♘

         THE SIBLINGS CONTINUED to look around the ruins of Cair Paravel with Edmund leading the way. He bent down a rock, noticing something very odd about it.

"Catapults," Edmund says softly.

"What?" Peter asks in shock, standing beside him.

Edmund turned his head to look up at his brother and sisters. "This didn't just happen. Cair Paravel was attacked," he explained and the siblings looked at each other in shock and sadness.

"Who would do something like this?" Dorothy muttered, looking around the ruins sadly. She was more heartbroken than the rest of her siblings were, as she was the one who desperately wanted to return, only to find out her home was destroyed.

Lucy wrapped a comforting arm around Dorothy as Susan placed a comforting hand on her shoulder, both knowing how hard it was for her. They followed their brothers over to a wall and watched as Peter moved a branch from it before head and Edmund pushed the stone wall, revealing a wooden door.

They watched as Peter broke a hole into the wooden door and reached to the other side to open it, only for it to come off the hinges to reveal a dark tunnel. Peter proceeded to tear off a piece of clothing with the pocket knife he had with him and grabbed a stick, wrapping the cloth around it.

He glanced up at Edmund with a questioning gaze. "I don't suppose you have any matches, do you?" he asks carefully, gesturing to the satchel that Edmund was carrying.

"No, but . . ." Edmund trailed off, rummaging through his satchel and taking out an electrical torch with a small smirk forming on his face. ". . . would this help?"

Peter gave Edmund an exasperated look and tried not to smile. "You might've mentioned that a bit sooner," he scolded playfully while Dorothy and her sisters giggled quietly together.

Edmund smiled playfully in response before leading the way inside the tunnel with the flashlight on. Peter let the girls go in first before following after them. As the rest continued down the flight of stairs, Dorothy paused, looking below them and she gasped softly, seeing five statues of their older selves and chests in front of each in a small room. Quickly, she caught up to the rest of her siblings just in time to see Peter opening a gate that led to the entrance of a small room.

"I can't believe it," Peter spoke with an amused chuckle as they looked around. "It's all still here."

Dorothy was the first to run to her chest which was the furthest to the right of Susan and Lucy's. She opened it up as the others did while Peter looked around. She pulled out a beautiful dress that Susan and Lucy had given to her on her 16th birthday and held it up against her.

"I was so tall," she says with a smile etched on her face.

"Me, too," Lucy giggled, holding a dress up to her as well. The two shared smiles as Susan looked over at them with a smile of her own.

"Well," she spoke, making her sisters turn to her, "you both were older then."

"As opposed to hundreds of years later. . ." Edmund says, catching his sisters' attention, wearing a helmet that was too big for him, ". . . when you're younger."

Dorothy, Lucy, and Susan all chuckled under their breaths before they continued to look through their chests. Dorothy found her necklace and placed it around her neck before she and Lucy looked towards Susan, who looked distraught noticing that something was missing from her chest.

"What is it?" Lucy asked her concernedly.

Susan looked towards her with a sad look on her face. "My horn. I must've left it on my saddle the day we went back," she explained sadly, holding her bow and quiver.

They all looked over to Peter as he walked over to his chest and opened it. He pulled out his sword and unsheathed it, holding it tightly in his hand.

"When Aslan bares his teeth, winter meets his death," Peter quoted.

"And when he shakes his mane. . ." Dorothy adds softly, causing them to turn to her, ". . . we shall have spring again. Everyone we knew. . . Mr. Tumnus and the beavers. . . they're all gone."

Her older brothers and sisters all looked down sadly, realizing she was right. She couldn't believe that everyone was dead, nor could she believe that Cair Paravel being attacked was their fault. Dorothy wished she could go back and time to where they never discovered the lamppost all those years ago and returned to England. If she hadn't brought her and her siblings back, they probably could've helped their friends.

After a few moments of silence, Peter broke it with a look of determination.

"I think it's time we found out what's going on."

♘

After getting changed out of their uniforms and changed into something more Narnian-like, the Kings and Queens of Old all went back to the beach and Susan was up ahead. Something caught her eye and she took out her bow and arrow, shooting one in the distance as Dorothy and her other siblings caught up to her, seeing a boat with two soldiers and a dwarf tied up.

"Drop him!" Susan shouted, aiming her bow again as Peter and Edmund pulled out their swords.

Dorothy could see that the dwarf muffled something she couldn't quite understand as his mouth was tied up. The two soldiers shared a look before dropping the dwarf into the water. Immediately, her brothers quickly ran over and jumped in the water as one of the soldiers pointed his crossbow at the girls. Before he could shoot, Susan shot her bow at him and he fell into the water as the other soldier jumped in by himself.

The girls rushed to the shore as Edmund brought the boat and Peter came from the surface of the water with the dwarf. Dorothy pulled out her dagger and got to her knees to cut the ropes from the dwarf's wrists. Once the ropes were off, he pulled the rag from his mouth, coughing up the water before glaring up at Susan.

"Drop him?!" he exclaimed, throwing the rag down. "That's the best you can come up with?"

"A simple "thank you" would suffice," Susan retorted with disbelief.

The dwarf ignored her and pointed towards the water. "They were doing fine drowning me without your help," he argued.

"Maybe we should've let them," Peter snapped back.

"Why were they trying to kill you anyway?" Lucy questioned him softly, easing up the tension.

The dwarf glanced over at her and his gaze softened. "They're Telmarines. That's what they do," the dwarf replied softly.

"Telmarines?" Edmund asks confusingly, looking at Peter. "In Narnia?"

"Where have you been for the last few hundred years?"

With a sheepish smile, Lucy replied, "It's a bit of a long story."

The dwarf looked up as Susan handed Peter his sword back and he noticed the golden lion hilt of the sword. His eyes widened in realization as he figured out who the five brothers and sisters were.

"Oh, you have got to be kidding me," he mumbled as he glanced between each sibling. "You're it? You're the Kings and Queens of Old?"

Peter was the first to step up with his hand stuck out towards the dwarf. "High King Peter, the Magnificent." He introduced himself and the dwarf only stared at his hand.

"You probably could've left off the last bit," Susan said in embarrassment as her three younger siblings laughed under their breaths.

The dwarf giggled a little bit. "Probably."

"You may be surprised," Peter marked as he unsheathed his sword.

"Oh, you don't want to do that boy."

"Not me. Him."

To everyone's surprise, he was talking about Edmund, who smirked and unsheathed his sword, holding it high. The dwarf took Peter's sword and dropped it to the sand because of the weight. Before he could blink, the dwarf swung at Edmund everyone and he quickly ducked but the dwarf managed to hit Edmund in the face.

"Edmund!"

"Oh, are you alright?"

The dwarf swung at him again, causing Edmund to dodge it quickly, and went behind the dwarf. Dorothy and Lucy laughed as Edmund hit the dwarves behind while Susan and Peter smiled amusingly. In frustration, the dwarf continued to swing at Edmund and their swords clashed together until finally, Edmund managed to knock Peter's sword out of the dwarf's hand.

In shock and awe, the dwarf fell to his knees as he stared at Edmund. "Beards and bedsteads!" he muttered and glanced at the rest. "Maybe that horn worked after all."

At this, everyone became quiet as Edmund lowered his sword and they stared at the dwarf. He doesn't mean Susan's horn, does he?

"What horn?"