Awaiting Redemption

banner by Cait

When we arrived back at the Castle, dinner for the castle residents had already been served. Trumpkin and Trufflehunter were waiting for me at a small card table, ready to start filling me in on the previous months. So, this was where Caspian and I parted for the day. I walked over to the card table, and as soon as I was sitting down comfortably, the storytelling began.

"The boy had been running from the Telmarin castle, the old King Miraz's queen had just given birth to a boy who Miraz wanted to be heir to the throne, and thus desired to see Caspian dead to protect his own son's future," Trumpkin started off, obviously dreading re-telling the past events.

"Somehow, he got knocked off his horse right outside of our own den, and Trumpkin, Nikabrik, and I hear it all. We go outside and see the boy and immediately think him of Telmarin descent, but he had the Horn of Susan. He blew the horn and we saved the boy and immediately brought him inside. However, we ended up losing Trumpkin to the rest of the men who were chasing down the Prince," Trufflehunter added.

"Wait," I interrupted, "what horn, Susan's?"

"Yes, the Prince blew Queen Susan's horn for help and Nikabrik, being the sensible black dwarf he was, beat him on the head knocking him unconscious," Trumpkin grumbled.

And from there, the story split off in two different directions: what happened to Caspian after Trufflehunter and Nikabrik took him in, and what happened to Trumpkin after the Telmarins took him away.

Trufflehunter lead the way with what was to be the former (since, I'm assuming, Nikabrik is no longer with us.)

"The Boy, who we later found to be Prince Caspian, woke up and immediately assumed the worst of us. After we dissected the situation, we found the boy needed our help to reclaim his throne, so we lead him to the Dancing Lawn, where we knew a bunch of Narnians had assembled.

On the way there, we were met by Telmarin soldiers. If it weren't for a rat by the name of Reepicheep, we would have been goners."

"If you don't mind me interrupting, Reepicheep is a mouse. And, well, I thought you might be hungry," Prince Caspian interjected, placing a bowl of soup in front of me while he pulled up a chair and placed a bowl of his own in front of himself.

I looked at the soup and realized that I was actually starving. I smiled at Caspian in thanks and nodded at Trufflehunter, urging him to continue.

"The Old Narnians agreed to help Prince Caspian restore his throne as long as he promised to return to them the land that they had lost at the hands of the Telmarin kings."

Caspian caught on and added to the story, "We didn't have much time of course, my Uncle Miraz had sent out his men to try to find me and kill me. So we moved as quickly as we could, gathering soldiers to fight and weapons. A day or two into our gathering, we ran into the Pevensies."

I choked on my soup and Caspian continued, "Well, actually... Peter meant to attack one of our soldiers. I did not know he was the High King so we ended up clashing swords. It wasn't until Lucy interrupted that we recognized we were on the same side."

"Well, why would Peter attack your soldier?"

Trufflehunter chirped in with a simple answer of: "He was a minotaur."

My lips formed an 'o' in understanding and the story continued on, this time Trumpkin retracing Trufflehunter's footsteps but telling his perspective of everything. I learned that Peter was still the strongwilled, hard-headed kid I fell in love with, and at this, I smiled. From Peter leading them the wrong way to Lucy believing she saw Aslan, all of it reaffirmed my hopes that the Pevensies' had not changed much.

About twenty minutes later, we all decided to call it a night. I thanked Trumpkin and Trufflehunter for taking the time to re-inform me and they simply nodded and left. Thus, leaving me with an empty soup bowl and a pondering Prince.

I sat back down at the table and looked over at the Prince. How long would we be here?

***

Whatever Prince Caspian was thinking of was making him tear up. No joke. It was kind of pathetic, really. I suppose it doesn't help when he turns to look at me and finds me staring right back at him.

"You're sort of like Susan in a way, ya know? You're just slimmer."

...good to know.

"Yes, well... our parents are different," I offered as a sort of response. I really just wanted to get to bed. I looked at my itchy socks and noticed that I was still in my clothing from California. I really just wanted to change, too.

"Caspian, would you mind leading me back to my room... big castle, small girl, I don't want to get lost."

He smiled, nodded, and motioned for me to follow him. I memorized the path we took so that tomorrow, after more stories have been told, I can rely on myself to get back safely. After only what seemed like five minutes later, we had reached my room.

The sad thing is that I didn't notice. I kept walking and Caspian had to yell down the hall to point out that I had walked straight past my own room. I blushed slightly and resisted the urge to itch my leg as I bid farewell to Caspian.

I undid my shirt and slid off my overskirt before climbing into bed. I thought to myself, if Peter and Lucy and even Edmund had come to Narnia just a few weeks before I had, why couldn't they have stayed?

At this, a tear fell down my cheek.