Chapter Text
Caspian didn't like to admit it but by now he had no choice but to face the truth.
He was lost.
Not in the sense that he didn’t know what to do (although he didn't know what to do to get unlost) but he was physically lost.
He had been walking through the woods for several hours now, and what had started as a mere walk now turned into a nightmare. The sun was slowly sinking through the bluish sky, but the canopy above his head was too thick for him to see in which direction the star was falling. So instead he kept on walking.
At first, the idea of getting lost in these woods didn’t even occur to him. After all, he merely wanted to have a moment alone to clear his head. He had travelled across Narnia for political purposes, but days locked in this castle and talking bills and payments and taxes had brought him on the edge of moral exhaustion. It was more than time for him to take a moment to gather back his strengths. And to achieve that, what better than a walk alone in the wild woods?
He sneaked out of the castle, as it was obvious that his guards would have been requested to accompany him otherwise. He wrapped a cloak around his frame, put on his most comfortable leather boots, picked up a bag that he filled with a gourde, bread, biscuits and cheese, and before the sun was up he escaped the fortress unnoticed.
He had left a note on his bed so no one would worry about him (not too much at least) and he expected to be back in the middle of the afternoon.
But now, he could guess that the middle afternoon was since long passed, and he still didn’t have a clue on how to find his way back.
It was entirely his fault. And even if he had no one to put the blame onto as he was alone anyway, he was more than ready to admit that all of this was his fault. Walking while lost in thought for a long while, he had not paid attention to his surroundings until hunger tore him out of his own mind. But it was already way too late.
And now there he was, wandering through the woods and merely trying to keep on advancing in a straight line to avoid getting even more lost than he already was.
Was that even possible to get even more lost though?
Under his brown leather boots the skeleton leaves cracked and twigs snapped. There were birds singing in the distance, but they remained far away, and Caspian didn't even know if they would help him if he found them. In these parts, there were wild animals roaming that lacked this Narnian traits of speech. The thought was not reassuring, but he pushed it aside.
Above his head, despite the amount of fallen leaves that covered the muddy ground as Autumn brought its chilly air and vivid hues, the canopy was too thick for him to see anything. The light passed through the yellow, orange and red leaves that had not fallen down yet, but there was no way to see the sky. He had thought about climbing up one of these trees to get a view of the forest and spot the castle, but the trees were high and he couldn't reach the first branches. If he had taken his sword with him, he was not equipped to climb a tree. And again, in these wild parts of Narnia, he would have never dared to plant a knife through the bark of a tree. After all, he had seen some come alive before…
He reckoned that by merely walking he would eventually find someone who could help him. These parts may have been wild, they were still inhabited. He merely needed to be lucky. Only, for now, he didn't seem to be lucky at all…
After long hours walking, his legs were starting to long for rest. His feet were turning numb. But he ignored the feeling, and didn't slow down his fast pace. He hoped to find shelter before the night.
He thought about what could happen in the Castle. The King had disappeared for several hours… agitation there must be to its highest peak.
But he pushed the thought away, annoyed. It was this constant gathering that he was trying to escape of right now. Having a moment alone was a real challenge. If he understood the reasons behind the situation, he was tired of it. And for once, he just needed to be on his own. Even if he was lost in the woods, he didn't regret his gesture, he felt much more peaceful than when he had left the castle.
The dense canopy started to clear out, and Caspian quickened the pace in search of a clearing or at least some part of the forest where he could see the position of the sun.
Pines added green shades among the leaves reddened by autumn. And eventually, Caspian figured out the position of the burning star…
… he had been going in the wrong direction, without a doubt.
"Brilliant…" he muttered under his breath.
He was about to turn around when something caught his eyes. From the distance, he couldn't distinguish what it was, but he could definitely see that the colour was wrong. Whatever this object was, instead of the brown shades of the trees, it was black as night.
He walked further on, curiosity getting the best of him.
And when he finally came close enough to recognise what it was that he had been walking towards, he froze, his heart stopping in his chest.
It was the lamppost.
Caspian had never seen anything like it. But from the drawings and sculptures and myths and stories he had seen and heard, especially coming from his professor when he was a child, he knew exactly what it was and what it meant.
It was the border of Narnia.
What lied beyond? He had no idea. He had reached the edge of his world.
Would he take a step into the void?
He bit his bottom lip in hesitation, before walking further, closely enough to the lamppost for him to touch it. His fingertips ran across the cool metal, and a shudder shook his whole frame. The wind suddenly blew harder and harder, growing in strength until it was roaring through the branches and the foliage. The skeletons leaves flew with the wind until they gathered at his feet, blocked by his boots. His dark hair floated all around his face, and he didn't dare to move, merely looking around him.
And in the blink of an eye, the wind was gone again, and the forest was peaceful once more.
Caspian struggled to swallow. Was it magic? It felt like it, at least.
He should have turned around and walked back to the castle. But instead, he kept staring at the trees ahead of him, a flame fuelled by hesitation burning in his heart.
The trees ahead didn't look any different to the trees behind him, after all…
He took a step beyond the lamppost and froze, almost expecting for the earth under his feet to crumble and for the ground to swallow him whole. But nothing happened. He let go of the lamppost and took another step. And again, nothing happened.
He let out a shaky breath, the lump in his throat slowly unravelling, and he walked further on in slow, careful steps.
The trees started to get closer and closer to each other all over again, until he couldn't see the sky again. After a few minutes, he was struggling to find a way through the trunks. He stopped for a second, and realized that he was out of breath.
Should he turn around? Wasn't all of this madness?
His dark brown eyes searched through the trunks ahead, but there was barely any light anymore under such a canopy. He looked up, but could only distinguish the lowest branches of the pines that surrounded him.
Would he go ahead or go back?
He shook his head, silently cursing himself before he resumed his walk.
He tripped on a root at one point, letting out a string of curses as pain shot through his foot, and he almost fell. But as he threw his hands before himself to catch whatever would come into his grasp, his fingers hit wood.
Nothing surprising in a forest, of course, but this wood was smooth. It lacked the roughness of the bark of a tree. He ran his hand across the surface and when he stepped closer, stumbling a little, he discovered… a door.
Or was it a wall? He wasn't sure. He suddenly realized that there were no trees so close to this surface. He searched for anything unusual, a defect, a detail… but his fingers met only a perfectly smooth surface. He couldn't see any solution but to try to push on the surface as if it were a door.
And he fell head first onto the floor as the wall disappeared…
Or actually, it hadn't disappeared. Indeed, his first instinct had been right, it was a door that he had fallen against. He cursed again, stroking his painful knee, and then, once more, he froze. Under him, the fallen leaves had disappeared for a wooden floor. He looked around him, and his eyes grew round when he found himself in the middle of a room… With two wardrobes against the wall behind him and a large bed next to him. He was in a bedroom…
How did he end up in a bedroom?
He finally noticed on his right the light coming in by a window, and he looked outside.
His eyes grew round in shock, his lips parting, his brain freezing.
There were… towers… he guessed they were towers, piercing the sky. He had never seen anything so big in his life. Streets with the ground covered with some kind of dark pavement and a lot of lampposts, although they looked a little different to the one he had just found. There were people in the street, wearing strange clothes. A few children were playing with a ball in the middle of the street. And there were these strange cubic things… he didn't know what they were, but they formed a long line on the side of the street. He saw someone opening a door on the side of it and climb inside. Was it some kind of carriage? But he couldn't see any horse anywhere…
He jumped as he heard some noise coming from behind him and he spun around quickly, his reflex still sharp despite his shock. He heard a soft voice humming out of tune, and he frowned hard.
But then his brain started to make proper thoughts again, and he figured out that if he was in a bedroom, it meant that he was in someone's home…
"Oh, by Aslan's name…"
He thought for a moment to hide, but gave up on the idea as soon as it crossed his mind. He looked around him, but the only way he could have come from was through this wardrobe. So he opened it and was ready to step back into Narnia and run away…
… only the wardrobe was filled with clothes this time.
Shelves filled with T-shirts and trousers and shirts and coats hanging on the side, and when he passed his fingers across the back of the furniture and tried to push his way through again, it was rock-solid, and wouldn't move.
"Oh, no…"
Panic rose through his entire being, making his fingers shake and his heart quicken to a threatening pace.
But no matter how hard he pushed, he couldn't go through.
He was stuck…
The humming voice grew closer, and he hurried to close the wardrobe. He looked by the window, but there was no way he could climb down. He was so high… as high as he would be at the top of his highest tower…
He turned around as the door opened and you stepped in the room.
A purple towel was wrapped around your chest, barely covering the upper half of your thighs. Another blue one was wrapped around your head to dry your hair. You had something in your hand that Caspian couldn’t identify, but it was your hairdryer. You had forgotten your T-shirt in your bedroom, and were coming back to pick it up before drying your hair, and for some reason, you hadn't put the hairdryer back down when you realized your mistake and had stepped out of the bathroom. You didn't spot Caspian right away and took a couple of steps in the room before you would notice the brown boots before you. Your eyes climbed up to discover brown trousers, a purplish red shirt, a dark cloak and finally… a man's face.
The realization that a stranger was standing in your bedroom while you were walking out of your shower all wrapped in a mere towel suddenly seemed to reach your brain, and you shouted.
Caspian was breathless. His brain had frozen at the sigh of you, out of fear at first but then… his eyes had fallen on your bare shoulders, and then your legs and he couldn't stop himself from staring. This day had been too strange for him to act normally.
When you shouted though, he jumped, his cheeks turning crimson as he blinked and looked at your face again. He extended a calming hand.
"No, I'm not going to hurt you," he spoke softly, and considering how much he was panicking, he congratulated himself for wearing such a soothing tone. "Don't be afraid, I won't hurt you."
But you kept on shouting, and when you made a movement to leave the room, he walked forward to stop you.
"No, please, I don't mean you any harm…"
He didn't see the hairdryer crossing the air as you swung your arm toward him, and you hit him hard on the temple.
He dropped to the floor in a thud noise and the last thing he saw were your wet feet and ankles before all went dark.