.
"Nay, Daughter of Stars. Not while your life should endure."
Watching the longboat descend from the ship with a dozen or so of the men aboard, though they are too far away to make out their clothing or faces, Liliandil at once knows her mind. "Then still I would sail to Narnia with the Dawn Treader, whether or not the King is aboard."
"You would leave your father Ramandu?"
"We shall be parted soon enough," she replies, quietly, her gaze drifting up above the Dawn Treader's mainsail, where the first stars of evening twinkle palely out from the deep pink fading into purple. "Father will grow young again while I am yet a young woman, and rise once more into heaven with his kin, while I would remain here, to live my long life in solitude. So you see, Sir, why I would go to Narnia."
"Your life will be shorter in that mortal country," Aslan says in a voice so deep that the earth trembles beneath Liliandil's feet. "And your heart will be broken so that you will not believe it may be put whole again."
She turns to him, and meets his honey-hued eyes which reflect the tears pooling in her own. "But I would not be alone."
"It is not good for man nor woman to be alone," Aslan says, "whether in sorrow or in joy. The good people of that land shall carry the sorrows of their Queen as their own, and your joys also shall be theirs also. And in you shall be the fulfilment of the King's yearnings, his world entire."
Liliandil blinks. "Do you mean--?"
She whirls around and peers down at the boat, and catches the sun's glint off a gold circlet worn by the tall, dark-haired man at the prow.
All talk of sorrow forgotten, she beams a smile at Aslan--
--only to find that he has gone.
She hurries down the beach, out into the surf, not minding that the hem of her dress drags in the water and not considering until it's too late that this is neither her usual way nor the most dignified one for greeting a King. But Caspian smiles handsomely as his men row the boat into the shallows, and demonstrates rather less-than-kingly decorum himself as he leaps from it, the waters yet coming up to the tops of his sea boots and soaking his breeches and the bottom of his leather coat. For an instant as he rushes toward her against the outward-rolling waves, Liliandil thinks that perhaps he will catch her in his arms and kiss her passionately on the lips, and the prospect makes her feel a little less steady on bare feet that are already a bit unsure on wet sand that squishes between her toes and shifts with the ebb and flow of the tide.
The King of Narnia, however, stops just short of her and adopts a courtly demeanour despite his drenched clothes. "My Lady."
Liliandil makes as elegant a curtsey as she can manage whilst stood in the surf with a sodden hem. Her momentary disappointment at his not having made the grand romantic gesture of her girlish imaginings is quashed when Caspian's fingers--callused by sword and rein, roughened and slightly gritty from his months of exposure to the sun and wind and the salt of the sea--clasp her hand and raise it to his lips. The contrast of his weathered masculinity with the tenderness of the kisses he presses to each of her knuckles in turn quite takes her breath away; the warmth of his breath on her skin is an intimate detail she never considered in the long weeks of his absence when she indulged herself by imagining the moment of his return to claim his prize, though the intensity of his dark gaze, which never wavers from hers as he bestows these kisses is exactly as she recalls from her first encounter with him.
That memory, along with that of the brief, flirtatious dialogue that had accompanied it, emboldens her to address him in a similar manner when he eventually raises his head--though he doesn't let go her hand.
"Is that the kiss you would claim for dissolving the enchantment of the sleeping lords?"
Hand tightening around hers, Caspian draws her closer against him, the thin, sheer fabric of her gown whispering against his trousers. She watches with interest as the tip of his tongue darts out to moisten his lips. Just as he inclines his head toward hers, his eyes dart sidelong and his smile tilts boyishly, belying the sensual moment just shared.
"In front of the men, Lady?"
Behind him, the men of whom he speaks mill about the shore, some of them barefoot and paddling in the shallows, adjusting to their land legs once again; they make an effort at allowing the King a private reunion with his Lady--though their grins and poorly stifled chuckles indicate that any sense of being alone is illusory. Recalling the Lion's own words about her people's--these people's--joy being her joy, Liliandil is about to inform Caspian that she doesn't mind an audience, when he addresses her again.
"And I think it would be most unconscionable of me to beg a kiss of you when I have not first shown you the courtesy of asking for your name."
Laughing, Liliandil tells him--but she falls silent at the look on his face when he hears it. If he'd looked happy to see her before, that emotion, written in a broad grin, pales now in comparison what he apparently feels as he looks upon her now. Though unsmiling, there is a brilliance to him, shining on his face, in his eyes, as if reflecting a blaze of white light.
"Stars and lilies," Caspian murmurs. "Heaven and earth. My heart broke to turn back from the Silver Sea, whose waters taste sweet and bloom with lilies fair. But here I find once more what I yearned for there."
So closely do his words echo the ones Aslan spoke to her that Liliandil wonders if Caspian, too, received a visit from the Lion.
"Drinian," Caspian addresses the ship's captain, who has been lingering back with the sailors but now snaps to attention. "We will winter on this island with Ramandu and his daughter."
The men cheer at that--though not with quite the gusto as when Caspian cups Liliandil's face in his hands as delicately as if scooping a lily from the still sea, and touches his lips to hers.
~*~
That night, the awakened lords having absolved any lingering fears of falling under enchantment, the King and the Dawn Treader crew tuck into the newly laid feast like men who have not eaten in weeks--which, Caspian informs Liliandil, seated at his right, they have not. They'd drunk liquid light from the Silver Sea, and it had sustained them as they floated along the tranquil current to World's End. Liliandil eats little enough herself, her appetite suppressed by the fluttering in her stomach that hasn't relented since he first kissed her hand.
Equally distracting is the talk of the men. In her solitary existence here with her father, she's never heard so many people talking and laughing at once, and though she enjoys the happy din of it and looks forward to a lifetime of such amiable dinners, she finds it quite impossible to concentrate on anything pertaining to the actual meal for trying to catch all the different threads of conversation. One subject, in particular, captivates her.
"The people of Narnia thought the voyage to find seven missing lords was all very well and good..." announces one of the older sailors, who looks less grey and grizzled than the last time Liliandil saw him, before he'd partaken of the waters of life; clearly he's partaken of a good deal of the good wine, too. "...but they hoped even more that our handsome young King would return from his voyage with a bride, as well."
Liliandil steals a sideways glance at Caspian, who meets her eye with a bashful smile and nudges her knee with his beneath the table.
"We thought he might take a fancy to the Lord's daughter of Galma," the sailor goes on, "but she was short-sighted and freckled, and the King found that off-putting."
"It would seem some my men speak as freely as the wine flows," Caspian interjects, his smile thin now, his voice low but yielding a quiet authority that silences all at the table, which is underscored as he stands, gaining the advantage of height over his seated men as well. "Will my Lady walk with me, lest the salty talk of sailors cause her to reconsider the offer of my hand?"
Though his demeanour is still rather imperious, Liliandil catches the sparkle in his dark eyes meant only for her that makes her heart hammer heavily in her breast. Smiling, she takes his outstretched hand, and he leads her off from the table. For a moment the crew continue to sit in silence, duly chastened, but just before Caspian and Liliandil slip out of earshot, the sounds of merriment touch her ears once more.
They, however, walk silently--a comfortable, companionable sort of quiet, Liliandil thinks, wondering if Caspian, too, is content to think about how their fingers twine together, the contrast of his skin against hers. He leads her all the way down to the shore, where the boat is tied off.
"What say you, Liliandil?" he says, as he gives her a hand up into the boat, not releasing her until she is seated. "Shall we commandeer the Dawn Treader for ourselves and maroon the scallywags here?"
"Do you fancy a pirate's life, your Majesty?"
Unexpectedly, Caspian's boyish grin falls into a scowl. "It is in my blood," he mutters.
He turns from her to untie the boat, then bends to push it down the shore, grunting a little with the effort. Liliandil is about apologise for offending him, when the boat slips into the water with a plash, and Caspian hops in gracefully, though clearly still agitated, and takes the oars.
"What old Darien said about the Lady of Galma," he says, not quite meeting her eye, "I assure you, my reasons for not paying court to her were not so shallow as I may have hinted to the men in jest."
"I never believed they were," Liliandil says, pleased to see that her reassurance causes the lines ease from his forehead. She allows herself a playful addendum, "Though I am curious as to why you deem me a worthy Queen. Apart from my perfect eyesight and clear complexion, of course."
Caspian makes no answer and pulls the oars through the water, mustering only a thin smile which soon fades as his gaze drifts beyond her shoulder; again Liliandil fears having misspoken. She wonders, briefly, if the young King's moods, apparently as changeable as the sea, are what Aslan referred to when he spoke of the difficulties she would have in Narnia.
But her royal suitor is all charm and tenderness once more when the remaining crewmen have hoisted the boat up onto the main deck of the Dawn Treader, and she forgets her misgivings as she looks all about her surroundings.
"Oh, but she is a beauty!"
She glimpses Caspian's beaming smile and proud stance, hands clasped behind his back; but then he moves to run a hand along the carved railing, almost caressing the wood, and she remembers his touch and longs for it again.
"I shall give you a proper tour of the ship by daylight, if you like," he says, "It's impossible to fully appreciate her details in this light. She's worked all over by Dwarf artisans, you know." He catches her hand and leads her to the mainmast. "For now I should like to show you the part of the Dawn Treader that is most breathtaking by night. I take it the daughter of a Star knows no fear of heights?"
She follows his gaze up to the crow's nest, and when she pronounces, "The higher the better!" his wide grin flashes in the moonlight.
They climb up to the platform and find, as it is designed for but one lookout, that they must stand close together, for which Caspian at first apologises, until Liliandil teases him that it is a hardship, indeed, to suffer the close proximity of her handsome suitor. She is, in fact, glad of his nearness for a reason that has naught to do with romance; the bobbing of the ship as the waves swell into the bay and the wind at this height make balance quite the feat, even though she has no fear of falling. He stands behind her, slipping his arms about her waist, and holds her against the frame which, through his garments--fine land clothes, linen and velvet, not his sea leathers-she can feel is lean and well-muscled, and when he speaks she enjoys the low rumble of his voice against her back.
"Long have I loved the stars. When I was a youth, my tutor took me up to the highest tower of my Uncle Miraz's castle to stargaze. Not long before I came into my throne, the planets Tarva, Lord of Victory and Alambil, Lady of Peace, danced together--almost as close as you and I stand now."
Liliandil covers his hands with her own, her fingers fiddling with his signet ring, and turns her head to look up at him; his beard prickles slightly against her temple.
"That was a most fortuitous sign," she says, awe stealing throughout her as the greatness of this man, and the significance of his reign, are made clearer to her.
"It was a great comfort in that time, when I was but a boy, an untried warrior facing a mighty army, to know that greater forces than my sword fought with me. Yet the longer I rule, especially as Narnia enjoys peace and prosperity, the easier it becomes to forget that..." His eyes search the sky, brightening as their darkness reflects the starlight. "But these stars are strangers to me."
Liliandil returns her attention to the heavens. "They are my kin."
"Have you ever met them?"
"No," she replies, smiling at his keen enthusiasm; she is relieved that his introspective, slightly self-recriminating mood has passed--for now, at least. "But I feel I know them well, through my father."
She takes his hand in her own, guiding it upward to point out the stars to him, and he leans in to her, his cheek brushing against hers, as she tells him their names and their stories.
"During our sojourn here, I shall speak with your father about the stars," Caspian says after she has spoken at length. He leans his chin on her shoulder and sighs--not in guilt or resignation as before, but out of longing. "I yen to navigate the heavens as I have navigated the seas, to visit other worlds as I have explored these distant shores. Do you know that King Edmund and Queen Lucy came hither from a round world? Can you imagine such a thing as walking upon a round world? What is it like, do you think, to live in the upside-down parts? Has Ramandu gazed down upon such worlds and seen the people going about upside-down?"
Liliandil laughs as she turns in his arms, but stifles her amusement when she sees his face and realises he is entirely in earnest. "I am not the expert my father is, of course, but I think perhaps it is something to do with direction being a relative concept."
Caspian's eyebrows twitch together, and his hands fall to his sides. "Relative to what?"
Liliandil glances down, and when Caspian follows suit, she rocks back on her heels, hitching up her skirt above her ankles, and wiggles her toes. "Our feet."
For a moment he considers this, then his features register enlightenment and he grins broadly at her. "I say! What you mean is that if you viewed a planet from the perspective of flying about in space, you'd not have the ground to orient yourself. Therefore up and down are arbitrarily assigned designations."
"Quite so."
Caspian's pleased expression falters slightly as he glances away. "King Edmund must have thought me quite the idiot when I talked to him of the upside-down countries."
"I am certain he thought nothing of the sort. I don't."
Caspian takes her hands and brings them to his lips. "My Lady is very kind."
"I believe it is a good thing for the King to be curious about the world beyond his realm."
He kisses her gently on the lips, then, lingering for a moment with his forehead resting against hers and their hands clasped between them, before drawing back.
"It is no good thing for the King to allow his curiosity about the world to become an excuse to escape that over which he has governance," he says.
That brooding look is in his eyes again, and it leaves Liliandil rather at a loss as to how she's managed to strike a chord with him so many times in the course of this conversation. Perhaps Aslan was mistaken about her being the right Queen for King Caspian.
"Is that the reason you undertook this voyage?" she ventures to ask.
Caspian releases her hands and moves to stand beside her, leaning his hands on the railing. His eyes now peer down at the dark waves below rather than on the starry sky.
"You wondered why I deemed you a worthy Queen. I think what you were too tactful to ask is what my true reasons for rejecting the Galmian lady."
"Do not feel you must speak to me about that which is not comfortable for you."
He raises his head, his eyes imploring her. "I have need to unburden myself--if you are willing."
"I am," she replies. "Not only willingly, but gladly."
It seems such a small thing, the offer to listen, but Caspian looks so supremely grateful that Liliandil thinks she may not have made so many missteps tonight as feared, that this is one Queenly duty she may, after all, show herself capable of carrying out.
He takes a moment to collect his thoughts and organise them into words, and at last speaks.
"I have never known what it is to have a family. Now that I am King of Narnia, I discover that one of my duties to my people is to marry and establish a line of kings that will bring stability to a land that fears falling once more into disorder and become vulnerable to such tyrants as my forebears--or worse--and I can only think of my Uncle Miraz and Aunt Prunaprismia. I witnessed little love between them, nor even any tenderness until she bore him his son. Perhaps it is craven of me, but I detest the thought of being trapped in such a marriage as that, formed of a political alliance rather than the union of hearts. I could not bear to be married and yet remain as alone as I have ever been. And so I embarked upon this voyage, in part to delay the fulfilment of that obligation."
Silence hangs between them for some minutes after Caspian ceases talking, as Liliandil works through all he has admitted to her. He means to confess to her a weaknesses of character, but his words have rather the opposite effect. Her heart stirs in sympathy for the life of loneliness he has led, realising that even now, on the Dawn Treader, he has few in whom he may confide, except perhaps Lord Drinian, because of his position of authority over them. King Edmund and Queen Lucy must be the closest Caspian has ever had to true, equal friends--and now they are gone, forever, he says. More than anything, Liliandil wishes to fill that void in his life--and in turn, to be filled by him.
"You are wise to know your own heart so well," she says.
But Caspian shakes his head. "Aslan...came to me at World's End and showed me my heart."
"He came to me, too."
"Did he!" The dark eyebrows rise in astonishment. "What did he say?"
Liliandil hesitates, unsure whether Aslan meant his words for her alone, or to be shared with Caspian. The hardships he spoke of--were they hers alone to bear, or would Caspian face an end to the victory and peace foretold by his Narnian skies? In either case, it couldn't do to burden him further now, when he already bows under the weight of his own feelings of guilt and falling short as King.
"That is my story," she replies, and hopes he doesn't take it amiss.
He chuckles and straightens up, dragging a hand through his dark hair before leaning back against the mainmast. "And so he would say."
"You gain no political advantage if you marry me," Liliandil says. "The lone inhabitant of this island shall soon resume his place in the heavenly dance, and the island itself is too far from Narnia to be considered a viable acquisition for resources."
Caspian regards her for a moment with obvious admiration, which pleases her, and then his eyes twinkle. "You, on the other hand," he says, leaning his shoulder into hers, "stand to benefit greatly from the union."
"It is not the crown that benefits me, but the man I would wed. I am as pleased to give you a family, Caspian, as I am to receive the one you would give me." Her eyes drift up to the stars, the very ones she identified to him as aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, and a sudden breeze kicks up from the sea, chilling her bare shoulders. She folds her arms around herself. "I, too, know something about what it is to be alone."
A heartbeat, and then Caspian's hand is on her shoulder, turning her to face him, and he cups her face in his long-fingered, callused hands as he did earlier, though he does not kiss her. "I knew when first I set eyes on you that you were a great lady."
It is she who closes the gap between them, arching up on her toes and sliding her open palms over his chest to settle on his neck. The skin above his silken collar is warm, and she feels the rapid beat of his pulse, the roll of his Adam's apple in his throat as he swallows. She cannot stop herself making a small sigh of pleasure against his mouth as the patch of beard beneath his lower lip scratches deliciously against hers, and with each new discovery she makes about him, she yearns to explore him as fully as he would explore the universe. She can only hope that his own low sounds, the tightening of his embrace as he pushes her back against the mainmast to deepen their kiss, mean that he feels the same about her, that though he must put an end to his days as King Caspian the Seafarer, she can be world, universe enough for him. And then his hands slide upward on her waist, so that they just brush the undersides of her breasts in her thin, sheer gown.
With a gasp, Liliandil pulls her mouth from his, but Caspian merely transfers his lips to her jaw and blazes a trail of kisses along it, lingering at the sensitive hollow beneath her ear before furthering his exploration down to her neck.
"If you feel duty-bound to return to Narnia," she says between breaths, "do not feel you must tarry here for my sake. I would go with you at once if you asked."
"Impatient, my love?" he murmurs against her collarbone, raising his eyes to her as his lips continue to work their magic on her skin.
Liliandil buries her fingers in his thick hair--unsurprisingly, it is coarsened by the sea, though she can imagine it slipping like spun silk threads through her fingers back in Narnia--and lifts his head. "I have waited for you these many weeks."
This obviously pleases Caspian. He presses his lips once more to hers in a gentle, sweetly lingering parting kiss, and then straightens up to his full height.
"I fear a mutiny should I command my men back on the ship to eat sea rations after so brief a shore leave. But that does not mean you and I must wait to marry." He pauses, his eyes darting away, and his lips tugging in a small, self-conscious smile before he meets her gaze again and says, "You do accept my hand, don't you, Liliandil, Lady of the Stars and Lilies? You consent to be my Queen, and my dearly beloved wife?"
"I do."
He enfolds her against him, and they gaze long at the stars that shine down upon gently rolling silhouetted hills of the island.
Fin
Original Prompt that we sent you: A short story set during The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, exploring an island not seen in the novel (or movie), or Caspian/Liliandil courting (novelverse).
Prompt words/objects/quotes/whatever:
What I definitely don't want in my fic: Incest (Ed/Lu Yuck!) or same gender pairings.