In which a King is taught his strength, a Spell is built, a Statue scorned, and a Lady made.

Lucy woke earlier than usual that morning, with an unfamiliar pain in her belly, warm and tight. The sight of blood confirmed her suspicion, and she had been expecting it; Eyzi the Dog had noticed, days earlier, that the young Queen's scent was changing.

This was a fortunate thing, as it had given Lucy time to prepare. With the strange curse-sickness in the air and summer fading fast, the ritual could wait or be changed, but Lucy wanted to do the thing just right.

She slipped outdoors in the early-morning light, clad in her red riding boots and her nightdress, with the belt from Father Christmas carrying the precious cordial, the ever-sharp dagger, and a fire-making kit Mr. Tumnus had given her. Over her shoulder she carried a battered metal shield, much too large for her use, by now so damaged from use that most of the lacquer had flaked away to show rust beneath. Tucked under one arm she had a thick towel, large enough to serve her as a blanket.

She pressed her left hand over the tight heat within her belly. It was not unexpected, but it was strange, all the same.

Water lilies, as every Narnian knows, are sacred things. The reasons had been lost to time and the regime of the White Witch, but the uses survived, kept by Beasts, who remember.

Tucked away in one of the winding gardens of castle Cair Paravel was a strange thing, a large square pond, lined in blocks of white stone worn smooth with the passage of feet and paws and centuries, half-hidden underneath muck and soil and the detritus of so many damp growing things. It was crowded with herons and moorhens and cormorants. White water lilies grew thickly there, and while the many stories had long since been lost, the waterfowl still knew that the flowers came from a place close to Aslan's Country beyond the end of the world.

Lucy bobbed a curtsey to the Birds, already stalking for fish in the murky pre-dawn light, and they nodded silent hellos in return. The rituals of a Human mean very little to a waterbird; it was theirs to keep the place, not to bother themselves with why others came to it.

Lucy set the old war-shield down on one of the larger stones bordering the pond. She gathered tinder quickly, and set a small fire burning inside the shield. The metal would keep the fire contained, and the fire would keep her warm on such a morning. She dropped the rest of her belongings at the side of the pool, shucking off her boots and sliding out of her nightdress. She eased herself into the water, feeling the gooseflesh rise from her toes to her scalp at the coldness.

When Susan had done this thing, a few years earlier, it was late in the spring, with the warmth of summer spreading over the sky. It had very nearly been made a party by the Dryads and Beasts and Beings who'd seen fit to accompany their Queen to her creation as a woman grown. This time was different, with a hint of coldness in the air, and Lucy had kept the thing to herself.

Sometimes it goes wrong, Susan had explained, as she had been told that long-ago day. Bodies are imperfect things. Sometimes that within you that makes you a woman can cause sickness or hurt. That was why, on the first morning of womanhood, one would soak in the lily-water, where anything wrong within would be healed.

Lucy lifted her arms, covered in lily flowers, and floated on her back, feeling her hair wind and tangle in the thick stems. On the edges of her vision the waterfowl hunted and stalked and stood. They kept vigil with her, in their own silent ways, as the youngest Queen of Narnia presented the woman which she had become to the waters of the world.

-x-x-x-x-

When King Peter had agreed to a stone figurehead for the ship being built to travel to Galma, he had not expected it would be finished before the ship itself was, though that was a near thing. He did not have a Dwarf's knowledge of masonry, so when the crate was carried in by only four Dwarfs, he (in a moment considered rude, but on the whole forgivable) wasted time asking how such a large statue could be so light, instead of politely complimenting the masons on their craft. Once the lightweight stone had been explained, and the crate had been pried open, Peter went silent in an amazed and appreciative way, which soothed the ruffled Dwarfs completely. Even after they left, Peter's fascination held.

"Very like," said Peter wonderingly, moving in closer so that he found himself eye to nipple. "Very, very like."

"Very like to put your eye out, you get any closer to its tits," Ruchabrik laughed.

"Quiet, you," Peter scolded. "A work like this requires a moment's reflection."

All present had to agree that it did: the figurehead for the still-unnamed Tub was a marvel of stonework. The statue resembled a mermaid with wings for arms, raised behind her as though she were slicing through the waves. Instead of the fish-tail that Peter knew well, this creature had a rounded fleshy tail not unlike that of a whale. Every last feather, every lock of hair, every line in its flesh had been carved with such precision that the cold texture of the stone surprised Peter when he touched it.

"'Cept for the wings, you know," Alfisk said. "Had a trick of a time getting those right. Think we mocked 'em from a Gryphon, for the most part."

"Mmh," Peter agreed, running a hand along the stone. "A bit of falcon too, I think. One of the smaller tiercels."

"I can see that," Alfisk agreed. "All the sketches we had, I think we did every wing we could get to hold for us. The Men told us anhinga, but we can't find any so far inland. If we'd more time, we may have got hold of some."

"It's a grand work as is," Peter assured them. "Is there such a creature as this?"

"That I can't say, Sire," Ruchabrik said. "We'd had tales from the Galmans, listened to their stories a bit. Thought as it's their build we ought to put something they're familiar with as figurehead."

"I haven't heard this story," Peter said, comfortably slumping into his throne and studying the statue from a distance. At present only he and the two Dwarfs were in the throne room, not counting the statue. His family was due to arrive at some point to be formally presented with the figurehead for the Tub, but Narnian time being what it was, Peter had no idea when they would arrive. Not that it was any sort of hardship to spend a morning swapping stories with two such as Ruchabrik and Alfisk.

"I'm the wrong one to tell it," Alfisk said, "though the best here. I heard it from Talipas – you know him, he's the one your royal brother's pet mauled, though her highness your sister set him to rights. Great storyteller, that Man."

That took a moment for Peter to parse; no matter how often he heard them, he was never completely comfortable with the Narnians' easy use of honorifics in reference to his own family. Peter shook the thought off. "I haven't made his acquaintance yet," Peter said. "I'd like to."

"All of you," Ruchabrik chuckled, "are so fond of stories. You're like children, you know that?"

"If our lives started when we arrived in Narnia, then we are children indeed." Dropping the kingly tone, Peter fixed them with an amused look. "In the reckoning of the world we came from, we still are. Isn't that funny?"

"Wholly deserved, in the case of that brother of yours," Ruchabrik remarked.

"Oh, don't slander the boy when he isn't here to defend himself," Peter laughed.

"Why not?" Ruchabrik retorted. "He does me as soon as I'm out of earshot and you know it."

"He does as he will," Peter said with a snort, "and none of us brave souls can stop him. I would like to hear the story of this creature."

"The creature, Sire, is called amanti by the Galmans. They say they have animals in Galma, not quite like whales, which are similar to the tail of the amanti. These go from saltwater to fresh, and stay near the shore. They are called triche."

"That explains the shape," Peter mused. "And the wings?"

"The amanti is what comes to take a sailor to Aslan's Country, at the end of life. Whether they die on sea or on shore, the amanti will come carry them away beyond the sunrise."

"I like this idea," Peter said. "I like it very much. Where I was born they had a similar story, except that the creatures had birds' feet instead of fish tails. If a sailor heard their song, he would abandon his ship and swim to the rocks where they nested."

"And then what happened?" Alfisk asked.

"They ate him, I think," Peter said.

"I doubt we have such creatures here, Sire, but if we do the Galmans will know it."

"For their sakes I hope not," Peter said absently, trying to remember how the story went. "There was one man who survived their calls. He wanted to hear the songs, so he had his sailors lash him to the mast and swear not to release him, no matter what he said."

"Did they keep their word?" Alfisk asked.

"Naturally!" Peter said. "He was their King."

"This I would like to hear," Ruchabrik said.

"It's not important," Peter said, shrugging. "This world has claimed me. I want to know its stories, not the ones from – from back there." The memory tickled at the back of his mind: the memory of a memory, already half forgotten. Surely it wasn't important. He'd be able to remember it, if it was.

-x-x-x-x-

"Incredible," said Queen Susan, holding the box up to the light and peering inside.

"The real ones will be bigger, my lady," said the previously-injured Galman shipbuilder, Talipas: he was young still, and though possessed of those strange scars that also marked Ordilan's face was otherwise delectably handsome. Had Bacchus been around, the man would be in trouble. Had Susan not still been feeling some unexpected shyness about being in the company of Humans herself, she might be in trouble. Bacchus would laugh at that, but he always laughed.

"Where did this knowledge come from?" Susan asked, tilting the object: a small wooden box with a smaller glass prism fitted into the bottom and a peephole on the other side: when she put her eyes to the box, she saw how well-lit it was inside from just the tiny chunk of glass.

"That I do not know, lady," Talipas said. "We have made these things for ages. There are some in the castle, I believe."

"There are," said the chamberlain Valios. "Though I can't recall word of them being used on board ship before."

"That's what they were made for," Talipas explained. "It won't work with his Highness' bathtub, there's no belowdecks, but in a traditional ship you'd fit as many of these as needed into the deck so that all the below areas have light. They weren't used in building until later on."

"It's brilliant," Susan said. "In all ways." She smiled, just as brilliant as the sparkling prism. "But isn't this a trifle premature? We've not even got the first ship finished, and here you're mocking up a fitting for a galleon?"

"Get enough Narnians together," Talipas said with a smile, "we can't help ourselves. Many of your Beasts and Beings are fascinated by what we know, and have asked us to teach them. I daresay they'll want to start a building guild of their own."

"That would be a thing indeed," said Susan. "Wasn't there one, before the Witch?"

"In Glasswater, yes," Valios said. "But they disbanded, just like everybody else. For their protection, you know. The Witch would have found it convenient to have so many to kill all in once place."

"Of course, cousin," said Susan. "I can understand why they abandoned the place. But would it not be a marvelous thing to rebuild it?"

"It would," Talipas said absently, already wondering what could be done if the finest building minds in Narnia all assembled in one place.

"Then I will say now," said Susan, "and I trust you both to hold me to my word: once the business in Galma is seen to, and once the Witch's curse is broken, we will set our sights on rebuilding this engineering guild of Glasswater."

"Is this the you-we?" Valios asked, with a teasing smile, "or are you pledging their Majesties your family to this without their knowing?"

"Oh, they'll go along with it," Susan said dismissively. "After that Satyr saw to the plumbing problem, we're well aware of the need for intelligent builders."

"Odd one, that Husik," Valios said. Privately, Susan agreed; it was strange indeed for a Satyr to be more interested in manufacture than the joys of a woodland fire. Not that he was immune to such things: he'd quite like Talipas.

"I should like to see that mind of his put to use," Susan said, steering her mind back to business. "Who knows what he'd come up with?"

"I'm not entirely sure I'd want to, Lady," Valios said. "It might not be safe."

"You can hardly tell which section of wall had collapsed," Susan said, waving her friend's concern away.

"I must meet this – Husik, was it?" Talipas asked.

"I shall arrange it for you," the Gentle Queen said.

-x-x-x-x-

Edmund clattered into the throne room, munching on an apple and stuffing a hunk of bread into his belt-pouch. It seemed, lately, that he was impossible to keep fed: Peter had become used to this himself, but his brother was still wrestling with his body's increased need and had taken to squirreling food away on his person at all times. Breakfast was pilfered the most, and to that end the cooks had taken to putting more durable foods on offer, so that the Just King would not attempt – again – to stow a bowl of porridge on his person.

The Wer-Wolf Glendon followed her King, exchanging nods with the Dwarfs, and tipping her head away from Peter, to show the High King her throat. He acknowledged this gesture with a smile, and Glendon scuttled off to a shadowed corner where she could watch the show.

"'lo," Edmund said thickly, with his mouth full of apple. His face contorted for a moment and he swallowed with some difficulty. "What's all this?"

"We've got the figurehead for your tub, Sire," Ruchabrik said.

"Have you?" Edmund asked, sounding much more interested. He dug in the belt-pouch, removed the heel of bread, located a handkerchief, wrapped the apple, and stuffed everything away. Peter grinned at this; Edmund scowled.

"Right," Edmund said, almost to himself, once he'd got his stores organized. He walked into the room, looking about curiously. "What's the—" Edmund nearly tripped over himself as he stopped short when he caught sight of the statue, then approached it carefully.

Peter missed the look on his brother's face. Almost everybody in the room did.

"It's a nanti," Peter said happily.

"An amanti," Ruchabrik corrected.

"Yes, that," Peter said, not minding a bit. "They're a Galman legend, and—"

"No." Edmund's voice sounded cold and strained and very, very old. Edmund was examining the statue as closely as Peter, but with no sense of delight. He raised a shaking hand to its stone face and trailed his fingers across its mouth. Realization hit Peter in the stomach.

"Don't use it," Edmund said, his face pale. "It's beautiful, but – so were – I can't bear it." He shook his head, quickly. "Make one of wood, or metal – or something not as detailed as this. Never as detailed as this."

Peter slumped back in his chair and pressed a hand to his face. "I didn't even think, Ed, you know—"

"Oh, come on, Berk," Ruchabrik tried.

"Just don't—" Edmund said, his voice catching in his throat. He coughed and tried again. "Don't tell?"

"Ed," Peter said, jumping to his feet, "you know none of us will think—"

"Come up with another reason, will you?" Edmund asked. "Any reason they can't use it." He turned and fled the room, brushing away from his brother's grasp.

"Ed!" Peter called, but Edmund did not return.

"Made a right wreck of that, we did," Ruchabrik muttered glumly, sitting down on the edge of the dais.

"It hadn't crossed my mind," Peter said, sitting next to him with a thump. "We haven't any other statues here, have we?"

"Not a one," Ruchabrik said. "I think it caught him up as well. He liked the idea 'til he saw it."

"He wouldn't say, you know," Peter tried. "If it did bother him, he wouldn't say anything. But this is different. I think it made him remember."

A small sigh startled them. They glanced up to see the baleful glare of Glendon, still wrapped in her dirty third-hand cloak. She made a disappointed sound in her throat – which made Peter remember his mother with a sudden clarity – then gathered up the ends of the cloak and dashed off in pursuit of her King.

The throne room was silent for a long while.

"Were we just tipped by a Wer-Wolf?" Peter asked eventually.

"I think we were," Ruchabrik said.

"Well," Peter said faintly. "That's new." He sighed, scrubbing a hand across his forehead, then hoisted himself to his feet and set off in search of his brother.

-x-x-x-x-

It took the better part of an hour before Glendon found her King partway up a tree, sitting on a broad branch with his back to the trunk. He was closed in on himself, curled into a ball with his arms clutched together. If he heard her approach, he didn't react. His bird-quick heartbeat and the tangy scent of adrenaline told her all she needed to know, and the shivering only confirmed it. She glanced down, fumbling with the unfamiliar clasp of her cape. She'd felt that way enough herself to know what to do for the boy-king.

"Sir," she said gently, slipping the cloak off her shoulders.

Edmund glared down at her. "Pike off."

"Here," she said, offering the thing up.

"I don't need it," Edmund said. "Or you." He swore in the Old Language, incorrectly – which would have struck Glendon as amusing at any other time, considering that area was where he was most proficient in the tongue. "Go home."

"Take," Glendon said, pushing a fold of the cloak over her King's knee, completely out of English words to use.

Edmund glared, then took the cloak and wrapped it around his shoulders. "Thank you," he said.

Glendon shifted into her wolf-form and curled in a hollow in the tree's roots. She rested her chin on her foreleg and waited, comfortably on guard for as long as she felt she was needed.

-x-x-x-x-

It is said in our world, when something has gone badly and is not what it once was, that it has gone to the dogs. This is entirely backwards, because it is a known truth in Narnia that when something has gone to the Dogs, it is under careful and capable supervision.

In our world, just as in Narnia, a Dog is the best companion for a Human. They are attuned to a Human's changes in mood by scent and sight and sound, and they know how to read the odd expressions on a Human face. Perhaps most importantly, of all good Beasts they are the most fond of Humans and strongly prefer to have them nearby. Beasts remember, all of them, and this is the thing the Dogs remembered most strongly. Indeed, in the time under the Witch, Dogs had taken great pains to go into hiding. The maxim Mr. Beaver had quoted, that long-ago evening, about things that look Human but aren't, was originally coined by a Dog, much to the displeasure of the White Witch. (The part about the hatchet, though, was entirely his own invention.)

So it was that in the earliest days of the Pevensie reign the Pack of Paravel was formed: guards and hunters, trackers and tricksters, helpers and herders, all delighted with their new pet Humans and content to be living practically on top of each other, as Dogs do.

The old saying, like so many other things, emerged as a joke in the early years of the Reign of the Four: this time it was Lucy who made the verbal slip, and after begging forgiveness of a highly affronted Pack of Paravel, she had her royal brother Edmund draft a decree officially stating the positive meaning of the phrase. He did it because it kept the peace, and besides, Lucy had promised he would.

One of Queen Lucy's guards and friends was a massive woolly-haired grey sheepdog, of the Narnian type called an Alaunt, which bears passing resemblance to the mountain-dogs of the Caucasus, in our world. Her name was Eyzi, and she was a steady and capable Beast. She allowed her Queen to pillow her head on her broad back, she soothed her during the occasional nightmare (less frequent now than in the beginning, as memories of that Over There place faded), and when she herself could not solve a problem, she seemed to always know who best to bring for help.

Today the problem was a purely Human one. Eyzi would have retrieved the Kings Peter or Edmund, had she felt they were needed, but in this case only a sister would do.

Eyzi nudged her way into the sitting-room where Queen Susan sat talking with Talipas and Valios, woofed lowly for attention, and sat with her head held high and her tail curled to cover her hand-sized forepaws.

Susan knelt to embrace Eyzi in the way one greets a familiar Narnian Dog: pressing the side of her face to the Dog's strong neck and feeling the solid weight of Eyzi's massive head against her chest.

"My lady," said Eyzi, "your sister is in need of you."

Susan politely made her excuses to Valios and Talipas, then followed the Dog through quiet corridors that led to her family's private rooms. Upon reaching an alcove that – yes, now she noticed it – was lit by way of a particularly large glass prism set in the wall, she stopped and knelt again to speak with Eyzi in private.

"Now, cousin, please tell me what the matter is," Susan asked.

"Your sister has her first blood," Eyzi said.

"Already?" Susan said, with surprise. "I hadn't expected that for some time yet."

"Neither had she, I suspect," said Eyzi. "I smelled it, and told her it was coming." That of course was irrefutable, a Dog's nose being what it is. "She did not seem upset, or frightened, but neither was there a lack of upset or fright."

Susan frowned, trying to parse that. "She's upset, but she's not upset?"

"Yes, my Lady," the Dog said.

Clear as mud. Susan shook her head. Dogs were very good at understanding Human emotion, but they often had problems explaining what they sensed. Though, in all fairness to Dogs, the feelings of a Human are often contradictory. "Let us see to her, then," said Susan.

"Thank you, my Lady," Eyzi said, rising and leading the way. "She is in the water lilies."

-x-x-x-x-

Glendon smelled it before she heard it: three goats, two Dwarfs, and a mess of manufacture. Wood, metal, cloth, and leather. Food and drink. Dried herbs. There were no Dwarf clans in the area, and everyone knew well that no worthy Dwarf would move on anything but its own two feet.

"Sir," she said, alertly.

Edmund, sleepily picking his nails with his bootknife, hummed in response without bothering to look down.

Glendon grumbled to herself, mentally sorting through the new words she'd learned. "Ware," she finally said. "Danger… goes?"

Edmund leaned forward, straining his eyes and ears. "I don't see anyth-oooogh!"

The Wer-Wolf had tugged his ankle, to bring his attention back to her, without realizing Edmund was leaning in the wrong direction. They collapsed in an uncomfortable heap of knees and elbows in the tree roots.

"By the Lion's twitching tail, you—"

Again Edmund was silenced, this time by a hand over his mouth. "Shh," Glendon hissed. She lifted her head, shaking back her tangled mop of hair, and sniffed cautiously. She removed the hand from Edmund's face and shifted into her wolf-body, scenting the air more carefully.

Edmund wriggled under the tense mass of Wer-Wolf, rolling his belly to the ground so that he could peek over one of the tree roots. What he saw almost made him laugh in relief: a small wooden cart, drawn by three dumb goats, with two Black Dwarfs riding in it. The driver pulled the goats to a stop, and his passenger studied the pair in the tree roots.

"Ho, friend," called the passenger, her voice deep and resonant. "Whatever you've got yourself there is nothing I've a mind to take."

Glendon did not relax at this. Edmund gently shifted her hind paw off his leg.

"Though I'd suggest the next time you hide a Human," the Dwarf casually continued, "be sure its feet aren't sticking out."

The driver snickered. Glendon growled. Edmund had half a mind to laugh too, but stopped himself.

"Have you got one of our Kings or Queens?" the first Dwarf asked. "As it's only that I've come on their request, and if you've brought one to me that saves us both time."

Edmund clicked his tongue to get Glendon's attention and flashed a sign – desist – then braced against her to climb to his feet. "Well met, lady Dwarf," he said. "I am King Edmund."

"It is one of our kinglings, then!" the Dwarf said. "Hail, sire! I am Aisling, Clanhead of Rockfall. This is my son, Brand."

"Hullo, yer Majesty," the other Dwarf said, clucking at the goats, which shifted nervously at Glendon's scent.

"Edmund," the Clanhead repeated. "We've heard tell of you, dark like ourselves, and your brother as bright as the Sun. Who is your companion?"

"This sack of skin is the Wer-Wolf Glendon," Edmund explained, hopping lightly from the tangle of roots and approaching the cart. "She will not harm you." He flashed two signals to her: desist, again, and then be at ease. Glendon nodded, in a most un-Wolflike manner, then leaned against Edmund's leg in an apologetic way.

"That's a good guard for one such as you," Aisling said, easing herself out of the cart with difficulty. She walked with a limp, Edmund noticed, and her curly black hair was so long and thick that it resembled a cloak.

"She needs training, still," Edmund said, shaking the Wer-Wolf from his leg, closing the distance between himself and the limping Dwarf so that she did not have to move more than necessary. "We weren't expecting you so soon. It is good to meet you, though I fear your errand here is unpleasant – did the message explain it fully?"

"Aye, we took the cart for speed," Aisling said, clasping hands with Edmund. "'Tis a sad business – one of our clansmen found from the Witch's Wood, and dead by his own hand." She shook her head. "I'll not be blaming you, nor any of yours – the Witch took many from us, and I know well what she turned them to. And you, little friend," she said, offering a hand to Glendon, "be at ease. We've no intent to cause harm."

Glendon quickly sniffed the offered hand, registering the scent, then dropped back to Edmund's side.

"Had you recovered many from the endless wood?" Edmund asked.

"Some," said Aisling, thinking carefully. "It's rare, but sometimes we'd find one was spat out by the Witch's magic, left for dead and dying on our doorstep as a warning. Her magic could call my own out of their beds, if they were weak to it."

"What do you know about the Witch's magic?" Edmund asked, trying for a casual, conversational tone. "In our four years here we'd not seen such an army coming from the endless wood as we had recently."

"It's not the armies that bother you this day," Aisling said shrewdly. "I see that clear as your face. As for the magic – I can tell you what I know, which isn't much, if you'll allow me to get off this blasted knee."

"Of course," Edmund said, though he felt the opposite. "Will this tree do?" Wishing the thrice-damned statue had never been made and that his own fears could be safely left in the dark, he leaned on his well-practiced royal etiquette. It seemed to work.

"That depends," the Clanhead replied. "Have you got any more Humans hiding in it?" She winked.

Despite himself, Edmund grinned. "Not that I know of, madam."

Soon they were settled, King and Clanhead, in a well-appointed picnic under the tree. The provisions were brought from the cart by Brand, who hurriedly returned to his goats. Glendon had taken her girl-shape, demanding to taste the tea before Edmund had a cup: she sniffed it, sipped it, and spit it out.

"Bit sour, love?" Aisling asked. "It takes some getting used to."

"Hulgh," Glendon said, putting the cup down.

"Puts hair on your tongue and turns your chest black – or, the other way 'round, maybe," Aisling said, pouring out cups for herself and Edmund. She drank deeply from her cup, smacking her lips. "Ah. Now what's got you in an upset? The magic?"

It might have worked. Edmund scowled, briefly, before giving up the fight and composing himself. "Your clansman," Edmund said, "before he – I went to see him. He wouldn't speak to me, but he recognized me. I'd never seen him before, but he knew me. Or – I don't think he knew me, exactly." This was hard enough to tell to his own family; it was doubly difficult to explain to a stranger.

"We've heard great things of you," Aisling said soothingly. "Wand-breaker they call you, sword-swinger. You came out from her magic and ended it all."

"I didn't kill her, Aslan did." Edmund looked away – at the ground, the trees, his own feet, anywhere but the warm-hearted lady Dwarf.

"Your hands broke the wand," the Dwarf said. "That's a worthy thing. Magic leaves a mark, you know, good or bad. Always does. I'd wager that's what my kinsman saw in you, the mark of someone who'd clawed free of ensorcelement."

"It was nothing I did," Edmund repeated. "It was – Aslan did it. He freed me." Glendon, in wolf-body once more, sensed his tension and sidled near. Edmund put an arm over her shoulder and leaned into her.

"Can't free someone who doesn't want to be freed," Aisling said. "As grand as our Lion is, he can't do a thing for those who don't want to be helped. Something within you rejected her magic, gave him the way in. That makes you strong, kingling. That's a power all your own."

Edmund shook his head and grunted, not trusting his voice to speak.

"Let me tell you something," Aisling said. "The father of my first two daughters went willingly to the Witch's service. He swore he'd deliver our entire clan to her, have us bow at her feet." She shook her head. "We tried to stop him. Tried to speak reason to him. He wouldn't have it."

"What happened to him?" Edmund asked.

"I killed him," Aisling replied, simply. It was clear there was more to the story; it was also clear that she had no intention of reliving it.

"That's horrible," Edmund said, and could say no more. He pressed his forehead against Glendon's side. She rumbled in a reassuring manner.

"The crime isn't to fall, my little king," Aisling said gently. "It's to refuse the hand that would help you up."

"Paw, in my case," Edmund blurted.

Aisling laughed, a welcome sound.

"She did such horrible things," Edmund said, his face still pressed into the Wer-Wolf's body. "That's why I knew she had to be stopped." He looked up. "Wouldn't that be enough? If I did these good things myself, wouldn't that—" He shook his head.

"Make it go away?" Aisling asked gently. "You don't want that, not at all. It's not a sign of weakness you show. It's a sign of strength, that you fought free. You broke the binding she placed on you – that is what shows. Be proud of it."

"How do you know these things?" Edmund asked. "How can you speak of it so easily?"

"Look well, kingling," the Dwarf said. "You'll see."

He studied her, then: the studded leather tunic, the thick hair with streaks of grey, the finely-honed axe tucked in her belt. Her face was lined in such a way that she creased when she smiled. Her bare arms were heavily tattooed. And her eyes, dark as night – Edmund startled, as he recognized something in her.

"He freed you too," Edmund whispered, realization landing like a hammer.

"That he did," Aisling said. "We're the same, you and I, by the Lion's grace." She smiled and shook her head. "We'd gotten no messenger from Cair Paravel, kingling, though I was given a message." She inclined her head respectfully. "Delivered by paw, as you'd say."

Edmund grinned: he should have thought, by now, to expect this sort of thing. "I think we both needed to have this talk," he said.

"I know I did," Aisling said. "It's good, isn't it, to know you're not alone?"

"It is," Edmund said. "And I feel I have left some business unfinished. Will you, wise Clanhead of Rockfall, accept the escort of a King and a Wer-Wolf back to Cair Paravel?"

"Gladly," said Aisling, "though I've a powerful need to hug you both first." The boy-king of Narnia and his loyal Wer-Wolf fell into the Dwarf's open arms, and the Lion's wind blew over them.

-x-x-x-x-

On Edmund's return, with his escort of Dwarfs and Wer-Wolf, he saw his family gathered in the garden and knew what had happened. Each of the Four had had their own of-age rituals in that very pond. Aisling nodded knowingly, since there are similar rites among the Dwarfs; Glendon watched, curiously. Edmund asked the Dwarfs and Wer-Wolf to leave him; for this, his family would only want each other.

Lucy, laughing, was more wet than dry and wrapped in an enormous towel, with water lilies tangled in her hair and leaves stuck to her goose-prickled skin. She was red-cheeked with cold and cheer. She walked between Susan and Peter, who each had an arm around her; Susan held a bundle that looked like Lucy's clothes, and had lilies twined in her dry hair. Peter, bafflingly, carried a metal shield so old that it was clearly beyond repair; he carried it by the rim, and the center was thick with soot and ash.

"It's happened!" Lucy said, wriggling free of the protective embrace and rushing up to Edmund for a damp hug.

"Ah," said the boy-king who, despite a full acceptance of all that Narnia was, still held a bit of human reserve when it came to such things happening to his baby sister. "Congratulations?"

"Don't be so delicate, you oaf," said Peter, cuffing his brother in a friendly way over the head. "And take this." They fumbled and shoved over the battered shield, which eventually landed on the ground.

"Have to make everything a mess, don't you?" Susan sniffed; when Edmund glanced at her, he caught the light of amusement in her eyes.

"Good idea with the shield, Lu," Edmund said, picking the battered thing up. "Peter teach you that one?" There had been a miserable campaign in what seemed like a monsoon, and the ground had stayed muddy for weeks. Afterwards Peter had gotten very testy when the smiths asked why the shield Father Christmas had given him needed fresh enameling over the scorch-marks.

"He did," said Lucy, cheerful though her teeth chattered. "But I thought it'd be better to use an old one that wouldn't need fresh paint."

Peter grumbled, but lit up with a brilliant smile when Lucy stuck her tongue out at him. Susan put an arm around Lucy and chafed her shoulders. Edmund grinned, remembering his own time in the pond of lilies, and what he had learned there. He wondered what Lucy learned, but would never pry. She'd tell in her own time, or not at all, as she chose.

-x-x-x-x-

There is new magic and old magic, blood magic and earth magic, and beneath it all runs the Deep Magic and Deeper Magic that keep the sky in motion around the world. All Narnians know this without thinking it: they can feel it in their blood, recognize it in the turn of the day and the slower cycle of the seasons.

It was this that Cloudstrike told to Tumnus, while he had lost himself within the touch of Pan: the madness of Phorbas was not unknown, once, though in the time of the Witch it was death to speak of such a thing. Death to speak of a thing that the Witch had thought she'd put a permanent end to. But she was wrong. Gods are resilient, though they can be hurt.

"He put it inside me, the father did," Tumnus had told Cloudstrike, restlessly shifting the small stone from one hand to another. "He buried it, like a dream, only it happened when I was awake, or maybe in the time between awakeness and sleep. I can't remember, and I should, I should."

There are things the forest-folk know, and they learn without learning: it is bred into them as surely as the knowledge of breath and motion, of light and water. It is lore that, once understood and remembered, can be used, and never wrongly. Never for bad.

"The book," Tumnus had gasped, cold with sweat and racked with tremors. He clung to Cloudstrike, who held him firmly. "The book, the book, I found the book because of my father, but the winter came and he never taught me of the forest-father, so I never learned. So tame. Books and tea. I can write in two languages, you know, don't you? And I never learned to sing, I never learned."

Cloudstrike had lived in the times before, and he remembered. He knew the rhythms and the seeds and the light. So he knew what Tumnus had to do, and in the times when Tumnus was himself again, Cloudstrike told the god-mad Faun again and again until he could remember.

Once he remembered, he would know.

There was time for Tumnus to wait, to rest and heal and remember. Time until the Phorbas-touch faded from his mind as the wounds faded from his body. Time to gather the things he needed, carefully, stealthily: his old leather satchel, a leather belt for carrying a knife, a small grindstone and cup, an earthen flask of spirits. There was time, still. Time to listen to songs sung by his dearest friend, and sing with her when he could; time to let her tell him stories when the touch gripped him once more and he could not speak. Time to listen to the wise Centaur, again and again, until he knew all that he needed. So he waited, and healed, and learned.

The most important of his hidden things was a gift from Siana, the tree under which Lucy liked to rest and read: a Dryad-gift, a scrap of forest magic, so that one who did not wish to be found could not be. She understood, with the forest-sickness within her. She knew the things that the trees had whispered to each other in the air, had sung to each other under the ground, until the Witch came and blinded their father's eyes, until the Witch came and hid their mother's heart.

At last the day came when Tumnus woke without fear. He put on the belt with the knife, and he slipped his satchel over his shoulder, and he tied Siana's spell around his neck. He eased out of castle Cair Paravel in the murky pre-dawn light, and by the time his absence was noticed he'd long since disappeared.

He would walk the ways of the old forest with its soul alive in him, and work the old magic taught to him, and in doing so honor them all, alive and dead, mothers and fathers, heartsick and eyes-blind, who had come before and been lost or forgotten.

NOTES:

The amanti is taken from both the Greek sirens and the West Indian Manatee. The name is ripped from the Spanish title 'Lamantino norteamericano," which itself refers to the original Taino word manati. The word triche is from the genus name for sea-cows.

In my mind, Glendon made the Marge Simpson noise there when she told Peter off. Now you can't un-hear it. You're welcome.

More real People and Beasts: Eyzi is a tribute to another dog I once knew, and Aisling takes many quirks from the same friend who inspired Ruchabrik. Both are done with love, respect, and for the latter, a bit of friendly pigtail-pulling.

Lucy's experience in the lily pond was a thing I'd been thinking about writing but wasn't sure how to do it. After reading RthStewart's magnificent 'I love not man the less, but nature more,' I knew just how to set it up. If you haven't read that – go, go! Tell her I sent you!