The Faded Portrait of a Bygone Era

Signs of Magic

A/N: A little bit of a filler part, but nevertheless I hope you enjoy! It's been a stressful week lol.

-

When they at last rejoined the crew at the beach, still none of them had said a word. The men had a few baskets set before the boats, but they looked to be mostly empty.

"What food did you find?" asked Caspian.

Rhince looked up at him apologetically.

"It's volcanic, Your Majesty," he said. "Not much grows."

Margaret walked over Reepicheep, her crown heavy in her hands. She glanced around at the crew, pausing when something felt off. It took her a moment to realize, but when she did...

"Where's Eustace?" she asked.

Lucy looked around for him too.

Reepicheep sighed. "I believe he's out not helping us load the boats.

Margaret turned to him with a frown. "You have no idea where he went? Didn't anyone see him go?"

"Eustace!" Lucy called, looking around.

"He doesn't understand our world," Margaret said with worry, looking at the crew. "He could be hurt, or worse. Didn't I tell you at Coriakin's Island not to forget to think of him?"

She turned away before she could see their reactions and called out for the youngest member of her family.

Lucy exchanged a worried glance with her, then turned to their brother.

"Edmund, I've got a bad feeling..."

Edmund sighed, but scanned their surroundings. "I'll go find him."

"I'll come with you."

Margaret looked to Caspian with surprise.

He didn't meet her gaze.

She wanted to go along, but with things as tense as they were, she thought it best just to let the two have a moment alone, hopefully to reconcile and not to kill each other.

Lucy and Margaret got into the longboats with the crew, and headed back to the ship to await their return. As soon as they made it back on deck, Margaret went down to her little alcove, to see if she might glean anything from the crown, which she had assumed lost to time, or pillaged as a Telmarine artifact of conquest, or perhaps even melted down and remade.

And yet...

Here is sat. In her hands.

"What do I do with you, hm?" she said aloud. "Why did Aslan send you to me?"

She turned it over in her hands, thinking of how Edmund used to steal it from her to irritate her, and how she used to chase him down to retrieve it. The way Peter would muss her hair, knocking the crown askew... How Susan would fix her up and make her presentable again.

It brought back so many memories, of the Golden Age most specifically. Of the time she used to rule, with all her family at her side. In the days long ago when she had been older, when she bore scars from battles of lifetimes, evidences of near-brushes with death.

Absently, she reached her hand up to where those scars once lay, brushing her hand over that now-smooth skin. And yet... She found that it was not.

Smooth it had been once, growing up, then scarred in the Golden Age, and then smooth again. Flawless... and now flawed.

Still dripping from her little dip in the pool, Margaret thought it might have been her imagination at first, some trick of the magic water. But she looked, checking to see if her mind truly played tricks, and what she saw...