Chapter Text
Hazel often wonders how many lifetimes her kingdom has lived in her absence. It’s been little more than a year since she fell back through the wardrobe, but she’s almost certain that a thousand lifetimes have passed since then.
She sits in between her sisters on a bench in the train station, ankles crossed and hands folded neatly in her lap. Lucy swings her legs as they wait for the train that will ship them off to boarding school, humming to herself. Susan watches in hidden amusement as their brothers argue battle strategies in their school uniforms. Hazel observes the people around them with vague interest, thoughts wandering. Has anyone else in this station ever fell through a wardrobe and into another world? Or maybe a pantry instead. Perhaps the man limping with a cane lived another life as an army general in a land where animals can talk. Maybe the mother pushing a pram fell through the kitchen cupboard as a child and ended up in a world where magic is more than just fairy tales. How many others in this world have found solace in worlds outside their own?
She almost hadn’t been able to join her siblings in this venture. Her mother had been adamant that she was too young to leave home. She wouldn’t be able to keep up with the older children. Hazel had had to embody her former life as a queen in order to convince her well meaning mother that she was more than mature and ready to follow her sisters to the school. So, tests had been arranged and she had been allowed to move up to Lucy’s year. Truthfully, all of the Pevensie siblings could test far out of their supposed age ranges, but no one wanted to believe that one family could produce so many bright children.
Lucy suddenly gives a sharp cry, startling Hazel out of her thoughts. Edmund leans around Peter to give their sister a look of concern. “What’s up Lu- ow!”
“What on earth-” Peter starts before cutting himself off. “Susan, let go! What are you doing? Where are you dragging me to?”
“I’m not touching you! Someone is pulling me! Oh!” Susan jerks beside her. Hazel jumps as well at the sensation of what she can only describe as someone grasping and tugging at her very soul.
“I felt just the same,” said Edmund in a breathless voice. “As if I were being dragged along. A most frightful pulling - ugh! It's beginning again.”
“Me too,” said Lucy. “Oh, I can't bear it.”
“Look sharp!” shouted Edmund. “All catch hands and keep together. This is magic - I can tell by the feeling. Quick!”
“Yes,” said Susan. “Hold hands. Oh, I do wish it would stop - oh!”
In the next moment, the train station around them fades away. Hazel keeps her hands grasped tightly in her sisters’, praying to Aslan that whatever is happening won’t hurt her family. The station melts away and the Pevensies find themselves in the middle of a wood. The trees are so thick that they have to crowd together to not be scratched by hanging branches.
“Oh, Peter!” exclaimed Lucy. “Do you think we could possibly have gotten back to Narnia?” The question causes Hazel’s stomach to drop and her heart to race all at once.
“It might be anywhere,” said Peter, “I can't see a yard in all these trees. Let's try to get into the open - if there is any open.”
Hazel moves first, before the other four are able to take a step. She pushes her way through brambles and bushes until the five of them emerge onto a sandy beach. They stand in silence for a few moments, taking in the treeline and the shore and the far off horizon. Again, Hazel is the first to move. She knows exactly where they are. She was once Queen Hazel the Wise, to the Incandescent Axis of Worlds, and she was the best navigator that Narnia had. Lucy follows her a second later, just as Hazel knew she would. Queen Lucy the Valiant to the Glistening Eastern Sea would recognize the ocean before them without a second thought. The landscape may have changed in the time between their departure, but each Pevensie can feel the call of their hope within their bones. Even when not knowing the changed terrain, Hazel leads the determined march back through the woods and toward where her palace should stand.
When they finally come to a clearing, she is met by crumbling walls.