Fic: Ruling PG, Drabble Challenge #24
Title: Ruling
Author: Rhion
Rating: PG - a bit of swearing
Summary: What did it mean to be a monarch?
Disclaimer: Me no own, you no freakin’ sue.
Author’s Note: For the LiveJournal community susancaspian’s weekly drabble challenge #24, the word ‘celebration’.
For Peter ruling had been a responsibility and an honour. For Edmund it had been a chance to make amends, to learn, to observe, and to render a chance to all those around him. For Lucy - for Queen Lucy it had probably been a thing of soul deep meaning, a way to protect and give grace and hope to all those around her. For Susan… it was a duty, a well loved duty, but something that she must do to display the love she bore for her family, country, and Aslan.
And for Caspian it was all the above. But… years later, sitting at the helm of the Dawn Treader, an old man, worn out by living, by ruling he couldn’t help but think about all of it. Caspian’s hands tightened on the golden wood of the wheel, bones aching, skin tight from salt laden winds, staring at sea and sky. For Caspian it was more of a celebration of sacrifice. Ruling brought no life to his heart, yet on he lived. Outliving all of his family, the last known descendent of his line, no wife, his son Rilian long missing most likely dead as well…
It was tempting to spin the wheel, to turn the ‘Treader about and go back to the docks in Cair Paravel - but Caspian decided to do something he probably should have long ago. Love, hope and will had abandoned Caspian so many years ago it was horrific. Everything left him in the end, yet he had continued to sacrifice for country and Aslan. In reward he’d lost it all, all but his duty and kingdom. So Caspian went along, returning the favor and abandoning the cruel price of ruling. Oddly enough his faith hadn’t fled, because Caspian had to believe in something to explain the why of his heart’s plight.
When the sailors had been pushed to the point of rebellion, they had held off for love of their King. Caspian knew this. And he’d pushed on, still looking for Aslan. So he could spit in anger at Him, or at least ask why it was He had sought to toy with him so. What sort of weird pleasure He must have gained from putting Caspian in corner after corner, giving and taking over and over.
In the end, Caspian turned the Dawn Treader around, his strength fleeing as all things had left him. His body was too weak now, and he would die. Caspian welcomed the thought, for at least then he may find some sort of peace. Some sort of explanation.
Returning from a last fruitless voyage, searching for something outside the celebration of dreaded duty that his life had been Caspian waited impatiently to die. It was a shame that he had never done this before, the very human, angry, hurt and lonely part of him cried. He should have taken the opportunity afforded when Lucy and Edmund had been with him near the End of the World, and gone to their round little place. Maybe there he would have lived not so bound by duty, perhaps there he would have been able to pursue a woman he actually was in love with. Rather he had grown to love Euryl, but it was not the same.
Only sheer stubbornness kept Caspian going, even if he would welcome an end to his life, part of him was still tied to duty. He couldn’t leave his kingdom without a king. Even as he felt the years pressing on him as heavily as stone, Caspian waited out the days knowing Narnia’s coast would hove into view soon enough. And then he’d be back to his vibrant celebration, welcomed into the arms of the bitch named Responsibility. Back to his whore, Solitude. In the wings, waiting, his mistress Loss would rub her hands together vigorously, eagerly slavering over anything he may come to personally cherish. Bitter droughts waited for him to drink daily, and Caspian, being the man he was, the withered addict to government, yet in spite of that, Caspian would put off his own demise as long as he could.
When he died, Caspian X, the Navigator, Narnian savior, there’d be mourning and celebrations. It was fitting - black and wine, loss and revelry. Sardonic, Caspian sat at the prow, too weak to stay at the helm, waiting for the spires of Cair Paravel to stab at his eyes with their pointy cruel daggers. Now, it was just a waiting game, he could find nothing to dance to beyond the tune life played for him.
.