Noble Order of the Lion 2/5 - for anachronisma

[nfe-gremlin.livejournal.com]

Title: Noble Order of the Lion 2/5
Author: running_forever
Recipient: anachronisma
Rating: PG-13 (To be safe, I think)
Possible Spoilers/Warnings: After the final book, couldn't be avoided.
Summary: The world is way too vast around you and you clutch Peter's hand because you feel like you are bursting from your skin with a need to travel in every differnt direction at once and see everything around you at once


Chapter Two

It takes you three days, delayed by the heavy rains, before you arrive at a township which gives way to a city which ends on a castle high on a hill. With the olive branch heavy in your hands, you approach the gate where men in uniforms mill about and they pause at the sight of you. “I have come as an ambassador from the country of Narnia,” you say, calling on words you’ve learned from your brothers and the men glance between each other. “I’m here to see Arthur.”

They don’t know Narnia, though they take you anyway and the bridge is lowered for you. Your feet make hollow noises on the bridge and your heart hammers because these people may not know you but you know them and you’re shaking in anticipation to meet the great king you’ve read about.

Arthur, you learn quickly and you’re unsure if this disappoints you or excites you more, is just a boy. You are taken to court, where he stands from a golden throne and his grin is easy and sure. You are announced by a guard from the bridge and Arthur’s head cocks on the word Narnia.

“Welcome, friends,” he smiles wide and the crown on his head looks heavy and it presses his blond hair flat. “Welcome to Camelot. I am Arthur.”

“My name is Lucy.” You bow and he takes your hand and kisses it. It makes you feel girlish and you resist a giggle that bubbles in your throat. You introduce Caspian, Drinian and Digory and Arthur takes their hands in a fierce shake. The olive branch is still heavy in your arms and you present it to Arthur. “This is for you,” you say and you feel silly, holding a stick with wilting leaves.

“Thank you for the sign of peace.” He takes it and a man appears at his side, looking aged and wise. The aged man takes the branch and he looks intrigued by it. “Merlin, I will let you have this token.”

Arthur reminds you of Peter and when he takes you around Camelot, around his castle, you’re reminded of Cair Paravel. You listen to the smooth, commanding tone of his voice and it makes you think of home.

You meet knights from all the stories you heard and they bow to you and kiss your hand. None of them have heard of Narnia, but they exalt you anyway. Your tour ends in a room with a grand round table. “This is where my knights and I convene,” Arthur says as he pushes open the door for you.

The room is occupied by a man, dressed in the uniform of a knight, and woman, who is beautiful and regal. A taut silence stretches between them and Arthur looks at them in confusion. “Oh, I didn’t think anyone would be in here.” The pair doesn’t look at him right away and the look they give each other is discomfort. “Queen Lucy, this is my queen, Guinevere. And my good friend, Lancelot.” There is pride and affection in Arthur’s voice and you can hear the love for both of these people. “This is Queen Lucy, from the nation of Narnia.”

Guinevere bows to you, but she is distracted and when you whisper of the pleasure of meeting her, she doesn’t hear. Lancelot doesn’t look at you; instead he’s staring at Rhidon on your hip. “That is a mighty sword you carry,” he says and you touch the hilt. “Why would they give such a prize to a woman?”

“Excuse me?” you demand, but Lancelot isn’t looking at you anymore and Caspian straightens under his gaze.

“Do you let all your women fight your battles?” he asks with a harsh laugh in his voice and Arthur strikes him across the head.

“That is enough, Lancelot,” Arthur orders. “I’m sorry for the disrespect.”

“It’s alright. He’s just jealous my sword’s bigger than his,” there’s a swagger to your voice and a smirk that you learned from Edmund and its outcome is the same as when he serves it to Peter; Lancelot’s face goes red and Arthur laughs. “In my country, I would never send my people into a battle I wouldn’t fight in myself.”

Arthur nods, “Well said.” Lancelot is silent and sullen. “I would very much like to throw a feast for you. To celebrate the meeting of our nations. And bid you to stay a few days so that we may learn of each other and welcome in the dawn of our friendship.”

These are rehearsed word from a monarch who has entertained, but they sound genuine coming from Arthur. Guinevere takes you by the arm and you are given a room near her. “I’m sorry for Lancelot,” she says in a soft voice. She has a dress for you, so that you may change from your travel clothes.

“It’s all right. Arthur already apologized. No need to keep on about it.”

She winces and there is something that you’re not catching. “I know, but I feel like I should apologize for him as well.”

You take dinner in a great hall, surrounded by knights and nobles and there are stories by minstrels who talk over the din. Digory is enraptured with Merlin who speaks in a low voice and riddles. There is a pipe in Kirke’s mouth and the smoke curls above him into shapes under Merlin’s control. Caspian and Drinian are engaged in boastful talks with a line of world-worn warriors. Aslan’s Country has wiped the years and struggle from Caspian and Drinian’s faces and the knights scoff at their unsullied features. At the head of the table, Arthur speaks with you and his hand on Guinevere’s never leaves its spot all night.

When you go to bed that night, alone in a plush bed, you dream of Cair Paravel and when you wake you, you’re not entirely sure where you are.

You stay in Camelot for two days without bringing up Nimue. You lose Arthur after the first day to his various duties and the adventures he schedules with Caspian and Drinian. Digory had disappeared into Merlin’s study from morning until the evening and you spend your time with Guinevere.

She is a quiet woman and you sit inside her sitting room. She talks in soft tones and you learn to hush your voice to match hers and when the days become too quiet, you draw her out of her room and walk Camelot’s streets, meeting her people.

She is a quiet woman and she talks in soft tones and you learn to hush your voice to match hers. You sit together in her sitting room and she stitches while you watch. When the days become top quiet, you draw her out of her room and walk Camelot’s streets. You meet her people and though the crowd is missing talking animals, centaurs and fauns, it continues to remind you of home.

It’s nice having a woman to speak to and to wear beautiful dresses, but you are used to men and running through the forests, barefooted and with tears in your dresses and you begin to long for other company.

On your third day, Arthur appears in the door of Guinevere's, red-faced and sweating. He’s been riding with Caspian and Drinian and he bows when you both rise.

“Evening ladies,” he says with his usual swagger. He grabs Guinevere from around her waist and she struggles to push him away.

“Stop it. You’re disgusting.” He rubs her cheek on hers and she laughs.

“I just wanted to let you ladies know that we will be throwing a festival this evening.” He touches her hip and she stares at his hand on her hip and there’s a look you can’t decipher on her face. “So please, wear your prettiest dresses and I will be back to escort you.”



Arthur’s festival rages well into the night and you dance with Arthur and Caspian around a massive bonfire. There is wine on your lips and the smell of alcohol mingles with cooked meat and burning wood, making the air heady and your body feels too heavy.

Digory has taken to the stage and while he plays with the band, Merlin has fireworks going off in the air above you. You’re dizzy from spinning and your face feels too hot.

“I need to sit down,” you call over the music and Arthur releases you. He’s got another woman on his arm within a beat. You stumble away from the fire and the night air in the shadows feels cool against your face. A servant hands you another goblet, but you push it away.

You need some water and you leave the open courtyard. There is a well near the stables and you walk through the stables, teetering a little on unsteady feet. You pause in the hot stables and you hear odd noises coming from stall to your left. You touch your hand to the wooden stable wall and you enter the stall.

It is Lancelot inside stable stall and he is kissing a woman housed in the shadows. Not wanting to disturb him, you step back. The floor creaks beneath you and the pair spring apart. “Lucy?” Guinevere steps from the shadows and it takes several long seconds before your mind can process what you’re watching.

For the first time, Lancelot looks at you with terror in his face and Guinevere is grabbing your arms. “Please, Lucy, you cannot tell anyone.” She’s got you pressed against a wall and Lancelot is behind her, mouth pressed into a tight frown. “Please, Lucy,” her voice rises in desperation and her hands are tight on your arms and your knees buckle a little under you. “No one can know. They’ll send him into exile and they’ll burn me as an adulterer.”

You look between them and with a sigh, you nod. “Okay, your secret is safe with me.”

Guinevere releases you and she turns and shoves Lancelot toward the door. “Go. Before anyone else catches us, you oaf.” He looks at you with disdain before he kisses her again and he leaves. “Lucy,” Guinevere’s attention is on you again and you allow your weight to rest on the stable wall. “I love him.”

“What about Arthur?” you say and your words are slurred. It’s a genuine curiosity that brings the question, but the look Guinevere gives you is hurt.

“I love him too. Just…” her lip trembles. “Just differently.”

She leaves you and when you emerge from the stable and back into the crowd Guinevere is back on Arthur’s arm and you can’t find Lancelot.

That night when you sleep, you dream of Cair Paravel for the third night and when you wake, there is a lion’s roar ringing in your ears.

You find Lancelot tethering a horse in the courtyard the next morning and he doesn’t look at you. You have a fuzzy recollection of the festival last night, but you remember the look of fear on Lancelot and Guinevere’s faces. “I’m looking for Arthur. Have you seen him?”

Guinevere enters the courtyard and she freezes when she sees you. Lancelot has his back to her. “He is in conference with Merlin and your professor. Men’s work,” he adds. “Shouldn’t you return to your stitching?”

“I don’t stitch.” He attempts to step around you, but you stop him. “I apologize for insulting you when we met and what is going on between you and Guinevere is none of my business.” He attempts to fake a move to your left, but you’re ready and you reach for the sword in his belt. It’s cleared its sheath before he can even react.

“Return my sword,” he orders and you swing it, testing its weight.

“Come get it from me.”

“I won’t fight a woman.”

“Then in my conquests I have taken your weapon in the name of Narnia and you rolled over like a dog.”

He pulls a sword from the belt of a passing guard and he attacks. He fights with a power that you can’t match. However you are faster and smaller and you slip beneath his blows unscathed. The dirt kicks up around you and the dress you wear constricts you, but the clashing of weapons draws a crowd.

Lancelot tires sooner than you do and you catch him off-guard, knocking him off his feet. He lands in the dirt and you level Lancelot’s sword with the hollow of his neck. “Congratulations, you didn’t roll over like the dog, I said you were. I still get your sword as my conquest.”

There’s a laugh from behind you and someone claps you on the back, knocking you forward and you catch Lancelot in the side with your foot. Arthur is laughing at your side, pointing at Lancelot’s downed form. “Amazing, Lucy.” He’s got his foot on Lancelot’s chest and Lancelot stares up at him with utter contempt.

They invite you to the war room after dinner and you sit at the round table, across from Arthur with Caspian and Digory at your sides. Arthur listens entrapped as you recount your Narnia to him and his knights. Lancelot sits to his left and his expression is bored and his clothes are coated in dirt, but the others are listening to your every word.

“Why would you leave it?” Arthur asks when you finish speaking.

You almost say it wasn’t your choice. That you were pulled from your world and your life, but he’s talking about the here and now with a curious open expression.

Digory clears his throat and pulls his pipe from his mouth. “It’s been a long time since I’ve felt the adventure and exhilaration of this world. I’m trying to live again, even if it took my death to light my fire.”

“I’ve lost my wife,” Caspian answers. “She wasn’t of this world and she had to return to her skies.”

“I follow my lord,” Drinian jerks his head to Caspian and Caspian fixes him with a dissatisfied look and he sighs. “I’m not interested in heaven. Eternal glory isn’t fit for the person I am.”

None of the others understand the responses. “I’ve been asked to seek out a woman named Nimue,” you say and Arthur sits taller in his seat. “We’re on a quest to find her.”

“Is that why you’ve come to see me?” Arthur asks.

“Yes.”

Arthur nods and you worry you have offended until he raises his chalice. “Then you have come to the right place. I can give you the way. If your business is with Nimue, then there must be importance to your journey.”

That you don’t know, but you trust Aslan, so you raise your own goblet to his toast and you join the table of knights in a drink.




Arthur catches your arm in the courtyard as you prepare to leave. Guinevere is on his arm and she meets your eyes with a steady gaze and Arthur smiles broadly at you. Across the courtyard, emerging from the castle, Digory is still in conversation with Merlin.

“It was a pleasure. Truly,” Arthur says. “The knights and sovereigns of Narnia are always welcome in Camelot.”

You thank him, pleased for the new friends. If Peter were here, he’d have papers and treaties and call it diplomacy. But you aren’t your brother and you embrace Arthur like family and kiss his temple, despite propriety.

Guinevere holds you at arm’s-length for a moment, still sizing you up before she embraces you. Lancelot is at the far end of the court, talking to Caspian and Drinian and pretending not to be watching her and Guinevere’s arms are tight around your back.

“Thank you,” she whispers, her mouth close to your ear and a shiver courses down your back. She withdraws and her gaze is defiant, yet warm. When she takes Arthur’s arm, he smiles, delighted in her touch and you wince. It feels wrong to lie to this man, but she loves Lancelot more deeply than you can understand and you refuse to judge.

“Take heed, Queen Lucy,” Arthur speaks again and his tone is grave. “Beware the wood in the north, half a day’s walk. It hides a danger I dare not discuss. If you go round the forests it will add two days to your journey, but the safe arrival of your party is worth the time.”

“What’s in the wood?”

“The Fay,” he says in the same tone Edmund uses when anyone discusses Jadis or when you mention previous friends of Narnia around Peter. You’re silenced by its finality.

Arthur escorts you to the end of the township and his subjects gather to watch the procession. Lancelot, in his stony silence, moves to your side and at the edge of town, shakes your hand with a nod of goodbye. Caspian looks at him quizzically as you bid Lancelot goodbye in a lofty way. You maintain the same determined stride that Lancelot walks in for only a handful of steps before you turn and wave in exuberance and Caspian laughs because this is how he knows you.

It’s hot and the noon day sun beats on your exposed necks, making sweat trickle beneath your collars and you long for the shade of the woods Arthur warned you about. This is pastoral land that you are crossing and it’s flat everywhere you look. The morning sun rises to a midday sun and your throat dries and your eyes grow burdensome from squinting.

The sun is beginning its descent when you see trees in the distance. Your party, who has gone this far without complaint, sighs with relief and you pick up your step.

You pass cattle. Sheep with their herders and the dogs that nip at their heels. Cows with glassy eyes, grazing and disinterested. You pass almost no humans and when the sun is low enough in the sky that it’s all you see, you walk with your hand raised over your eyes and your tongue heavy in your mouth.

“’Lo there, sovereigns. Blessed the stars an’ my luck.” You squint and there’s a woman on the side of the road, waving at you in an aura of warm light. “Hail there.”

“Hello,” you stop and she takes your hand in her dirt-caked palm. “How are you?”

“Fine, fine. You grace me with care.” The woman who is stooped with age lays her reverence thick. “Tis too warm’a day to be out. Wh’re are you headed?”

“Llyn Ogwen.”

“That’s Lady Nimue’s lake. You don’t have much farther left.” She doesn’t release your hand. “Your highness and her company look parched. Allow a poor old woman the honor of offerin’ a nip.” She releases a hand and dips to hoist a bucket at her feet. “Freshly milked, it if would please you.” You take it and the liquid sloshes around the bucket. You sip and the milk is warm, but soothing to your sandpapery throat. You take a second drink and go to hand it back, but she pushes it back into your hands. “Another, please. Honor me.” You do, taking two more drinks and when you hand it back, you sigh and she passes it to Caspian.

“Thank you.” The woman beams and her smile is missing teeth. “We are lucky to have met you.”

“The luck is mine.” You watch as the bucket is handed from Caspian to Drinian and then Digory. The woman watches you and after a moment, she grabs your arm, drawing you down to her face. Caspian and Drinian move toward you, but the woman just stares at you and you raise a hand to halt them. “There’s bloodshed in your future.” Caspian goes for his sword despite your raised hand. “It’s written on your face.”

“What do you mean?” Your voice is steady despite your panic and Caspian’s hand is still on the hilt of his sword, waiting for a reason to pull it.

“Be careful of the path you choose. It’s carnage if you choose the wrong one.” She releases you and steps back with a shake of her head. “It’s a kindness to let me speak out of turn.”

“You bless us with a warning,” you say.

That is it. She nods her goodbye and leaves, meandering with her buckets back the way you came. You exchange uneasy looks with the rest of your group before you shrug. The forest is closer than you had thought and it comes up quickly. Its dark in between the trees and you can feel the coolness of the shadows.

“Is this the wood Arthur advised us against?” Digory asks and you nod.

Caspian strides past you, slipping into the woods. “Anything to be out from the sun.” He holds his head high. “We’ve faced more than our share. Whatever this Fay is, we’ll be fine.”

You follow and it’s shadowy in the forest. You shiver under the shade of the trees and your eyes flit about, paranoid and uncomfortable with the woman’s warning in your head. You move further into the forest and it’s darker and you travel with caution.

When the trees grow too dense to see properly, you hear a cry from above and there’s a pain in your shoulder. It’s gut-wrenching in its intensity and you fall. You land on a series of uneven roots and you strike your head against the base of a tree. There’s screaming, not in fear, but in violent battle cries and there is movement around you. You try to move, but your head swims and you get sick and the shouting around you, both panicked and aggressive, is muted.

When you wake there is pain like you’ve never felt before. Pure heat like fire scorching through your veins and when you open your mouth to scream, you only choke and shake, feverish as the air rattles in your chest. Everything is dark and despite the fire ripping you apart, you’re freezing. A hand touches your face and a cold cloth drapes across your forehead and the pain heightens. The space about your head is thick with gravelly air and you gulp and struggle to breathe.

The hand leaves your face and someone takes you by the arms, pressing you to the bed and you are aware of bandages around your arm.

“Shh there, dear heart. Breathe.” You cling to the arms and the woman presses you down harder. Your head spins and you feel a rush of nausea that forces you to go still. The woman presses lips to your temple and breathes on you. The air grows sweet and you swallow it in short heaping gulps. “Breathe, dear heart,” you hear before you’re lost to an unconsciousness you don’t fight.

When you wake again, there is a strange tingling through your shoulder and you shake because the room is cold. It’s dark still and you squint, searching the room for a sign or a silhouette, but there’s nothing.

The sound of the striking match and the sudden heat near your face makes you jump and the odd tingle turns to gut-wrenching pain. When the pain subsides and your vision clears, there’s a woman at your side, bathed in the light of the candle. She is a couple years your senior and she doesn’t look at you, though she knows you’re watching and you’re silent as she mixes something in a bowl.

She is tender and silent as she strips the gauze from your shoulder and she tosses the bloody bandages away without looking at them. The bowl steams as she holds it over your exposed shoulder and your eyes meet briefly before she’s tipping its contents into your wound. You surge off the bed because the fire you had forgotten is back and you try to scream, to cry, to beg for mercy.

She holds you down and her hair tickles your face. “Breathe, brave girl,” she whispers and when the tears start, she shushes you. “Healing is sacrifice. The pain will renew.” You shudder. “Oh valiant child, you are stronger than you know.”

Her name is Morgana and she is the Fay, the woman that Arthur had warned you about. She found you after you had been attacked in the forest by the soldiers of a cruel and sadistic king intent on making all the lands his own. “I believe he has your knights,” she whispers as she heals you. She has her steaming bowl, but you’ve learned to take this without screaming and she holds your hand until the fire subsides.

Her cure is slow-working, but for all of the gut-wrenching anguish you endure, it’s effective and the hole in your shoulder where an arrow had once protruded closes a little more each day. She paints your face with cold water and you breathe deeply until you can speak and you’ve stopped sleeping in order to spend the nights whispering with your faces close.

She is Arthur’s half-sister and his number one antagonist. Her voice reminds you of Edmund’s as a child, before the crown and before Jadis, when he was a slighted child, but the purr of her voice reminds you that there is more to the story than a flesh wound.

So you whisper how you have two brothers who are kings as if to say you understand, though you don’t. She knows you don’t and when she tires of the conversation, Morgana shows you magic while you heal and the air in her hovel tastes of earth and whispering smoke.

“Why did you save me?” you ask, one day when you can begin to feel your fingers. There are pinpricks of pain at the tips as if you had been sleeping on it for too long. You are standing in the space between the bed and the hearth and she’s mixing your cure.

“You wouldn’t have died.” You stare at her. “You cannot die twice.”

“What would have happened?”

She pauses now and sets down the bowl. “I don’t know,” she answers honestly.

“That still doesn’t tell me why.”

She stands and goes to you. “For more reasons that I can’t explain and I couldn’t not.” She stares your bandaged shoulder and then at the dress that had to be cut in order to keep it exposed for cleaning. “Something drove me to that clearing. Like a warm breath on my face.” You gape at her and she leans into you, mouth pressed into a thin curve and her hands cup your face in a gesture that is intimate and affectionate. “The air around you tastes of magic. It’s intense and heady. It twists around you,” her hand moves through your hair and then down your arm. “It’s far older than anything I’ve ever seen.”

She pauses and laughs. “Far older than you, little one.” She speaks of you like a child though she can sense your years. You would argue except you can feel the millennia that have been pressed into her skin, despite the youth written into her face. “You are strong and this world has a purpose for you that has not been fulfilled yet.” Her eyes narrow and she’s scrutinizing you, searching for your secrets. “What is it you seek, Lucy?” she asks for the first time since you awoke with her at your side.

“Nimue of Llyn Ogwen.”

Morgana tenses and the flash of heat in her gaze is quelled before she speaks and when she smiles it is biting. The fire in her eyes reminds you of the look Arthur gave you when he warned you about her. “You seek a woman who produces kings and rears knights.” She pushes you backwards, closer to the hearth and you feel the fire on the back of your thighs. “That is a mighty quest. You are noble.” She pauses. “Like my brother.”

“Why do you hate him so?”

Her eyes are far off and she sighs. “Because that is the role I play. I have loathed him for crimes he didn’t commit. And our nature repeats.” You don’t understand her words, but you understand about living more than once. “One day Arthur will fall and things will change.”

She finishes your cure and it’s your last and for some reason that makes it hurt more. She prepares you to leave the following day because, despite your wish to stay, your friends are someone’s prisoners and you are well again. She escorts you to the end of the wood and at its edge; she casts a pale face to the sky, in an odd sort of awe at the brush of the sun on her face. She kisses you and you taste the magic she spoke of as she presses a white rose into your hand. A thorn pricks your palm and the spark of pain is still new and raw after the week of numbness.

“Take this to Shahryar. He is the master holding your friends. His castle is an hour’s walk from here.” You stare at the rose. “He likes virgins. It’s like a one-way ticket.” You make a face and she bows and steps back into the forest. “We will meet again, Lucy.”

Part Three

Original Prompt:
What I want: Lucy as an adult. Crossover in Aslan's Country where the Narnians meet medieval literary or historical persons (I especially love Arthurian legend & Irish folklore/myth).
Prompt words/objects/quotes/whatever: "Woman king". Lucy as a knight. Famous fierce historical/literary women meeting the Narnians.
What I definitely don't want in my fic: Smut, incest, h/c, Lucy/canon characters (I don't ship Lucy, but if you can sell me on why she's perfect for Percival or something, go ahead!)