The Faded Portrait of a Bygone Era

Deathwater Island

A/N: Here's something! I hope you enjoy it! I sort of went off the rails towards the end there lol.

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"I'm leaving, Caspian. I'm going back to my world. Save your love for someone else."

"Margaret, please," he begged. "Don't do this... Do not abandon me here. What if you never return? This would be the last that I see of you."

"And I would be glad for it! Goodbye, Caspian."

He reached out for her, but she slipped through his fingers, like mist.

The dream swirled and changed, as if he were caught in a storm. This time, he was back at the castle, and Margaret knelt on the floor of the throne room, crying. They were alone.

"How could you, Caspian?" she sobbed, her whole body heaving with the force of her grief. "I loved you... I still love you! I gave my heart to you, and you married her..."

"What?" he asked. "My love, I could never... I swore to you."

With tears upon her face, her gray eyes grew steely and cold as she continued to cry. "Your word means nothing to me! Your actions say all that words deceive about... I should have left when Aslan gave me the chance! I could be in my own world!"

Caspian knelt in front of her.

"Margaret, I beg of you, do not say such things. Narnia is your world, Narnia is your home..."

"I would rather be alone and imprisoned in my world than trapped here with all my family gone and naught but heartbreak to keep me company."

"I could never love another. You and you alone hold my heart."

She looked him dead in the eye, the hint of a twisted smile lingering at the corner of her mouth.

"Maybe not yet, Caspian, but there will be. You never know who you might meet here, at the furthest East one may go..."

Caspian recoiled at her words. Whatever this was before him, he realized, had to come from the mist. It had dropped its pretense that the dream was real, and now it showed its true face. And yet... its words clutched at his heart with icy talons of fear. Margaret's vision of his wedding... this thing knew who he was destined for.

He shook his head sharply.

"I will never abandon Margaret."

"You already have," said the thing, the wicked thing that was taking her form. "Don't you remember?"

Mist swirled around her chest, and when it vanished, the three crossbow bolts which had slain here were embedded in her flesh once again.

"You went after Miraz, Caspian. You were the one who didn't open the gate in time... The one who lost us the element of surprise... And did you stop to find your little lover before you left? No... You left without me."

Caspian stepped back.

"You are not her," he said, though his voice trembled.

"You're the reason I died, Caspian," the shadowy Margaret spat. "I may not bear the scars any longer, but they still take their toll on me... Why would I ever choose to stay with you? You're only going to break my heart anyways... and even if you didn't, you'd only succeed in getting me killed again."

"Stop this!" he shouted, turning away from the sight of those dreaded arrows.

The shade simply laughed.