𝐋𝐎𝐍𝐆 𝐋𝐈𝐕𝐄 || peter pevensie [2]

chapter two ~ paradise lost

Looking around her, Maria found herself in a large orchard, the path she had been following now obscured by roots and weeds. Figuring the apples were safe to eat, she pulled one down and began pushing through the tree branches to where she thought the ruins would be. As she walked, Maria pulled out the pins that bound her hair in a soaked bun at the base of her skull, uncurling it into a long braid.

The first part of the castle that she came across was the remains of a stone wall, standing only as high as her knee. Hitching up her skirts, Maria stepped over and followed it to where the trees thinned and she came to a corner. When she looked up, her heart almost broke.

No matter how little was left of the castle, the view could never change. The clear blue of the ocean, the horizon where it bled into the sky, those were the things that never ceased to take her breath away. Those were the things that she didn't realize she had missed until tears pricked her eyes. For a moment, she could forget that the castle was no longer standing around her, that she had ever been away, that she stood alone as she stared over the Eastern Sea.

Maria pulled her hair out of the braid and let the soft breeze rustle through it. She breathed in the salty scent that carried from the water, even smiled to find something familiar to cling to. As her damp curls brushed over her bare shoulders, she thought back to the first time she had taken in this view. That day, she had been given the greatest gift she could ever ask for; the chance to be anything that she wanted to be, with no chains binding her to the whims of society. Her eyes filled until the sea and the sky became a blur of blue. She tossed the core of her apple over the edge of the cliff, catching the tears that escaped as she blinked with her fingertips.

Turning, Maria was met with a sight that she immediately recognized as the Great Hall. She was stood at the back of the dais where a great stained-glass window used to be. The base of each throne remained, but little more. With every step, Maria feared the remnants would crumble around her. Slipping to the floor, she sat between what had once been the High King Peter and Queen Susan's thrones.

She swallowed the lump in her throat and wiped yet more stray tears from her cheeks. "Why did you leave?" she whispered in despair.

The walls she had built to contain everything that she'd been feeling for the past two years just seemed to fall away. Curling her hand into a fist around the charms strung on her cord necklace, Maria rested her forearm on the base of the High King's throne, and wept.

Loud, violent cries escaped her quivering form. Never had she felt so small, so alone. On the Island, she had Aliona, a job, and a chance to be married. Here, she had nothing. She had no one. The world she had known was gone, the castle – her home – only a memory.

Even though she was sure no one was around to hear her, Maria felt foolish crying over something she had lost almost two years ago. Forcing her sobs back down her throat, the tears began to subside. She sniffed deeply and wiped her cheeks again, getting shakily to her feet.

As she walked down from the dais, Maria noticed some chipped wood scattered across the slabs to her right, half-hidden by a pillar. Heart pounding, she hurried down the steps and around the curved wall. Hidden behind it was a gaping hole where a door had once been, bits of it scattered on the floor along with the ivy that had grown to surround the doorway. The door itself, whilst not completely destroyed, barely hung by its hinges inside the hole.

The thought of someone having broken into the royal treasure chamber could have brought the tears flooding back, but something odd on the floor made Maria frown. It was a large stick with something white wrapped around one end. Picking it up, she saw that it was a torn piece of material. She assumed that could have been used in an attempt to make a torch, and quite recently too.

Maria resolved to go down to the chamber herself to inspect the damage. She had been down a few times before, but only with their Majesties permission. It didn't take her long to find a few flintstones in the earth around the ruins, and striking them a few times over the material and some vines that she had wrapped over it for extra fuel, sparks flew and soon she had a makeshift torch.

Treading carefully down each of the sixteen steps, her bare feet providing little grip on the grainy stone, Maria held the torch low to light the tunnel ahead of her. At the bottom of the staircase was a gate, left slightly ajar. Her heart squeezed, fearing the worst.

Yet as soon as she pushed through the gate, she was able to breathe again. It seemed as though everything had been as it was, however many years ago. The chests overflowing with gold and jewels looked untouched, though the thin layer of sand that layered the floor of the chamber showed a path between the piles on either side. The torch threw an eerie light on the treasure, which glowed in the flame. Looking around for a sconce to place the torch into, Maria, once again, had to catch her breath at the sight before her.

At the back of the chamber were four chests, and behind those chests stood a stone statue of each of the Kings and Queens that the Pevensies had grown into. One, in particular, caught her attention. High King Peter's statue had a bow sling over it, and a few arrows wedged oddly between that and the statue itself. After a moment, Maria realized that the weapons were hers and, hurrying forwards, she slid the flaming stick into a sconce in the middle of the back wall, but stopped abruptly in front of the stone chest.

It feel wrong, intrusive, to slip behind it and take the bow and arrows from the statue, even though they belonged to her. Her fingers tingled as she curled them around the wood of the bow, lifting it over Peter's stone form, catching the arrows before they could clatter to the ground. If these were here, her blades and some of her clothes had to be somewhere around the chamber.

She spotted her quiver nestled in the shadows to the left of the great chests, along with a large trunk that used to sit at the base of her bed. She placed the arrows into the quiver, and set those and her bow to one side. Undoing several buckets on the trunk, a few of them cracking with rust, she rummaged through what appeared to be her old clothes. Maria found the leather armour and shirt she had worn during the Battle of Beruna at the very bottom of the trunk, and she smiled fondly, rubbing her fingers over the fabrics. They wouldn't fit her anymore.

Picking out a thick, hard, red leather armoured top, with golden buckle straps across the front, to wear over an off-white, poet sleeved shirt, and a pair of tight, black trousers, Maria looked around for something to wear on her feet. Another trunk nearby contained several pairs of her old shoes. She took out some tall, brown leather boots, but still needed stockings.

Maria felt highly uncomfortable going through the possessions of the Pevensies, especially as they weren't present; in fact, this made her feel even worse. She very carefully lifted the lid of Queen Susan's chest, moved the clothes so daintily, wanting to disturb them as little as possible, and found a pair of stockings under a few dresses.

And that's when it finally dawned on her.

At no point did Nimueh recall seeing the gifts that Father Christmas had given to three of the four Pevensies when they had first arrived in Narnia. Feeling a little further through Susan's things, she felt nothing resembling a bow or quiver, though she expected them to be at the top of the chest. Hurrying over to Lucy's, searching in and around it, she couldn't find the dagger, nor the cordial.

And then she thought of her own weapons placed on the statue of High King Peter. Who on Aslan's name would have the nerve to dress the likeness of a monarch in the possessions of a servant?

Who but the man himself? His shield and sword were missing, but nothing of note had been taken.

Something rushed through her, a kind of giddiness that brought an involuntary smile to her face. What if the Kings and Queens were in Narnia as well? What if they had been called like she had been when the White Witch had cursed the country with an eternal winter? The thought was enough to make her want to cry all over again.

Filled with a new hope, Maria scurried around, trying to find her other weapons, but to no avail. Though highly impractical, the loss of her blades wasn't enough to dampen her spirits straight away.

She may have entered the treasure chamber a tragic servant, but sixteen steps later, she emerged a Lady and a General.