I'm in love with a fairytale, even though it hurts

(Seems to me that you can't sleep.) Grab the shroud, and we'll roar to the clouds, come and get us. And the wind picks up, up, up, and I'll never let you down. It's time to fight, don't be yellow-bellied. Hold the bar at Hurley's hurly-burly's give 'em hell, give 'em hell. (I held your hand. As you shook in the middle of the night.)

 - Not Yet/Love Run (Reprise), The Amazing Devil

You were a king and his castle, I was every dirty rascal. If you asked me for my lighter mate, I gave you my fire. I'd call as you climbed, and I'd catch you every time you fell. 

 - Secret Worlds, The Amazing Devil 

The sea waves are my evening gown, and the sun on my head is my crown. I made this queendom on my own, and all the mountains are my throne.

 - Queendom, AURORA

The Golden Age of Narnia begins a season after the White Witch has died. 

Cassiopeia pulls herself up the side of the castle, hand over hand, her breaths coming in sharp pants as her muscles tremble with the effort she's exerting. She pauses on a windowsill, allowing herself a moment to catch her breath, but does not stop for long; the moment she feels the urge to look down, to see how high she has climbed, she shakes her head and takes a deep breath and wedges her fingers into the nearest cracks. 

Hand over hand, breath by breath, heartbeat by heartbeat, Cassiopeia makes her way up the side of the castle. 

"What the fuck are you doing?" Draco's head snaps around to look at his cousin, ignoring the raised eyebrow from his mother at his language, ignoring how Luna teasingly tells him to clean out his mouth. Draco glares at his cousin, because he knows Cass, because he knows the full extent of her recklessness. (He has seen her walk into an Acromantula's lair. He has seen her look the Ruler of the Unseelie Court in the eyes as she slaughters another Unseelie fae. He has seen her look at a horde of wizards trying to kill her and smile.) (Draco Malfoy loves his cousin, but he knows her too, and it is for this reason that he is aware of how reckless she can be.) 

"Draco, Dray, my dearest cousin," Cass coos at him like he is a child, and his lips curl, because that is the smile she gives him whenever she knows he will hate whatever she is about to say. "This is nothing compared to what else I got up to." 

Edmund snickers, reaching out to place a conciliatory hand upon his twin's cousin's shoulder. Draco looks at him with thawing-ice eyes, beseeching him to say that Cass' words are a lie. Edmund bares his teeth in a mischievous smile, and does not provide the boy with the words he wants to hear. "We did this at least once a week," Edmund says instead, and watches gleefully as Draco groans in exasperation. "And this was the tamest of things she got up to." 

Draco sighs tiredly, and all those around him laugh lightly as he buries his face in Neville's shoulder, the other boy the only one even a little sympathetic to the elder one's wories. (Luna-Ginny-Cass all smile when the boys look at them.) (Draco and Neville are well-used to the reckless endeavours of the females in the group. They wish they weren't so used to seeing these stunts.) 

She reaches the top sooner than she thought she would, scrambling over the edge and collapsing on the roof that slopes down beneath her, her legs dangling over the roof edge that overlooks the courtyard so far down below. She coughs for a moment as her lungs demand air, then a smile stretches across her face and she cannot help but giggle, peals of breathless laughter escaping her mouth as she stares up at the stars that twinkle in the sky above her. They shine down, fondly indulgent, casting their light over this land-bound star-girl who is so similar to them, and she grins up at her star-brethren she has never had the chance to meet. (Never had the chance to meet, but she will, one day.) (A land-bound star she might be, but Cassiopeia will not be land-bound forever.) 

There is a groan from next to her and she pushes herself into a sitting position just in time to see her twin haul himself over the edge of the roof, collapsing onto the sloping structure with a loud noise of complaint. He does not move for a long moment, and eventually Cassiopeia leans over to poke him with her finger, wondering if he has fallen asleep. 

He rolls over just enough to glare at her, and she snickers. 

It is refreshing to see the twins acting their age, after witnessing Edmund crumple to the ground with a sword through his back, after seeing Cassiopeia kill the woman who thought to take her twin from her. It is a reminder that they are children, these survivors-warriors-rulers. They are children lost in a world that is not their own, given crowns no child should carry and fighting wars that should not have been theirs to fight.

Narcissa smiles as she sees her niece laughing at her twin, smiles a tearful smile and clutches Amelia's hand just as tightly as the other woman holds hers. (From the front of the hall, Susan looks at them, and she grins.) How lovely it is, to see these children laugh after everything they have been through. 

The sound rings through the night, light and carefree in a way Cassiopeia rarely is, and Edmund's face softens. He sits up, crossing his legs and resting his hands on his knees, something soft and tender and unbearably vulnerable making itself at home on his face as he watches his twin laugh, her face tilted to the stars as she allows herself the moment of joy. 

(It is so rare that Cassiopeia laughs so freely, even now, even a whole season after the defeat of the White Witch. Edmund treasures the sight.) 

Cassiopeia leaps to her feet as her laughter trails into silence, a smile glinting on her face as she pads along the edge of the roof, skirting the too-high too-sheer drop as if she were a mere step away from the ground. She dances at the edge of a drop that will kill her should she slip, twirling in place with careless abandon, and Edmund watches with his heart in his throat. Were it any of his other siblings, he would never allow them to do such a thing. 

Luna looks at her friend dancing at the edge of a rooftop, and she looks at the Cass who sits just a breath away, and within her rises a sudden surge of love for this star-girl who calls Luna friend, this star-girl who was the first to look at Luna and see someone worth looking at rather than looking past. 

She reaches out, puts a finger upon Cass' arm, and when the star-girl turns to look at Luna there is love in her eyes, so much love it leaves Luna breathless. She beams at her friend-sister-leader, and Cass smiles back, and there is a promise in her eyes, a promise that she will never stop loving Luna for the person she is. 

(Sometimes, Luna cannot believe that she has found such wonderful friends. She cannot believe she has met Cass, who was the first to love her for her Otherness. That she has met Ginny-Neville-Draco, two lovers and a brother-figure who would never let her be alone again.) 

But he does not stop his twin. He does not call her away from the rooftop edge, does not corral her to firmer ground, does not tell her off for being so careless with her own life. (Although he so dearly wants to.) 

He does not do this, because this is Cassiopeia. His twin. The girl who still frowns more than she smiles. The girl who only ever laughs when there is no one close to her but her siblings. The girl who wakes from nightmares, screaming at the actions of the grandmother Edmund has never met. 

There is a sorrow that threatens to choke Minerva, every time there is a mention of the grandmother Cass suffered with for the first seven years of her life. A sorrow that rises in her throat, tasting of grief-fury-pain, a necklace of thorns that reminds her of how she failed. 

Because she told Albus not to take Cass there. She begged him to take her to Narcissa-Remus-Amelia; anyone but Walburga. 

(She remembered Sirius, the youth with pale skin that revealed far too many bruises after the holidays and a pain he carried with him that he tried to hide with smiles and laughter. She remembered Regulus, too-pale too-tired, with eyes red from crying and an aversion to Crucio that he could never quite hide.) (She remembered these boys that she failed, these boys she could not (did not) help, and she begged Albus not to leave the last heir to the Black family there.) 

(Minerva tried to save Cass from suffering the same fate as her father.) (She failed.) 

And so Edmund does not stop Cassiopeia as she dances along the edge of the rooftop. Instead, he climbs to his feet and joins her, grabbing her hands and allowing her to spin them round and round, as the creatures of the night listen to their laughter and the stars watch on indulgently. 

Edmund does not stop Cassiopeia from dancing at the edge of the rooftop, because there is nothing he would not do in order to see his sibling smile. It is for this reason he has followed her to the roof of the castle. It is for this reason he dances with her. It is for this reason he grabs her hands, and allows his laughter to mingle with hers, and joins her in flirting with death. 

This is how the Golden Age of Narnia begins: a season after the death of the White Witch, two broken survivors dance on top of a rooftop, and with the stars as their witness they dance. 

"The Golden Age of Narnia?" The question drips from Narcissa's lips, echoed by Amelia-Minerva-Remus-Neville, the words tinted with sky-blue concern. (How long is an age? These people think to themselves. How long does it take for a child to forget where she came from?)

"The Golden Age of Narnia," the words flurry from mouth to mouth, invoking the essence of what once was. (It tastes of sea salt and smoke, and it feels like sunlight and wind and all things that grow through the soil.) (This essence washes over those who breath the words with wonderment, Sirius-Luna-Ginny-Draco sighing as they feel it cascade over them.) (This essence drowns those who breath the words with a vague but threatening terror; Harry-Ron-Hermione-Lucius all shudder. 

"The Golden Age of Narnia," the Pevensie siblings laugh, and there is something secret in their smiles, some whispered story told in a language no one other than them can understand. (This is what it is to be thirteen years older and thirteen years younger at the same time.) 

As it always does, as it always has, as it always will, time passes. Days become weeks become seasons become years, and slowly, the five rulers of Narnia grow and change. 

Peter and Susan rule from the castle of Cair Paravel, overseeing the court of fauns and centaurs and other human-shaped human-like beings, ruling with kindness and strength, a united front that shall never be separated. Everything they do, they do together; Peter drafts peace treaties whilst Susan doodles war plans, Peter discovers a traitor in the court and Susan slips some poison into the traitor's drink, Peter holds meetings with foreign rulers to distract from Susan freeing the slaves the other rulers entered Narnia with. 

Lucy and Cassiopeia take to the wilder sides of Narnia, the youngest queens spending their days swimming with the nymphs and leviathans and then dancing with the shadow-things from dusk to dawn. They hunt with the creatures-that-seek-death and they spend their winters curled up in the dens of foxeswolvesbadgersleopardspanthers. Lucy and Cassiopeia wander the wilds of Narnia with bare feet and sharp teeth, wild queens with wilder hearts who look after those in Narnia who are wild and feral and a little bit unhinged. (Who better to rule an unhinged people than two slightly unhinged girls?) 

Edmund walks the line between his siblings, the bridge that keeps Narnia in balance. He spends his winters and summers at Cair Paravel, playing chess with Peter and drafting war plans with Susan and endearing himself to the once-slaves that Susan and Peter have rescued. And then he spends spring and fall with his twin and younger sister, scavenging berries off of bushes and scampering up trees with Cassiopeia and diving into the depths of the oceans with Lucy. And wherever he goes, Edmund collects information, setting up a system of informants in every part of the land. Edmund Pevensie walks the line between his siblings, a balance between wildness and civility, a king with no official castle but a system of information over which he rules. 

(Other countries call them Barbarians. They look at the feathers in Susan's hair and the fur on Peter's hands and the thorns curling around Edmund's wrists and the stones woven into Lucy's braids and the blood on Cassiopeia's claws and they name them Oucasts, Barbarians, Wild, Feral, Lesser, Other.) (Peter-Susan-Edmund-Cassiopeia-Lucy bare their teeth in laughter and wonder what makes civilization in any way appealing.) 

There is some horror, seeing the Pevensie siblings grow and change, seeing the years pass in snapshots, seeing what they have done. (What they did with smiles on their faces and laughter on their lips.) There is some horror (Lucius-Albus-Severus-Harry-Ron-Hermione) as they see all that the Pevensie siblings became, in a land far away and long ago. 

There is some horror. 

But there is far more awe. 

Draco-Neville-Blaise smile sharply, cruelly, as they watch Susan kiss men with poisoned lips and walk away from the bodies arm-in-arm with her eldest brother. They see themselves in the poison she and Peter swallow as easily as water, swallowing with identical cruel smiles whilst foreign dignitaries writhe on the ground. They smile. 

Ginny-Sirius-Luna recognize themselves in the wild howls echoing as Lucy and Cass chase their prey through the forests, in the bare feet bare hearts of these wild queens that dance with monsters that would make lesser people die of fright. They see Cass' claws, hear the shriek Lucy greets the sky with, and it is rather like looking into a mirror. 

Amelia-Theo-Remus understand the bridge that Edmund Pevensie becomes, understand the need for balancing dark and light. They see the use the middle King makes of informants and traitors, watch as he crafts an intelligence network spanning every part of his land, and some part of themselves purrs. (Like calls to like.) 

But although they rule separate parts of Narnia, the Pevensie siblings do not grow up apart. At least once every seven days, Cassiopeia and Lucy slink into Cair Paravel, with knotted hair and too-bright eyes and too-sharp nails. Their siblings will find them sometime in the evening, curled up next to each other on the ground, smiling jagged smiles at their siblings and speaking the sibilant sounds of the Narnian creatures. Edmund inevitably joins them on the ground, bringing a blanket with him for the three to snuggle into, and Peter and Susan trade fond smiles as they go to the kitchen, coming back with hot chocolate and snacks. These are nights filled with love and laughter, the siblings trading stories of their days as Susan gently detangles Lucy's hair and Cassiopeia rests her head in Edmund's lap and Peter teases his youngest sisters about the leaves being pulled out of their curls. 

(Invariably, Cassiopeia will share something about the world-that-once-was, the place they were in before they came home to Narnia. She is a private person by nature, and as such it takes years before the Pevensies are able to understand what she has been through, what she has faced.) (They hear of Draco-Ginny-Luna-Neville, and they smile, but they also hear of the lady that called herself Cassiopeia's grandmother. They hear about the parents that abandoned her and the childhood friend-turned-enemy who called her a monster and the way all the teachers at Hogwarts seemed to be waiting for her to turn out like her fathers. And with every story, they become a little more horrified, a little more determined to never let their sister feel alone again.)

It is gratifying, for Draco-Luna-Neville-Ginny, to see that Cass did not forget them, even when she was somewhere they could not follow. To see that she told her siblings about them, did not just forget them but instead clung to the memories of them with all the fervor of a desperate girl. (Not that they think she would forget them; but it is always a fear, is it not?) (So many years seem to have passed in that Other world; how could they not think she forgot about them?) 

Sirius and Remus wince at the knowledge that their daughter's siblings are aware of the pain they have caused her, that the four Pevensies have been told of the suffering they abandoned their daughter to. They look at the Pevensie siblings, and Peter-Susan-Lucy-Edmund stare back, eyes filled with warnings of what will happen should Remus and Sirius hurt their sister again. 

Other times, it will be Peter and Susan and Edmund who go looking for the youngest Pevensies, Peter-Susan-Edmund who will leave behind the calmness of Cair Paravel in favour of the whispering of the forests. Usually, when they find Cassiopeia and Lucy, it will be in the middle of a dance; the elder Pevensies slip into the ranks of shadowed creatures seamlessly, abandoning their masks of human-rulers and allowing their true selves to come to the fore. When Peter-Susan-Edmund find Cassiopeia and Lucy, there is madness and dancing, the five siblings holding onto each other as they twirl and jump and scream their joy into the night. (All of them are a little broken, a little mad.) (Who could be the ruler of a mad country but a mad person?) 

This is how the Pevensie siblings grow: in civility and wildness, and a little bit of madness. 

"What kind of dances are those?" Lisa Turpin, Ravenclaw, asks curiously. She leans forwards in her seat, mint curiousity flitting through the air around her. It is Susan who answers the girl, after a moment, smiling gently at this knowledge-hungry being that reminds her of some of the people Susan had once known. 

"Dances to bring life to a dead place," Susan smiles at the Ravenclaw girl, smiles at all those who lean forwards eagerly at the prospect of gaining new knowledge. "Dances that emulate the stars, dances that pay homage to the ocean. Dances that call upon the Olde Magick, and dances that call upon magic so ancient there is no name for it." 

A few of those listening recoil at the mention of Olde Magick, taught that it is wrong, taught that it is evil. But more lean forwards, eager, curious. 

(Albus Dumbledore sees this, and he knows that these five Pevensie siblings are threats to everything he has created-taught-built. He vows to eradicate them, once and for all.) (Oh, Albus, how sweet to think you have enough power to kill them.) 

But there is love, too. (Is love not a consequence of madness? Is insanity not a remnant of love?) 

Lucy falls in love with the dryad who enabled her siblings to hide from the White Witch. Lucy falls in love with Aeliv when she is fifteen, and from then on her skin is permanently scattered with freckles that speak of love. (Everyone knows a dryad's kisses leave marks on any other being.) And then, Lucy falls in love with a dwarf as well, both she and Aeliv courting Rymil until the dwarf laughs and agrees to be part of their relationship. (The day Rymil agrees to the advances of the queen and the dryad, the ocean sparkles with glee and the waves kiss the shoreline in exultation.) 

"That's wrong!" Hermione Granger shrieks, Christian-born Christian-raised witch ignorant of the many forms love can come in. She leaps to her feet, pointing at the animal-queen who watches her with predatory eyes that Hermione fails to notice. (Lucy's siblings do not fail to notice the bloodlust in their sisters' eyes. They share the feeling.) "You can't love a woman!" Hermione screams and screams and screams. "You can't love someone the same gender as yourself! You can't love more than one person!" 

She does not see the dark looks cast towards her by a majority of the hall. She does not see how Remus Lupin growls, but is held back by Minerva McGonagall, who is taking deep breaths to try and calm herself down. She does not see the curses stopped before they can be said, the aborted movements towards wands-weapons. 

Hermione Granger claims that it is wrong to do anything other than love a single person of the opposite gender, and Albus Dumbledore watches on with pride. (He disagrees, of course, but this is a sacrifice that must be made for the Greater Good.) (Deep down, buried beneath enchantments-spells-potions-curses, some part of Hermione is screaming.) 

Susan falls in love and falls out of love with the blink of an eye, or perhaps she never falls in love at all and simply enjoys the thrill of the dance that is a relationship. She never marries, and she never commits to a relationship, but it would be hard for her to do that even if she were interested. (Susan was gifted a bow, but she taught herself poison. There is a trail of bodies left in her lake, enemies of Narnia brought low by a single kiss from painted lips.) But Susan does not care for love, or partners; she rescues slave-girls and takes them under her wings, teaching them how to protect themselves and defending them with all the might of a roaring wind, and when they begin to call her Mother she smiles and accepts the title eagerly. 

Tears spring to Susan's eyes at the reminder of the girls she called her own, of the girls who she called Daughters, of the girls who called her Mother. She buries her face in her hands and she forces herself not to weep, because she has already lost so many tears in mourning for those she left behind the first (the only) time they were forced to leave Narnia. (She curses Aslan, with every part of her being. Curses him to feel the abandonment her daughters did, the loneliness Cass experienced, the pain all of their subjects went through.) 

Susan buries her face in her hands and tries not to weep. Her siblings surround her, knowing what it is to leave behind those you love, knowing what it is to lose a part of your heart. Draco-Luna-Neville-Ginny comfort Susan as well, because they all have experienced a similar sense of loss at some point in their lives, because it is not a feeling they would ever wish upon another person. 

(Cass glances away from Susan for a moment, silver eyes appraising those in the hall, silver eyes seeing those who linger on the outskirts and do not interact with others and watch everything around them with caution.) (Susan mourns for those she lost. Cass is the only one to look at those in the Great Hall and know that her sister will gain new followers-worshippers-children.) 

Neither Cassiopeia nor Edmund ever fall in love. Or at least, they do not fall in love with a being. The twins fall in love with Narnia, with the secrets only they know and the wilds they have traversed, and Narnia falls in love with them, too, these hungry-wild-broken rulers who brought a tyrant low. The twins do not ever have romantic relations, but they do not need to; they love each other, and they love their kingdom, and they love their subjects, and that is more than enough for them to be happy. (Why should they want partners when they have each other?) (Why should they want romance when they already live with the other half of their soul?) 

Sirius thinks that perhaps he should be sad that his daughter never found anyone to love as fiercely as he adores Remus, as James once loved Lily, as Mary so ardently cherished Dorcas.  

Sirius thinks that perhaps he should be sad that his daughter did not find love in the years that she spent growing up in another land (growing up without him, growing up forgetting him) (don't think about that) but he finds he cannot be sad. 

He cannot be sad, because he looks at her, and he sees how her silver eyes (so like his, so like Regulus') light up as she laughs with the boy who she calls twin. He sees the glimmer to her skin as Peter makes her smile at a lame joke, sees the fond twist to her lips as Lucy trips into a mud patch, sees the softness in her bearing as Susan braids flowers into her hair. 

(He should be sad, but he isn't.) (How could he ever be sad that she does not love someone, when this is the happiest he has ever seen her? In a land no one knows of, with her siblings at her sides and a kingdom that loves her.) 

Peter takes a few lovers over the years, and he loves each of them fiercely. But he does not find someone to spend the rest of his life with, unlike Lucy. It does not truly bother him, the fact that it seems he shall have no romantic lover; when his relationships fail, he is heartbroken, but a quiet part of him is also satisfied that there will be more time to spend with his siblings. So Peter Pevensie loves, and he falls out of love, and he has his heart broken and breaks hearts in return, but the one thing to remain true always is that he puts his siblings above any and all partners he has. (He is the eldest. It is Peter's duty to take care of his siblings, and it is a duty he upholds with the utmost seriousness.) 

This is a feeling Draco and Neville can sympathize with. They, two, are the eldest in the group that is Cass-Ginny-Luna-Draco-Neville, and as such, they feel it is their duty to ensure that their friends-family are okay. 

(Cass-Ginny-Luna can take care of themselves, the boys are aware of that. They know that, they do. And they love their friends-family for this independence, this fierceness with which Ginny-Luna-Cass greet each day.) (But still, there is that instinct to wrap Cass in the warmest blanket there is when she shivers at the thought of snow, to ply Ginny with hot chocolate when her hands shake at the sight of a blank page, to pull Luna to her feet and dancedancedance when she flinches away from the flames before her.) 

Draco and Neville look at Peter, and wonder if perhaps they are not so different from the eldest Pevensie after all. (Draco-Neville-Peter, you understand each other more than one might suspect.) 

This is how the Pevensies love: with fierceness and devotion. They love each other and they love Narnia, and they love their subjects. Some of them find romance easy, others do not understand why it is wanted. 

But all of them grow up. 

And all of them love. 

Narcissa closes her eyes for a moment, buries her head in her hands as she forces herself not to burst into tears. Because she is happy that Cass loves, of course she is, but grief threatens to drown her nonetheless. (Because how is it that this girl had to go to a different world to find the love she always should have had?) 

Harry looks at the front of the hall, where the girl he used to love sits. (Before he knew her true nature.) (Before he allowed his thoughts to be swayed by the opinions of others.) He looks to his sides, where Hermione is fiddling anxiously with a strand of hair, where Ron is leaning back looking utterly bored. He is not jealous, because he knows what it is to feel love. (But he wishes he knew how it felt to be loved because of who he is, not what he can do or has done.) 

The years pass, and Narnia takes the siblings and changes them. This is what any place will do, once you have stayed there long enough. It calls you its own, changes you to suit its image. And perhaps you will resent it for this. Perhaps you will be grateful. Perhaps you will not even notice these changes at all, until you try and settle down somewhere else and find that you cannot. 

The Pevensies fall into the second group. Narnia changes them, transforms them into something Other, and they are grateful to it for this. (They are grateful because for too long, they have been the others, the strangers, the too-soft too-human rulers who do not quite belong in the country they rule over.) (They are grateful because they love Narnia, and this Changing is proof that Narnia loves them too.) 

There are some changes that are common amongst all the siblings. They grow tall, taller than they otherwise might have, and their skin always has a slight glow to it. Their lungs expand, and their smiles become too-sharp too-big too-wide. Their nails become sharp, as do their teeth. They pick up languages with an unnatural ease, and find their memory improved from what it was before. Sometimes, they laugh, and one can hear Narnia laughing with them. 

There are those in the hall, who look at how the Pevensie siblings changed (who see how Narnia chose to change them) and narrow their eyes in understanding. 

Those who have read the lore that speaks of fae and elves, who have pored over forgotten books that remind the world all the ways in which humanity had once been considered lesser. (Who have studied the fae and the elves, the Seelie and Unseelie. Those who have seen Luna and known her to be Other, who have seen Susan Bones and understood what it is she is descended from.) 

These people, these purveyors of legend and lore, they are the ones to narrow their eyes in understanding. They look at the Pevensies as they are now (too-human, too-normal) and their eyes catch the telltale glimmer of glamour. 

(There are those in the hall who see the Pevensies as they were and see the Pevensies as they are, and begin to wonder if they have really changed at all.) 

They change in other ways, too, ways that are unique to each of them. 

Peter grows into a broad-chested thunder-voiced man, with a head full of sunlight hair that shines in the day and glows softly at night. The air around him is always hot, and when he is irritated he leaves singed handprints on whatever he touches. Sometimes, when he gets angry, his hair becomes flames and fire seems to dance in his eyes. (His subjects learn to call him King Peter the Magnificent, King Peter the Hopebearer, titles gifted by his subjects who have seen the sunlight caress him as he charges onto the battlefield. The Golden Sun of Narnia, they call him, and they could not be more correct.) 

In the hall, there is a sudden surge of hope. The sun, from where it is steadily burying itself below the horizon, flares a little brighter, the golden rays shining a little more where they dance upon the walls of the Great Hall. The flames of the torches leap upwards, acknowledging their ruler, sending curls of smoke to wrap around the king who has been mentioned. 

Peter smiles a little, tips his head forwards in acknowledgement of the flames and the sun that call him King. (He looks at his siblings, a question on his face, unsaid but heard nonetheless. Susan-Lucy-Edmund nod, but Peter looks to Cass. (This is her decision more than it is anyone else's.)) (She inclines her head, and Peter grins.) 

And then Peter, Hopebearer, The Golden Sun of Narnia, takes a breath and allows his glamours to drop. (As his almost-true form is revealed to the hall, there is a moment in which everyone is blinded.) (He has changed slightly; his true-form is no longer quite what it once was, those years-decades-centuries ago. There is a weight to him now, a depth to the halo of light shining around his head that makes one think of heat waves and life and death and the beginning of impossible things.) 

(Looking at Peter is like looking at the sun: awe-inspiring and blinding.)

Susan phases into a woman whose every move is deliberate and who seems to float rather than walk. There are always snowflakes dancing on her breath and cascading from her hair, a testament to the icy Western mountains she rules over. The sound of wind accompanies her every word, and when she laughs it is a gale that rushes from her mouth. Her eyes frost over, the pupil no longer visible; looking into Susan's Pevensies eyes is looking into a snowy tundra, cold and alien, a place that melts for her loved ones only. Sometimes, when she walks, she goes through objects rather than around them. (Queen Susan the All-Sighted, her subjects whisper, because it is a well known fact that Susan can see the future that may be.) (Although she chooses not to. No one should know their fate; it is something that drives people mad.) 

Following Peter's lead (following Cass' direction) Susan also allows her glamour to drop. She does this subtly, allowing the glamour to slip from her skin with a small roll of her shoulders, a quiet sigh escaping her mouth as she enjoys the freedom from the confines of her 'normal' form. 

She has changed, much like Peter, much like Edmund-Cass-Lucy, evolved more than she did once upon a time in a country that does not exist. Her form is less corporeal than it was even in the first few years of her reign, her skin made of snowy gusts, blurred at the edges and occasionally passing through whatever she touches. She floats rather than sits or stands, and whenever she exhales snowflakes dance on the air before her. She turns to face her siblings, and when she moves her hair drifts around her face, the ebony strands never still, constantly being blown by a wind that no one else can feel. 

Edmund unfolds into a antlered being of shadows and secrets, a man who knows more than he should and smiles less than he might. He is one of the most physically changed of them all, with antlers twisting above his head and moss growing on his skin, bark crackling its way across his shoulders and flowers blooming in his hair. Silence trails after him, and sometimes when he speaks he speaks in the language of treesstonesmossflowers rather than the language of humans. (His siblings all learn to speak this other language, too. They never want to not understand their brother.) He has an information network as wide-spread as the roots of a forest, and refuses to make judgements on people before hearing every side of the story. (For this, they name him King Edmund the Just, King Edmund the Knowledgeable.) 

Edmund shakes the glamour off with a toss of his head that has antlers unfurling in the same breath, the appendages twisting through the air above him as if they'd always been there, flaunting a surface so dark it could be mistaken for a black hole, with moss and flowers cascading down around him and thorns winding through the antlered prongs. 

He is the least changed from how he was in the days of his first-adulthood, but simultaneously the most physically changed from the days of his childhood. He still has the antlers, still drapes silence around himself like a blanket. He turns to Cass, and when he opens his mouth it is that ancient language of treesstonemossflowers which blooms from his lips. 

(She replies to him in the same language, a dialect of starsdarknessdancingsinginglifedeath that rings of ancient beginnings and ancient ends.) (They all speak this language, albeit different parts of it. Edmund cannot help but beam every time he speaks and they reply in kind.) (There is a beauty in always being understood.) 

(Cass shifts closer to her twin for the first time in a while, resting her head on his shoulder and twining their fingers together, avoiding the prongs of his antlers with practiced ease. Edmund wraps himself around the other half of his soul, and although Peter-Susan-Draco-Neville-Ginny-Luna all see the tremulous smile that stretches across his lips, Neville is the only to see the tear that slips free of his eyes.) (The tear blossoms into a milkvetch flower, pale against Cass' dark curls. Neville is also the only one to see this, and he smiles.) 

Cassiopeia explodes into a woman with supernova eyes and a love for dancing. Parts of her skin take on the appearance of the night sky, constellations and galaxies and stars and suns floating through these space-dark space-cold patches of skin. Sometimes, the edges of her form fades into a nebula of to-be stars, her body less physical than it is a manifestation of space. Her Darkness is always at her side, rarely disappearing, a constant companion to the glow of Cassiopeia's skin and the shining of her supernova eyes. When she laughs-screams-rages, the air around her explodes with the heat of the burning star that she is. She is no longer confined to the ground; her magic learns how to lift her into the air, to use the dark and the light to support her every step, and this frees Cassiopeia from the constraints of being a mortal being. (Every star belongs in the sky, and she is no different.) (Her subjects laugh as they call her Queen Cassiopeia the Vivacious, the Dancing Queen of Narnia, the Fury to Peter's Hope.) 

Eyes turn to her, now, expectant of the transformation that is sure to happen, wondering at what her form will look like in person instead of viewed through a picture on a wall. Eyes turn to her, expectant, waiting, and Cass cannot help but shrink back in her seat. Eyes turn to her, but the only people she looks at are Ginny-Draco-Luna-Neville. 

Because what if they turn from her? She knows that they will not, logically, knows to trust them enough to show them her true form. (But there's always a point where it becomes too much.) But they might decide that this is the moment where they find they cannot deal with her anymore (like Harry like her fathers like her grandmother-) and cast her aside (like everyone from her childhood did.) 

But her twin is next to her, steady and reassuring. And Peter is smiling, warm in the way that only her older brother can be. And Susan is holding onto her hand, a promise of safety in the elder Pevensie's eyes. And Lucy is laying her head on Cass' lap, beaming up at the elder sister she so adores. 

Cass takes a breath. She exhales. And then she allows her power to surge through her veins, and her glamour burns.

(She looks much the same as her Other-form, her true-form. Her skin swirls with constellations and nebulaes and galaxies. Her body fades at the edges, blurring into possibilities and choices. Her eyes glimmer with the light of a thousand stars.) (She is More than her once-Other-form was, her true form unable to be seen with the naked eye but able to be felt. It feels like stargazing-at-midnight and screaming-into-a-silent-room and laughing-with-family. It is fury-fire-endings-beginnings-love-pain-protection made physical.) (Cass' glamour burns, and for the first time everyone understands the Otherness of a star.) 

(As it would turn out, she feared for nothing. Draco laughs in delight at the warmth now curling around him, and Ginny's own magic-flames flicker in response to Cass' star-fire, and Luna smiles because she recognizes Cass, and Neville grins at her in that laughing way of his as he asks if she'll be his nightlight.) 

Lucy drifts into a form more akin to a naiad than the girl she once was. Her curls cascade down her back in swirls of sea-green and rust, her skin takes on a dark blue tinge that resembles the depths of the ocean over which she presides. When she walks, she leaves damp footprints behind her. She wakes up in the morning, and the scent of salt trails after her; by the time night falls, the smell surrounding her is that of rotting seaweed. Lucy grows up to be an emotional being, raging and crying and laughing within the span of a heartbeat, her feelings tumultous as the sea. Occasionally, parts of her body dissolve into seafoam; at times, she can be as incorporeal as Susan. (The Ocean Queen, her subjects smile. The Queen of the Depths.) 

Lucy's release of her glamour is quicker than her siblings, a mere ripple over her skin revealing the form that is her true one. She stretches languidly, her skin swirling in a way that reminds all present of a whirlpool, and a sound of content escapes from her mouth. (She is the least content to remain in a glamour, more free-spirited than any of her siblings sans Cass, detesting the restriction of a mortal skin far more than her elder siblings.) 

Her form is almost as it once was, in times gone by and lands long lost. She has the closest resemblance to her once-new-form than anyone other than Edmund; the only changes from her once-new-form is the water droplets constantly clinging to her skin, the second row of teeth hiding behind her shark's smile. (She is as Other as any of her siblings.) (She is as Other as it is possible to be.) 

The years pass, and as much as the Pevensie siblings change Narnia, so too does Narnia change them. 

They do not begrudge the changes; the siblings feel more real than they ever have before. 

All in the hall stare at the Pevensie siblings, now, Other as they have shown themselves to be. 

There is awe on the faces of many of the students, those students who have looked at Cass and thought God before they thought Person. They stare at her, their peer-general-god, and there is a feeling of wonder in their hearts. (This is the god to whom they have pledged their loyalty, star-queen and darkness-friend that she is.) (This is the person who they hope-think-know will save them.) 

There is curiosity on the faces of some of the Professors and some of the others in the hall. (Narcissa-Amelia-Remus-Sirius-Filius-Augusta-Pomona-Minerva-Hermione.) They wonder what it is to be so undeniably Other, so Olde and yet Newe at the same time. They wonder what it is to wield so much power (the power that they know could suffocate the entire hall with just a twitch of a finger) and yet feel the need to hide it. 

There is hatred on the faces of a select few in the hall. (Albus-Harry-Ronald-Lucius.) Hatred because no one should ever be this powerful. (No one should be more akin to a god than a human.) (Sans Dumbledore, of course.) They look at the Pevensie siblings, Other as they are, and they hate with a passion that surprises even themselves. 

Child-rulers though they may be, no country is ever truly peaceful, and so the Pevensie siblings grow up in war as much as they grow up in peace. Peter leads armies to victory on the battlefield, implementing the plans that Susan and Edmund have thought out carefully. Cassiopeia fights at the side of her siblings, her wand in one hand and her weapon in the other. (She wields her staff, when she is young, and eventually learns all that it can do. Learns how to channel her magic into the gifted staff, learns how to wield the scythe that appears when she lets her magic be free.) (With her scythe-staff, there is none equal to her on the battlefield.) Lucy cajoles the dryads and nymphs and dwarves into fighting with them, speaks to the creatures that lurk in shadows and entreats the beings that live beyond sight, turns the tides of wars by returning to her siblings with reinforcements and alliances no one would have expected. (For this, they name her Queen Lucy the Valiant. She takes the title and tucks it into the core of her being, guarding it fiercely with bared teeth and bloodied claws.) 

Child-rulers grow into adult-rulers, in times of peace and in times of war. 

And like any who walk onto the battlefield, they do not emerge unscathed. 

A whine escapes Remus' throat as he buries his head in his hands. He cannot bear to face the pain his daughter has surely gone through, the warfare she must have endured. (Once a coward, always a coward.) He knows, logically, that Cass can look after herself. And perhaps she will not be injured at all? Perhaps she will simply be emotionally hurt? (He cannot bear to think of the other option.) (What parent ever wants to see their child hurt?) 

(Remus Lupin, you should know better than that. You have traced the scars on your and your lover's bodies, remnants of a war you should not have had to fight in. You have seen the scars winding their way up Ronald Weasley's arms, the lightning marking Harry's forehead. You had Lily's blood on your hands, once, when she was cursed and you were the one who had to pick her up and rush her to the nearest healer.) (Remus Lupin, no one walks out of a war uninjured, unmarked.) 

Edmund loses his left eye at thirteen-years-old, in a battle against the giants of Ettinsmoor. He loses his eye to a sword he was too slow to defend from, a sword that left a gash from his forehead to just below his ear, cutting through his eye and rendering him blind on his left side. It is not the first scar the Pevensies siblings have gained during their years as rulers, but it is the first debilitating injury. (Peter is the one who sees him fall, in that battle, who watches his younger brother collapse to the ground with a red-stained face and proceeds to decimate everyone standing in between him and Edmund.) (Lucy's cordial can do many things, but it is not all powerful. It cannot save Edmund's sight, and this is a guilt the youngest Pevensie carries with her for many years after.)

(Edmund Pevensie is left half-blind at thirteen-years-old, but Susan cradles his face and Peter presses a kiss to his forehead and Cassiopeia holds his hand tightly and Lucy laughs as she says it looks badass. Edmund Pevensie is left half-blind due to a battle gone wrong, but hardly a month passes before he is making jokes and laughing with his twin.) (He has always been stronger than they gave him credit for.)

People notice it, now, a thick scar slashing through the middle Pevensie's left eye, dark and smooth in the way that only a years-old scar can be. (Was it there before? No one is sure.) (Did it appear with the glamours or was it there the whole time? No one can quite seem to remember.) Cutting from his hairline to the middle of the cheek, the scar stares proudly at the hall, reveling in the gasps that greet it. 

Cass leans up, presses a kiss to Edmund's cheek where the scar fades into uninjured skin. He smiles at his twin, pressing a returning kiss to her forehead, an unbearably tender look passing over his face when Lucy clambers to sit on his left side, his feral-sister baring shark teeth at the hall as she protects Edmund's blind spot. (Protects him like she swore to do, when she was nine and he was eleven, when he crumpled to the ground with a sword in his back and she screamed as her world fell to pieces.)

(As the light shifts, for a moment, the scar resembles nothing so much as the branch of a tree.) (Who's to say it isn't a branch? Who's to say what it is?)   

Susan is taken prisoner by the soldiers of Telmar at seventeen, held captive for six months until the slave girls she has been imprisoned with manage to free themselves and the Narnian queen. Susan returns to her siblings on a stolen ship, with both of her legs cut off just below the knee and a hold full of once-slave girls loyal only to her. All of her siblings weep when they see what has become of their eldest sister. Prosthetics are made for Susan by the sylphs that inhabit the skies over which she rules over, and although it should take much longer, it is a matter of months before the queen is standing once more. Susan has always been stubborn; she loses her legs but that does not stop her. (She takes in all the once-slave girls, because they are hungry creatures and bloody beings and they remind her of herself, a girl grown in a war.) (There is no one in Narnia more loyal than the once-slave girls are to their savior-queen.)

(The first thing Susan does after her prosthetics have been made is grab both of her sister's and dance to the song a satyr is playing. The girls whirl around in circles, the eldest laughing whilst her sisters weep tears of joy at seeing her standing again. Peter confines her to bed for a week after she trips over still-unfamiliar feet, but Susan will forever tell him it was worth those few moments of dancing steps she thought she might never dance again.) 

"Oh no," Narcissa breathes, one hand clasped over her mouth and the other holding onto Amelia so tightly the other woman has lost all feeling in her fingers. The once-Black woman tears up (there are so many ways to harm a person in six months) (there are so many ways a person can break) and Amelia cannot stand the sight, so she gently pulls Narcissa closer. Narcissa buries her face in Amelia's shoulder, and Amelia allows a tear of her own to fall. (A tear for Narcissa, who is intimately familiar with the ways a woman can be harmed. A tear for Susan, the queen who shares her daughter-niece's name, who never should have had to go through something so tragic.) 

(A tear for everyone who will go through the same thing, because this is a war and no one walks out of a war uninjured.) (There will be more who lose limbs, children and teenagers and adults alike who come out of the war alive but missing parts of themselves, and it is for them that Amelia cries.) 

Susan Pevensie traces a finger over her legs, idly pushing aside the folds of her skirt to run a hand along wind-made storm-sculpted limbs. (How did no one see the gleam of metal before?) She winks at Draco when the younger gapes at the limbs, and he looks aside, wonderment at the craft of the prosthetics clashing with a rising horror he cannot push back. (He is not sure he will survive it, should Cass have experienced something similar.) 

Cassiopeia and Lucy both lose limbs during a border skirmish with Calormene, during a battle in which the Narnians are forced back. The two queens are the last to retreat from the battlefield, ensuring that all of their surviving fighters have retreated safely; as such, there is no one around to see Lucy's right arm be separated from her body by a wild slash of a Calormene saber. (But everyone in Narnia hears Cassiopeia's scream as her youngest sister falls to the ground.) No one is there to witness Cassiopeia grab a knife and hack off the hand that has been crushed under a fallen horse and is keeping her from saving Lucy's life, no one is there to witness the middle Pevensie sister haul her younger sibling over her shoulder and retreat minutes after the rest of their army has fled, her magic destroying the Calormene army behind them. (No one sees this, but stories are born quickly and shared faster, and it is not long before the entirety of Narnia knows of how Queen Cassiopeia cut off her own hand in order to save the life of her younger sister.) (When the army goes back to the battlefield, there is nothing left but scorch marks and a faint smell of burning. Rumours reach them a month later of how the Castle of Calormene exploded a week after the battle, only the servants and slaves remaining untouched by the explosion. This is how Cassiopeia gains her title of Queen of the Stars.) 

(Months later, Lucy will choose to only wear her prosthetic into battle, whilst Cassiopeia wears her own prosthetic unpredictably, the two girls adjusting far easier than anyone thought they would. Whenever they are in the castle, it is a common sight to see the two sisters laughing over only having one right and one left hand between them, banding together to complete tasks that require both hands.) (Cassiopeia and Lucy lose limbs in the same battle, but all this does is bring them closer.) 

Sirius keens as he sees Cass, his daughter, his blood, amputate herself in order to save a younger sister who would have died otherwise. He bends his head and he wails, because that is his daughter and she is missing a hand and he wasn't there why wasn't he there he should have been there he should have saved her-

In some ways, Draco thinks to himself, this is worse than what happened to Susan. This is worse, because the eldest Pevensie sister lost her limbs due to the actions of others, whereas Cass was forced to cast aside her limb herself in order to save her youngest sibling. 

Cass shifts, just a little, and the gleam of star-silver limb shines as the torchlight gleams off of it. Draco-Neville-Luna-Ginny-Sirius-Remus see this, and it feels like they have been punched. Her friends, her followers, her devotees surround her, aching at the sight of a missing limb where they had once been so certain there was skin. They hug Cass, and she embraces them whole-heartedly, whispering reassurances and oaths to the friends who have become family. 

The Pevensies watch this with indulgent smiles and a faint sense of heartbreak. (This is Cass-Lucy-Susan, the Queens of Narnia, the Pevensie sisters who will never be entirely whole again.) Lucy reaches out with sea-storm-crafted fingers, and Edmund cradles them in his grip. Susan rests her head of Peter's shoulder, and he places a hand on wind-made knees. Cass embraces her extended family, and the Pevensies ache quietly watching Draco-Luna-Neville-Ginny weep over their god's missing hand. 

Peter Pevensie does not lose any limbs, but he is not untouched by the wars they fight in. He is no longer able to feel anything but pressure in his hands, injured as they have been by fire and wounds. One of his knees no longer works as it should, a remnant of a poisonous cut that had infected his bloodstream before Susan managed to get him to Lucy. And yet, despite these wounds, the eldest Pevensie is as healthy as anyone who has gone through wars can be. (He grieves that he could not spare his siblings their suffering. He would take every wound they ever received if he could spare them that pain.) (But he cannot, so instead he does what he can to ease their pain. And for this, they love him.) 

(Peter does not lose any limbs, so he does all he can to help his siblings who have. He brings Edmund hot chocolate on the days when his eye pains him, wrapping a blanket around the younger and sitting with him in silence. He walks through the gardens with Susan, allowing her to talk about her latest obsession. He dances with Cassiopeia and Lucy, twirls them around bonfires and through forests until all three of them are laughing and joyous.) (Peter does not lose any limbs, and this makes him more determined than ever to protect his siblings.) 

It is gratifying, to see how ardently the eldest Pevensie siblings loves his younger brothers and sisters. To see the pure adoration in his eyes when he looks at them, the sense of wonder that yes, these are his siblings, and yes, this is the life he gets to live. 

It is wonderful to see the fierce protection Peter establishes over his siblings. (Not because they cannot take care of themselves, but because he cares.) (To many purebloods in the hall, this is a distinction they cannot help but envy.) 

(It is terrible too, to see the adoration of the eldest Pevensie towards his younger siblings. They see the dark circles under his eyes from nightmares of his brother dying, the shake in his hands from not knowing how to do anything other than hold a sword, the slight limp speaking of wounds healed wrong.) (The hall sees these marks of devotion, of invisible pain, and many can hardly keep from weeping for this boy-king-god who has never lost anything but bears the marks of war anyway.)

The Golden Age of Narnia ends on a day that begins as any other. Lucy tumbles onto her elder siblings before the sun has even thought about stretching above the horizon, the youngest Pevensie's excitement sending sparks flying from her fingers as she tells her siblings that the White Stag has been spotted in the Lantern Wastes. She tells them that it is fabled for being able to grant a wish to whoever captures it, and all of them look to Susan. 

Susan closes her eyes, breathes in, breathes out. (In her mind, scenes flash past. Five siblings racing each other through a forest. A cry of triumph. Dismounting their horses, Lucy laughing gaily as she appears from the forest whilst Peter smiles at her, Edmund and Cassiopeia walking to their siblings with fondness scrawled upon their faces.) She opens her eyes, and looks at her brothers, and there is a sharp smile on her face that tells them all they need to know. 

"I should have looked more," Susan breathes, grief in her voice and pain tangible in the air around her, a dark miasma which drifts through the hall, coating everyone's tongues with the taste of rot. She puts her head in her hands, and she weeps. "I should have looked more." 

Peter gathers her up in his arms, holding her close to him even as tears of his own drip down his face. "You could not have known," he whispers to his eldest sister. Lucy and Edmund chime in with their own agreements, but there are tears on their faces too and a desperate fury that speaks of cornered animals and loss. 

Draco places a hand upon Susan's shoulder, too, because she is important to his cousin and that means she is family, and that means he cannot simply stand by while she is in pain. He does not say anything, simply does his best to provide reassurance, not knowing what it is that Susan is blaming herself for but hating the sight of her tear-stained face. 

Cass looks at her siblings, at the pain on their faces and the grief that permeates the air. And she remains silent. (But inside, her never-dying-fury is provided new kindling.) (Soul-daughter of the lion she may be, but Aslan will bleed for doing this to her family.) 

By the time the sun has dared to peek over the horizon, three horses have been fed and watered, tackless but all the faster for it. Peter-Susan-Edmund climb atop their mounts, the horses whinnying their eagerness to be going. 

"Race you," Cassiopeia grins, and then she and Lucy are off, the wild-raised girls far more at ease on their own two feet than atop another creature. The sisters dart from Cair Paravel, wild laughter echoing in their wake, and their siblings trade grins before going after them with a tap of the heel, loud cheers bursting from their mouths as they ride like the world is chasing after them. 

Cassiopeia and Lucy dart through the trees, leaping from branch to branch and darting across the surface of rivers. They are in a race of their own, shoving each other playfully and calling taunts as they make their way through the forest. Dryads and nymphs cheer them on, the titles of the two queens echoing through the forests. Behind them, Susan-Peter-Edmund try to keep up with their youngest sisters; all they find of the youngest are the fading sounds of laughter and a few disturbed leaves. 

Ginny cheers for the two Pevensie sisters as they sprint through the forest, dark brown eyes gleaming with something a little feral and a little wild and a little cruel. She watches Cass and Lucy dart through the wild woods, and a peal of laughter tears from her lips, because she recognizes the wildness running through their veins. (There is a reason Ginny fits in so well with the Unseelie Court.) 

"Cass!" The fire-girl leans closer to her friend, teeth bared in something that could be a smile, if looked at from the right angle. "You have to do that with me someday! And Luna! And your sister!" 

Lucy returns Ginny's bared-teeth-smile, two red-haired girls looking at each other and seeing themselves. "Indeed, we must all do this sometime soon," the youngest Pevensie grins, a hungry expression upon her face. (Hungry for what? No one dares wonder.) "It shall be an excellent bonding activity; I am eager to get to know my sister's friends outside of her stories." 

By the time the eldest three catch up to their younger two, Cassiopeia and Lucy are already at the border of Lantern Waste, the latter weaving fallen flowers into a crown whilst the former idly runs her hand along trees as she slips in and out of the shadows, sparkling constellations of light glittering where her fingertips have touched. They smile at Edmund-Susan-Peter, sharp and triumphant and a little bit cruel. 

"You've gotten slower," Cassiopeia teases, and what kind of older brother would Peter be if he allowed her to speak to him like that? He leaps from his horse, rushing towards the youngest twin who snickers as she disappears into shadow, reappearing on a branch above her brother's head, taunting him from her perch only to vanish again when he begins to pull himself into the tree. 

"How did you do that?" Theodore Nott calls the question from where he is tucked up against Blaise's side, and Draco-Neville-Ginny-Cass-Luna blink in shock. (They have heard him speak before, but always quietly, always ready to go unheard.) (Blaise smiles proudly at his lover, pressing a kiss to the other boy's cheek.) (This is the confidence Cass manages to instill in everyone, without even trying.) 

Edmund places a hand over his twin's prosthetic, turning ancient eyes to the Slytherin lovers. "My sister is of the stars," the eldest Pevensie twin says, laughter twisting beneath his words, a riddle rising to the tip of his tongue. "And stars cannot shine without darkness, so how can they not have dominion over it?"

"Let's go." Lucy pulls herself onto the horse behind Susan, wrapping her arms around her older sister's waist. She is wearing a new prosthetic, today, a hand Rymil had presented to her a week ago with a shy  smile and an even shyer kiss; she wears it proudly, ever adoring of the pieces one of her spouses creates. "They'll catch up eventually, and I don't want to miss our chance at the White Stag because these two were acting like fools." 

She is correct, as Lucy oft is; Peter and Cassiopeia do indeed catch up to them, still bickering back and forth when they come upon the rest of their siblings, who have slowed to a stop at a peculiar metallic tree stretching from the soil. Lucy is examining the structure, the scent of salt around her strengthening as her curiousity surges forth. She tries to call forth the dryad of this tree, but no one answers. 

Many cast the Pevensies looks of confusion at their lack of knowledge about the lamp post. (They all come from Earth; how can they not remember what it is?) Lucy-Susan-Peter-Edmund-Cass stare back at the hall with raised chins and narrowed eyes, daring anyone to comment, daring anyone to remark upon this. (They spent thirteen years in Narnia. How could they not have forgotten the things of this world-that-is-not-theirs?) 

(A few people in the hall gasp, too, thoughts flickering to the first meeting of Lucy and Cass. They stare at this scene; they want to be wrong, but some part of them knows that they will be proven right.) (A few in the hall gasp, because they know that this is a moment of Leaving.) 

"How peculiar." Edmund twines his fingers with Cassiopeia as she shifts from the back of the horse, the twins approaching the metal tree with a caution learned from many years of fighting. (Cassiopeia's free hand hovers at her hip, ready to grab her faithful staff-scythe, ready to defend her family from any threat that should appear.) "It feels...familiar, does it not?" 

"Like something out of a dream," Susan agrees, and there is a strange sense of gravitas to the air around her, a stillness that belies the laughing winds which so often surround their eldest sister. (She tries to See what lies before them, but her Sight is foggy, only providing her with the barest a sense of heat and a flicker of displacement.) She shakes it off; her Sight clouds sometimes, when the future is uncertain, when there is a choice to be made. Offering her siblings a hunt-sharp smile, Susan gestures to the forest beyond the metal tree. "Shall we continue on foot to hunt the White Stag?" 

Her siblings agree eagerly. Lucy bounds forwards, nails sharp and teeth bared, the lust for the hunt surging within her blood. Peter follows after, one hand on his sword and the other wrapped around Susan's shoulders, the eldest Pevensies laughing quietly at how Edmund follows his youngest sister like a shadow. 

A noise akin to an injured beast escapes Cass, and she clutches onto Edmund tighter than she has in this entire viewing, claws digging into the skin on his hands. (She has to remind herself that he is here, that her siblings are at her sides, that they are there and have not left her abandoned her like her parents did like Harry did like everyone has-)

Edmund holds onto his twin, and Susan wraps her arm around Cass' shoulders, and Lucy curls up on her middle sister's lap, and Peter leans against Cass' back. They cling to her just as desperately as she clings to them. (The air around them goes grey with remembered grief, a chill speaking of terror and loneliness.) 

(This is a story of family.) (This is a story about loss.) 

(Had Susan looked, then, had she tried to See what happened the moment they decided to venture past the metal tree, she would have urged them to turn back. She would have had them return to Cair Paravel, to their subject and their kingdom, to the world that they have grown up in. She would have forbade them from ever going into Lantern Wastes.) (But she doesn't look, Susan Pevensie. She doesn't look because she is twenty-five, and it is spring, and she is feeling young and perhaps a little optimistic. She wants to believe that life will be golden forevermore, and so she does not look, because she wants to trust that they will be okay.) (She will regret this for the rest of her eternity.) 

Cassiopeia walks a few steps behind her siblings, her skin prickling with unease as they slip past the metal tree and into the emptiness of the Lantern Wastes. (This should have been the first sign; Cassiopeia is always at the front of a hunt, is always the leader of the pack, eager for blood and eager for the chase.) Her Darkness appears at her side, the shape a little more blurred than it normally is, the figure ill at ease but unsure what is causing it to be so uncomfortable. 

Edmund is not sure he can watch this. (Watch as he and his siblings are cast out from the only place they ever called home. Watch as his twin, his other half, is sent back to a place where she has no siblings to stand at her side. Watch as the family they built for themselves crumbles.) 

Edmund cannot look away. He cannot tear his eyes away from the scene of him and Susan-Peter-Lucy walking past a lamp post they should have remembered. (They should have turned back they should have turned back THEY SHOULD HAVE TURNED BACK-) He cannot look away from how Cass skitters a few steps behind them, wary but unsure as to why, not yet knowing that she is about to be cast away from the siblings she spent her entire childhood without. 

He reaches out, but this is a screen. (He cannot comfort his twin, not when this is just a scene of a past he cannot change.) 

And so Edmund Pevensie can do nothing but watch as his family is torn apart. 

Cassiopeia walks a few steps behind her siblings when they enter Lantern Wastes. (This is enough.) 

She feels her skin shrinking, the call of something she does not want to name lodging itself into the space behind her ribs. Her surroundings flicker, open skies fading into fangs coming down towards her, the forest shifting into cold stone and grief-made-solid. And in front of her, Lucy-Peter-Susan-Edmund keep walking, and she is the only one to see as their forms become what they were; royals becoming teenagers becoming children, disappearing into a doorway that no one else sees. 

Cassiopeia throws herself back, her magic reaching for her non-birth home on instinct, some part of her tethering itself in Narnia, clawing at the fabric of the universe in desperation not to be forced from the first place she has truly felt at home. The stone-snake-fangs-terrorterrorTERROR disappear, and Cassiopeia reaches out for her twin, a scream tearing itself from her throat as she begs the universe not to take her siblings from her. 

Her hand closes around nothing but empty air. 

A scream echoes through a forest, but there is no one to hear it. 

Silence echoes through the hall, a physical thing that coils and stares everyone down, awaiting the first person to speak, a presence everyone can feel but no one dares to disturb for the longest moment. 

A silence in which the Pevensie siblings all turn to look at their middle sister, who has drawn away from them, curling up away from her siblings and burying her face in her arms, unable to face the moment when her siblings were all stolen from her. She feels her siblings looking at her, and there is fury sparking at her fingertips (fury at Aslan and all that he took from her) (fury at her siblings who left her even though they said they never would) but there is grief, too. 

A grief so heavy she could drown in it. (As she once almost did.) (As she has never allowed herself too.) 

The silence does not break when Luna reaches out to Cass, holding onto her leader-friend-god so tightly that Cass is sure she will have bruises in the shape of her friend's hands. The silence does not break when Peter reaches out for his younger sister, but she flinches away from the touch. The silence does not break when Draco gently pulls Cass to his side, eyes apologetic as they see how distraught the Pevensie siblings are at this withdrawal of their middle sister. 

The silence does not break. Everyone turns to keep watching. 

(Privately, Edmund-Peter-Susan-Lucy are glad to be shown this. They have known that Cass remained behind in Narnia when they were cast out, but every time they bring that time up to their sister she goes silent and still in a way she never is.) (They are glad to see what happened to their sister in her time of grief. They wish it had never happened.) (Both can be true at the same time.) 

A season passes. 

A season since the five rulers of Narnia departed from Cair Paravel early in the morning, laughing and jesting with each other, eager to hunt the White Stag who would grant wishes to anyone that managed to capture it. 

A season since a scream shook the very foundations of Narnia itself. Since Queen Cassiopeia, Queen of the Stars, the Dancing Queen of Narnia, staggered into Cair Paravel supported by her own Darkness, with bloodied lips and bloodied fingers. Since Cassiopeia Pevensie was seen without one of her siblings for the first time in thirteen years. 

Peter Pevensie closes his eyes upon learning how much time passed between them being cast out of Narnia and his sister returning to her birth-world, unable to look at the sister he has failed so grievously. (They swore to never leave her alone, and then they broke that promise.) (They did not mean to, but does that matter? They still left, and the oath was still broken.) 

Susan and Lucy cling to each other upon seeing the progression of their sister during that time. They see how thin she became, cheeks gaunt in a way they had not been in many years, eyes starved of hope. They cling to each other (because Cass will not allow them to hold her, will not even look at them) and they weep at seeing what became of their sister. 

Edmund does not weep like his two sisters. Instead, Edmund Pevensie looks at the hopelessness of his twin, and some part of him breaks. (This is the sister who stood at his side through everything, who held his hand and walked into the home of the White Witch, who killed a tyrant because she dared to lay a hand upon him.) (This is the sister Aslan forced him to abandon, and this is something Edmund can never forgive the lion for.) 

The first four days after the Disappearance, no one sees the fifth queen of Narnia. They do not see her, because she is twenty-three, and she is grieving. They do not see her, because she is a Queen who has lost those who were meant to stand at her side. They do not see her, because she is a young woman mourning the end of her world. 

Cass finds herself inordinately glad that the wall does not show what the first four days had been like. She closes her eyes and silently thanks the Stars that the hall is not shown how she screamed until her voice gave out, how she had clawed at her skin until she was bleeding, how she had exhausted her magic trying to get her siblings back. 

No one needs to see her desperation, her fear, her fury. They know some of what she is capable of, and they call her General. If they see all she is capable of, they will call her Monster, and she does not know if she can stand to be given that title again. 

(Oh Cass, did you not know that they worship you? Do you not see the awe in their eyes, hear the prayers whispered moments before a battle, smell the offerings made in your name?) (They do not know who or what you are, dearest Cass, but never think they do not consider you their god.) (You may be a monster, but your devotees will never name you thus.) 

A month after the Disappearance, Narnia is slowly beginning to recover from the loss that had devastated the country just as much as it had devastated its sole remaining queen. (Sometimes, when she lies awake at night, unable to sleep unwanting to dream, Cassiopeia hears the country crying out for the children taken from it too soon. And she screams her grief with her beloved country.) 

A season after the Disappearance, there is news from the naiads stationed at the border of the Eastern Ocean: Telmar is invading. 

Cassiopeia knows war intimately, and as the last Queen of Narnia, it is her duty to keep her country safe. And so the last Queen of Narnia takes a breath and settles her grief around her shoulders (a cloak she is intimately familiar with, a covering too well-known) and she does what her twin and Susan always did best: she plans. 

She is not as good as Edmund and Susan was, of course. There are flaws in her plans, weak spots. But she takes her plans to Oreius and he points out the flaws, and then he holds her close when she breaks down screaming because this should be Susan's job this should be Edmund's job where are they where are they WHERE ARE THEY-

Once upon a time, she learned to let go of the pain that she had carried for the twelve years she lived before she met the Pevensies, before she met her siblings. She learned how it felt to live a life of happiness. Now, Cassiopeia dons her grief once more (a familiar stranger she never wanted to see again) and takes on the mantle of strategist that once belonged to her twin and elder sister. She becomes the commander of the army like Peter always was, and she rallies the forests in the name of Lucy the Valiant. 

"So that is where you learned to lead an army, huh?" Draco nudges his cousin, blinking away the tears that cloud his vision at the sight of her (alone as she should never have been) in favour of doing his best to cheer her up. (Cass looks so withdrawn, so lost in these memories. She is not burning with fury, and this lack leaves Draco feeling as if the entire world is off-kilter.) 

"Nah," Ginny interjects, because all she wants is to see Cass smile and perhaps bantering with Draco will return the life to her leader-friend-god's face. "Weren't you watching, ferret-brain? She's always been a leader. This is just when everyone else is seeing it too." 

Draco retorts, but the words are lost in the happiness of seeing Cass crack a smile. It is a small thing, barely visible, but it is there, and that is enough for Draco and Ginny to be happy. (To see Cass smile is all they ever want.)

Left alone in Narnia, left behind by the siblings she thought she would have forever, Cassiopeia Pevensie settles into her grief (a companion she knows intimately from her childhood, one she never thought to meet again) and bares her teeth (bares her fury for the world to see) and she forces herself to become the Queen that her people need. (She does not weep for her lost siblings, although every part of her aches when she turns around and does not see them. She mourned for four days, and that was too long; she is a Queen now, she no longer has the luxury of giving into that pain.) (But they said they wouldn't leave her. They said she would never be alone again.) (LiarsliarsLIARS.)

Telmar invades, and is met with a force of every Narnian able to wield a weapon. The ships are driven back, the soldiers are slaughtered, the commanders are killed in the middle of the night by an unnameable poison. Telmar invades, and Narnia (grieving Narnia, mourning Narnia, Narnia that aches at the loss of four of the five rulers) repels any who would wish to take over the kingdom. ("For our Kings and Queens!" The Narnians cry as they leap into battle. "For the Last Queen of Narnia!") 

Telmar invades, and Cassiopeia steps into the roles she never thought she would have to fulfill. "The Last Queen of Narnia," her subjects call her, because as valiantly as she fights and plots and defends her home, the truth is that a country cannot fight as well as it once did when four of its five rulers are missing. And so Cassiopeia does her best to protect her country, but the truth is that she is mourning, and her subjects are mourning, and the Last Queen is alone with no one to stand at her sides. 

In the end, something must crumble. 

Sirius takes a breath. He exhales. He shakes his head, as if that will dispel the truth that he is terrified he will now see. (How can he bear to see this country fall, when he knows it is so precious to his daughter?) (It surely destroyed Cass to see her country fall, and he does not think he can bear to see the grief that is sure to come.) 

(Oh Sirius Black, it did indeed destroy your daughter to see her country and kingdom fall. But not quite in the way that you think.) 

Cair Paravel falls at dawn, at a time when the stars are too weak to help and the sun aches to chase back the invaders but cannot, because the sun's king (the one who can wield the sun's power) has disappeared. Cassiopeia is awake, her Darkness restless and unable to sleep, her mind rolling with thoughts and plans and wishes. She is one of the few awake; the army is asleep, exhausted from days of constant battle, and the other commanders are asleep as well, this assault on their kingdom having drained them mentally and physically. 

Cassiopeia is the only one to see the flaming boulders launched by catapults built in secret by the Telmar forces. 

Susan closes her eyes, and remembers when they were pulled into Narnia the second time, when they walked into the place that had once been their home and found ruins. She remembers the collapsed castles of Cair Paravel, remembers how Peter had looked at them and whispered the word catapults like it was a dirty secret. 

She remembers how Cass had flinched at the word. 

Susan remembers the legends and myths that she had been told of the Fall of the Last Queen of Narnia. (She thinks of how Cass had laughed and claimed they were lies. Stories and legends, changed through the years to create a god-like figure.) (She thinks of how uneasy Cass' laughter had been, how her hands had fidgeted in a nervous habit she never quite got rid of.) 

Susan Pevensie remembers. And then she closes her eyes and prays to a God she no longer believes in that her younger sister did not go through what Susan thinks she did. (She already knows her prayer will be in vain.) 

The first boulder destroys the garden that Susan loved so dearly, smashing through stone walls to decimate the roses the eldest Pevensie sister tended to so carefully. What few plants are not smashed upon impact are quickly incinerated by the spreading fire. The sentries that had been stationed upon the walls of the castle lie among the rubble, motionless bodies surrounded by too-red too-much blood. 

From the window of Cair Paravel, the Last Queen of Narnia screams. (She screams for her people, who lie dying below her. She screams for her country, because this is not something they will come back from. She screams for Susan, because to see that garden be destroyed is like watching her elder sister disappear all over again.) 

Edmund-Peter-Lucy flinch when the boulder smashes through the wall and decimates their eldest sister's garden. They curl into Susan, because Cass is right, was right when she saw the catapult destroy her eldest sister's garden. (Watching the garden be destroyed is akin to watching a part of Susan die.) 

Edmund-Peter-Lucy flinch and curl closer to Susan, clinging to her with a desperation rarely seen in the siblings. (They cling to Susan, because Cass will not allow them to cling to her.) (They cling to Susan, because they are watching a part of her die and it is awful.) 

(Suddenly, the siblings are not sure they can watch this, unsure if they can stand to see their kingdom be destroyed whilst past-Cass watches. But they grit their teeth and train their gazes upon the wall, because they owe it to Cass to witness what she went through after they left.) 

And then Cassiopeia allows her magic to surge from her body, a glittering shield of darkness cascading around Cair Paravel. One, two, three, four boulders break against the barrier. Cassiopeia flinches with each one, parts of her skin burning as she takes the damage onto herself, but she remains standing. Remains strong. 

(This is something she learned, once, as a child without siblings without family without a home. She learned how to turn her grief into fury, how to channel her fury into strength.) (She has more grief than she knows what to do with, so she does what she does best and turns grief to fury to power.) 

The students of Hogwarts watch this display of power with a familiar awe. Familiar, because they have seen this phenomenon before, when Voldemort chose to try and attack Hogwarts, not understanding the power of the one the students call General. Awe, because it is humbling, to witness the strength of Cass' magic, to see how she managed to maintain a shield that for anyone else would shatter at the first boulder. 

The teachers of Hogwarts watch this display of power with awe, but there is grief there, too. Grief, because they know where this is going. (A body cannot channel this much power without consequences.) (Mortals were never made to fill their veins with magic.) 

Albus Dumbledore watches as his most hated student protects a castle full of people with a shield that even he could not cast, and he frowns. On the parchment in front of him, he begins to scribble thoughts on how to take away her power. (He fears her.) (He wants to be her.) 

"There is a passage below the castle," Cassiopeia snaps when her generals rush to her, unsure what is happening, unsure how to help. "Get everyone in Cair Paravel out, now. The passage leads to Ettinsmoor, far enough for you to be safe. I'll buy you as much time as I can." 

They do not wait to try and convince her to come with them. She is their Queen, and she has been their Queen for thirteen years, and they know when her mind is made up. The generals of Narnia rush away, ready to evacuate all those they can from Cair Paravel and the surrounding area, and the Last Queen of Narnia remains behind. (Two linger longer than the others, a dryad and a dwarf mourning their lover as much as Cassiopeia mourns her sister. They linger, because Cassiopeia is their friend, and their ruler, and they remember the love Lucy had for her sister and ache to help their Queen like they could not help their wife.) (Cassiopeia feels them linger, and it is only when she snarls at them with gleaming teeth that they retreat.) (She refuses to watch them die at her side, not when she knows they can escape. They are the last remnant of Lucy; she will not have them fade as her younger sister did.) 

"Thank you," Lucy whispers, and there are tears falling from her eyes but she does not care to hide them. She looks at Cass, and she thanks her older sister reverently, desperately, with all the sincerity and gratitude that her heart can muster. 

(They all lose Narnia, but it is Lucy who lost her spouses, the loves of her life.) (Should she see them die, there will be nothing that is safe from her pain-rage-sorrow.) 

Another slew of boulders is released from the catapults, smashing against Cassiopeia's barrier. 

One

Cassiopeia bites her tongue and tastes blood. She hears the hubbub of a castle fleeing from an attack, but there are no screams. There is no chaos. Her people are well-versed in the plans made in case of an attack on Cair Paravel. Cassiopeia looks down into the courtyard, and she sees beings running towards the passage, mothers carrying children, brothers and sisters running hand in hand, beings helping each other when one trips and falls. (Cassiopeia thinks of her siblings, and a scream rises in her throat. She chokes it down.) 

Luna's hand finds its way to Cass' arm, dancing past galaxy-star-space vitiligo to clamp down on too-human skin, nails digging in with the desperation of a girl who cannot bear to lose any more family. 

"I'm okay," Cass whispers to her friend, placing a hand over Luna's, worried silver eyes looking at the other fae-girl. She looks at Luna, and Luna looks back with eyes that see far too much. (A seer who hears and sees things that have happened, things that will happen.) (A fae-girl connected to worlds beyond the one she was born into.) 

"But you weren't," Luna returns, and there is nothing Cass can do but wrap an arm around her friend-sister-devotee and pray (for Luna's sake) (for Cass' sake) that they will not see how this ends. (She should know better than to pray for such a thing by now.) 

Two

The impact shakes Cassiopeia's bones. There is blood on her skin, now, burns blooming where the flaming boulders strike the barrier she has put up. For a moment, her vision flickers. Her Darkness is at her side, holding her up, supporting her and keeping her on her feet. (If she falls, Narnia falls.) (She will not let that happen. Narnia will not fall, not so long as she still draws breath.)

Draco wraps an arm around his cousin's shoulders, pulling her close to him whilst he rests his chin on the top of her head. He closes his eyes, breathes in, breathes out. His hand moves to cup the back of Cass' neck, hand resting on her pulse point, feeling the thudthudthud of her heart underneath his fingers. (Is that actually her heartbeat, or is it a glamour? What use does a god have for a heart?) (It is her heartbeat, Draco Malfoy, but it is one she has given herself. She knows what you need, you see? Knows that you need proof she is alive.) 

Ginny follows Draco's example, shoving her way onto Cass' lap where she curls up, head resting on the other girl's chest, listening to the beat of Cass' heart as she tries to remind herself that Cass is alive. Cass' hand comes up, fingers gently running through Ginny's hair, and the fire-haired girl nearly sobs. (For a moment, she is eleven years old again, in a strange place with a strange book and a terror that she has killed one of her best friends.) (Cass' heart beats next to Ginny's ear, and the fire-haired girl listens to it desperately, because it is the only thing grounding her.) 

Three

Cassiopeia's knees hit the floor, and distantly she thinks she hears something snap, but it is hard to hear through the ringing in her ears. She thinks she hears the stars calling for her, but they too are drowned out by the ringing. There is blood on the floor beneath her. Her Darkness is still at her side, and she allows it to lift her to her feet once more, despite the pain that surges through her the moment she puts her weight upon her legs. Somewhere in the distance, someone is screaming. (She thinks it might be her.) 

Neville sits on Luna's other side, a barrier between his found-forged family and the rest of the hall. He looks over all of them, these people who have loved and accepted him as no one ever did before; he sees the terrified-frost spreading from Draco's fingertips, the haunted-by-memories look on Ginny's face, the tears that Luna is refusing to shed. (The blankness on Cass' face, an expression he has seen a scarce few times before, a blankness that looks utterly wrong on the face that is usually so vibrant with fury-joy-mania.) 

He reaches out, touches the tips of his fingers to Cass' arm, just below where his fae-girlfriend is digging her nails into their leader-friend-god's skin. Cass starts, her head jerking around to see who is behind this latest touch, but she does not shy away like she had from her siblings. Neville smiles at her reassuringly, despite the sobs choking his throat and the panic thrumming through his veins. (Cass can't die she can't die she was his first friend she is his best friend what will he do without her she can't die she can't die SHE CAN'T DIE-) 

The blankness fades a little, and Cass offers him a small smile in return. Her magic flares out, silver mixing with Neville's own nature-green magic. (It feels like laughter and summer sunshine and flowers and dancing in the rain and warm embraces.) (It feels like memories. It feels like friendship.) 

Four

Cassiopeia's magic flickers, weakening for a moment. She is using too much (more than she has ever used before), and she has reached the end of the magic her body can contain. Her Darkness lowers her to the ground and she digs her claws into the stone beneath her, digs her claws into the magic that is Narnia's and pulls with everything that she has. It is reluctant, the Olde Magick, but she refuses to let go. (This is her right, as Queen of Narnia.) (This is the only way to save her people.) She pullspullsPULLS at Narnia's magic, and even a country such as this cannot fight the desperation of a girl-woman-queen. (Unconsciously, Cassiopeia chooses the Olde Magick in moment when some part of her understands that her own magic is not enough.) (Consciously, the Olde Magick chooses her, chooses her siblings.) 

Remus hides his face in his hands, and there are tears streaming down his cheeks but there is fury written on his face, too. Fury at the siblings of his daughter who were not there to watch the empire they built fall. (Regardless that it was not their choice to leave her.) Fury at his daughter, who is killing herself for a land that is not her home. (Even though he knows that Narnia is more a home to her than this world has ever been.) Fury at himself, because would he be able to have stopped her from experiencing this had he just stayed, as any parent should? (Remus Lupin, you would never have been able to stop this. No one is able to stop Fate.) 

Remus Lupin is furious and grieving at the same time. Sirius Black is neither of these things. 

Sirius looks at his daughter (dying, burning, brightening) and all he feels is pride. Pride for the woman his daughter became, without needing him and his husband, without needing any of the people who already proved they could abandon her. Pride for the magic his daughter wields with all the strength she has, how she commands a land into giving her magic no human is meant to wield. Pride for the queen his daughter seems to have turned out to be (and isn't that quite something to wrap your head around?), sacrificing everything to ensure her citizens get to safety. 

Remus Lupin grieves and snarls and rages. Sirius Black looks at Cass with pride. 

Five

Her veins are burning, and she can feel her body dissolving into heat-light-dark. She feels her barrier shatter, but cannot do anything to stop it. The Olde Magick is in her veins, in her soul, destroying her because no human is capable of containing this power. She cannot do anything to stop it from tearing her body apart at the seams. She tips forwards, but she is on a balcony and there is nothing in front of her but empty air. 

Once upon a time, Cassiopeia taught herself how to fly. 

Now, she learns what it is to fall. 

The Last Queen of Narnia takes her last breath as she plummets from the tower her siblings had once lived in. (The taste of blood and smoke rests upon her tongue.) Her Darkness falls with her, clinging to her with all its might, a companion even in death. (A world away, her siblings scream as they feel the loss.) There is Olde Magick in her veins, in her body, in her soul, and as she falls it is like watching a star come down to earth. (By the time she reaches the bottom of the tower, there is no longer a body left to hit the ground.) 

The Last Queen of Narnia dies in a world that is more her own than her birth-world ever was, with Olde Magick burning her body and her siblings gone from her sides. 

A world away, an eleven-year-old girl opens her eyes in a tunnel far below a school, and she screams. 

This is the last straw. 

Susan-Peter-Lucy-Edmund have been silent thus far about what their sister went through, too entranced by seeing all that Cass had to face without her siblings at her sides. (Seeing all that their sister did not tell them about, and doesn't that hurt? To think she did not trust them enough to tell them about dying.) 

The Pevensie siblings have been silent thus far. (Silent in grief-horror-shock. Silent in the way only the mourning and the despairing are. Silent in the way a funeral for a loved one is.) But when they see the eleven-year-old form of their sister screaming, they find that they can no longer remain quiet. 

"You lied." It is Susan who says the words, a whisper that silences all the murmuring that had been filling up the hall. (Susan truth-seeker, Susan the All-Sighted.) (Susan, sister, ghost.) She stares at Cass, and Cass looks back, anguished blue eyes meeting guarded silver orbs. Susan sobs, steels herself. When next she speaks, the words come out a scream. "YOU LIED!" 

Everything stills. No one dares to move, to breathe. 

Cass tilts her head to the side, and there is sorrow in her eyes when she looks at Susan, but there is no apology. "Yes," the Last Queen of Narnia says. "Yes, I did."