Like many of my stories, Dreamscape began as a short, unspecified dialogue between two characters. The whole oneshot was built up from this exchange between Lucy and Caspian: "Do you love me?" "Yes." "Do you desire me?" "Yes." "And the star's daughter?" "I do not know her." It popped into my head just as it was, without even a measly he said/she said, and I wrote the scene on the Dawn Treader around that conversation.

I've always had an attraction to the kind of story where you don't know what's going on - it starts off and just is. There's no explanation beyond the bare here and now, and we as readers/viewers don't know the events leading up to the scene or how it happened in the first place. You might say I'm being influenced by Seven Pounds and Slumdog Millionaire - two fine films I highly recommend, which start off in media res and keep your mind turning the whole time. When you don't know why something's happened it makes you focus more on the details more, trying to glean some kind of backstory from what's given, and you can appreciate things at their face value.

It's a dream, and both characters have all their canon history - Lucy's life as a Golden Age queen, and Caspian's long life after the voyage. However they appear as they did during Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and there's no connection to the Real Narnia of The Last Battle. This story exists outside of the universe of The Call of the Horn. The setting is surreal, alternating between calm and chaotic; this is a place where things may or may not be what they seem, where could-have-been is a reality.

I firmly believe that Caspian grew to love Lucy over the course of the voyage, or at least came to care for her deeply. At the same time I've always felt that neither ever indicated their feelings to other, whether they suspected reciprocation or not. Lucy because she knew they wouldn't be staying and some sense that Aslan did not intend a romance, and Caspian because of her young age, his own nervousness, and the presence of Edmund. Thus Caspian's tear when Lucy states her feelings so openly - grief for what could have been.

That basically what I wanted to show. What could have been, why it wasn't, but also why it should have, and explore the idea that they deserved love, but weren't entitled to it.

I wanted to stress their differences, take things to their harshest extremes. So here we have Lucy: traditionally the Ingénue, though she is given the title Valiant and Jack does show her participating in battles. But aside from The Horse and His Boy, we usually think of her as small, young and innocent. Lucy is kind to everyone and everyone loves her. There is definitely a virginal sweetness to her (I'm thinking of the way she runs around barefoot early on in VotDT).

And then there's Caspian: new to his throne, young and unsure in Prince Caspian, and occasionally given to selfishness and temper. Edmund, as he stated on Deathwater, is one of Narnia's four ancient sovereigns (and brother to the High King), and should theoretically outrank him. But Caspian - bold, charming, outspoken - is the one to whom all defer; the Hero, if I may. (Again, I'd almost put this down to youth. Don't you get the feeling that there would be a different dynamic if Edmund and Caspian were the same age? Even without considering any Lucian elements. We know that Caspian and Edmund never came to blows, and that officially, Edmund is 12 and Caspian is 16. So Caspian is considerably more imposing, physically at least - Eustace told us Caspian was well-muscled - and looks the part of a king much more than Edmund. And of course Edmund, who possess more than a few Byronic traits in fan fiction especially, is tainted by his choices/role in LWW. In any case, he assumes a more to-the-side advisory role that is perhaps less balanced than when he takes this same position with Peter. That's another factor, because next to Peter the Magnificent Edmund could never be called the Hero. And here is Edmund on his own, yet he does not take the lead.) I'd dare to call Caspian the novel's protagonist, though Lewis' perpetually changing POV makes this hard to pin down.

So we've got Lucy, child of virginal innocence, and Caspian, handsome and noble king. In this dream piece things are distorted to show their most extreme interpretations. I stretched it as far as I could without breaking into the realm of OOC-ness. . . not so sure if that was successful, seeing as Lucy is basically portrayed as a temptress. But I wanted to emphasize what might have been, if one works around canon. Because officially, Lucy was 23 at the end of the Golden Age - seven years older than Caspian. She is, or was, far more worldly experienced than he is. She's lived another lifetime, with any number of admirers, suitors, lovers - perhaps even a husband and children. It's never particularly clear.

Here in my world, the dreamworld, Lucy knows what she's about. There's love, there's desire, and since it's a dream Lucy doesn't need to have her normal inhibitions. She wants to tell him she loves him, she wants to hear the same thing back, and she wants to consummate that love. (And then there's always the view that Lucy stayed a virgin through the whole Golden Age, this could be a representation of something she wanted/deserved.) Lucy is womanly, experienced, seductive. She wants him, she takes him; she's definitely the aggressor. You can feel the age gap. Her transformation is a shift in the relationship, but it takes them from one end of unbalance to the other. Suddenly Lucy's seven years older instead of seven years younger than Caspian - you can feel the that woman/boy dynamic - she's the one who knows what she's doing. It's almost dispassionate for her. Though they talk about love, you almost get the feeling that Lucy is using him. She's not, but I like that it could be seen that way. The dream is a kind of catharsis for Lucy and all the could-have-beens of her relationship with Caspian.

With Caspian, it's the opposite. He spent the voyage in conflict with his feelings for Lucy, but things are resolved now. He has a wife and child and kingdom. In the beginning he's glum and mostly unresponsive because he is trying to honor his duties to Aslan and to Narnia, as he well should. Part of it is also Lucy's age - I think a lot of Caspian's hesitancy is because she's so much younger than him, and romance is discouraged for girls so young (hello, the statement that is Aravis).

I have no doubt that were she of the proper age, Caspian would be extremely sexually attracted to Lucy. But when she assumes that age before his eyes, there are still the promises to Aslan, Narnia, and Ramandu's daughter to uphold, so he has to resist all the same. Child-Lucy and grown-Lucy; it doesn't matter to him, because he must not be drawn in, no matter to which. I like this, because it reflects Caspian's affection for her - he loves her for her mind and her heart, not her body. At the same time, they are (to me) a physical match as much as soulmate match, and there would definitely be desire there. . . which Caspian tries his hardest not to give into. But he does want her, as evidenced by his enveloping arms, even as he tries to keep his mind focused on not wanting her. His body acts of its own accord - I like that having Lucy matured and beautiful makes it more difficult to ignore the connection the between them.

Character-wise, Caspian stays kind of flat throughout the whole story, which was (mostly) intentional. I really love the idea that he resigned himself to a life without Lucy. That he left the four of them at the end of the world because Aslan commanded it, married Ramandu's daughter because it was expected and because Lucy implied that he should, and had children because Narnia needed an heir to the throne.

This paragraph was part of the initial draft of Dreamscape:

"He looks utterly woebegone, but there is a cold pride in his voice. It is the voice of a king who knows he has chosen rightly, whatever his secret heart had felt, because that is the duty of a king. Kings are not motivated by their secret hearts. A good king, such as he is, puts the welfare of his people first. He stands now and remembers how close he came to abandoning this principle, for her, and is proud that he stood fast. But that does not mean he can look her in the eye."

I edited it out because it strayed away from Lucy's POV. But I still really like it, because I think it has a lot to say/imply about Caspian. I like to imagine that Caspian would throw away his responsibilities to Narnia and his whole station as king to follow Lucy, to stay with her or have her stay with him (just as Anakin is wiling to leave the Order for Padmé). And it would be Edmund and Lucy herself to talk him down from this course of action, just as when he wanted to go with Reepicheep to the end of the world. In fact, that is my favorite way to interpret that scene: Caspian's misguided attempt to seek out what he truly desires - Lucy. In the Silver Sea, there is such a feeling of tense anticipation - those days where they sail swiftly towards the world's edge are where I feel the bond between Lucy and Caspian is at its clearest and most exposed. There's a constant feeling of speeding toward something; an ending or a beginning, they can't tell. But it fills the pair of them with unrest, which I have always interpreted as the exciting rush of new love.

My favorite part of the piece is the end, when Lucy dives off the prow of the ship and moves through the sun back into consciousness. Caspian and Lucy have only just had this intimate encounter, with the confessions and the sex, but Lucy leaves him behind without a second look (which seems cold - I feel like Lucy is one for looking back until you can longer see those you left behind). It's more of her maturity showing through, as though she obeying something beyond her own will. Similar the end of VotDT, when the Eustace and the Pevensies feel that their actions are being driven by some force of fate - Lucy has no choice. She has to leave. She has to wake. It's inevitable; she will leave, no matter how either of them feel.

I think I really wanted to stress is that love is impermanent. Fleeting. Without substance. It doesn't change what must be, and it can't solve everything. In the end their love is meaningless; Lucy leaves, Caspian marries and lives out his life, and it all comes to nothing. And it begs the question, why? Why did they share such a connection? Why were they seemingly designed for each other, if they were never meant to have each other? If love is not to meant to be fulfilled, does it have any value at all?

Hard questions. The answer, given by books and classical plays and time-old stories, seems to say that the transience of life and love makes them all the more precious, all the more worth pain. And so here I am, lamenting on the love-that-never-was between Lucy and Caspian.