This is Home

The sun was high in the sky and Estella was growing hungry and thirsty.

She didn’t want to let Felix know that she depended on him now for food, so she kept quiet. Her lips were chapped and she hadn’t said anything in a while.

“Your prince isn’t coming,” Felix mocked, walking about the room. He shrugged, as men filtered in and out of the tent. “Looks like it is just you and me.” With a quick nod, the rest of the men left the tent.

“No,” Estella glared. “He will come. I know it.”

“Stop trying to tell yourself that,” Felix sighed. “You know he will not come. He won’t have the guts to come onto Telmarine territory. He won’t risk his life.”

“You do not know him at all!” cried Estella. She knew that Felix only spoke lies to try to make her lose hope. But she knew that Caspian was coming.

A long silence passed, and Felix left the tent. So Estella was left alone.

With her hands tied behind her back, she could feel the ring digging into her fingers. It was a promise. Surely Caspian wouldn’t break that promise? Of course he wouldn’t. She knew him. She knew that he would save her.

Tears filled her eyes and she bowed her head, ashamed that she could ever doubt her husband. She cried until she drifted off into a deep sleep.

The sun was gone when Estella woke, her face dry and salty from crying. She was alone in the tent again. She had a feeling that Caspian would not come after all.

* * *

“Peter!” Lucy cried, as a pile of leaves and petals started to swirl about. It was a dryad, trying to send a message.

The rest of the Pevensies came running, and they stood in front of the dryad. It formed into a man riding onto a horse, pulling someone onto his back. Then the petals formed something tinier, something like a girl, restrained by ropes. And then its final formation was another man on a horse, the horse rearing up, and then a small cry. The leaves then all fluttered to the ground.

“What does that mean?” whispered Edmund.

“The first form,” Susan also whispered in wonder, “The first form was someone we don’t know. That thing, he was pulling onto the horse with him, it seemed like a girl, didn’t it?”

“Quite,” Peter agreed. “And it must be the same girl in the second form.”

“The third form was Prince Caspian,” Lucy breathed.

“Could...” Susan started, but then they were all quiet. Trumpkin then approached them.

“Something wrong, your majesties?” he asked. Peter gulped.

“Assemble the troops,” Peter said gravely, “Estella is in danger, and we fear that Prince Caspian is in danger as well. I want everyone to gather in the How.”

Trumpkin nodded. “Yes, sire.”

Lucy was talking with the dryad that appeared in front of her again. “Please, please bring us news that Caspian and Estella are safe.” The dryad nodded before it fluttered off into the wind.

* * *

Estella was playing with the grass at her feet when outside of the tent she heard some loud cries. Felix then rushed into the tent.

“Looks like you are right,” he muttered, his features darkened by the lack of light. He pulled out a dagger that glinted off the piece of moonlight from the tent door. He slipped behind Estella and all of a sudden, the dagger was pressed up against her throat.

“Please,” Estella begged.

When there was but one cry left outside, the flaps of the tent opened, and Caspian appeared, with a lantern in his hand. Estella recognized the lantern as one of the ones that a Telmarine had been holding earlier.

“Step away from my wife, Felix,” Caspian warned, dropping the lantern and pulling out his sword.