He runs his fingers through her hair and twines it gently around them as he listens, as he hears the firm determination in her voice and the intensity behind it. And the thing it brings back to him, in perfect clarity, is the scent of lilies on sweet water, and Aslan's terrible, gentle voice.
(He said – oh, I can't bear it. The worst thing he could have said.)
He thinks of a door opening in the air and closing again, and the awful loneliness that accompanied it when he was left with subjects and defeated enemies and courtiers and advisors, but no friends or peers his own age and no companions who truly understood how and what he felt, no one with whom he was Caspian and not King.
(You're to go on – Reep and Edmund, and Lucy, and Eustace, and I'm to go back. Alone. And at once. And – )
He thinks of a sea white with lilies, and Reepicheep and Drinian and Rynelf and Edmund reminding him sharply of his duty, of the faith he wasn't allowed to break and the worlds he wasn't allowed to leave or see. He remembers watching the star's daughter ride away, glowing and beautiful, on a brilliant May morning, and his son months later, and the empty, echoing halls of the palace for the long, long years after that.
And Caspian thinks –
(– and what is the good of anything?)
– this may be the first time someone has held their hand out to him, and told him, yes, you can come, and not left him behind.
His throat works. All the things he's feeling are too large for words, so he sits up and pulls her into his arms, instead, pressing his head against hers.
no subject
(He said – oh, I can't bear it. The worst thing he could have said.)
He thinks of a door opening in the air and closing again, and the awful loneliness that accompanied it when he was left with subjects and defeated enemies and courtiers and advisors, but no friends or peers his own age and no companions who truly understood how and what he felt, no one with whom he was Caspian and not King.
(You're to go on – Reep and Edmund, and Lucy, and Eustace, and I'm to go back. Alone. And at once. And – )
He thinks of a sea white with lilies, and Reepicheep and Drinian and Rynelf and Edmund reminding him sharply of his duty, of the faith he wasn't allowed to break and the worlds he wasn't allowed to leave or see. He remembers watching the star's daughter ride away, glowing and beautiful, on a brilliant May morning, and his son months later, and the empty, echoing halls of the palace for the long, long years after that.
And Caspian thinks –
(– and what is the good of anything?)
– this may be the first time someone has held their hand out to him, and told him, yes, you can come, and not left him behind.
His throat works. All the things he's feeling are too large for words, so he sits up and pulls her into his arms, instead, pressing his head against hers.