Chapter Text
The battle is done - won, thanks to the trees - and Aslan is here and has named him King. Caspian does not feel much like a King of Narnia, but he can kneel when Peter tells him to and Knight at least sits a little easier on his shoulders.
That night's celebrations are like nothing Caspian has ever seen - it's like the early days when he'd first joined the Narnians (before they'd retreated to the How and the war had begun) but magnified one hundred times now it's no secret to be kept. He goes from eating and drinking to dancing all too suddenly when Queen Lucy - "just Lucy, honestly!" she tells him - pulls him up onto his feet, and he has to step out when his stomach protests at all the jumps and spins. He does, however, thank her for the attempt at teaching him the steps, as ungainly as his own end up being.
He can't seem to help his intense awareness that he can't see Peter anywhere. He'd asked Lucy where he might be during their dance and she'd only given a shrug paired with a mischievous smile. After, he looks around again but still can't spy that golden hair. Instead he finds himself sitting with Edmund, who's weaving wreaths in colours at his younger sister's direction whenever she skips over in a short break from dancing. When she leaves again, she takes the completed ones and disperses them according to rules that only she and her brother seem to be privy to.
"Can I help?" He asks, and Edmund studies him for a moment with an expression Caspian could never hope to decipher.
"Here," he says after a moment, handing Caspian one with little purple, yellow and white flowers weaved among green leaves. "Copy this one."
He watches Edmund, figures out the best way to fit the thin branches together and how to keep the flowers from falling out, and ends up with what he deems a passable crown. Edmund gives one of those quiet smiles, nods approvingly when Caspian shows him.
"I don't suppose you know where your brother is?" He tries to ask casually.
Edmund gives a little laugh, though not an unkind one. "I think I saw him go off that way," he points. "You can take him his crown," he nods to the one in Caspian's hands.
"This one? I can't give him this!"
"Well that's his and that's yours," Lucy appears beside them both, gestures to the one Caspian made followed by the one he'd copied. She picks up the latter and places it on his head and her tone is one that brooks no argument so with that, he stands and heads in the direction Edmund had indicated.
If it weren't for the small amount of light making its way through the tree cover, Caspian might have ended up tripping over Peter, lying on the ground. As it is, he spots him just before that happens. His eyes seem to be closed, and so Caspian clears his throat in a quiet announcement of his presence. Peter sits up, an odd look on his face that changes to clear amusement when he notices the wreath atop Caspian's head.
"Lucy got to you?" He asks, and Caspian affirms.
"There's one for you, too," he says, bringing it out from behind his back. He decides that Peter doesn't need to know his part in making it. "May I?" He asks.
Peter bows his head in response and Caspian treads forward to place a crown on the hair of the High King of Narnia. (A crown that matches his own, a crown that he made with his own two hands and would have made an effort to fashion better if he'd known who it was to be for.)
There's a glint of silver on Peter's cheek, just below his eye, and before he knows what he's doing, Caspian's thumb is swiping away the tear that clings there. Then he realises, jumps back. In the day Caspian has known him, Peter Pevensie has been authoritative, he has been bold and brave, and he has been kind. He has not been vulnerable - not in Caspian's presence, at least - and seeing his childhood hero in such a state seems to set off some instinct deep within him to flee.
He's stumbling his way through an apology when Peter interrupts him. "Caspian."
"Yes?"
"You are a King of Narnia, now," he tells him. Caspian wants to protest that he isn't yet, really, when Peter tells him to sit, and so he does. His legs don't cooperate particularly well - his body still wants to run - but Peter wants to show him Narnia and that's something he could never even think of refusing. At Peter's instruction he places his hands on the ground, reaches down with a silent question.
Narnia answers.
"Is that-?" He can't even start to think of a way to describe this feeling, but he knows with an unshakeable certainty that this is something he's been searching for his whole life, even if he hadn't known it. Narnia is alive beneath him and, "I never imagined..." he says softly, blinking open eyes that, beyond his control, have welled up. He understands Peter's tears, now.
"It's like nothing else," Peter says, and Caspian makes a noise of agreement. (He's not sure that he fully agrees, but it's not as if he can say that it's the same thing he's felt deep inside every time he's thought about leaning over and pressing his lips against Peter's.)
Peter stands and so Caspian does too. Peter walks back toward the celebrations and so Caspian follows. (He's known him all of a day, which is the strangest part of all this, because already he knows he'd follow anywhere he goes.) Peter stops at the edge of the clearing and so Caspian does too.
In the firelight, he glows. His hair is pure gold, and he holds his head like the crown atop it is a real one, rather than a simple thing of leaves and flowers. He is truly magnificent, and Caspian is almost taken aback when Peter places a hand on his shoulder.
"That feeling back there? Remember that. This is yours to protect, now."
Caspian is King, though he hasn't been crowned yet, and doesn't really feel like one, and Peter is entrusting him with his country. He does his best to stand tall, to not shrink under this weight, meets Peter's steady gaze. "I swear it, High King. With my life." His coronation vows will be to Narnia. This is an oath of fealty meant for Peter alone.
"Peter," he tells Caspian again.
"Peter, he repeats, keeps looking into those blue eyes until Peter's cheeks turn red and he looks away.