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Caspian is eighteen by the time they crown him.
The Narnian Uprising took a long time. Days to find the Pevensies, weeks to congregate at Aslan’s How, months before the final battle against Miraz. The time from Miraz’s death to the final confrontation with the god of the river Beruna was nearly a week itself. He bonded with many over the course of the fight, and he feels more Narnian than Telmarine when they finally put the crown on his head.
Days turn into weeks turn into months. Two months, to be precise. Lucy runs wild, runs free, but he can feel the older three Pevensies looking over their shoulders. He asks them why, if they truly feel that unsafe amongst the Telmarine architecture.
“It’s not that,” Susan says, lips pursed, and that’s the most she’ll speak of it. Like if she says it, it will come true.
Peter won’t say, either. But he reassures Caspian that everything is fine.
Edmund is the one that tells him, plain and simple. “We’re waiting for Aslan,” he says.
“Wouldn’t that be a good thing?” Caspian asks.
“We’re waiting for Aslan to come and tell us it’s time to go home,” Edmund specifies. “Lucy had a dream. Narnia’s got a ruler, this time around. She doesn’t need us to stay.”
I need you to stay, Caspian wants to say, but he doesn’t.
He grows closer to the Pevensies every day. Something shifts one night, solidifies. It’s a rare evening when the five of them are able to dine together, without anyone else around. They’re sitting on the floor in Lucy’s chambers, a picnic dinner spread around. Lucy insists on thanking Aslan before every meal, and tonight is no exception. Most nights she ends with thank you for Caspian, and for my siblings. Tonight, she says, thank you for my siblings, and she holds Caspian’s gaze the entire time. He knows what that means– he’s really, truly one of them.
Of course, a week later, Aslan arrives.
Caspian isn’t sure what he’s going to do. He nearly has a breakdown about it during the last council the Pevensies attend. Their help has been invaluable these past few months. Their friendship has meant even more. He’s not sure how he’s going to make it without them.
He manages to pull Edmund aside, into a tiny alcove.
“We’ll be back,” Edmund tells him. “Not even Aslan can keep us away forever.”
“Last time it was a thousand years before you returned,” Caspian hisses. “Who’s to say it won’t be another thousand?”
“I do,” Edmund says firmly. “I say it.”
He takes Caspian’s hand and squeezes, hard, a promise. It almost hurts.
Caspian’s aunt and cousin are the first to leave. Prunaprismia steps through the archway of the great tree and she doesn’t reappear on the other side. The Pevensies are next. Lucy is the first to dive into Caspian’s arms, holding him tightly.
“I’ll see you soon,” she whispers into his shoulder. Susan is there a moment later, and he hugs them both as hard as he dares. Peter follows, wrapping Caspian in his arms.
“Call if you need us,” he says, and Caspian can hear the way he’s holding back tears, trying to stay strong for his siblings.
Edmund is last. Edmund crashes against Caspian almost violently, and they sway there for a moment. Edmund doesn’t say anything, and when he steps through the tree, holding Susan’s hand, he doesn’t look back.
Aslan leaves after the Pevensies do. Caspian isn’t sure where he’s gone, and he doesn’t really care, either. He sits on the balcony of the chamber that used to be Edmund’s and stares at the sea. Trumpkin finds him late in the night, comes to rest at the railing next to him. His eyes are red.
“What am I supposed to do now?” Caspian asks.
“Keep marching,” Trumpkin advises.
Caspian turns to the history books. He follows Edmund’s war strategies and Peter’s battle cries, Susan’s treaty formats and Lucy’s marching orders. Slowly, the threats to Narnia fall, to his pen or his sword. He starts rebuilding Cair Paravel. He thinks, maybe, if the Pevensies come back, they might like somewhere to stay that isn’t Telmarine.
Because the castle is. It stinks of Telmar, through and through. That hasn’t comforted him in a long time. He spends more hours away from the castle. He learns the lay of the land. He finds things for a king to do outside his home, because the truth of the matter is, the closest he’s ever felt to home was sitting around the Stone Table with four rulers who aren’t in this world anymore.
He’s not sure where the idea comes from. That’s a lie. He knows exactly where the idea comes from. He’s going stir-crazy in the capital city, now that he’s out of excuses to travel, for the most part. He’s yet to visit the Lone Islands. He knows the chances of his father’s most trusted lords still being alive is slim, but he figures he has to try.
He never really processed his father’s murder. His death, certainly. His murder was a different story. There was always too much to do to really sit and think. On the eve of the Dawn Treader’s maiden voyage, he sits on the docks with Cornelius and watches the stars.
“You don’t have to do this,” Cornelius says quietly. Caspian isn’t quite sure what his old professor is talking about, and then he realizes he’s been watching the same constellation for nearly an hour. Justice. Edmund’s constellation. All four Pevensies have their own set of stars– the Horn for Susan, the Lioness for Lucy, Wolfsbane for Peter, Justice for Edmund. “You’re running, Caspian. You can slow down.”
“I don’t know if I can,” he admits. “I just–”
He’s not sure how he was going to finish that. I need them. I miss them. If I slow down I’ll have to think.
“I have to honor my father’s memory,” he says eventually. “This isn’t about them. It’s about him.”
“It’s allowed to be about more than one thing.” Cornelius’s voice is gentle. Caspian nods, even if he’s not quite convinced that’s the truth.
“You’ll send a raven if– if they come back?”
“I will.”
Caspian nods. Takes a breath. Then another.
“You’re sure you don’t want to come?” he asks Trumpkin the next morning. Trumpkin eyes the ship warily.
“Positive,” the dwarf says. Caspian knows Trumpkin well. He also knows when Trumpkin’s keeping his mouth shut about something. “If you run into trouble out there–”
“We can handle trouble,” Caspian says.
“If you run into trouble you can’t handle,” Trumpkin corrects. “And certain siblings show up. Please tell them hello.”
“Okay,” Caspian says quietly, and Trumpkin shakes his hand before going to wait next to Trufflehunter on shore. Reepicheep scampers up his leg to rest on his shoulder.
“It’ll be fine, your majesty,” the mouse says, and Caspian nods.
Takes a breath.
Then another.
Edmund and Lucy are different, and it’s not just because of their cousin.
There’s some kind of sadness around them, some kind of anger. Their smiles are bright, but Caspian can see it muted in their eyes. Something has happened in the past years, other than the height they’ve both gained. Lucy’s wildness is sharp around the edges. Edmund’s quietness feels like it’s taken on a new meaning.
He doesn’t have definitive proof until Narrowhaven. Until they explore a seemingly abandoned city under the setting sun, until they’re confronted with a horror from their world they thought didn’t happen here, until Edmund draws his sword and Lucy pulls her dagger. Then Caspian sees, in the way Lucy doesn’t hesitate to draw blood and screeches with laughter as she fights. In the way Edmund is a silent, deadly force, moving efficiently and leaving a path of bodies in his wake.
In the way they both drop their weapons when Eustace shrieks, unwilling to let their cousin be hurt no matter how much they dislike him. In the look Lucy gives the leader of the slave traders, her chin pointed at the ground, glaring from under her brow like an avenging angel. In the stiffness of Edmund’s shoulders as they’re marched away, four men to each of them to keep them from fighting.
Caspian takes up the rear. They have to shove him to keep him moving. Edmund is muttering something under his breath, keeping time with their footsteps.
Boots-boots-boots-boots. Moving up and down again. No discharge in the war.
Over and over. Caspian thinks it might be a poem. Lucy knows it, based on the way she snickers where she’s being dragged along in front of her brother.
“If only we had a gun,” she says, and Edmund laughs harshly. Caspian’s not sure what a gun is– he’s heard the Pevensies make comparisons between guns and crossbows, but that’s about it. He doubts it’s anything good, based on the way they’re looking at the slave traders. Like they’re meat.
Edmund screams bloody murder when Lucy and Eustace are torn away, taken to be held for market the following morning. He nearly beats himself bloody against the bars of the dungeon, Caspian unable to calm him down, and eventually the guards send someone to knock him out because of the noise he’s making.
He wakes up in the early morning. Caspian’s taken his place at the bars. They find Lord Bern, they learn about the mist, they get out. Caspian strangles the slave trader that knocked Edmund out and it almost feels good.
They march back to the Dawn Treader in near silence.
Something shifts after Eustace is turned into a dragon. Something in the Pevensies shifts, certainly. They both seem worried, more wound up, in a way that Caspian didn’t see even during the Uprising against Miraz. Against Miraz, there was a kind of joyousness about them that Lucy said came from being in Narnia. Now, though, the mist is getting to all of them.
Caspian dreams. He doesn’t remember his dreams, normally, on land. At sea, he has trouble not remembering them. He dreams of screaming back and forth with Edmund in a cave, killing each other over a golden conch shell. He dreams of smoking clothing and a skeleton where there should have been a boy. He dreams of crossbow bolts in kings and dead Narnians and a failed siege. He dreams of his father; he dreams of Miraz.
Mostly, though, he dreams of the sea, boiling over and taking their ship down to the depths. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, a voice that sounds like Peter and Susan and Miraz’s combined says what kind of king are you?
They sail on.
Something shifts again when it’s over. When the sea serpent is dead, Rhindon driven into its skull, the mist dissipated. Eustace swims to the ship, grinning up from the sea. Reepicheep dives to meet him and crows that the water is sweet. Caspian looks at Edmund and Lucy, embracing near the serpent’s corpse, and expects that same heaviness about them. He doesn’t find it.
Instead he finds the two siblings crashing into him, lighter than they’ve been since Beruna. Instead Lucy clings to him, both sopping wet, presses a loud kiss against his cheek and declares it one of the best days. Her laughter when she jumps into the water is like a melody. Caspian can practically see her wildness softening again.
Edmund beams at him where they stand on the ship, the others treading water below. There’s a sandbar in the distance where something that might be a lion stands waiting. Caspian feels like he could create the world anew. Edmund’s shoulders have untensed. Caspian allows his jaw to relax.
“Come on, then,” Edmund says, and he takes Caspian’s hand as they plunge into the water.
They row to the island while the rest of the men get the mist’s sacrifices onto the boat. Aslan is waiting for them, a great steady wave behind him. They stare apprehensively.
“What lies beyond?” Edmund asks.
“My country,” Aslan says.
“And what lies ahead?” Lucy asks, a different question entirely. Aslan’s eyes crinkle in a cat’s impression of a smile.
“Your future,” he says.
The waves part, and instead of sending Edmund and Lucy and Eustace to England, they watch as Peter and Susan step into Narnia.
“Did we miss it?” Peter asks as the waves close. Susan lunges forward to hug Edmund, then Lucy, then Caspian. He twirls her around and she laughs, and Peter jumps at him a moment later.
“No,” Caspian says. “You didn’t miss it.”
They don’t notice when Aslan leaves. When they walk back to the rowboat, row back to the Dawn Treader, sail home to Narnia, they don’t turn back.
Edmund takes Caspian’s hand and his grin is some kind of magic. For the first time in a long time, Caspian feels like maybe this would be a good place to rest.