It was so much to take in, this True Narnia, but not in a painful way, Lucy thought—it was rather like when she had sailed through the Silver Sea in the Old Narnia, when she had felt so full of light and life that she might burst, and she and Caspian had told each other that they felt they could hardly stand anymore and yet didn’t want it to stop—and she wandered over the hills and across the rivers of this new country as if in a dream, never tiring and feeling stronger than she ever had, full of the desire to explore just a little further, and a little further more.

She roved until she came to the glimmering sea, where she found a man standing on the shoreline, his trousers rolled up as he stood in the lapping waves, and she shouted in recognition: It was Caspian, and he turned at once at her voice, astonishment on his face, and he ran to sweep her in an embrace, exclaiming, “Can you believe it all, Lucy; isn’t it too wonderful to take in?”

It was, but she couldn’t get enough, and as she buried her head into the crook of his shoulder, feeling his heartbeat beneath her ear, she whispered to him, “I feel that I can’t stand much more, yet I don’t want it to stop,” and she felt him clutch her tighter in response as he murmured his agreement against her neck.