Crying about the idea of Rilian gaining consciousness for one hour a night and swearing that his father will find him. His captor laughing at his nativity from the shadows as Rilian pulls at his bonds and demands to be let free. He’s so sure Caspian will find him, his father who has sailed to the ends of the earth and who has taken down far worse foes than the woman in green. He screams and yells until his voice goes hoarse and raw and until he will not be able to speak come the morning. And his faith in his father never waivers.
Until the day it does. Until Rilian returns to himself for the hundredth time, the three hundredth, until years have passed and Rilian no longer screams. He no longer yells. He no longer demands that he be set free under threat of Caspian the tenth’s wrath. No, instead his eyes will sharpen as they escape the enchantment only to dull over once more when he realizes no one is going to come for him.
And he sits, and sits, and sits. Until overtime he starts to forget the sound of his father’s voice, the shape of his eyes, the feeling of his arms around Rilian in a warm embrace. He forgets little by little, and his hope goes with the memories, until Rilian begins to doubt that there was ever really any Caspian the tenth at all.
Maybe he has always been here, trapped in this silver chair, with wrists rubbed raw from the rope that bites at his skin. Maybe he has always been watched from the shadows like a rabid beast, mocked and laughed at when he dares believe there was any chance of rescue. Maybe his father is a myth, and maybe Rilian really is mad. He does not demand to be let free, not when the decree will fall on deaf ears. He stops deluding himself into hoping, because hope is for naive children who believe in the fairytale of their father coming to rescue them and Rilian is alone. After all, his father had only explored Narnia’s surface and Rilian is trapped far below that.