For King and Country ⭒Caspian x Reader⭒

Chapter 1

Ash on my tongue. Smoke in my nostrils. Boiling rage brewed inside of me. The Vidalian camp was in turmoil as knights and medics prepared for the final stand out on the battlefield. Shouting and hoof beats shook the ground. An elderly woman slipped into my tent, as silent as the day turns into night. The only thing announcing her presence was the cool wind that whispered through the tent flap.

"Erik, sent me to come to get you, Your Grace. They have a horse prepared for you...the Narnian army is advancing quickly," The old woman in the blue veil held her hands clasped together.

I stared into a mirror checking the straps of my armor; giving them each a firm tug. I met the woman's eyes through the reflection. "You know I can't do that, Una. How would it look if a member of the royal line just fled?"

Una came to my side, laid a hand on my arm as she met my eyes in the mirror. "The kingdom already lost your father today. Your brother has already retreated so he can be crowned in secret tonight. Please don't let him have to mourn you too," Her soft brown eyes pierced mine with fear revealing her true thoughts-Please don't let me mourn.

Turning to her, I took the woman's weathered hands between my own, "This is my choice. I can't just go home like this...Father isn't here to stop me anyway," Una opened her mouth as if to continue her pleas, but I interjected, "I need you to take that horse prepared for me and ride until I am just a speck in the distance."

"You've never been one to listen,"  She said, yet somehow her words weren't an insult, but a simple truth that we held between the two of us as the tangle of war wrapped its ever-reaching arms around us. 

"And you've never been one to encourage me to." 

"You're right, dear girl," Una's eyes glistened as she stroked my cheek. I imagine she didn't see a young woman at that moment, but the young girl that once clung to her skirts.

"Go, Una. Just tell Erik I'm coming with the medics," I nodded my head in assurance.

"As long as the earth holds you. As long as time binds you-" The woman began.

"-May joy follow close behind you," A small smile pulled at my lips despite the dire situation growing around our camps as she slipped out of the tent and into the tumult outside.

That quote never failed to grace the end of any bedtime story or well-wish Una gave to me from childhood till now. A "verse for those that yet have hope" is what Una would call it when I would ask what the phrase meant.

She said Erik, my betrothed, sent her, but I knew that she would have come either way. She never would have left without trying. After all, she had attended to every need I'd had since the day I was born.  When my mother grew weary of doing that which mothers do, she was at the ready with the dancing sparkles in her eyes to whisk me away and build castles out of pastry cakes to distract from the biting remarks my mother would dish out.

Before I could let fear sway my decision to stay, I parted the flaps of the tent and stepped into the night. The glow of a campfire reflected off the metal of my armor as I began to search for the last rallying point. Upon passing the medical tent, the nursemaids were lifting gravely injured soldier's heads to administer a tonic that would bring them into their forever sleep. Some soldiers met the nurse's teary eyes as they guzzled the lethal potion while others were barely conscious enough to open their mouths.

The edge of the camp loomed ahead and the last of the knights stood resolute facing the ridge where the Narnians would inevitably cross. Slowly, I moved through the ranks of soldiers to reach the front. I didn't want the legends to say I died on this battlefield hiding behind the bodies of others. As I pushed through, I heard whispers of—"That's the princess" "What is she doing out here?" "I'm sure Sir Erik doesn't know about this" "What good is a woman in a fight?" From the fairytales I had read, this would be the moment where I would give a speech that would unit my men under me, but fear closed my throat. All I could do was grip the hilt of my sword to keep the tremor in my hands at bay.