The King and the Girl

Chapter 6

Caspian held his hands firmly on your waist as he helped you down from the horse. You thanked him, cheeks warming up, before walking to the front of the horse and stroking down his nose, admiring his beauty. You gave him a small kiss on the nose and thanked him softly for carrying you safely down the path. You took the time to pick some low-hanging apples from the nearby tree and fed them to all of the horses who had been on the journey with you. Before long, the others had the camp set up and Caspian found you sitting near the stream bundled up with a book that he had insisted you borrow from his massive library.

You weren't sure how long you had been there, but you knew as soon as he stepped beside you that it was him. He sat in the soft grass beside you and smiled at you. "Is it a good one?" he asked, rather playfully shoving you lightly with his shoulder.

You found yourself giggling at how silly he was for a king and closed the book. "It is indeed." You looked down at the book in your lap with both hands resting on it, and you closed your eyes before taking a deep breath and turning back to Caspian.

"Caspian?"

"Yes, ____?"

"Why are you helping me?" You asked him, seriously. "It must be a lot of work to be a king, let alone someone so young as yourself, and here you are helping me, the daughter of the woman who apparently tried to take over your kingdom."

Caspian smiled as he took his own breath, watching the sun going down through the trees. "We're the same age, ____, so I'm not that young to begin with. There was a time, not long ago, that I was a prince." He started and you watched him as he spoke, finding yourself clinging to every word. "My uncle, killed my father, and tried to kill me too after his wife had a son... I was on the run, I had nothing but a small horn that I knew nothing about. That horn gave me a glimmer of hope." He turned to you as he finished the last sentence and looked into your eyes.

"Hope, is a small thing to cling to. Sometimes it can become larger as the picture becomes clearer, all I know is, I can't ignore the fact that there's something about you, ____, that brings a small sliver of that back into my heart." He chuckled "As for the White Witch, that was way before my time, or my father's, I don't actually know much about her, though I've tried to ask Aslan a few times."

He looked down and began to play with the grass between his fingers as his words sunk in a little. "I bring you hope? Hope for what?"

He smiled and laid back with his arms behind his head. "Hope for Narnia." he stated simply. You sat in the quiet for a moment longer watching the sunset before you heard Reepicheep's voice behind you.

"Forgive me, but the food is almost done cooking, my lady, and my king."

Caspian rolled his eyes at Reep's formality again. "We're coming Reep, we just want to finish the sunset." He gave you a playful, yet charming smile before waving his hand in Reep's direction. You watched as Reep stared at Caspian in shock.

"Did you just-" he looked to you still shocked, "Did he just, WAVE me away?!" He asked sounding angry before Caspian let out a deep laugh, which caused you all to begin laughing before Reep finally scampered back to the fire.

"We'd better go," you said still giggling, "Before Reep comes back to cut off those royal fingers of yours for waving him away."

"Yeah..." he said before standing up and holding a hand out to you. You took it softly and he helped you get up from the ground. He pulled harder than you expected him to, and you almost face-planted into his chest. Thankfully you had used your hand on his chest to stop yourself. "Oh sorry!" He quickly apologized, looking down at you and wrapping his arms around you to steady you. You looked up to find his face closer than you thought. You were now sure that your face was as red as it could get when you felt how strong his chest actually was for the first time. Your heart skipped a bit as you couldn't look away from his eyes, and he looked into yours.

You found your senses after a second and took a step back, releasing yourself from his arms. "Um.." You cleared your throat and looked away, embarrassed, "No, no it's okay.." You awkwardly held both your hands behind you and started to walk backwards toward the fire. "I uh... I think I'm gonna go now..." You turned and hurried away from him, quickly finding your tent. You ran inside to find it fully furnished and closed your eyes playing with the same strand of hair that you always had.

"What are you doing, ____? Pull yourself together." You looked in the mirror and tried to snap yourself out of it. "This isn't real, it can't be. You're the shiest bookworm probably ever, and you're getting a stupid crush on a well-traveled, and admittedly hot, king from a faraway land that you may have to leave forever if Aslan is wrong about you because let's be honest this whole thing-"

"Is absolutely real, Dearest." You turned around to find the same flower nymph you had seen outside the castle earlier. She smiled and floated over to you, a warm look appearing on her face made of petals.

"The king is many things, but one thing I know for certain is that even though he's kind, and polite, and chivalrous, the only one he ever had deeper feelings for left him to rule the kingdom he would inherit, alone. ____, my dear girl, don't be a fool. Live outside of your books for one day." She said as a gentle breeze lifted Caspian's book to the table across your tent. "You'll be surprised how the people around you, can give you great memories of your own to share someday." She waved her arm to the flap of your tent and it opened, to a clear view of Caspian, sitting on a log beside the fire, throwing a dagger into the ground in front of him, to pick it back up and throw it in the same spot again and again. He looked... Exactly the way that you had a few moments ago when you were talking to yourself in the mirror. You smiled and walked out of your tent, as the flower nymph floated away behind you.