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It starts when the ambassador from Archenland visits for the first time - around half a year into Caspian's reign - and after a conversation with Lucy, she bows and addresses her as Queen Lucy the Hopeful when she takes her leave. It's not long before Lucy corners Caspian to ask about it.
"It's the way she said it," Lucy explains. "Like a title. I like to think that we brought hope back to Narnia after the White Witch, but none of us were ever named Hopeful."
"Well…" says Caspian, and Lucy cocks her head with a slight frown. "Valiant, Just, Gentle and Magnificent - those names persisted, yes, but the four of you gathered other titles after your deaths," he explains.
"And mine was Hopeful?"
Keen eyes don't miss his slight wince as he replies in the affirmative.
"What else?" Asks Lucy.
"Some gave you another name," he says quietly. "Vengeful. The accounts speak of your anger after Edmund's death. They say the Calormene Prince who led the invasion only escaped with his life through Aslan's protection. Between that and your going to fight the giants, with them having killed Peter…"
Her lip curls. "Rabadash. He deserved everything I would have dealt him and more. And not just for Edmund." He's never seen such fire in her eyes, her face filled with loathing. "I won't claim I wasn't vengeful, however justified. But why Hopeful?"
Caspian's eyes flick down, unbidden, to the bottle on her belt. She follows his gaze, fingers ghosting over the pouch. "My trying to save them?" She asks, and he nods. Lucy laughs, and it's an empty thing, full of regret even now. "More desperate than hopeful," she murmurs. (A trace of that loathing remains.)
"If I may," he begins, and her attention snaps back to Caspian as if she'd half forgotten he were there. "I believe names are often what we make of them. It was the first Caspian in my line who led the Telmarines to Narnia and sent her people into hiding-"
"-and the tenth Caspian who helped restore it to them," she finishes. "Yes, I see your point. What about the others - what were they called?" Caspian opens his mouth, hesitates, tongue tucked behind his teeth. Lucy wrinkles her nose. "No, you're right," she says in answer to his lack of one. "I suppose you should tell them first." She shrugs. "I'll find out soon enough."
It's Edmund who approaches him next, falls into step alongside him as he's leaving the stables. It's only been a few days since his conversation with Lucy, and so while Edmund initially remains silent, Caspian can take a fair guess at what he wants to ask. Finally, he speaks.
"So about those titles, then," he says, followed by a tight, close-lipped smile. It's rather blunt for Edmund, but then again he's been somewhat on-edge in recent weeks. If Caspian were to try and mark it, he'd say it's been since the weather took a decisive turn for the cooler: trees dropping the last of their leaves and first frost gracing the grounds.
Despite the lack of a question as such, he answers. "You have two," he says. "The Pale is one." Edmund halts in place in the middle of the courtyard. Caspian waits for a response and receives none. "The poison," he begins, only to be cut off.
"Yes. I know how poison works," he says shortly. "What about the other?"
"You know, of course, that the current Princess of Archenland is named Petra."
Edmund nods.
"She is named after Peter - a tradition that began when King Cor and Queen Aravis had a son. They named him after the Narnian King who helped return their lost prince to his family, and who died in defence of their land."
"Ah," is all Edmund says, after a long pause.
Caspian gives him a moment, before he adds: "King Edmund the First of Archenland was lauded as a fair and just ruler, and many of his descendants were named after yourself and your siblings. Your other title is thought to have originated in Archenland. They called you the Deliverer."
His expression does not noticeably change, but there is something working behind his eyes. Colour that had drained at the mention of 'Pale' now returns to his face. "Thank you, Caspian," he says. "You've given me much to think about."
It feels a lot like a dismissal so he nods his goodbye, and crosses the courtyard. When he reaches the door he sneaks a look back, only to see the space lies empty.
Caspian often takes a turn or two about the grounds after lunch. One particular afternoon Susan catches him reentering the castle, arms wrapped around himself and stamping mud off his boots so as not to spread it further, and before he really knows what's happening he's sunk into a chair in her favoured parlour. A fire crackles merrily and she pours them each a cup of tea from a rather large pot. Like her brother she is silent; unlike Edmund she remains that way, surveying Caspian over the rim as she sips.
The tea is earthy and well-spiced, warms him from the inside out, and he's drunk half a cup before he dares broach the topic. "You want to know about your titles?"
"I heard whispers back then, even when some preferred I didn't," she replies. "I knew they called me Unlucky, at the end. Now, thanks to yourself and Lucy, I know there may have been another of these… titles."
It's news to Caspian that she knew at all. He strongly suspects she hasn't shared this particular fact of her reign with her siblings. "There were," he says. "Two more."
She raises an expectant eyebrow and his mouth turns rather dry. He takes a gulp of tea, cool enough that it doesn't quite scald his mouth but prickles a little all the same. He swallows. "Sorrowful. And Enduring." They don't need explaining. He doesn't attempt to.
Perhaps if Edmund or Lucy were here, they'd be able to piece together an idea of what Susan might be thinking or feeling. To Caspian she appears a statue, sightless gaze fixed somewhere just over his left shoulder. He's tempted to turn his head, to try and make out whatever she's looking at, but he knows this room from lonely days spent exploring as a child, knows there is nothing but bare wall where her eyes fall.
Eventually she takes a long draught, then sets her cup and saucer down so gently that the porcelain makes no sound at all - he might have believed he'd been suddenly struck deaf if at that moment there hadn't been a loud pop from a log in the fireplace. Caspian flinches. The closest Susan comes to acknowledging it is a blink.
"I see," she says.
He finishes his tea, sets his own cup down somewhat less delicately than she. "Is there," he asks tentatively, "anything else you'd like to know?"
His words seem to shake her out of some reverie and she smiles for the first time: small, but present nonetheless. It remains as she declines, as they bid one another goodbye for the time being, and as Caspian beats a retreat that he's sure she marks as hastier than he might have otherwise made. She doesn't mention it, at least, and when he closes the door behind him Susan is gazing once more at something only she can see.
It's been over a week since Lucy approached Caspian about the whole business and for all the time he's spent with Peter - during their morning spars, at mealtimes, council meetings and more - he has not yet pulled Caspian aside as his siblings each did. By now he would like to think he knows Peter decently well, knows that while he's closely guarded as an opponent, he is not so practiced at hiding his grievances. What has also become clear to Caspian by now is that while they have all been trying, a handful of months could never be enough to make up for thirteen years distance, and while the Queens and Edmund have settled into more of a unit than they perhaps were when Caspian first met them all, Peter has not quite been able to slot in alongside them.
What it comes down to is that, judging by his manner, none of the three can possibly have told him, yet Caspian can't help but think that Peter deserves the chance to know what his people named him after he was gone. Still, he stands in the corridor a long while before he can screw up the courage to knock on his door. Just as he raises his hand to do so, it opens. Oiled hinges make no noise but Caspian does (and it's a rather undignified one too, that brings an immediate warmth to his cheeks). Peter, thankfully, does not acknowledge it, though a poorly-disguised smile lingers on his lips when he asks what Caspian's doing there.
And this is where Caspian falters. As much as his conversations with Peter's siblings had felt like varying types of ambushes, it turns out that initiating this particular conversation is a far more difficult thing.
Peter's smile falls flat and his brows knit together. "Do you want to come in?"
Caspian nods gratefully, wanders out to their usual spot on the balcony. By late afternoon the sun has already set and the stars are beginning to show themselves. There's a chill in the air but it's not an unwelcome one, as by the time Peter joins him the cold has helped clear his head somewhat. It's enough for him to begin much the same way he had with Lucy, to explain how they gained other titles. "I've told your siblings theirs. If you wish for me to tell you yours, then I will."
"Oh," Peter says. "Right. Then… yes. I want to know."
He hadn't expected anything else; from the very start - that first evening after both duel and battle - their friendship began with Caspian telling Peter the history he knew of what he'd missed. He hadn't brought the titles up, then. He'd been afraid it'd cut too deep, especially so soon after all the upsets that ensued with his and his siblings' return to life.
" Yours is…"
" Tell me." It's soft, in the way he only ever is in these sparse and quiet moments. "Whatever it is, I can manage it."
Caspian lets a single breath cloud into the still and dark before he says out to the north: "Unfledged."
This, too, needs no explanation; a harsh reminder not only of his death but of all the life he did not have a chance to live. Peter lets out a quiet noise that sounds almost like a laugh, and when Caspian dares to look, his face is open and painted with a sort of anguish that he wishes wasn't so familiar. "Makes sense, I suppose," he shrugs, leans forward to brace folded arms on the balcony's flat edge. Caspian matches him, nudges his elbow against Peter's. Peter nudges companionably back and they rest there awhile.
"What do you think they'll call you?"
Caspian startles slightly, then shakes his head. "Not a clue." Aslan had called him Liberator at his coronation. There are far worse things to be called, he knows, but in the time since it's sat a little uncomfortably, given how very little of the actual liberating he'd done past calling in the Kings and Queens to take charge. He says as much.
"How many times?" Peter mutters to himself. Then: "you know," he says mildly, "if you keep on like that they'll call you something like Unsure. Or Troubled, maybe" Caspian makes a face and Peter laughs. "Don't worry, I'm only joking. I wouldn't let that happen. Besides, you're sure to end up with something like Noble, or Kind."
"Really?"
"Or Skeptical." He teases, and Caspian jabs his elbow into his ribs.
After the inevitable scuffle, the racing of his heartbeat begins to subside as they shift back into the same positions as before. "I wouldn't mind Kind," he murmurs.
"Not a bad thing to be," Peter agrees.
"What about you?" He asks. "If you were to gain another. What would you want it to be?"
Peter's mouth bunches at the corner. "Haven't the foggiest." Caspian gives him a searching look and he holds up his hands. "Truly," he says, but then he frowns.
"What is it?"
"I don't know about a new one, but I think… I'd like to earn Magnificent. Now I have the time and all."
It's Peter's turn to question when Caspian can't help his laugh. "You didn't see yourself out there," he tells him. "That duel, the battle, and after. If it ever needed earning, you've done it, by far." He meets Peter's eyes, dark in the dim light, and Peter just looks at him. Caspian shudders - it is cold, though he's strangely warm inside as if he's downed a goblet of wine - and doesn't look away. Even here and now, without armour, shield or sword, he is every inch Magnificent. It feels rather daring when Caspian says as much.
"You see?" Peter breathes. "Kind."
"Honest," he returns.
"Well," Peter says eventually. "That's not a bad thing to be, either." He seems as if he wants to say something else and so Caspian remains silent, but he doesn't in the end, turns his gaze back out, and then tilts his chin up. Caspian settles back into place, Peter's arm a warm line against his own, the north face of Narnia spread out in the dark before them, and the stars dancing above.