Star-Crossed || Narnia OCxOC - thecallofnarnia & NaturallyNarnian

Chapter 1: The Next Time

Tonight is a year to the day that I last saw Lilith.

At first, I thought I could press on, show up to more public meetings, and finally lead the kingdom of Narnia as its King.

But lack of comfort really does destroy someone.

Loneliness practically eats at me every night. It hollows me out into an even more pathetic shell of who I once was. Not even who I once was, but could've been if I wasn't so weak.

The dark hours have not been kind to me. Neither has my mind.

Sometimes I don't even feel real. Like King David the Cordial is just a façade, hiding the frail David inside, utterly consumed by trauma, loss, and above all, loneliness. Every night it gets worse, and every day I wake up hating myself for letting it get worse.

Tonight I finally say I can't do this anymore. I need to wish for Lilith again.

I have no one left, there IS no one left, and perhaps the scariest part is that there COULD be. I still have all my magic, and Lucy alone was able to use hers for some pretty powerful stuff. Could I just...change someone? Create someone?

I realized early on that nothing except Susan would compare to Lilith.

I've been grappling with my feelings for a year now. Tonight is the night that I finally tell her. I know she has her Peter, but I also know that the act of holding it in can destroy you. I remembered a memory from my time on Earth, I just HAD to wait for three years until the "perfect moment" when I could tell a girl, Caty, that I loved her. Understandably, she had already moved on, hard. But at least I got it off my chest.

This was exactly that and nothing like it and a million times more difficult. Every day my brain questioned the act, as if my self-doubt and paranoia had seeped so deep that I could barely exist without bordering on an existential crisis.

Tonight was a year to the day from Lilith.

You've got to keep yourself safe, too. Physically, of course, but who you are. You're incredible and much, much stronger than you think...you always have been.

At first, I was. I got better after our first meeting.

Then I got worse again.

...What would Lilith say if she saw me like this?

Her faith in me would probably break completely.

...No, no...if anything is broken completely...it's me.

At least her disappointment would be better received face to face, right?

I took a deep breath. Anything would be better than the isolation my brain had forced on myself for the last year.

Well, my brain and Arthur. What Arthur didn't blame me for, he hated me for the rest of it.

I could feel the loneliness threaten to rip me apart yet again, so I finally got up from my balcony chair overlooking the moonlit Eastern Sea and looked to the stars. With the heaviest of hearts and most (figuratively) broken of brains, I made my second-ever use of my Aphrodite-given magic.

I wish Lilith was here.

Immediately the stars twinkled in response.

I almost collapsed back into my seat; sleep teased me with its tiring tendrils entering my mind, but it never came easily anymore. Nothing came easily anymore, especially in the dark hours.

For a brief moment I wondered if Lilith would even want to see me in general, much less look at me. I felt...defeated, and in the worst possible way: defeated by myself.