For King and Country ⭒Caspian x Reader⭒

Chapter 27

Every moment with him was precious. Sacred as a divine meeting with the gods. He held my hand tightly and watched me as we waited for what was to come. 

"I think I was fourteen years of age before I convinced my mother I didn't have to ride side-saddle," I said; as I examined the lines on Caspian's extended palm. 

We spent every moment we had left talking, laughing, and occasionally a sob of grief would consume me when I couldn't mask my fear anymore. 

We re-told each other stories of our pasts that we had heard before and dug deep inside of ourselves to reveal heart wounds we hadn't shared with anyone else before. Caspian talked of his father—how he desperately wanted to make him proud, but despite his father's wishes to go back to the Narnian ways and to be a tenderhearted king, he still struggled to break free from the reserved demeanor that had been handed down through the lines of succession. 

I told him of how I wondered who I would have turned out to be if Warwick had been my father or if Una had been my mother by blood, but I also told him of how much I struggled with the fact that I did love my true mother; how I couldn't rid my mind of my father—of how he used to toss me over his shoulder and call me his "petit coquin"—his little rogue.

There was an anomaly in me loving those who didn't deserve it—it didn't make me any better to love them, it didn't heal me, and it wasn't something anyone could expect from me; it was only a further symptom of my pain.  Love can take the form of an illness depending on who it's bestowed upon. 

"When you were younger," The wounds from the whip on Caspian's back had stopped bleeding, but the skin around the tear grew taut; any movement pulled on them causing pain to pinch his face, "did you ever consider that Narnia wasn't what you had been told it was?"

"Maybe a little," I looked over at Una who had passed out from exhaustion on a mound of hay, "Una told me stories, but somehow I didn't compare them to what I had been told...After all, I thought she was Vidalian by blood not—"

"A lost child," Caspian finished my sentence, "How could you have known?"

"We see what we want to see. The signs were there...Maybe if I had opened my eyes sooner I could have spoken with my father and he would have changed," I said. 

"You were a child," Caspian said; his tone comforting, "And beyond that, living in a country where women are shoved to the side for men's gain. You have to stop trying to change the past—it won't work."

"You're right," I said; nodding my head, "But I do feel as if I had been more willing to look beyond Vidalia, I would have sided with Narnia earlier."

"Can you imagine us meeting when we were younger?" Caspian said; his smile in the dim cell light warming the room. 

"I think we would have been in screaming fights incessantly," I patted his hand, "Too much pride."

"Maybe—but I think that we still would have ended up together no matter the detour,"  Caspian said; looking upon me as if I were a graven image he snuck into a gallery to view. 

"You're right," I leaned my head against the stone-cold wall. 

The noises that pierced the early dawn grew louder and louder, "Something's going on," Caspian said; pulling himself to his feet. 

"What do you mean?"

Caspian stuck his foot in a spot in the wall where the stone was missing; pulling himself up to look through the thin window towards the top of the wall. 

"What do you see?" I said; pushing into the bars that separated us. 

"Smoke," Caspian shifted his head to the side to try to get a better view, "It's coming from the villages."