Autumn Nights - A Narnia Oneshot Challenge

Opalescent

Author's note: Hi friends! I'm sorry it has been so long in between post---obviously, I haven't quite successfully completed the challenge. As predicted at the beginning, school indeed got in the way. However, I am one who stays in an Autumn mood into November, so I am completely alright with finishing this month! The prompts that were meant to be posted on Halloween are a little spooky, but I think a healthy dose of spook is appropriate at all times of the year, particularly when Autumn is giving way to winter. Anyhow, if you have stuck with me this long, thank you kindly and please enjoy today's story!

-Judith

Prompt: Colorful

Lucy's face burned a blistering red, sitting on the sofa bench beside the cabin's rightful owner, who had sacrificed his comfortable quarters in the name of chivalry.

"I'm sorry," she sniffed. "I ought not be making such a big deal about this. It doesn't matter—I knew I shouldn't say the spell. I brought this on myself."

Caspian bit his lip, deliberating. "Well...you did. But that doesn't make what your friend said okay. It's still going to hurt."

She clenched her teeth, staring at her hands. "It's just...I—" her voice cracked. She picked at her nails, pulling at the cuticles, turning the skin red.

Caspian slid a hand over hers, stilling her anxious movements, blue eyes snapping up to meet his, red-rimmed and glistening with tears. He nodded.

She swallowed hard, letting her small hand relax in his sea-calloused one. "Marjorie isn't the first time this has happened..."

She watched Caspian's face, trying to read the expression she found there. Sincerity himself gazed back at her.

"She was the one who wasn't supposed to leave," a tear rolled down Lucy's cheek. "She was the one who wasn't supposed to think those things about me!" Her shoulders scrunched to her ears, doubling in on themselves as a sob broke loose from her chest.

Hesitantly, Caspian pulled her into his side, guiding her head to rest on his shoulder, his arm tightening around her. Hot tears seeped into his tunic, pressed between the fabric and the soft cheek of the little queen. She quaked with every coarse sob, his own ribs trembling with reverberation.

"It's okay," He whispered, tracing circles on her upper arm with his thumb. "You're going to be okay."

Her sobs quieted, shoulders stilling. Her ear still pressed to the worn cotton of his tunic, she took a few steadying breaths.

Caspian shifted, cradling her against his chest as she listened to the steady thud of his heartbeat, tear-soaked lashes kissing salt-stung cheeks.

The king pressed gentle lips to the crown of her head, resting there for a moment.

Colorful.

She was colorful. Like light pouring through stained-glass. A field full of wildflowers. A finely woven tapestry, telling tales of gallant knights and gentle ladies.

Luminescent. A prism casting colors on the walls, glowing from the inside, shocking joy into the bones of anyone who touched her. Sunlight.

He shuddered to think of her in Miraz's castle, swallowed by the heavy grey, suffocating beneath its sterility. There are places in this world where the innocent must not go.

Perhaps her school was one of them.

He glanced down at the bright face beside him, scrubbing at her tear-stained cheeks, freckles standing out against the pink of embarrassment.

How could anyone not love her?

"If it's any consolation," his voice rumbled, low and soft, beneath Lucy's ear, "I think you're radiant."

Lucy murmured some form of assent, distant and sleepy, soothed by the steadfast presence of her friend. In some far corner of her brain, she caught a flash of Peter's golden hair and the gentle, musty smell of pine needles. The arms around her now were different, knotted and tanned with seafaring and sunlight, salt air tightening his curls, exterior altogether wilder and rougher than Peter's gilded facade. The High King's lungs hadn't tasted Narnian air for a few years now, English life domesticating what once was unbridled. But the twin hearts beat the same tune beneath Lucy's ear, singing to her of lives gone by, adventures yet to be seen, a song of nobility and sacrifice, mercy and justice—the song of a king.

"I mean it."

Lucy sat up and wiped her cheeks, round face turned to the king.

"By my honor as King of Narnia. You are a true wonder of creation, Milady."

She giggled, blushing. "Oh, come now—"

"No," He said, a note of desperation cutting the word short. "Really," his eyes flickered with earnest, "I want you to listen to me. You are the most opalescent creature I've ever had the joy of meeting."

"Well, thank you, but that's clearly not true for the majority—"

He seized her hands, wrapping them in both of his. "You're not listening. You make people happy, Your Majesty. You radiate a contagious joy they can't find anywhere else. But once they know you...oh, Lu—once they know you, they start to see it everywhere. Haven't you seen the new wonder in Eustace's eyes, when he hears you talk?"

"Caspian," Lucy squirmed, "I really appreciate what you are trying to do, but the change in Eustace is because of Aslan, not me."

"Yes—it is Aslan. Aslan changed Eustace for the better. Opened his eyes to the concept of Beauty and sewed the seeds in his heart. It is all by the Highest King's grace and will. But, Milady, you keep pushing your cousin further on. His eyes sparkle when you talk of beauty and goodness. When you point out the way the water reflects off the endless sea, casting diamonds in thin air. Can't you see?"

The small queen bit her lip. She shook her head.

Caspian sighed and leaned back against the sofa cushions. He glanced around the cabin, studying the murals surrounding them. Sunlight slid through a port window, slicing through a crystal goblet on the tablet, casting a range of hues on the far wall. He leaned forward, reaching for the glass.

"Here," he said, tilting the prop towards Lucy. "It's like this. Light is sort of see-through—I mean, unless you are looking right at the sun, you see the things that light illuminates. And you can't look directly at light, or it will hurt your eyes."

Lucy nodded.

"But when the light catches this goblet," he held it up, tipping it to catch the light from the window. "The light it casts on the wall is a kaleidoscope. You can see the light, you can look at it. And it's beautiful. Am I making sense?"

"You always do."

He smiled. "Good. Okay, think of it this way: Aslan is like the light. He's always there, and He's the only reason we can see anything at all. Only, most of the time we can't see Him directly, just as we can't look at the sun. You are the goblet—Aslan shines through you, and His light casts rainbows on the walls of the world. And the rest of us get the joy of admiring it."

Blood sprung to Lucy's cheeks. "That's beautiful. I hope it's true."

"It is. Really, it is."

"If it's true," her brow furrowed. "Why do so many of the girls at school find me repulsive?"

Caspian shrugged. "Maybe they're colorblind."

Lucy giggled, and the boy king smirked.

"But really, Lu," he said, sobering. "Those girls don't know what they've lost. But lucky for them, I don't think anyone could ever really lose you, could they? Touched by someone once, you're touched forever."

The girl nodded. "I'll love them forever, too. Even if we don't talk anymore."

Caspian draped an arm around her shoulders. "That's the Valiant Queen I know."

Together, they watched the rainbow dance across the wall with every sway of the sea beneath them, telling one another stories of their own adventures at the great castle of Cair Paravel, one who called it home a thousand years ago, and the other who called it home at present. And as Queen Lucy told tales the change in her eyes was not lost on Caspian. Blue turned to gold and back again, a flicker—blink and you'd miss it.

The King swore to himself he'd never blink again.