𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐑𝐎𝐏𝐘 || A Narnian Autumn Writing Challenge (Oneshot Book)

12. The North Wind Doth Blow

narnia // year 1013
prompt: "windy"
word count: 1,503

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Lucy's skirts whipped violently around her knees as icy wind howled through the towers and terraces of Cair Paravel, raking its fingers through flimsy yellow silks as the young Queen gathered them desperately with her free hand.

For only a split second she neglected her shawl, and the instant she let go a fresh gale ripped it from her shoulders.

She glanced up with a sharp squeak, expecting to spot the delicate garment sailing hopelessly away over the battlements, but there it still fluttered, caught in the pale, bejeweled fingers of the Lord Peridan.

He grinned, and an answering smile split Lucy's face in surprise.

"Per! What are you doing out here?"

"Rescuing you, it would seem," he laughed, wrapping the pearly silk back around her shoulders just as the wind died down enough for her to clasp it back into place.

His hands never left her arms, evidently distrustful of its ability to remain secure.

"I think the more pressing question might be what are you doing out here, if your Majesty will pardon my asking? The others have organized a veritable banquet inside."

Lucy glanced over her shoulder to the high windows of multicolored glass, candlelight twinkling merrily from inside the royal gallery and casting dancing patterns over the pale stone of its wide terrace where she had been walking.

But she shook her head, grinning up at Peridan like an overindulged child, despite rapidly approaching her twenty-first birthday. "I love it like this."

From their vantage point they stood over most of the castle, long red flags whipping like ribbons at their full length from glittering spires, creatures of all sorts bustling miniature below them in the open courtyard where high walls sheltered them from the wind, the reds and oranges of a vast forest rippling beyond the northern walls like a sea of gemstones up to the slopes of distant, low blue mountains, the waves of an infinite grey sea crashing like bursts of pearls against the shore of sand and stone, and Cair Paravel itself rising up from that shore, shining pale and golden under an endless cloudy sky.

The wind threw it all into a beautiful chaos, an irresistible disarray that made Lucy's blood sing for the thrill of it.

"Can't we stay out here a little longer?" she implored with glittering blue eyes, and Peridan laughed, meeting her gaze with his own of deep forest-green that she'd known for almost as long as she could remember.

"Your wish is my command, Lady. I cannot deny your fancies as your royal brothers may."

At first glance, one might have guessed he was her brother, though the resemblance extended no further than the identical brilliant red of their hair.

Anything soft in Lucy seemed sharp in him—her wild curls contrasted by his long, straight curtain of hair held back by tiny braids; her apple cheeks and his high, sharp bone structure, the round tip of her nose and his straight as an arrow, she a daughter of Eve and he a son of the forest, though Adam's blood had long mingled with his family, too.

"I ought to bring you out more often without them, then," she giggled.

"And freeze to death in the old North Wind," he said with a grin, "yes, I'm sure the High King will be pleased."

"Oh," gasped Lucy suddenly, drawing in a sharp breath as the biting cold flooded her lungs to aching.

"What? I do hope I haven't found out your plan."