Narnia fic part deux
Title: To Close Round the Moment
By: Venilia
TCoN, gen, PG-13. Mishmash of film and book canon. Spoilers for all seven books, and both movies.
IV.
After hearing Professors Kirk’s account of his own time in Narnia, Peter wondered if animals here in England, in this world, had ever talked. One Sunday, after a sermon about Eve and the serpent, Susan wondered the same thing.
“I mean,” she said, “I read during the hymn to make really sure, but Eve just said something about which fruit they could eat. She didn’t say anything like, 'Snakes don’t talk!' or run away screaming or try to hit it with a rock or anything, you see? I mean, wouldn’t she do something like that if she was surprised?”
Peter shrugged, miserably. He had reached the point where he thought he’d give just about anything for a good conversation with a Rabbit or a Mole or a Deer or an Eagle. He’d even settle for talking to a Squirrel, and he’d known Squirrels to natter on about walnuts or acorns for hours.
“Maybe she did, but it’s not in the Bible,” he suggested. “It’s not the sort of thing you take the time to write down in important stories, you know.” Susan was frowning, so he ribbed her, “Even Lucy left out the part where you said that Beavers shouldn’t be talking at all when she used to tell our story, and Lucy doesn’t leave out bits for appearance sake.” That earned him a blush and a quick change of subject.
Peter didn’t tell her that he’d done his own research. There were an awful lot of stories about talking animals. There were talking rabbits and crocodiles and birds and wolves from stories all over the world. Even later on in the Old Testament there was a story with a talking donkey. It kept Peter wondering.
For Susan’s fourteenth birthday Peter determined to buy her a kitten. In one pet shop, Peter met a “talking” parrot. It wasn’t the same thing at all, and he left without even looking at the kittens, and had to sacrifice a whole afternoon to find a second shop.
Susan named her orange tabby cat Tiger and doted on him, and sometimes Tiger would cock his head just so and for a split second Peter imagined he was about to ask for something, complain, say something, say anything.
*
When Peter and Edmund went back to Hendon House, and Susan to St. Finbarr’s, Lucy wrote them all pages and pages of letters, many of them about the golden years of their reign (which weren’t all of them, what with tracking down the remainders of the Witch’s army, fighting giants in the North, and proving to the lands around them that the newly free Narnia was not, in fact, defenseless or in need of conquering). Peter could feel her homesickness on the paper like Braille.
Susan wrote back as a matter of course, Edmund because he was Lucy’s closest friend here in England, and Peter wrote back scores because her letters reminded him that he was still High King, even where there was no Narnia.
It kept them sane.
*
Curtis Peers remarked to Edmund that at least his father was a Lord, and Peter opened his mouth to say, “Look, you little twit, my brother is a King of Narnia!” but Edmund was already asking thoughtfully, “Is he a good man?”
Curtis looked surprised, and Frank had to dig his elbow into his side. “Y-yes?” Curtis said, as if he wasn’t quite sure of the answer, but then he recovered. “I mean, of course he is!”
“Then you must be very proud to be his son,” said Edmund, and walked off without a second glance, leaving a thoroughly flummoxed Frank and Curtis Peers behind.
Peter was proud of him.
*
Father Simon was the new priest at Hendon House after old Father Thomkins retired. Peter had always respected priests the same way he respected doctors or university professors, but it was hard to stay respectful to Father Simon. He was every awful thing about religion epitomized in one man, and not very nice to boot. Peter suspected he had only become a priest so that he could tell people they were doing things wrongly.
Edmund was sitting next to Peter, eating porridge while Peter cut his toast into soldiers. Usually the younger boys had to sit with their fellow classmates at the appropriate table, but it was Saturday morning, so cross-class fraternization was allowed.
Unfortunately, Father Simon had taken it upon himself the task of eating breakfast with the students each week, which everyone hated.
This week, he’d chosen to sit across from Peter.
“Master Pevensie,” he started.
Both Peter and Edmund looked up at him.
“Hm!” he cleared his throat, “Yes, by which I obviously mean the elder master Pevensie. I see that you have mistaken, my dear young sir, your fingers for your knife and fork. It will not do, master Pevensie. It will not do at all!” he lectured primly, and proceeded to cut his own toast into soldiers as an example and to dip them into his runny eggs, somehow contriving to use both his fork and his knife.
Peter bit the inside of his lip and counted to ten in every language he knew.
“I also could not help but notice that your elbows are on the table top, master Pevensie. You see the way your younger brother keeps all his limbs tucked in so politely?” He motioned towards Edmund who was slumped over his bowl, still blinking at the world in the way of the not entirely conscious. He never truly woke until after his second cup of tea.
“Surely this is a sign that your mother has taught you proper manners,” Father Simon continued. He leaned forward, as if to share a secret, “If you want my advice, master Pevensie,” he whispered loudly, “It would behoove you to follow his example.”
Peter clenched his teeth.
Edmund, who couldn’t help but overhear (in fact, most of the table had heard, though they were trying hard to pretend they hadn’t for Peter’s sake) suddenly sat very straight and switched his spoon from his left hand to his right. Under the table, Peter felt him cross his leg just at the ankle, in the proper fashion for a high Archenland feast, while his spoon began tracing slow, elegant arcs from his bowl to his mouth. It was exactly the way their teacher, dear old Blackheart the Dwarf, with his long white beard that traveled down to his knees and his little half-moon spectacles, had taught them in their Great Hall at Cair Paravel. Blackheart never scolded, and never made them feel inadequate even when Edmund dropped his knife three times and Lucy spilled soup down the front of her frock.
“King Peter,” he’d respectfully nod his head, “in Archenland it is customary to use this spoon for ices. You see how the bowl is far too narrow for a good soup spoon, or even for a table spoon? This is because of an amusing mishap made by King Lune’s grandmother, Lanis the third, while her father was entertaining the Tisroc.”
He had an anecdote for every piece of cutlery, and a grandfatherly sort of smile, and was never the least bit impatient. When they’d completed their dining lessons he’d invited them all home to his cave (a cheerful little cave like Mr. Tumnus’, but with deep bay windows and flower boxes) for a meal of sloppy finger foods because after all, he’d said, their majesties had quite earned it after putting up with such a fussy old Dwarf.
Peter swallowed the lump in his throat and straightened into Archenland form. Edmund shot an understanding glance.
“Ah, now that’s much better master Pevensie. It would be a shame if you misrepresented this school in public. After all,” Father Simon raised one thin finger into the air, “One must always remember that he represents his school, his church, and of course his country wherever he goes master Pevensie.” And with that he stood up with his breakfast to find some other victim upon which to bestow his advice.
Once Father Simon’s back was turned Edmund stuck his tongue out at him. Peter absently finished his breakfast with astoundingly perfect manners, which all the other boys thought was genius and reenacted with mocking exactness for the next week. Peter never noticed.
^*^*^
V.
Peter’s ribs ached from where he’d taken a good punch at the station.
He didn’t remember it at first, too caught up in the smell of the ocean - Narnia’s ocean - and the joy of throwing off his coat and shoes and feeling warm sand between his toes and bright sunshine warming his hair, and splashing about in the sea with his brother and sisters. Just ten minutes on this beach was better than any week long seaside holiday.
He did his best to ignore it as they worked their way inward through the trees. Campaigns had taught him to ride a horse for hours and then chop firewood and cook dinner with a sprained wrist or blisters where his shield rubbed his side or any number of other small, bearable discomforts. And there wasn’t much anyone could do about bruised ribs on a beach with only two sandwiches and cast off school clothes between the four of them.
Later, after they’d found the treasure room and recovered their old gifts and Rhindon was bright in his hand, he crossed blades with shadows, testing his footwork and relearning the weight of a shield on his arm. A left downward cut at an old apple tree brought a stab of pain, and he remembered his side again. Peter paused for breath and discreetly felt his ribs, not wanting to worry the others. They didn’t seem to be broken.
He glanced over at Lucy, who sat in the warm grass plaiting back Susan’s hair from her face. Her cordial was at her hip, and he knew if he asked she would give him a drop. It would only take a little drop, and though as High King he’d warned her against using it for small things, there were times the small things could get in the way of big things. If he had to run like this, he’d regret it.
But instead of asking her, he found himself lying down in the grass, soaking up the sun.
His siblings were right about him being angry. Even here in Narnia, in his own castle (and even with Cair Paravel in ruins, he felt as if he’d come home) he could still feel the sharp sorrow of losing his kingdom and his kingship, all the things he’d loved and bled for. It was as if he’d been rudely forced to wake up from the most wonderful dream of his life, except that his waking life seemed duller and less real by comparison. But whether it was the Narnian air clearing his head, or just his conscience sparking more strongly now that he felt like a real King again, he found that he was somewhat ashamed of himself.
In England he’d had a ready defense for launching himself at the other boy, but here in Narnia he felt his cheeks redden. Peter wasn’t a boy. Peter hadn’t been a boy for almost sixteen years, since he’d led Aslan’s army against the White Witch. Fighting school children was so far beneath him, he had no idea how he’d ever thought it was justifiable.
He heard Edmund laugh somewhere behind him, and Susan shout in mock-anger, and decided not to mention his bruises.
*
Lucy twitched about at the rudder in obvious discomfort as Peter rowed by himself for a bit to give Edmund a break.
“Are you all right, Lu?” Peter asked.
“Yes, I’m fine, really. Isn’t my gown pretty, Peter?” she asked, which didn’t particularly surprise Peter as Lucy had never liked to dwell on discomfort. Peter nodded automatically (fifteen years as a King had taught him that the answer to a woman asking about anything being pretty was always “Yes,”) and really looked at it for the first time. Lucy swept her free hand over her skirt, settling it so that a peek of the pale blue underskirt showed and pointed the toes of her slippers up and down where they dangled an inch above the bottom of the boat.
Now that he looked, the colors reminded Peter a bit of her coronation gown, which Lucy had worn for a week straight until Lucy’s chief maid-in-waiting (a Naiad maiden who’d worked not a few bloodstains out of Peter’s own robes), got Susan to bribe her out of it with the promise of archery lessons.
He said so in between hard pulls at the oars. His shoulders were aching. Maybe Susan could spell him soon.
Lucy beamed. “Yes, that’s why I chose it. I’ve always loved these colors together.” She fiddled with the hem of one sleeve. “If we go back to Spare Oom again, and stay there, I think I want to paint my house these colors,” she said, half to herself. Then added, “If I ever get married and have my own house, I mean. If not I think I’ll get a little flat with a guest bedroom for when you and Susan and Edmund come visit me. I suppose I should put two beds in it.”
It was such a grown-up thing to say, it reminded Peter yet again that his sister was only half little girl and half woman, far more than other girls her age who were approaching that in-between point.
Peter’s heart and lungs swelled with something like homesickness - not for England, but for Narnia as it was when they ruled there, for the old Cair Paravel and their court, for the stables and the pier and the battlement and his old chambers. He’d been fighting the feeling all day. It helped a bit for Lucy (and Susan and Edmund too, he thought) to be acting like their old selves, their true selves. It felt so good to act like his real self.
Lucy murmured, as if sharing a secret, “I love wearing gowns again. I do wish I could have worn my crown, even if it wasn’t practical. I miss it, sometimes. I mean, sometimes I get up in the morning, and I comb my hair, and then I have to go on with out putting on my crown and it feels wrong. Do you know what I mean, Peter?”
This was the first time he’d heard Lucy say anything of the sort, though he was sure she talked like this with Susan late at night in their room, as Edmund did with him.
He heaved back again against the water, then paused a moment to stare into the glassy green surface. “Yes, Lucy. I know exactly what you mean.”
“Oh good,” she said, “Wouldn’t want to be the only one.” She smiled. “I’m in good company, then. Oh, look, an eagle!” she pointed, and Peter was glad to talk about something else.
*
Edmund kept looking sideways at the Minotaurs. It was subtle of course but Peter noticed because he couldn’t help doing the same thing.
When they stopped to eat more apples, more bear meat, and (from the Old Narnian army) hard bread and hard cheese Edmund followed Peter down to the stream to wash his hands.
“I can’t help it,” he said, lowly so the sound wouldn’t carry.
“Neither can I,” Peter said as he wiped his hands dry on his tunic.
“Yes, neither can Susan and I think even Lucy is a little scared now and then. But she’s so tiny now.”
Peter refrained from daring Edmund to tell her that to her face only because he suspected the Old Narnians would be alarmed to see their ancient heroes attack each other, even in play, the way it had scared him as a child to see Mother and Father argue.
“We didn’t think much of the Black Dwarfs, at first,” he said. “I’m sure we’ll get used to it.”
Edmund shrugged. “That’s not what really bothers me. What really bothers me is that I’m bothered. I mean, I of all people have no excuse to be suspicious,” and then he preempted Peter by saying, “You know what I mean. I’m not exactly innocent myself. I should be more forgiving, like Lucy.”
The Minotaurs had been one of the worst kinds of the Witch’s followers to hunt down after the Battle of Beruna. What they lacked in cleverness they made up for in determination, strength, and skill. Peter remembered saying wearily to Oreius once that he wished they were on his side. Oreius had taken it for a joke and smiled politely. (Even for a Centaur Oreius had a hard time understanding Human or Faun or Dwarf humor.)
“We’ll get used to it,” was all Peter could say now.
Later, after the miserable failure of an attack on Miraz’s castle, Edmund and Susan made excuses to the army and forcibly took Peter to a private corner of the Howe.
“I have to get back to Lucy and Caspian and the others. Ed?” Susan asked, and Edmund assured her with a nod that he would take care of Peter.
He sat quietly while Peter paced. It was only nervous energy, really, and Peter knew it. His anger and horror were turning into grief and exhaustion. He and Edmund had done exactly this a dozen or so times after battles, and sometimes it was Edmund who did the pacing.
“Glenstorm’s son. What was his name?” Peter finally asked. Edmund always knew these things.
Softly he said, “Rainstone.”
“Do we have a count for the others yet?”
“No. I know Goldflight. Rogin. Aulus, and either Voluns or Voltinus, I’m not sure which. Sweetclover. Astrius and Ironhorn, the Minotaurs.”
In his quiet Edmund-ish way Peter had seen his brother do his best to treat the Minotaurs just like the rest of the Narnians. Now, though, he heard respect. Peter gave a tiny laugh at his own previous foolishness.
“True Narnians,” he said.
Edmund reached for his shoulder and held it firmly. “They were. They died for Narnia, and for Aslan, Peter.”
He didn’t say, “Not for you,” because Peter wasn’t ready to believe that yet, but eventually he would, just as he knew that Oreius’ death fighting the Northern Giants wasn’t his fault either.
Peter sighed and leaned against the cave wall next to his brother.
*
After the business with the White Witch’s ghost, the day was spent planning and watching. Ravens reported back the numbers and types of weaponry Miraz had, and gave hourly accounts of how close they were.
Edmund disappeared with the DLF, Trufflehunter, and Glenstorm for two hours and came back with a plan to collapse parts of the caves right under the Telmarines. Susan scared up some parchment and ink and several quills, and carefully made the invitation to single combat which Doctor Cornelius had written up to look proper and Narnian, like it should be, like such things used to be. Then she and Peter and the two best archers in Caspian’s army (a Faun named Oscuns and a Dwarfess named Petalbless) planned out the archery formations. After that Susan helped Lucy set up an area inside the Howe for taking care of the wounded, though there was a chance neither would be there to help.
Peter hammered out a battle plan with Caspian (which generally meant him proposing a plan, Caspian shooting it down, Glenstorm agreeing that the plan would work with just some little adjustments, Reepicheep and Trufflehunter pointing out any weaknesses the Glenstorm had missed, and then Edmund pointing out a new opportunity for Peter to form a plan around, which restarted the whole process. Lucy helped tremendously by simply keeping things civil). All the while everyone hoped against hope that outright war would be unnecessary, that the challenge to single combat would keep battle from breaking out.
That night, long after most of the army had gone to bed, Susan finally said, “Peter, if you don’t go to bed now Miraz won’t have much of a challenge,” and Edmund agreed, saying, “Really, we’ve made all the plans we can, and my pillow has been tempting me for hours,” and Peter looked up and realized that their candle was down to an inch or so, and saw their point. Lucy was already dozing across the cracked Table, and Susan had to shake her shoulder to wake her.
“Mm, Aslan?” Lucy murmured, and Susan bit her lip. Peter could see the memories chasing across her eyes of another night on this same Table. It was Edmund who said, “Not yet, Lu. Come on, I’ll give you a pig-a-back ride to your bed,” and sat so that Lucy could clamber on, smiling sleepily.
Susan swallowed hard before following, but Peter caught her arm.
“Su,” he said, and then stopped, not knowing what to say. She turned and looked at him with tears in her eyes.
“He’ll come. Aslan will come,” she said, barely above a whisper. “He always does, in the end.”
Peter nodded, and rolled up the maps. He offered his arm to Susan and it wasn’t until they stopped at the girls’ bedroom (really one of the more private nooks of the cave, but they had cushions to lie on and plenty of blankets, and there was a wash basin in the corner) that he realized they’d fallen back into perfect court manners without thought. Susan smiled at him and kissed his cheek like a Queen, and he went to his own bed with a little flame of hope growing in his heart.
^*^*^
VI.
Lucy punched a boy in the face.
It caused a huge fuss, and she was sent to speak to the headmaster and was assigned all sorts of work as punishment even though everyone agreed that the boy had deserved it.
Peter only heard about it the next Saturday when he and Edmund went to collect their sisters for a day at the little park just down the road and only Susan came to meet them.
“What did the boy do, anyway?” asked Edmund as they unpacked the apples and hard boiled eggs they’d taken from breakfast that morning.
“He was bullying one of the first year boys just outside our gate. Really, he was vicious. I’m surprised someone else didn’t step in before Lucy did.”
Peter skipped a stone into the pond. “So why is she in so much trouble? I did the same thing last year and I only got detention.”
Susan shot him an odd look. “It’s different for girls,” she said.
It was an alien thought to Peter. While the humans in Narnia usually sent out their men first it was a question of which gender had the bigger, stronger body, and not from any idea of women being anything like faint-hearted. With some of the other peoples - the Badgers, for example, whose females were larger - the males only went to war if the need was dire, while other species such as Eagles and Centaurs kept only their young from fighting.
“I don’t see why,” he said. “It’s the same thing. In fact, it was very brave of her to defend a younger student against someone older than her.”
“Well she does have an advantage,” Edmund pointed out, and they all remembered that Lucy’s dagger had seen blood on more than one occasion, and she was not afraid to kick or punch if need be. Edmund and Oreius had seen to it that she was taught to hold her own in a fight if she ever lost her weapons. Susan too.
Susan laughed. “She broke his nose. It was worse than that prince you punched, Peter.”
Edmund frowned. “You mean the duke.”
“See?” said Peter, “The same thing then.”
“Yes, but you’re a boy,” Susan said. “You’re expected to defend people and know how to fight. Lucy and I are supposed to run and fetch help.”
“Are you supposed to scream and faint too?” Edmund asked in his most sarcastic voice.
Susan shrugged. “I almost fainted when that Wolf attacked Lucy and me at Aslan's camp.”
“But that’s not the same thing,” Peter protested. “We’d been walking for two days and you couldn’t nock an arrow and still hold onto the tree. I almost passed out too when he was on top of me. Anyway, just because you’re the Gentle doesn’t mean you can’t fight just as well as Edmund. And Lucy’s almost as good as me.”
Edmund huffed out a noise of protest and rolled onto his back under the sun. “I can beat you any time you’d like, your Magnificence.”
Susan smiled grandly at him, “Thank you Peter. It’s too bad you’re so much worse than Edmund and me.”
“Hey!” Peter yelped, and attacked them to defend his honor.
They found two branches roughly the right shape and weight later, and Edmund did indeed beat Peter but only because Susan tripped him.
The next Saturday they went out to the park again, and Peter made Lucy the very first Lady of the Order of the Lion, though none of them were sure how that would go on her titles.
When she’d risen and he’d bestowed a kingly kiss on each cheek Lucy hugged him, hard.
“I’ve always wanted to be knighted,” she whispered just loudly enough for him to hear. She was beaming for the rest of the day.
*
Peter was the last of the family to arrive home at the end of summer.
Edmund came into their room as Peter unpacked for the three days he had before going back to school. Peter glanced up at him, and then stopped and really looked.
“You’ve been back,” Peter said.
Edmund grinned. “Lucy too. And Eustace, if you can believe it.”
“Eustace?” Peter laughed. “Must have been a shock for him.”
“He kept demanding to be taken to the British Consul,” Edmund nodded. “But he changed. He met Aslan.”
Peter sat down on his bed without looking first, mind rushing faster than any steam engine. “How -” he started.
“We’ll both tell you, tonight. Susan too,” Edmund said, but although it was nearly supper time he didn’t move when Peter started toward the door. Peter slowly sat back down and waited.
“Peter,” Edmund finally said quietly, “He said we can’t come back. Me and Lucy. To Narnia,” and his voice cracked on the last word as it hadn’t for years, and Peter didn’t even think before folding his brother into a hug. Edmund was almost as tall as he was, now, and had to settle for burying his face in Peter’s shoulder rather than his chest.
Edmund cried silently for a minute, before whispering, “How did you stand it? What do I do?” and Peter thought about the last year and how Susan had looked at him sometimes, as if desperate. It’d been… not easy for him, by any means, but he’d understood it. Peter was sure that his heart could not have taken going back and forth to Narnia after that last time, knew that he was too old to make his home in two places at once and that if he had to live in England it was best to just stay there.
“We only have to live here, Ed,” he finally whispered. “We’re not English anymore, not really. I think when we die we’ll go to Aslan’s country, just like the other Narnians. I’m sure of it.”
“Aslan said as much,” Edmund said. He drew away from Peter and looked at him, wiping his face with one hand. He wasn’t ashamed of crying over this at all, and Peter was struck by how different he was from the old, small, spiteful, Edmund from before Narnia, though that was so long ago now.
“We saw Reepicheep go there, in a little coracle,” he said. “It was beautiful.”
From downstairs they heard their mother call for them to wash up.
Edmund smiled, bravely. “I do understand, and it’s - you were right about it not being so awful. But it still hurts, not going back,” he said.
They shared an understanding look for a moment, and Peter wished he could say more. Edmund still had that Narnian look about him though, and Peter thought he’d be all right.
They went down to supper.
*
Peter heard giggling from the girls’ room. The door was half open, and he knocked on the doorframe as he opened it the rest of the way. Susan mock-shrieked and covered her face with one hand, eyes peeking out, while Lucy held one of Susan’s pretty, lacy pillows over her own face.
“Go away!” they chorused, but they were laughing so Peter dropped the philosophy book the Professor had loaned him (carefully, so the pages didn’t bend) on the floor and leapt at them instead. He chose Susan because she was already sitting on the floor and he loved seeing her act like a kid again instead of the very grown up young lady she was trying so hard to be lately.
Lucy threw the pillow to one side and jumped to her sister’s defense and Peter was greeted to the sight of two green faces, only lips and eyes still natural. He jumped back with a little start, and Susan doubled over with laughter.
“Oh, Pete!” she gasped, “your face!”
“My face? What about yours?”
“It’s a face mask, Peter. See look, we tried it on my arm here first and now my skin is all smooth and clean,” Lucy held out her arm for inspection and Susan said, “Oh dear, Lucy. You’ve smudged your varnish,” and began hunting through the neat little row of varnishes at her side.
Lucy frowned slightly and muttered, “Drat,” but didn’t seem as concerned as Susan was. Both wore pajamas though it was only 8 o’clock. As Susan reapplied a pretty red varnish to one of Lucy’s nails (Lucy wrinkled up her nose at the smell), she explained, “We’re having a girls’ night. I have to be all dolled up for the Petersons’ Christmas party tomorrow night anyway. There, Lu. Now blow on it.”
Peter leaned back far enough to recover his book, glad of his regained height, and had settled back against the leg of Lucy’s bed to return to Kant’s moral philosophy when Lucy said, “Oh but you can’t stay here, Peter. It’s girls’ night.”
Peter looked up in surprise. He knew the four of them did spend more time together than most siblings, but it had always been that way since Aslan had crowned them and none of them, not even Susan, thought it strange.
“Ok then Lucy, I’ll go bother Ed,” he said as he stood, closing his book.
“Oh he can stay, Lu,” Susan said quickly. Then her eyes lit up with mischief. “So long as he agrees to certain... conditions.”
Half an hour later found Peter reclining with Kant again, this time in his pajamas and robe and with curlers in his hair. From the way the girls kept biting back smiles he knew he must look ridiculous, but it was nice to see them both so happy so he didn’t mind terribly.
Girls’ night, he learned, included talk about boys. For Susan this included parties and gossip - Eleanor Grove was now seeing her former beau’s best mate, and Susan hoped it was really love or why ruin a good friendship? And she hoped Tom was at the Peterson’s party tomorrow night. She hoped he wore his uniform. They weren’t steady, of course, but Susan did like a man in uniform and Tom was a decent sort.
Susan went with a new boy every month or so, but Peter did his best to keep track. He’d only met Tom once, but Edmund assured him that Tom really was a decent sort. Susan might have left Narnia in her childhood but she hadn’t lost her common sense or gentle heart, and Peter doubted she’s ever settle for less than a good man.
On Lucy’s side the talk was mostly complaints that her friend Marjorie now spent all her time either with Martin Smith or talking about Martin Smith, and Lucy was becoming annoyed.
“Jill’s about the only one who’s still normal,” she said. She’d met Jill the previous summer, and they’d been fast friends instantly. “I wish we got to see more of her and Eustace.”
“Do you remember what a little fright he used to be?” laughed Susan. “I’m glad he’s grown out of that.”
Peter shot Lucy a warning look, but she was already pressing her lips together and swallowing any talk of Narnia. Peter thought that Susan’s claim to not remember Narnia half so well as the rest of them was all a farce. She’d never liked change, and to go from a Queen of a magical land to an English school girl - and not one who was particularly clever or who had very many friends at that - had been harder on her than it had for Lucy who could find wonder in the smallest things and had adventures on her way to breakfast. Better to go on with life and do the best to be at least a princess here than to keep longing after something she couldn’t go back to.
Peter understood that. Really, it was very practical. It was just the way she went about it that they all disagreed with.
Edmund stuck his head in just then with a cheerful, “Hello! You both look like ghoulies, you realize,” and plopped down on Lucy’s bed. He didn’t seem the least bit surprised at their appearance, but then Peter had given up being jealous of his brother’s aplomb long ago. Still, it was satisfying to see his double take when he saw what the girls had done to Peter’s hair.
Less satisfying when he burst out laughing.
“Stop laughing at him you little beast, or we’ll do your nails,” Susan said. Lucy sat up beside her and said, “Yes, how about that pink one, Susan? It’ll look wonderful on him!”
Edmund held up his hands to ward them off. “No, fair ladies, I prithee, spare me such foul woe!” and flung himself dramatically to his knees in front of Peter crying, “A hundred thousand apologies, brother, for my insult. I beg thy mercy.”
Peter smacked at his head in forgiveness.
Susan sniffed at Edmund playfully. “Really, brother, such behavior ill suits thee. Why, our fair consort shows wondrous courage to so brave thy sure scorn for sake of sisters’ joy. Rather, thou shouldst laud this, his strange crown, than laugh.”
“Even so,” chimed in Lucy.
Edmund grinned at the game and said, “Fair sister, thou speak true.” He turned to Peter. “Really, you look very pretty. You’ll be the belle of the ball.”
Peter chased him from the room. He was back the next minute, though, to call Susan down to the telephone where Tom was waiting to speak to her.
They all paused a moment after she’d left. Finally Lucy said, “She can speak like we’re back at Cair Paravel just as well as the rest of us. How can she say it was all a game?”
Edmund pulled her against his chest where she could hide her face and looked at Peter over her head miserably.
“I think she’s trying to be happy,” he offered. Then he shook his head quickly. “I know, it’s ridiculous. She’s a Queen and she acts like all the other silly girls her age who are only interested in boys and romantic films at the cinema and lipstick and all that. She used to love swimming and archery.”
Lucy said something, but it was muffled by Edmund’s shirt. She pulled her head back and said, “She used to not care about her suitors, really. She heard them all out, and she danced with all of them and she even went to Galma and Calormen. But she used to be more concerned with, oh, I don’t know. Important things. She was almost a sworn sister to Corin after his mother died. Do you remember? And she would knit little caps or mittens or scarves for all the families that had lost their mothers or fathers every Christmas.” Peter remembered Susan painstakingly knitting fourteen tiny mittens, each pair in a different color, for a family of Rabbits their first year at Cair Paravel, and only afterwards realizing that they didn’t particularly need gloves. (The Rabbits had been very pleased anyway, and worn the mittens proudly.)
“She used to go to battle, sometimes, even though she hated it. And she bullied all of us to write all those letters and things personally, and she set up our Library and helped you,” Edmund nodded down to Lucy, “make sure that all the children and young Beasts learned to read and write and do some mathematics without having to go to schools and wear uniforms and write at blackboards.”
“She used to like adventures,” Lucy sniffed. And that was the real difference, Peter thought. Susan was so concerned now with making sure everything in her life was just so that she’d made herself forget Narnia to have it, while all along what she really wanted was her old life back, to be a Queen and to have beautiful men seeking her heart and her hand, and to be grown up again and past all the unsurities of growing up.
Peter searched for something to say, and Edmund bit his lip and there was a long silence as they tried to think of something that would cheer them all up. Luckily, Lucy pulled back enough then for Edmund to see the damage her mask had done to his shirt.
“Lucy!” he frowned. “I look like I’ve been hugged by a swamp monster.”
*
After returning from Narnia the second time, he saw Aslan once more.
Until then if you’d asked him what he missed the most about Narnia he might have said Cair Paravel, or being a King, or even his sword and shield from Father Christmas, or if his brother caught him in the right mood (which was mostly drunk) to missing Narnia herself, regardless of the rest.
But suddenly face to face with Aslan, alone in his dormitory, the feeling overwhelmed him in a rush and Peter admitted to himself that he’d missed the Great Cat. He’d missed knowing that Aslan Himself had chosen him, Peter Gregory Pevensie of Finchley, good at maths and history and rugby and very poor at grammar or holding his temper, to be a King of something as wonderful as Narnia, missed knowing that if he went so terribly wrong that even his family couldn’t get him to see sense Aslan could, missed the sureness and the calm of having a magic lion who could defeat an evilness on par with the White Witch at his back and at his side. Missed his voice.
Peter stared in shock and then gibbered which he later forgave himself for since he was sick with a head cold and sentences weren’t making all that much sense even in his own head. He thought he managed something about honor and something else about homesickness and a bit on the well being of his siblings, which were all the important things.
Aslan padded forward until his head was level with Peter’s and stared into his eyes for a long, long moment. It was such a relief that if he couldn’t have Narnia, at least he could know that something of Narnia could visit here amid England’s cigarettes and cars and wireless radios and newscasts about aeroplanes and rations and Hitler’s Third Reich that Peter didn’t even mind the feeling of his soul being weighed by those great, still eyes. It was like getting (home) back to Cair Paravel after one of the more gruesome battles and seeing Lucy pull a reluctant Edmund up to dance to a Faun’s pipes in the royal garden and remembering that yes, even with all the horrors of hate and death and pain and the grime that didn’t always seem to wash off, love was still real.
Aslan smiled, which Peter couldn’t explain, and said, “Peter Pevensie, remember that once a King or a Queen in Narnia, always a King or Queen.” Then he bestowed a wet, solemn lion’s kiss on Peter’s forehead and faded away like a mirage.
Peter didn’t tell anyone.
^*^*^
VII.
It was better after that, although it wasn’t truly better until Peter heard Edmund’s trowel thunk on a little wooden chest in a garden in a house that used to belong to Professor Kirk and Peter could again dream about Narnia and let himself remember the smell of the Eastern Sea in the morning.
Author’s Notes or I am History Geek, See Me Notate:
1. My Dryads and Naiads are the C. S. Lewis version and not at all maidens made of floating flower petals, or shaped out of water. (Also, unicorns are, you know, unicorns, not horned horses.) I feel it is important to note this.
2. The Battle of Western March takes place roughly between Cauldron Pool and the Telmar River on the plain where the water from the mountains would make the ground soft. In case you were wondering.
3. I searched high and low for the names of the schools from the film as I don’t yet have Prince Caspian on DVD. Hopefully I got them right, but please let me know if I didn’t. I also might have stolen borrowed Peter’s middle name and various other little ideas from other fic writers, in which case, please consider it a compliment.
4. In regards to the power of Lucy’s cordial to re-grow limbs, etc. for the purposes of this fic it can, but only if the wound is still very fresh.
5. Considering that it was daylight when Miraz bullied his lords into moving their army to the Howe, and taking into consideration the elaborateness of the Old Narnians’ battle plan, I put a night in between Edmund being awesome and killing the White Witch’s ghost and Edmund being awesome delivering the challenge to single combat. The book definitely has this all in one day, but then the book doesn’t have the attack on the castle, and has a fun Romp with a wine god and a god of wild partying instead, so oh well!
6. The title is from a poem called Around Us By Marvin Bell. You can find it here .
By: Venilia
TCoN, gen, PG-13. Mishmash of film and book canon. Spoilers for all seven books, and both movies.
IV.
After hearing Professors Kirk’s account of his own time in Narnia, Peter wondered if animals here in England, in this world, had ever talked. One Sunday, after a sermon about Eve and the serpent, Susan wondered the same thing.
“I mean,” she said, “I read during the hymn to make really sure, but Eve just said something about which fruit they could eat. She didn’t say anything like, 'Snakes don’t talk!' or run away screaming or try to hit it with a rock or anything, you see? I mean, wouldn’t she do something like that if she was surprised?”
Peter shrugged, miserably. He had reached the point where he thought he’d give just about anything for a good conversation with a Rabbit or a Mole or a Deer or an Eagle. He’d even settle for talking to a Squirrel, and he’d known Squirrels to natter on about walnuts or acorns for hours.
“Maybe she did, but it’s not in the Bible,” he suggested. “It’s not the sort of thing you take the time to write down in important stories, you know.” Susan was frowning, so he ribbed her, “Even Lucy left out the part where you said that Beavers shouldn’t be talking at all when she used to tell our story, and Lucy doesn’t leave out bits for appearance sake.” That earned him a blush and a quick change of subject.
Peter didn’t tell her that he’d done his own research. There were an awful lot of stories about talking animals. There were talking rabbits and crocodiles and birds and wolves from stories all over the world. Even later on in the Old Testament there was a story with a talking donkey. It kept Peter wondering.
For Susan’s fourteenth birthday Peter determined to buy her a kitten. In one pet shop, Peter met a “talking” parrot. It wasn’t the same thing at all, and he left without even looking at the kittens, and had to sacrifice a whole afternoon to find a second shop.
Susan named her orange tabby cat Tiger and doted on him, and sometimes Tiger would cock his head just so and for a split second Peter imagined he was about to ask for something, complain, say something, say anything.
*
When Peter and Edmund went back to Hendon House, and Susan to St. Finbarr’s, Lucy wrote them all pages and pages of letters, many of them about the golden years of their reign (which weren’t all of them, what with tracking down the remainders of the Witch’s army, fighting giants in the North, and proving to the lands around them that the newly free Narnia was not, in fact, defenseless or in need of conquering). Peter could feel her homesickness on the paper like Braille.
Susan wrote back as a matter of course, Edmund because he was Lucy’s closest friend here in England, and Peter wrote back scores because her letters reminded him that he was still High King, even where there was no Narnia.
It kept them sane.
*
Curtis Peers remarked to Edmund that at least his father was a Lord, and Peter opened his mouth to say, “Look, you little twit, my brother is a King of Narnia!” but Edmund was already asking thoughtfully, “Is he a good man?”
Curtis looked surprised, and Frank had to dig his elbow into his side. “Y-yes?” Curtis said, as if he wasn’t quite sure of the answer, but then he recovered. “I mean, of course he is!”
“Then you must be very proud to be his son,” said Edmund, and walked off without a second glance, leaving a thoroughly flummoxed Frank and Curtis Peers behind.
Peter was proud of him.
*
Father Simon was the new priest at Hendon House after old Father Thomkins retired. Peter had always respected priests the same way he respected doctors or university professors, but it was hard to stay respectful to Father Simon. He was every awful thing about religion epitomized in one man, and not very nice to boot. Peter suspected he had only become a priest so that he could tell people they were doing things wrongly.
Edmund was sitting next to Peter, eating porridge while Peter cut his toast into soldiers. Usually the younger boys had to sit with their fellow classmates at the appropriate table, but it was Saturday morning, so cross-class fraternization was allowed.
Unfortunately, Father Simon had taken it upon himself the task of eating breakfast with the students each week, which everyone hated.
This week, he’d chosen to sit across from Peter.
“Master Pevensie,” he started.
Both Peter and Edmund looked up at him.
“Hm!” he cleared his throat, “Yes, by which I obviously mean the elder master Pevensie. I see that you have mistaken, my dear young sir, your fingers for your knife and fork. It will not do, master Pevensie. It will not do at all!” he lectured primly, and proceeded to cut his own toast into soldiers as an example and to dip them into his runny eggs, somehow contriving to use both his fork and his knife.
Peter bit the inside of his lip and counted to ten in every language he knew.
“I also could not help but notice that your elbows are on the table top, master Pevensie. You see the way your younger brother keeps all his limbs tucked in so politely?” He motioned towards Edmund who was slumped over his bowl, still blinking at the world in the way of the not entirely conscious. He never truly woke until after his second cup of tea.
“Surely this is a sign that your mother has taught you proper manners,” Father Simon continued. He leaned forward, as if to share a secret, “If you want my advice, master Pevensie,” he whispered loudly, “It would behoove you to follow his example.”
Peter clenched his teeth.
Edmund, who couldn’t help but overhear (in fact, most of the table had heard, though they were trying hard to pretend they hadn’t for Peter’s sake) suddenly sat very straight and switched his spoon from his left hand to his right. Under the table, Peter felt him cross his leg just at the ankle, in the proper fashion for a high Archenland feast, while his spoon began tracing slow, elegant arcs from his bowl to his mouth. It was exactly the way their teacher, dear old Blackheart the Dwarf, with his long white beard that traveled down to his knees and his little half-moon spectacles, had taught them in their Great Hall at Cair Paravel. Blackheart never scolded, and never made them feel inadequate even when Edmund dropped his knife three times and Lucy spilled soup down the front of her frock.
“King Peter,” he’d respectfully nod his head, “in Archenland it is customary to use this spoon for ices. You see how the bowl is far too narrow for a good soup spoon, or even for a table spoon? This is because of an amusing mishap made by King Lune’s grandmother, Lanis the third, while her father was entertaining the Tisroc.”
He had an anecdote for every piece of cutlery, and a grandfatherly sort of smile, and was never the least bit impatient. When they’d completed their dining lessons he’d invited them all home to his cave (a cheerful little cave like Mr. Tumnus’, but with deep bay windows and flower boxes) for a meal of sloppy finger foods because after all, he’d said, their majesties had quite earned it after putting up with such a fussy old Dwarf.
Peter swallowed the lump in his throat and straightened into Archenland form. Edmund shot an understanding glance.
“Ah, now that’s much better master Pevensie. It would be a shame if you misrepresented this school in public. After all,” Father Simon raised one thin finger into the air, “One must always remember that he represents his school, his church, and of course his country wherever he goes master Pevensie.” And with that he stood up with his breakfast to find some other victim upon which to bestow his advice.
Once Father Simon’s back was turned Edmund stuck his tongue out at him. Peter absently finished his breakfast with astoundingly perfect manners, which all the other boys thought was genius and reenacted with mocking exactness for the next week. Peter never noticed.
^*^*^
V.
Peter’s ribs ached from where he’d taken a good punch at the station.
He didn’t remember it at first, too caught up in the smell of the ocean - Narnia’s ocean - and the joy of throwing off his coat and shoes and feeling warm sand between his toes and bright sunshine warming his hair, and splashing about in the sea with his brother and sisters. Just ten minutes on this beach was better than any week long seaside holiday.
He did his best to ignore it as they worked their way inward through the trees. Campaigns had taught him to ride a horse for hours and then chop firewood and cook dinner with a sprained wrist or blisters where his shield rubbed his side or any number of other small, bearable discomforts. And there wasn’t much anyone could do about bruised ribs on a beach with only two sandwiches and cast off school clothes between the four of them.
Later, after they’d found the treasure room and recovered their old gifts and Rhindon was bright in his hand, he crossed blades with shadows, testing his footwork and relearning the weight of a shield on his arm. A left downward cut at an old apple tree brought a stab of pain, and he remembered his side again. Peter paused for breath and discreetly felt his ribs, not wanting to worry the others. They didn’t seem to be broken.
He glanced over at Lucy, who sat in the warm grass plaiting back Susan’s hair from her face. Her cordial was at her hip, and he knew if he asked she would give him a drop. It would only take a little drop, and though as High King he’d warned her against using it for small things, there were times the small things could get in the way of big things. If he had to run like this, he’d regret it.
But instead of asking her, he found himself lying down in the grass, soaking up the sun.
His siblings were right about him being angry. Even here in Narnia, in his own castle (and even with Cair Paravel in ruins, he felt as if he’d come home) he could still feel the sharp sorrow of losing his kingdom and his kingship, all the things he’d loved and bled for. It was as if he’d been rudely forced to wake up from the most wonderful dream of his life, except that his waking life seemed duller and less real by comparison. But whether it was the Narnian air clearing his head, or just his conscience sparking more strongly now that he felt like a real King again, he found that he was somewhat ashamed of himself.
In England he’d had a ready defense for launching himself at the other boy, but here in Narnia he felt his cheeks redden. Peter wasn’t a boy. Peter hadn’t been a boy for almost sixteen years, since he’d led Aslan’s army against the White Witch. Fighting school children was so far beneath him, he had no idea how he’d ever thought it was justifiable.
He heard Edmund laugh somewhere behind him, and Susan shout in mock-anger, and decided not to mention his bruises.
*
Lucy twitched about at the rudder in obvious discomfort as Peter rowed by himself for a bit to give Edmund a break.
“Are you all right, Lu?” Peter asked.
“Yes, I’m fine, really. Isn’t my gown pretty, Peter?” she asked, which didn’t particularly surprise Peter as Lucy had never liked to dwell on discomfort. Peter nodded automatically (fifteen years as a King had taught him that the answer to a woman asking about anything being pretty was always “Yes,”) and really looked at it for the first time. Lucy swept her free hand over her skirt, settling it so that a peek of the pale blue underskirt showed and pointed the toes of her slippers up and down where they dangled an inch above the bottom of the boat.
Now that he looked, the colors reminded Peter a bit of her coronation gown, which Lucy had worn for a week straight until Lucy’s chief maid-in-waiting (a Naiad maiden who’d worked not a few bloodstains out of Peter’s own robes), got Susan to bribe her out of it with the promise of archery lessons.
He said so in between hard pulls at the oars. His shoulders were aching. Maybe Susan could spell him soon.
Lucy beamed. “Yes, that’s why I chose it. I’ve always loved these colors together.” She fiddled with the hem of one sleeve. “If we go back to Spare Oom again, and stay there, I think I want to paint my house these colors,” she said, half to herself. Then added, “If I ever get married and have my own house, I mean. If not I think I’ll get a little flat with a guest bedroom for when you and Susan and Edmund come visit me. I suppose I should put two beds in it.”
It was such a grown-up thing to say, it reminded Peter yet again that his sister was only half little girl and half woman, far more than other girls her age who were approaching that in-between point.
Peter’s heart and lungs swelled with something like homesickness - not for England, but for Narnia as it was when they ruled there, for the old Cair Paravel and their court, for the stables and the pier and the battlement and his old chambers. He’d been fighting the feeling all day. It helped a bit for Lucy (and Susan and Edmund too, he thought) to be acting like their old selves, their true selves. It felt so good to act like his real self.
Lucy murmured, as if sharing a secret, “I love wearing gowns again. I do wish I could have worn my crown, even if it wasn’t practical. I miss it, sometimes. I mean, sometimes I get up in the morning, and I comb my hair, and then I have to go on with out putting on my crown and it feels wrong. Do you know what I mean, Peter?”
This was the first time he’d heard Lucy say anything of the sort, though he was sure she talked like this with Susan late at night in their room, as Edmund did with him.
He heaved back again against the water, then paused a moment to stare into the glassy green surface. “Yes, Lucy. I know exactly what you mean.”
“Oh good,” she said, “Wouldn’t want to be the only one.” She smiled. “I’m in good company, then. Oh, look, an eagle!” she pointed, and Peter was glad to talk about something else.
*
Edmund kept looking sideways at the Minotaurs. It was subtle of course but Peter noticed because he couldn’t help doing the same thing.
When they stopped to eat more apples, more bear meat, and (from the Old Narnian army) hard bread and hard cheese Edmund followed Peter down to the stream to wash his hands.
“I can’t help it,” he said, lowly so the sound wouldn’t carry.
“Neither can I,” Peter said as he wiped his hands dry on his tunic.
“Yes, neither can Susan and I think even Lucy is a little scared now and then. But she’s so tiny now.”
Peter refrained from daring Edmund to tell her that to her face only because he suspected the Old Narnians would be alarmed to see their ancient heroes attack each other, even in play, the way it had scared him as a child to see Mother and Father argue.
“We didn’t think much of the Black Dwarfs, at first,” he said. “I’m sure we’ll get used to it.”
Edmund shrugged. “That’s not what really bothers me. What really bothers me is that I’m bothered. I mean, I of all people have no excuse to be suspicious,” and then he preempted Peter by saying, “You know what I mean. I’m not exactly innocent myself. I should be more forgiving, like Lucy.”
The Minotaurs had been one of the worst kinds of the Witch’s followers to hunt down after the Battle of Beruna. What they lacked in cleverness they made up for in determination, strength, and skill. Peter remembered saying wearily to Oreius once that he wished they were on his side. Oreius had taken it for a joke and smiled politely. (Even for a Centaur Oreius had a hard time understanding Human or Faun or Dwarf humor.)
“We’ll get used to it,” was all Peter could say now.
Later, after the miserable failure of an attack on Miraz’s castle, Edmund and Susan made excuses to the army and forcibly took Peter to a private corner of the Howe.
“I have to get back to Lucy and Caspian and the others. Ed?” Susan asked, and Edmund assured her with a nod that he would take care of Peter.
He sat quietly while Peter paced. It was only nervous energy, really, and Peter knew it. His anger and horror were turning into grief and exhaustion. He and Edmund had done exactly this a dozen or so times after battles, and sometimes it was Edmund who did the pacing.
“Glenstorm’s son. What was his name?” Peter finally asked. Edmund always knew these things.
Softly he said, “Rainstone.”
“Do we have a count for the others yet?”
“No. I know Goldflight. Rogin. Aulus, and either Voluns or Voltinus, I’m not sure which. Sweetclover. Astrius and Ironhorn, the Minotaurs.”
In his quiet Edmund-ish way Peter had seen his brother do his best to treat the Minotaurs just like the rest of the Narnians. Now, though, he heard respect. Peter gave a tiny laugh at his own previous foolishness.
“True Narnians,” he said.
Edmund reached for his shoulder and held it firmly. “They were. They died for Narnia, and for Aslan, Peter.”
He didn’t say, “Not for you,” because Peter wasn’t ready to believe that yet, but eventually he would, just as he knew that Oreius’ death fighting the Northern Giants wasn’t his fault either.
Peter sighed and leaned against the cave wall next to his brother.
*
After the business with the White Witch’s ghost, the day was spent planning and watching. Ravens reported back the numbers and types of weaponry Miraz had, and gave hourly accounts of how close they were.
Edmund disappeared with the DLF, Trufflehunter, and Glenstorm for two hours and came back with a plan to collapse parts of the caves right under the Telmarines. Susan scared up some parchment and ink and several quills, and carefully made the invitation to single combat which Doctor Cornelius had written up to look proper and Narnian, like it should be, like such things used to be. Then she and Peter and the two best archers in Caspian’s army (a Faun named Oscuns and a Dwarfess named Petalbless) planned out the archery formations. After that Susan helped Lucy set up an area inside the Howe for taking care of the wounded, though there was a chance neither would be there to help.
Peter hammered out a battle plan with Caspian (which generally meant him proposing a plan, Caspian shooting it down, Glenstorm agreeing that the plan would work with just some little adjustments, Reepicheep and Trufflehunter pointing out any weaknesses the Glenstorm had missed, and then Edmund pointing out a new opportunity for Peter to form a plan around, which restarted the whole process. Lucy helped tremendously by simply keeping things civil). All the while everyone hoped against hope that outright war would be unnecessary, that the challenge to single combat would keep battle from breaking out.
That night, long after most of the army had gone to bed, Susan finally said, “Peter, if you don’t go to bed now Miraz won’t have much of a challenge,” and Edmund agreed, saying, “Really, we’ve made all the plans we can, and my pillow has been tempting me for hours,” and Peter looked up and realized that their candle was down to an inch or so, and saw their point. Lucy was already dozing across the cracked Table, and Susan had to shake her shoulder to wake her.
“Mm, Aslan?” Lucy murmured, and Susan bit her lip. Peter could see the memories chasing across her eyes of another night on this same Table. It was Edmund who said, “Not yet, Lu. Come on, I’ll give you a pig-a-back ride to your bed,” and sat so that Lucy could clamber on, smiling sleepily.
Susan swallowed hard before following, but Peter caught her arm.
“Su,” he said, and then stopped, not knowing what to say. She turned and looked at him with tears in her eyes.
“He’ll come. Aslan will come,” she said, barely above a whisper. “He always does, in the end.”
Peter nodded, and rolled up the maps. He offered his arm to Susan and it wasn’t until they stopped at the girls’ bedroom (really one of the more private nooks of the cave, but they had cushions to lie on and plenty of blankets, and there was a wash basin in the corner) that he realized they’d fallen back into perfect court manners without thought. Susan smiled at him and kissed his cheek like a Queen, and he went to his own bed with a little flame of hope growing in his heart.
^*^*^
VI.
Lucy punched a boy in the face.
It caused a huge fuss, and she was sent to speak to the headmaster and was assigned all sorts of work as punishment even though everyone agreed that the boy had deserved it.
Peter only heard about it the next Saturday when he and Edmund went to collect their sisters for a day at the little park just down the road and only Susan came to meet them.
“What did the boy do, anyway?” asked Edmund as they unpacked the apples and hard boiled eggs they’d taken from breakfast that morning.
“He was bullying one of the first year boys just outside our gate. Really, he was vicious. I’m surprised someone else didn’t step in before Lucy did.”
Peter skipped a stone into the pond. “So why is she in so much trouble? I did the same thing last year and I only got detention.”
Susan shot him an odd look. “It’s different for girls,” she said.
It was an alien thought to Peter. While the humans in Narnia usually sent out their men first it was a question of which gender had the bigger, stronger body, and not from any idea of women being anything like faint-hearted. With some of the other peoples - the Badgers, for example, whose females were larger - the males only went to war if the need was dire, while other species such as Eagles and Centaurs kept only their young from fighting.
“I don’t see why,” he said. “It’s the same thing. In fact, it was very brave of her to defend a younger student against someone older than her.”
“Well she does have an advantage,” Edmund pointed out, and they all remembered that Lucy’s dagger had seen blood on more than one occasion, and she was not afraid to kick or punch if need be. Edmund and Oreius had seen to it that she was taught to hold her own in a fight if she ever lost her weapons. Susan too.
Susan laughed. “She broke his nose. It was worse than that prince you punched, Peter.”
Edmund frowned. “You mean the duke.”
“See?” said Peter, “The same thing then.”
“Yes, but you’re a boy,” Susan said. “You’re expected to defend people and know how to fight. Lucy and I are supposed to run and fetch help.”
“Are you supposed to scream and faint too?” Edmund asked in his most sarcastic voice.
Susan shrugged. “I almost fainted when that Wolf attacked Lucy and me at Aslan's camp.”
“But that’s not the same thing,” Peter protested. “We’d been walking for two days and you couldn’t nock an arrow and still hold onto the tree. I almost passed out too when he was on top of me. Anyway, just because you’re the Gentle doesn’t mean you can’t fight just as well as Edmund. And Lucy’s almost as good as me.”
Edmund huffed out a noise of protest and rolled onto his back under the sun. “I can beat you any time you’d like, your Magnificence.”
Susan smiled grandly at him, “Thank you Peter. It’s too bad you’re so much worse than Edmund and me.”
“Hey!” Peter yelped, and attacked them to defend his honor.
They found two branches roughly the right shape and weight later, and Edmund did indeed beat Peter but only because Susan tripped him.
The next Saturday they went out to the park again, and Peter made Lucy the very first Lady of the Order of the Lion, though none of them were sure how that would go on her titles.
When she’d risen and he’d bestowed a kingly kiss on each cheek Lucy hugged him, hard.
“I’ve always wanted to be knighted,” she whispered just loudly enough for him to hear. She was beaming for the rest of the day.
*
Peter was the last of the family to arrive home at the end of summer.
Edmund came into their room as Peter unpacked for the three days he had before going back to school. Peter glanced up at him, and then stopped and really looked.
“You’ve been back,” Peter said.
Edmund grinned. “Lucy too. And Eustace, if you can believe it.”
“Eustace?” Peter laughed. “Must have been a shock for him.”
“He kept demanding to be taken to the British Consul,” Edmund nodded. “But he changed. He met Aslan.”
Peter sat down on his bed without looking first, mind rushing faster than any steam engine. “How -” he started.
“We’ll both tell you, tonight. Susan too,” Edmund said, but although it was nearly supper time he didn’t move when Peter started toward the door. Peter slowly sat back down and waited.
“Peter,” Edmund finally said quietly, “He said we can’t come back. Me and Lucy. To Narnia,” and his voice cracked on the last word as it hadn’t for years, and Peter didn’t even think before folding his brother into a hug. Edmund was almost as tall as he was, now, and had to settle for burying his face in Peter’s shoulder rather than his chest.
Edmund cried silently for a minute, before whispering, “How did you stand it? What do I do?” and Peter thought about the last year and how Susan had looked at him sometimes, as if desperate. It’d been… not easy for him, by any means, but he’d understood it. Peter was sure that his heart could not have taken going back and forth to Narnia after that last time, knew that he was too old to make his home in two places at once and that if he had to live in England it was best to just stay there.
“We only have to live here, Ed,” he finally whispered. “We’re not English anymore, not really. I think when we die we’ll go to Aslan’s country, just like the other Narnians. I’m sure of it.”
“Aslan said as much,” Edmund said. He drew away from Peter and looked at him, wiping his face with one hand. He wasn’t ashamed of crying over this at all, and Peter was struck by how different he was from the old, small, spiteful, Edmund from before Narnia, though that was so long ago now.
“We saw Reepicheep go there, in a little coracle,” he said. “It was beautiful.”
From downstairs they heard their mother call for them to wash up.
Edmund smiled, bravely. “I do understand, and it’s - you were right about it not being so awful. But it still hurts, not going back,” he said.
They shared an understanding look for a moment, and Peter wished he could say more. Edmund still had that Narnian look about him though, and Peter thought he’d be all right.
They went down to supper.
*
Peter heard giggling from the girls’ room. The door was half open, and he knocked on the doorframe as he opened it the rest of the way. Susan mock-shrieked and covered her face with one hand, eyes peeking out, while Lucy held one of Susan’s pretty, lacy pillows over her own face.
“Go away!” they chorused, but they were laughing so Peter dropped the philosophy book the Professor had loaned him (carefully, so the pages didn’t bend) on the floor and leapt at them instead. He chose Susan because she was already sitting on the floor and he loved seeing her act like a kid again instead of the very grown up young lady she was trying so hard to be lately.
Lucy threw the pillow to one side and jumped to her sister’s defense and Peter was greeted to the sight of two green faces, only lips and eyes still natural. He jumped back with a little start, and Susan doubled over with laughter.
“Oh, Pete!” she gasped, “your face!”
“My face? What about yours?”
“It’s a face mask, Peter. See look, we tried it on my arm here first and now my skin is all smooth and clean,” Lucy held out her arm for inspection and Susan said, “Oh dear, Lucy. You’ve smudged your varnish,” and began hunting through the neat little row of varnishes at her side.
Lucy frowned slightly and muttered, “Drat,” but didn’t seem as concerned as Susan was. Both wore pajamas though it was only 8 o’clock. As Susan reapplied a pretty red varnish to one of Lucy’s nails (Lucy wrinkled up her nose at the smell), she explained, “We’re having a girls’ night. I have to be all dolled up for the Petersons’ Christmas party tomorrow night anyway. There, Lu. Now blow on it.”
Peter leaned back far enough to recover his book, glad of his regained height, and had settled back against the leg of Lucy’s bed to return to Kant’s moral philosophy when Lucy said, “Oh but you can’t stay here, Peter. It’s girls’ night.”
Peter looked up in surprise. He knew the four of them did spend more time together than most siblings, but it had always been that way since Aslan had crowned them and none of them, not even Susan, thought it strange.
“Ok then Lucy, I’ll go bother Ed,” he said as he stood, closing his book.
“Oh he can stay, Lu,” Susan said quickly. Then her eyes lit up with mischief. “So long as he agrees to certain... conditions.”
Half an hour later found Peter reclining with Kant again, this time in his pajamas and robe and with curlers in his hair. From the way the girls kept biting back smiles he knew he must look ridiculous, but it was nice to see them both so happy so he didn’t mind terribly.
Girls’ night, he learned, included talk about boys. For Susan this included parties and gossip - Eleanor Grove was now seeing her former beau’s best mate, and Susan hoped it was really love or why ruin a good friendship? And she hoped Tom was at the Peterson’s party tomorrow night. She hoped he wore his uniform. They weren’t steady, of course, but Susan did like a man in uniform and Tom was a decent sort.
Susan went with a new boy every month or so, but Peter did his best to keep track. He’d only met Tom once, but Edmund assured him that Tom really was a decent sort. Susan might have left Narnia in her childhood but she hadn’t lost her common sense or gentle heart, and Peter doubted she’s ever settle for less than a good man.
On Lucy’s side the talk was mostly complaints that her friend Marjorie now spent all her time either with Martin Smith or talking about Martin Smith, and Lucy was becoming annoyed.
“Jill’s about the only one who’s still normal,” she said. She’d met Jill the previous summer, and they’d been fast friends instantly. “I wish we got to see more of her and Eustace.”
“Do you remember what a little fright he used to be?” laughed Susan. “I’m glad he’s grown out of that.”
Peter shot Lucy a warning look, but she was already pressing her lips together and swallowing any talk of Narnia. Peter thought that Susan’s claim to not remember Narnia half so well as the rest of them was all a farce. She’d never liked change, and to go from a Queen of a magical land to an English school girl - and not one who was particularly clever or who had very many friends at that - had been harder on her than it had for Lucy who could find wonder in the smallest things and had adventures on her way to breakfast. Better to go on with life and do the best to be at least a princess here than to keep longing after something she couldn’t go back to.
Peter understood that. Really, it was very practical. It was just the way she went about it that they all disagreed with.
Edmund stuck his head in just then with a cheerful, “Hello! You both look like ghoulies, you realize,” and plopped down on Lucy’s bed. He didn’t seem the least bit surprised at their appearance, but then Peter had given up being jealous of his brother’s aplomb long ago. Still, it was satisfying to see his double take when he saw what the girls had done to Peter’s hair.
Less satisfying when he burst out laughing.
“Stop laughing at him you little beast, or we’ll do your nails,” Susan said. Lucy sat up beside her and said, “Yes, how about that pink one, Susan? It’ll look wonderful on him!”
Edmund held up his hands to ward them off. “No, fair ladies, I prithee, spare me such foul woe!” and flung himself dramatically to his knees in front of Peter crying, “A hundred thousand apologies, brother, for my insult. I beg thy mercy.”
Peter smacked at his head in forgiveness.
Susan sniffed at Edmund playfully. “Really, brother, such behavior ill suits thee. Why, our fair consort shows wondrous courage to so brave thy sure scorn for sake of sisters’ joy. Rather, thou shouldst laud this, his strange crown, than laugh.”
“Even so,” chimed in Lucy.
Edmund grinned at the game and said, “Fair sister, thou speak true.” He turned to Peter. “Really, you look very pretty. You’ll be the belle of the ball.”
Peter chased him from the room. He was back the next minute, though, to call Susan down to the telephone where Tom was waiting to speak to her.
They all paused a moment after she’d left. Finally Lucy said, “She can speak like we’re back at Cair Paravel just as well as the rest of us. How can she say it was all a game?”
Edmund pulled her against his chest where she could hide her face and looked at Peter over her head miserably.
“I think she’s trying to be happy,” he offered. Then he shook his head quickly. “I know, it’s ridiculous. She’s a Queen and she acts like all the other silly girls her age who are only interested in boys and romantic films at the cinema and lipstick and all that. She used to love swimming and archery.”
Lucy said something, but it was muffled by Edmund’s shirt. She pulled her head back and said, “She used to not care about her suitors, really. She heard them all out, and she danced with all of them and she even went to Galma and Calormen. But she used to be more concerned with, oh, I don’t know. Important things. She was almost a sworn sister to Corin after his mother died. Do you remember? And she would knit little caps or mittens or scarves for all the families that had lost their mothers or fathers every Christmas.” Peter remembered Susan painstakingly knitting fourteen tiny mittens, each pair in a different color, for a family of Rabbits their first year at Cair Paravel, and only afterwards realizing that they didn’t particularly need gloves. (The Rabbits had been very pleased anyway, and worn the mittens proudly.)
“She used to go to battle, sometimes, even though she hated it. And she bullied all of us to write all those letters and things personally, and she set up our Library and helped you,” Edmund nodded down to Lucy, “make sure that all the children and young Beasts learned to read and write and do some mathematics without having to go to schools and wear uniforms and write at blackboards.”
“She used to like adventures,” Lucy sniffed. And that was the real difference, Peter thought. Susan was so concerned now with making sure everything in her life was just so that she’d made herself forget Narnia to have it, while all along what she really wanted was her old life back, to be a Queen and to have beautiful men seeking her heart and her hand, and to be grown up again and past all the unsurities of growing up.
Peter searched for something to say, and Edmund bit his lip and there was a long silence as they tried to think of something that would cheer them all up. Luckily, Lucy pulled back enough then for Edmund to see the damage her mask had done to his shirt.
“Lucy!” he frowned. “I look like I’ve been hugged by a swamp monster.”
*
After returning from Narnia the second time, he saw Aslan once more.
Until then if you’d asked him what he missed the most about Narnia he might have said Cair Paravel, or being a King, or even his sword and shield from Father Christmas, or if his brother caught him in the right mood (which was mostly drunk) to missing Narnia herself, regardless of the rest.
But suddenly face to face with Aslan, alone in his dormitory, the feeling overwhelmed him in a rush and Peter admitted to himself that he’d missed the Great Cat. He’d missed knowing that Aslan Himself had chosen him, Peter Gregory Pevensie of Finchley, good at maths and history and rugby and very poor at grammar or holding his temper, to be a King of something as wonderful as Narnia, missed knowing that if he went so terribly wrong that even his family couldn’t get him to see sense Aslan could, missed the sureness and the calm of having a magic lion who could defeat an evilness on par with the White Witch at his back and at his side. Missed his voice.
Peter stared in shock and then gibbered which he later forgave himself for since he was sick with a head cold and sentences weren’t making all that much sense even in his own head. He thought he managed something about honor and something else about homesickness and a bit on the well being of his siblings, which were all the important things.
Aslan padded forward until his head was level with Peter’s and stared into his eyes for a long, long moment. It was such a relief that if he couldn’t have Narnia, at least he could know that something of Narnia could visit here amid England’s cigarettes and cars and wireless radios and newscasts about aeroplanes and rations and Hitler’s Third Reich that Peter didn’t even mind the feeling of his soul being weighed by those great, still eyes. It was like getting (home) back to Cair Paravel after one of the more gruesome battles and seeing Lucy pull a reluctant Edmund up to dance to a Faun’s pipes in the royal garden and remembering that yes, even with all the horrors of hate and death and pain and the grime that didn’t always seem to wash off, love was still real.
Aslan smiled, which Peter couldn’t explain, and said, “Peter Pevensie, remember that once a King or a Queen in Narnia, always a King or Queen.” Then he bestowed a wet, solemn lion’s kiss on Peter’s forehead and faded away like a mirage.
Peter didn’t tell anyone.
^*^*^
VII.
It was better after that, although it wasn’t truly better until Peter heard Edmund’s trowel thunk on a little wooden chest in a garden in a house that used to belong to Professor Kirk and Peter could again dream about Narnia and let himself remember the smell of the Eastern Sea in the morning.
Author’s Notes or I am History Geek, See Me Notate:
1. My Dryads and Naiads are the C. S. Lewis version and not at all maidens made of floating flower petals, or shaped out of water. (Also, unicorns are, you know, unicorns, not horned horses.) I feel it is important to note this.
2. The Battle of Western March takes place roughly between Cauldron Pool and the Telmar River on the plain where the water from the mountains would make the ground soft. In case you were wondering.
3. I searched high and low for the names of the schools from the film as I don’t yet have Prince Caspian on DVD. Hopefully I got them right, but please let me know if I didn’t. I also might have stolen borrowed Peter’s middle name and various other little ideas from other fic writers, in which case, please consider it a compliment.
4. In regards to the power of Lucy’s cordial to re-grow limbs, etc. for the purposes of this fic it can, but only if the wound is still very fresh.
5. Considering that it was daylight when Miraz bullied his lords into moving their army to the Howe, and taking into consideration the elaborateness of the Old Narnians’ battle plan, I put a night in between Edmund being awesome and killing the White Witch’s ghost and Edmund being awesome delivering the challenge to single combat. The book definitely has this all in one day, but then the book doesn’t have the attack on the castle, and has a fun Romp with a wine god and a god of wild partying instead, so oh well!
6. The title is from a poem called Around Us By Marvin Bell. You can find it here .