𝐔𝐍𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐄𝐃 || Tirian of Narnia

Chapter Ten: Ghosts of the Abyss

The morning seemed to dawn with no color.

What few blissful hours of nothingness Tirian had managed to clutch with smoke still burning in his eyes fell away as the first light of dawn pierced thin curtains and fell sharply over his pillow. The first moment of memory plunged him into suffocating, icy depths that filled his stomach so that he almost couldn't move.

His bed swallowed him, and he wished for a moment that he really could drown in it, burying his face in the covers and shutting out the pale grey dawn for just a few more minutes. 

But when at last a royal attendant came in to check on him, any hope of convincing himself that this was just a dream again disappeared, and he dragged himself out of the feather-down depths as if from a tomb, into the hollow alabaster shell that had once been the royal apartments.

The scent of his father's pipe smoke still hung about the place, the books he'd been reading before that day the giants first appeared (never fewer than three at a time) stacked haphazardly on the low table in the sitting room, makeshift bookmarks sticking out from dog-eared pages.

Tirian almost felt he might run into him around any corner, perhaps humming some snatch of a tune or muttering to himself, but every room was achingly, betrayingly empty.

The air of mourning in the rest of the palace felt stunted, half-breathed as the buzz of preparation overtook it, two energies clashing discordant in his lungs as he stepped into the courtyard, breakfast abandoned untouched on the table next to Tales of the Telmarine Age.

Men and beasts rushed between stables, smithies, healers, never ceasing with a purpose of step that crept like poison into Tirian's veins.

How could the streets still bustle when their master was gone? But somehow the urgency drove it forward, blood pumping even when the heart had stopped.

He was foreign to it all, a stranger in this world of frenzy as the earth dragged him down, boots anchored to stone as if towing lead in their soles. He had nowhere to go, not even the slightest idea where to begin, and he felt the redundant weight of his presence no matter where he went.

Once, he caught sight of Hosha across the street at the armorsmith, and the boy's honey-brown eyes flew up to meet to him in a flash, but the cheerful greeting that might once have rung through the noonday air died before it came, and Tirian only forced a weak excuse for a smile before turning around and walking back toward the palace.

An hour later, it was Jewel who found him in the great hall, staring vacantly down at the table. He barely remembered how he got there.

"I should write to Aunt Iola," he mumbled, dragging himself out of a deep well of thought to look toward Jewel, though he did not quite meet his eyes. "They weren't at the funeral. They don't know…"

He trailed off. His father's sister was the queen of Archenland now. She wouldn't have heard in time even to try to come. An empty sick feeling settled in Tirian's stomach at the thought of his aunt, golden-haired and so much younger than his father, whose smile had brightened Cair Paravel on so many occasions as cousin Cecilie ran madcap through the halls, Tirian and Hosha chasing after her babyish giggle. She didn't even know her brother was dead. They had already burned him. How would she hear? What would she do? In his mind he could only see the color draining from her rosy face.

"I'm sure word has already been sent to Anvard," said Jewel softly. "It would be a matter of state."

Tirian blinked. "Oh," he said simply. "You're probably right."

But the image did not leave him.

Jewel ghosted at his side until mid afternoon, when Lord Bran appeared and sat gingerly on the bench beside him, and the Unicorn pardoned himself to afford them some privacy.