A/N: This story was born of a desire to write something Livejournal-esque. I've never been part of that side of fan fiction, but I am of the understanding that it's usually racier and more symbolic than ordinary stories. I worked quite hard on this; the language is more flowery than my usual style and this is my first M-rated Lucian. I would love to hear any response.

Disclaimer: Locales and characters original to The Chronicles of Narnia are trademarks of C.S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. This story was fan-written for no profit and no infringement is intended.

In this melancholy life of after, there is a trip to the seaside.

That night the ocean lulls her to sleep for the first time in many years. The air is warm, the moon shines silver white through the window, the trees rock back and forth in the wind.

She dreams.

In her dreams she is eleven again, trapped in the familiar smallness, dressed in the same old jumper and knee-socks. Caspian stands across from her looking as handsome and golden as ever. The deck of the Dawn Treader is the same, too, and so is the pale purple sky. Only the ocean is different. Utterly becalmed, it stretches out in all directions smooth as glass, waiting.

She looks up at him – he is so much taller than she! – and asks, "Did you love me?"

His head is down, chin tucked well in. His answer sounds rehearsed: "It matters not. You are gone from this world."

He looks utterly woebegone, but there is a cold pride in his voice. It is the voice of a king who knows he has chosen rightly, whatever his secret heart had felt, because that is the duty of a king. She knows he is proud of this steadfast resolution. But all the same, he cannot look her in the eye.

"I loved you," she says. She hates how very young her voice sounds; from this child's mouth, every word comes out sing-song. It lends less value to grief, less honesty to truth, less meaning to declarations of love. He does not answer as immediately as before and her statement hangs in the dead air between them; no ocean breeze comes to blow it away.

A tear glistens on his cheek, but his voice is steady when he says, "It matters not. The time is past, and you have left."

"If I had not?"

Something breaks. He looks up at last, and meets her gaze squarely. "Then I would have waited. Five years, ten years, however long. For after those years you would be mine forevermore, and my life would have been satisfied."

At these words, her body changes. She stretches taller, to his shoulder level; her bosom fills out; golden curls fall to her hips. Now she wears a flowing gown, blue as the surrounding ocean, trimmed with the same silver as the moon. This is the famed queen for whom so many came seeking. She that dazzles any man, peasant or priest or prince.

But he is not looking at her. He has not raised his eyes to her new height. Here she stands, resplendent in all her Golden Age beauty, but he stares down past her shoulders and gives no indication that he perceives this change. If she is displeased by this reaction, she does not show it.

A slow breeze has picked up. It ruffles her skirt and tugs at the lashed mast, and his fists are clenched tightly at his sides.

She steps forward. A hand stretches forth to cup his precious face. His eyes close briefly, much in the way of a quick and silent prayer. She asks him, "Do you love me?"

His eyes strain away from her, but he answers, "Yes."

"Do you desire me?"

"Yes."

"And what of the other girl? The star's daughter?"

"I do not know her."

Her clothes vanish. She is bare-skinned before him, but does not move to cover herself. Instead she comes and wraps her body sinuously around him. One arm curls around his neck, the other encircles his waist, and her leg winds around his thigh.

Even in the throes of her advance, still he does not look at her. His face is turned away, as if in revulsion, but his arms hold her tight and press her body closer, closer. The wind is stronger now; her unbound hair flies around them both. She twists in his embrace and whispers in his ear,

"Do you love me?"

"Yes."

"Do you desire me?"

"Yes."

"And the star's daughter?"

"I do not know her."

The sails spread out and the ship jerks forward. They fall backwards onto the deck, landing with limbs all twisted up and resolutions broken down. She moves her mouth to his neck and he groans, gripping her even tighter, but she squirms out of his arms to move according to her own design. Willingly he lies back and surrenders to her ministrations.

Her hands wander across his chest and he shivers. Slowly and with much deliberation, she removes his tunic. She counts his ribs with her lips, her tongue runs over the planes of his stomach. She moves lower and divests him of his hose and boots. And when she can wait no longer, she takes him for her own.

He cries out. She is silent, remembering that he is young still and only new to manhood. He is not a poor lover, but he is hurried and graceless and unsure. She supposes it does not matter. They have no past to speak of and no future to hope for; this is their first and their last, the best, the worst and the only.

When it is done, she leaves Caspian dozing and dresses herself in his clothes and walks to the ship's prow. With each step, she shrinks smaller and smaller until, once again, she is an eleven-year-old with eyes too old for her age. The Dawn Treader races forward on a steady gale; she moves with facile grace, untroubled by the ship's motion.

She climbs the railing and balances beside the carved dragon. Without a backward glance to the man she left sleeping, she dives and lets the water take her.

The current carries her swiftly towards the Eastern horizon, to the overlarge sun that fills the whole sky and is too bright to look at. She passes smoothly from water to light, absorbed by the intangible warmth, and inside its white-hot blindness she wakes and is reborn into the body of the Lucy that is seventeen, in between lifetimes, neither girl-child nor beautiful queen.

Dreams are meaningless, in the end. There is no satisfaction; what was will never change.

She rises to another melancholy day.

A/N: If anyone's interested, I've got a blog about this story over on my website.