21

TO BE SO NAIVE

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"How do you know this will work?" Ernest asked as Cornelius passed him a burlap bag filled with ash, he also took a small sprinkle between his fingers and rubbed it below his nose to show him what to do.

"I have read every book both in the castle and out of the castle, I have heard these legends, I have listened to their stories. I've even studied the facts. Just trust me," the man rushed out as he lifted the glass box so that he had access to Alex.

It only took a few seconds before the half-faun, Ernest, spoke up once more to interrupt Cornelius' work, "Why don't you just use the same ash that we used?"

The Professor simply rolled his eyes and gently unclasped the silver locket from around her neck and opened it up to reveal a similar, yet very different, pile of ash within the locket. This ash had flakes of purple mixed within all the grey and black; it was beautiful.

Gruff words left his lips as he did so, "It was demanded by a much higher form a magic in Narnia, one of the first forms of the kind; the Aurora tree. To wake up an individual from their eternal slumber, you must use the dried remains of the first Drowsy Pudina flowers that grew around the tree. But to prevent the everlasting sleep, you can use any of the Aurora's decedents. Now, as we all know, each tree, flower or even weed is a successor from her."

Cornelius pressed his fingers into the purple ash from the locket as he continued to explain, sprinkling each particle of the ash over Alexandra's face as he did so, "It was hard enough having to track down the oldest tree in Narnia so that the ash we used will be more potent, but even that has it's limits. So, soon enough you will start to feel your eyelids get heavier and heavier as we are exposed to the flowers. So, lets keep this brief shall we?"

"What now?" his friend asked as the ash seemed to have almost no effect on the girl.

"Now," he clasped the locket shut once more and placed it in his jacket after he emptied it from all the ash to hopefully wake the girl, "I take every short cut and secret tunnel within the castle to get to Caspian's room before the soldier's get to him. If Alexandra wakes you are to take her to the courtyard in exactly five minutes. Understood?"

Ernest spared his friend a nod. "I understand what I must do," he spoke clearly as the other man pulled back a large tapestry hanging over a wall to reveal one of the many hidden doors that he knew about, this one would take him directly to the Prince's quarters so he could save him, "Farewell for now."

"Farewell for now," Cornelius repeated and began to dart through the dimly lit tunnel with only a fading torch in his hands to provide light. But even with the flames of the fire, the tunnel was too dark to see two paces in front of him.

The other was left in the office with the still unconscious body of Alexandra Dawson, her chest would still barely rise and fall only once or twice a minute if that. Apart from that, she was exactly how the books said she was. Stuck in her own mind, they assumed, for the hundreds and hundred of years that had passed in Narnia.

A whole minute passed as he just stared at her body and hoped that she would wake. A whole minute of dreading that Cornelius had not made it to Caspian in time. But more specifically, a whole minute before Alex opened her eyes for the first time in a long time.

At first, she just blinked repeatedly and stared up at the ceiling with confusion and uncertainty washing over her features, even more so that she felt her brows wrinkle up ever so slightly. Then, she took deep breaths. The sensation of air flowing into her lungs felt so foreign to her body and so did every movement in her muscles as she tried to sit up, she longed to do so.

"I-" she gasped out as she finally pushed herself up on the bed of Drowsy Pudina, half startling Ernest to death in the process. His face softened at the sight of how pained she looked. With every blink of her eye or beat in her heart it was all too real.

"I need to go back, it hasn't been long enough," she croaked out and bunched the flowers up to bring back to her nose, only for the man to swipe them all onto the floor and away from her hands to stop her, "I need to go back."

Alex fell from the raised bed and onto the stone flooring, bringing down bottles and books off the desk beside her and most of it shattering and breaking in the process. Glass penetrated the skin on her hands and shed enough blood to make Ernest worried. The man leaned down beside her, a hand going right to her shoulder to try and comfort her.

"Who are you?"

"I am Ernest, a doctor here at the Castle of Caspian," he answered and ripped long strips of his own clothing to bind her wounds as she continued to stare in shock, "How long do you think that you have been asleep, Sir Alexandra?"

His very words sent her further down the spiral of panic. She had no idea. At first she thought it was a few hours but now she was too unsure to answer.

"It's been 1302 years," Ernest muttered quietly as he tied the bandage around her hand tightly. He realised his mistake it telling her as soon as he saw her face that contorted.

It would have been a lie if Alexandra had said that Peter wasn't one of the first thoughts that crossed her mind after finding out how long it had been. Even if the Pevensie children had returned to London, there was no proof that the war hadn't claimed them as even more victims in the destruction or if the years had passed by just like they had in Narnia. It had been over a thousand for Alex and potentially too many for Peter too return to her.

But there wasn't any hope that they had definitely returned to Finchley. They could have grown old and died a natural death, they could have lost their lives in battle. There was an endless amount of possibilities for what could have happened to her first love and her three closest friends.

"Are they..." she wanted to ask but she knew that knowing would be too painful for her so she shook the thought from her mind and tried to stand. Only to find that her legs fell out from beneath her.

"Careful," he warned and helped her stand, "When you haven't moved for as long as you have, your muscles start to stiffen and become immobile. Just give it a little time to go back to normal."

"Normal?" she gasped out and tried to clench her hand only for her fingers to ache terribly and the wounds on her palms to start bleeding through the bandage. It was almost nice to feel pain because then she knew that this was real; that it wasn't just another trick from her imagination. But then again, she felt pain in the visions too. This could be one of the dreams that she was stuck in, it was only a matter of time before everything became an armageddon.

Ernest pulled a cloak from the stand by the door and passed it to her so she could wrap it around her neck and pull the hood over her to hide her hair, "I have to get you to the stables so you can escape. If Miraz finds you, awake nonetheless, who knows what he will do. You could steal his claim to the throne and that's what he desires the most."

Ernest pulled back the same tapestry that his friend had to reveal the path they would take. It took Alex a few seconds to process what he had said before she took the torch from the wall and they both started to weave through the brick tunnel that left them behind the kitchen and just a corner away from the stables, never once did her hand leave the walls for support.

"This is where I leave you. I will direct the soldiers into a different direction to give you time to escape. It was an honour to meet you," Alex's eyes widened as he took a bow in front of her before running towards a group of men gathering in the courtyard.

She even caught the sight of thick hair poking out the bottom of his trousers and how his boots made a certain click against the stone. If she were more awake she thought it would have sounded like hooves.

Alexandra shook her head once more and walked to the horse stables just in time to hear two men coming her way and shouting in hushed tones. One appeared to be just as old as Ernest whilst the other was the same age as herself.

Caspian held the same tanned skin and dark hair as the Telmarines had back in the Golden Age. Just from his thick accent it was confirmed that he was indeed a Telmarine. He couldn't take his eyes off the figure in the cloak, assuming that it was the Doctor at Castle of Caspian.

"You must make for the woods," Cornelius informed the two as Caspian climbed up onto Destrier the horse, the man kept sharing a glance to Alex as she weakly leaned against the stable fence to stop herself from falling over.

Caspian had fear in his eyes as he looked down to Cornelius, "The woods?"

"They won't follow you there," Cornelius tried to ease down the Prince's nerves soothingly but had no luck, the boy still tightly gripped on the reigns in his hands, but the Professor just reached into his own cloak to hand Alex something wrapped in a grey material, "It has taken me many years to find this, you will know how to use it and when."

That's when Caspian really looked at the cloaked figure behind him. Just through the bottom of the hood, he could see a smooth, fair face with plump red lips. When she looked up to meet his wandering eyes he saw the face of the girl from the history books, no the legends. With the curls of white hair twirling under the shadows of the moon and grey eyes that reminded him of the perfect storm, he thought she was gorgeous.

"That's... her," he stuttered and turned to his Professor with wide, unbelieving eyes almost to ask if he was seeing the cloaked figure too.

"She's going with you," Cornelius ushered her up onto the horse, only to receive a glares from both, "Caspian, you have hardly left these walls and I only fear how long you will make it in the forest. So, thats why Alexandra will go with you. Not only is she not safe within these walls, but Narnia needs her."

Alexandra just nodded her head, she was too weak to speak or even ride her own horse so she took the hand offered down to her by Caspian. The knight situated herself behind the Prince as hesitantly placed one hand on his shoulder instead of holding him tightly around the waist.

"Will I ever see you again?" the boy asked to his mentor, more importantly his father figure, with a frown taking over his lips.

"I dearly hope so, my prince. There is so much more I meant to tell you. Everything you know is about to change."

"Close the draw bridge!" one of the Lord's men shouted out and started to horse below them which made Caspian grip on the reigns with one hand and Alex's hand on his shoulder with the other so she wouldn't fall as the horse prepared to rear.

Cornelius patted the horse ever so lightly before meeting Caspian's teary eyes. "Now, go," he shifted to look at Alex through the shadows of her hood, "It was an honour to meet you. I regret that I didn't get to ask you more and learn about the Narnians from your perspective. Long live the Crimson Knight."

"Thank you for waking me," she replied as Destrier took off through the courtyard of the castle with Cornelius glaring at them longingly.

As they rode on the horse, Alex watched as Telmarines went about their day without even knowing what was going on. It was a sight for sore eyes; normality. She envied how people could be so oblivious and ignorant to what was going on around them, she wished to be so naive.

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This is just a small disclaimer, Alex went to 'sleep' a year after the coronation which means that when Peter went back to Narnia and reverted back to his normal age and the year happened, they will both be the same age. Alex, Peter and Caspian are all the same age in this and from now on they will age normally in their appropriate worlds