Work Text:
SPLENDOUR COVE. SPRING 1016
Nadora wasn’t sure how long the painting had sat waiting. Having been been buried in the chaos of final preparations over the past several days, it had been a number of days since she’d made her typical morning walk along this side of Cair Paravel to the open corridor. Later, though, she’d consider it appropriate that she’d find it today of all days. On her wedding day.
With the sun already climbing high into the sky, it was later than she might normally be out here, but as luck would have it, this morning was nor a busy one at the castle, granting Nadora a bit of privacy to take in the picture.
The backdrop was unmistakable, with varying strokes of blue making up the Eastern Sea behind two figures. The water rippled calmly under the open, evening sky painted in the warmer tones of a setting sun. And there was Nadora in the center of the canvas, standing opposite Peter upon a sandy shore. Though she was certain the painting was meant to be their anticipated wedding ceremony that evening where their families would join them, only Nadora and Peter were painted into the scene. Both wearing elaborate, matching red cloaks over their specially made ceremonial robes, they were the picture of elegance and grandeur. Fitting, for a king and soon-to-be queen.
No one had prepared her for the task of courting a king. But with a king like Peter, any advice her parents and other ladies of multiple courts might have be able to provide would have proven rather useless. The pair kept the means of their courtship between themselves, and determined the rules themselves. Peter continued on in his responsibilities as king, just as Nadora continued in her roles as Ambassador and Captain, each giving and taking time as they saw fit.
It brought them a year of adventures, heated debates, and thoughtful discussion together, with many lengthy, handwritten letterns to fill all the gaps in between when they had to be apart.
Peter’s proposal three months prior changed all of that, sparking a flurry of preparations and plans for their future together. A future that began, tonight.
She was ready. Truly, she was. Nadora had no qualms about the change her marriage would bring. She and Peter had discussed them all at length, and sorted out contingencies for them all. Besides which, even if she were concerned, the arrangements were done. There was hardly any time to get cold feet now.
Her gown and cloak and dozens upon dozens of hair pins awaited her in the chambers beside Peter’s own. Which Susan had insisted she redecorate the rooms to her liking over the past few months, even enlisting the help of various castle staff for the project. It, and other events of the past year had proven Nadora to be a favored visitor, regardless the length of her stays or the frequency of her departures. As it was, she had come to be loved amidst the Narnians as a whole, not just by Peter. There was no denying that.
There as no denying, either, that becoming Peter’s queen would be a large change, no matter how ready or willing Nadora was for it.
Nadora took a deep breath of crisp ocean air, and looked briefly out to the glistening horizon beyond the painted canvas before refocusing once more.
She and Peter looked contently happy together on the canvas, facing one another with their hands clasped together between them. The red of the cloaks was distinct against the backdrop of water, but there was something even more stark that drew Nadora’s eye this time—wrapped around their hands was a golden ribbon.
“I wonder…” she whispered.
Their wedding would be as their courtship was—defined only by Peter and Nadora, regardless of tradition and expectation. Instead of a grand, elaborate celebration in the castle’s great hall, they opted for a small, intimate ceremony down on the shore. And instead of endless oaths and vows, they would have a handfasting. While the former was a decision widely known across the kingdom, the latter was private and recent, shared only with Jurien a few evenings before as he would be officiating the ceremony.
Nadora ran her fingers gently along the lines of the ribbon. They were clean and distinct, like a sailor’s knot.
“Do you like it?”
Nadora spun quickly and found Lucy leaning against the bannister, a simple but knowing smile. “Do I…? How did you find out?”
The younger girl simply shrugged, maintaining the mystery, and Nadora shook her head with a smile. There were something things, she’d learned, better left unexplained.
“Well, regardless, I love it. It’s exactly what I pictured.”
She’d pictured a thousand sunsets ahead of them. Sunrises, too. Views of the ocean from this very corridor, from her chambers, and all the other places of Cair Paravel she come to love. Nadora had pictured endless days just like the one painted on the canvas.
Some, she was sure, would be just as grand and heavy as the cloaks and crowns they were to wear. That was the nature of their positions and of who they were as people. Others, she hoped, would be lighter, and easier, as simple tying a sailor’s knot similar to the one the gold ribbon’s lines reminded her of.
But she wasn’t afraid of any of them. Not the difficult days ahead, nor the routine ones. They’d all pose their challenges, some that may even lead them down paths neither would have have anticipated traveling before. Tethered to Peter, though,—her king and friend and anchor line—they’d always find their way home again.