It Is Time

[Queen Susan the Gentle]

She saw the strange paste and didn't know what to think of it. She said it wouldn't hurt, but expeirence with Lennia's magic proved otherwise. Everything she used hurt badly. Caspian was holding her and she placed her head against his chest. "Maybe he'll still be where we heard him earlier. But then again, he's not a tame lion, and could've left a long time ago." Is Aslan had any thoughts about comming to see you and your child wouldn't he have come himself?" The voice said, The great lion has much better things to deal with than a pathetic child of a demon." I don't care what he says or thinks about the baby, she told herself, Whatever his choice, I will love and care for him just the same.

[King Caspian X]

Caspian walked, resting his head on top of Susan's, lovingly. When the man looked down, he could see the little baby looking in his direction, his eyes still closed. "How long does it usually take after birth for a child to open his eyes?" Caspian asked his wife. His footsteps were silent on the darkening grass, and his eyes looked up to search for Aslan, down to his family, then back up again as if he couldn't decide which he should be doing.

[Queen Susan the Gentle]

"A few weeks I suppose," She guessed. In all the years of her forced studying, in an ironic since, the first few weeks of life in a child was the ones she payed the least attention to. But her thoughts would not remain on her child for much longer. They reached a clearing where the setting sun still had enough room to cast some light through the canopy of trees. The light, as well as she few traces of shadows, illuminated the many pawprints of lions around what lay in the clearing's center. Almost instinctivly she wriggled from her husband's arms passing her child to him in the prosess. After spending only an instant to insure the child was safe in his arms, though she knew it would be beter for the boy if she spent more of her attention on him, and threw herself to the ground beside it. "Lucy!" She cried the girl's name as she pulled the limp body into her arms. From her throat she saw dried blood that had clung to her skin over the passage of the day. Her skin no longer held warmth and her chest was still. She shook the girl for only a moment, still calling her as if her voice had power over her, but stopped after a while as her tears began to stop her voice. The girl would never move again, she was beyond their help. She had died.

[King Caspian X]

Caspian ran after Susan to the body that lay in the clearing. He knelt beside her and placed one arm around his lover, his other arm holding the babe. The King cried at the sight of his friend, his sister-in-law. Teardrops spilled from his eyes and ran down onto his chest. There were no words to describe how he felt. His son was born on the same day that one of his closest friends and family members had died. Caspian had been brought from complete happiness to a mournful agony in a matter of seconds, and his heart ached. It must have been the warrior in him that looked around for evidence of the killer. There was claw marks on the girl's chest, and two different sets of pawprints on the ground. Lion pawprints, of slightly different sizes. The baby began to cry too, as if he knew what had happened even in his current state of blindness. Caspian didn't know what to say to his wife to make her feel any better this time, and he doubted if there was anything that he could.

[Queen Susan the Gentle]

When she felt his arm around her shoulders she burried her face into his chest letting herself cry. The voice had been right, the tree had been right. Something terrible was going to happen, and it did. Death would come and strike, though it would not be for her or her son as she had began to think. It was her sister that suffered it. She only let herself cry, unable to stop the countless memories of life with her sister pass through her mind. They only made things worse on her. "You know better than not to believe me now don't you." The voice taunted, "I am always right, I speak in undenyable truth, and you have seen it as so. But now look around you girl, see it is so. A lion has caused this death, Aslan himself. After all when have you ever seen another lion in Narnia. Aslan is the only one. Aslan is your sister's murderer." She wanted to shake the thoughts away, but when she managed to whipe her tears away enough that she could actualy see the ground around her she knew the voice was right again. "How could Aslan have done this?"

[King Caspian X]

The King rubbed her shoulder as she cried into his skin. "He didn't." Caspian said, comfortingly. "Look." he pointed to the two sets of pawprints. "There were two lions here..." Caspian's hand trailed up the tracks of where the animals had been, "And there was a fight there." he said, pointing to a spot where it seemed that one of the beasts, the smaller one, had staggered and stumbled. But then there was something else. The imediate hoofprints of a stag.

[Queen Susan the Gentle]

His words were comforting, but at first they did not persuade her. Once, a boy from Calomene wh became a prince, said while he was riding he was chased, flanked on both sides by lions. But in the end he found that Aslan had simply ran back and forth behind his stallion fast enough that he was never noticed. Perhaps Aslan could give the illusion of being two lions here as well. But then there was the remains of the fight. She had never known Aslan to fight. There was when the white witch came and he killed her in an instant, but there was no great battle between the two. It was the same when he came and helped them defeat the Telamrine army. Aslan was not one to have epic battles with, it didn't seem to be in his nature. But somehow it had happened here. But the prints of the deer, prints she hadn't noticed before, she found as the most disturbing. No beast, no lion, except for Aslan himself for Lucy claimed to have seen him once as a lamb before he transformed into a lion once more, could have become a deer. "Who else could have done this?"

[King Caspian X]

Caspian thought for what seemed like ages. He wanted to come up with an answer that would seem fitting enough. But once it hit him, he wished that he had never thought about it. Every muscle in his body tensed in rage, his fingers bent into a fist and his jaw clenched. "The one person who seems to be able to become just about everything else." Caspian answered. "He was the tiger, the dragon, the gryphon, the dog, the deer, and the Lion. He was my father at one point, too." The King was suddenly glad that he didn't have his sword with him, because if he did he would have been on his feet and chasing after the bastard that had killed Lucy. "The shape-shifter." Caspian snarled.

[Queen Susan the Gentle]

"No," She told him not wanting to believe. "He couldn't have done this. He's our father, he wouldn't destory his own daughter, even if she is only his through marriage. He's been nothing but loyal to the both of us since he joined us. And if anything, I owe him my life. If he hadn't come and saved me at the trial neither me or the child would have lived to see today. What dose he have to gain by doing this?" Part of her wanted to believe, part did not. All she said about the changeling was true. He had gained her trust tenfold in the time she had come to know him. So why betray her now. But then, if it wasn't him that left, once more, Aslan as the cluprit. This seemed even more unlikely. Again she let herself cry hating the world and hating the cruel being that was death. It came for those who longed for life, yet spared those who searched for, or deserved, death. "This cannot be right."

[King Caspian X]

"I know." Caspian said, embracing both her and the babe. "But he is a traitor, just like the others. Look at Glennstorm and Reepicheep. We trusted them with the lives of our people. And even they have betrayed us. The shape-shifter is no different." the man was crying. He, too, had come to trust the false creature. He had believed that he had his father back. "Why Lucy?" Caspian questioned, tears still raining from his eyes. He looked down at the body of the dead girl.

[Queen Susan the Gentle]

"Lucy always was our better." She admitted, "Every time anything went wrong her only decision was to turn to Aslan. Most times Peter wanted to fight and I didn't know what to do, but she was always set on Aslan. Because she was with us again he may came, just to be with her, and our enemies can't take that risk." Her tears came harder as she thought of her friend's betrayal. They were the last she had expected to turn to Lamont's blood-thirsty campaign, but they had. And to make matters worse, not only did they join him but they demanded the blood of her children as well. There was still a chance they would come after the one that survived once they learn he still lives. She took her baby from Caspian as the thought tore apart her mind. No one would take her child, no matter the cost she had to pay. She carried it, raised it to this point, and suffered through the long, painful hours of labor. Never, after all she had gone through, would her heart let her part with him. She held him close and brushed away what little hair he had. "No one will take you from me. I could never let you go, not my Galen."

[King Caspian X]

Caspian held them both, and kissed Susan and then his son. "That name fits him." he said. The man looked to his son. "Galen." he spoke, trying the name. He liked it. Caspian gazed at his family. He was the luckiest man on earth to have them. And again he felt torn as the happiness came back to him, equally met with mourn for Lucy. "We should get back to the castle." he said. "It's starting to get dark."

[Queen Susan the Gentle]

"No," She objected, something rarely ever done or seen, "I want to stay here, with Lucy, for just a while longer." She would remember this place, as well as the day, for the wonders and horrors it held. It seemed that each moment met with happiness was cast aside as one of fear and sadness came. She was engaged, and then Lamont learns of her child; she marries and learns that she will have triplets, and thin Lamont attacks eventualy turning against her friends against them; now she has the only one of the babies that survived Caspian's dagger, though the effects of the blade was seen in a small scar on it's tiny arm, lie almost sleeping in her arms while her sister met Aslan in his own realm. She remembered when Lucy had first gone missing Lamont had taunted them into fighting him, telling them Lucy was in Aslan's country. Now she truly was and there was no way to bring her back. "Alrignt," She said at last as the last bit of the sun's light dissapeared and the moonless night dominated the world. "We can go now. But I don't want her body here, she deserves a proper burial. And Peter and Edmund need to know about this."

[Cotnar]

The scruffled mutt ran into the clearing, his paws sliding for a moment against the soil as he forced himself quickly to stop. "I came as soon as I heard word from the trees." He said, "Pray, tell me they are mistaken. Lucy cannot be dead, Aslan would have protected her. If anything there was her own gift from father christmas, couldn't she have healed herself?" He padded to where the body lay, slowly with his head low with respect for the fallen queen, "It cannot be so." He howled as he caught the scent of her, "I can smell lions here, why didn't he help her?"

[King Caspian X]

"I can bring her up to the Castle with us." Caspian offered. So much had happened on this day, it might even be marked down in history. Actually, it would. He was about to scoop Lucy into his arms when the dog came. Caspian's rage peaked beyond measure. This demon had caused them so much pain, told them so many lies... but now it would end. "GET AWAY FROM HER!" he growled, and leapt at the hound. His hands closed around his throat and the King shook him harshly.