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bedlamsbardTitle: Long Forgotten Wars
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bedlamsbard
Fandom: Chronicles of Narnia movieverse
Rating: PG
Summary: "They didn't call it the golden age when I was king."
Disclaimer: The Chronicles of Narnia belong to C.S. Lewis. Situations from the Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian movie belong to Walden Media. The title comes from T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets: Burnt Norton.
Author's Notes: Takes place during the Prince Caspian movie, after the White Witch and before the war meeting.
Peter wakes up screaming.
Shaking, his throat aching, he sits up and bends over to get his head in the vicinity of his knees, clutching the rough blanket between his fingers. His ragged breath breaks the stillness of the room – cave, really; the How is one big warren. He’d said he would share with Edmund, over and over again, but the badger who’s been arranging rooming for everyone had given him a look like Peter had begun carving up the minotaurs (which he’s been tempted to do; every time he looks at them he remembers fifteen years of war and can’t keep his hand from straying to his sword) and ignored him. While Lucy and Susan are sharing a room, the badger – Blackpaw – has put Edmund in with Caspian, which neither of them are particularly happy about. Peter is the High King, and the least that New-Old Narnia in exile can give him is his own room. He’s not sure how he feels about that. He’s fairly certain he doesn’t want anyone else here to see this.
Still shaking, Peter gets up and goes over to the crockery basin and jug sitting in the corner of the room, splashing cold water on his face and neck. The shock of it – it’s icy cold – doesn’t do anything for his nerves, especially given the…circumstances…of his dream. Peter wipes his hands dry on his trousers and braces himself on the wall, listening to the faint sound of singing down below in the big main room of the How. He can’t make out the words through the layers of stone and earth.
His throat is raw, the kind of raw that comes from screaming or cold. He vaguely thinks that he’d like something warm, and for that he’ll have to go downstairs. Aching like he’s just run a marathon, Peter pulls on his surcoat and hesitates for a moment before taking his dagger rather than his sword. Even though they’re at a state of war (which sums up his entire reign neatly), he’s not leaving the How, and he can do nearly as much damage with a dagger as with a sword, if he doesn’t have the time to run back up for the rest of his weapons.
The door – one of the few in the How – is made of thick, heavy wood and Peter pushes it open without trouble. Something moves in the corridor, and Peter’s hand is on the dagger before Caspian says, “High King –”
Caspian doesn’t know how close he came to being gutted in his own (however temporary) castle. Peter lets his hand drop away from the dagger. “Prince Caspian,” he returns, aware of the stiffness in his voice and trying to force it away.
“I heard you cry out,” Caspian says. “Is everything well?”
“A bad dream,” Peter says.
“Is it because of something I did?”
Not because of something Caspian did. Because of something Peter didn’t do. “No.”
Caspian is looking at Peter like he doesn’t believe him and Peter has one shining moment where he almost goes for his dagger again, because he feels trapped, and all his family knows better than to crowd him. But Caspian isn’t his family and he doesn’t know Peter well enough to know about the caves of Angrisla, about seventy-two hours alone in pitch-darkness with monsters tracking his steps and his people dead and dying around him. Peter swallows hard against the panic – it doesn’t help that he’s underground.
“I wanted –” Caspian begins. “I did something wrong.”
“Yes,” Peter says, because that’s true.
The boy looks a little surprised – Peter has to stop thinking of him as “the boy”, because Caspian is years older than him, although technically speaking Peter is more than a thousand years older – but rallies and says, “I wouldn’t have really done it.”
“Yes, you would have,” Peter corrects, because that’s true too. “You would have done it because you thought – you still think – that it would be the best thing for Narnia, because the White Witch may have held her in check for a hundred years, but at least during those hundred years no one invaded. You think that if four children,” and he’s aware of the irony in his voice, “could defeat the White Witch, you could as well.”
Caspian frowns at him, struck by surprise, and points out, “You were afraid of her.”
This is not a conversation Peter wants to have in a hallway. Granted, this is not a conversation Peter wants to have anytime, but he’d rather not have it here. He starts to turn away from Caspian, but the prince catches his arm.
“You were afraid of her,” he repeats, more certain now, and Peter thinks almost hysterically that not a week ago he hit a boy his own age for bumping him in the train station. Hitting Caspian would just result in Susan yelling at him again, though, and he’s not in the mood for that now.
“Let go of me,” Peter says, but Caspian keeps holding on.
“You destroyed her. Why were you afraid of her?” He frowns again. “Is that what you were screaming about?”
“Take your hands off me,” Peter says, and any Narnian would have been halfway down the hallway and away from the High King by now, but Caspian isn’t like any Narnian Peter’s ever known. He doesn’t take his hands away. Instead he pushes closer, up in Peter’s space. He has enough height on him that he looms over Peter and doesn’t seem to realize he’s doing it.
“I don’t understand,” he says. “You killed her centuries ago. What kind of power does she have over you that you’re still afraid of her?”
Peter has his hand on his dagger now, and the fact that Caspian doesn’t seem to notice speaks ill of him. “I didn’t kill the White Witch,” he says finally, clenching his fist hard on the pommel, feeling the little lion’s head dig into his skin. “Aslan did. She nearly killed me. Something to learn, your highness, the things that scare you don’t vanish when they die. They live on in you.”
He can see that Caspian doesn’t understand, not yet, but he will someday, if he lives long enough. Instead, Caspian stares at him and seems to make up his mind about something that Peter’s fairly certain he doesn’t want to hear.
“Is it true,” Caspian begins, “is it true that your brother was a traitor before he became a king?”
“That’s Edmund’s question to answer,” Peter says, and swallows down the panic to add with every bit of dignity he has, “If you don’t mind, I’d like some air to breathe.”
For a moment, Caspian looks confused, then he seems to realize what he’s doing and steps back. Peter takes a deep breath, then another, and forces his hand away from the dagger. He sees Caspian’s eyes fix on that, startled. He’s getting used to seeing that expression; Caspian never seems to know how to react when confronted with him. Half the time he sees the High King; half the time he sees a boy three-quarters his age. This is the problem with working with humans.
“If he’d betrayed you – when he was king,” Caspian continues after a pause, “what would you have done?”
“I would have taken his head off in Cair Paravel for all of Narnia to see,” Peter says without pause. He would have. Edmund knows that. All of Narnia had known that after the first time less than a month after his coronation.
“You would have?” Caspian bursts out. “Your own brother?”
“Brother or no, king or no, treason is treason,” Peter says flatly. He’d never had to try and convict one of his own siblings, but there were other traitors in Narnia, people he’d trusted once, people who’d turned on him on the battlefield, people who’d tried to kill him and his family as they slept in their beds. Cair Paravel has seen more blood shed in its halls than any other battleground Peter has fought on, even the Telmarine castle where his Narnians fought and died less than a day ago.
“What would you have done then?”
His head hurts. He doesn’t want to answer this, and he doesn’t want to think about it, but Caspian will be king of Narnia someday and he will have to know this. Peter eyes Caspian thoughtfully for a long time before he says slowly, “I would have gone into the field until I thought my sisters were less than likely to put a dagger in my skull while I was sleeping.”
The boy – not a boy, decidedly not, even if he seems so much younger than Peter was when he was his age – stares at him. “You would have started a war?”
Now Peter understands why Professor Kirke spent so much time complaining about England’s education system. He’s half of a mind to start complaining about Narnia’s, because what are they teaching children now? It’s a false statement, of course; he’s had the circumstances explained to him several times now, but when Caspian’s been living with Narnians for as long as he has, he ought to know this.
“I never had to start a war,” he says with elaborate patience. “I can count on one hand the number of times Narnia made the first move and still have fingers left over. Narnia was at war every year I was High King, fighting off giants from the North and Calormenes from the South. The White Witch might have been defeated, but her army scattered all over Narnia and no few of them tried to take her place. I had to reconquer Terebinthia and the Lone Islands. I was only at Cair Paravel two months out of every twelve during the best of it.”
Caspian looks beyond confused. “But – there has never been peace in Narnia like there was during the Golden Age.”
“Possibly because I spent most of your golden age at war to make sure there was something to be peaceful,” Peter says. “They didn’t call it the golden age when I was king.” They called it the Great Summer, and called him the King of Summer. He’s heard a few people whisper the title as he’s walked past. “What do you want, Caspian?” If it was just the question about Edmund – never a secret, but not something that was spoken of, and he’s surprised the knowledge has survived down the centuries.
Caspian hesitates, and then he says, “The Telmarines have legends of High King Peter too.”
“Really?” Peter says, surprised. He’d thought that of all the peoples in Narnia, the Telmarines would try the hardest to destroy his history.
“They’re…different,” Caspian allows. “Most of the stories are about the High King – you – cleansing Narnia of…creatures. And Queen Susan was your wife.”
“She’s not,” Peter points out dryly. He’s heard those stories too. Most of them are confused about whether Susan (or occasionally Lucy) is his sister or his wife. Edmund is usually relegated to background noise if he’s there at all. He’s always found it funny how these things work.
Caspian flushes. “I’ve noticed that,” he says.
He’s noticed more than that, but Peter realized a long time ago that Susan could take of herself as far as her paramours went. He waits patiently.
“My professor taught me Narnian history,” Caspian continues. “And he said that some of the stories are all true, and some of them are partially true, and some of them aren’t true at all. And I’ve heard some of them here.”
For a moment Peter doesn’t answer, waiting for Caspian to finish his thought, and while they’re both quiet a snatch of music drifts up from below, accompanied by Edmund’s sudden laugh. Some trick of the tunnels makes the words clear.
Now Peter was a noble king, brave and strong and fair,
Lucy was a healer, with her sword as light as air
And Edmund was the second son, the High King’s voice and arm
Queen Susan was called gentle, but she also would do harm!
“That survived?” Edmund shouts, and Peter resists the urge to beat his head into the tunnel wall. He concurs with his brother. It’s not the worst of them, by far – Narnia tends toward good music, but not everything that they think is good really is good – but even though he’s had fifteen years to get used to hearing his name and his deeds made common entertainment, most of it still makes him blush.
“That one’s true,” Peter confides to Caspian, because Caspian looks like the question is on the tip of his tongue. “More or less. More rather than less, actually, at least in my day.” He’s tempted to go down and listen to see how much of it has changed, but he’s really not in the mood. He isn’t surprised that Edmund is, though; after a battle, Peter broods and Edmund finds a distraction.
Caspian’s evidently heard the song before, because he brightens at this and says, “Everything I’ve ever heard says you’re the greatest warrior Narnia has ever seen.”
Peter almost answers this, and then he stops. “Wait here a moment,” he says to Caspian, and goes back inside his room to get his sword and shield, strapping on his swordbelt while Caspian watches, surprised and a little confused. “Do you think you’re a good swordsman?”
Caspian stares at him blankly. “I had the best tutors in Narnia,” he says. “And I crossed swords with you.”
“Not for long,” Peter points out. “Come on.”
He leads the way down to the lower level of the How, briefly poking his head into the wide room where several fires are flickering and a number of people, including Edmund but not Susan or Lucy, are sitting, listening to a faun sing That Damned Song.
Now inside Cair Paravel another castle hid
And only High King Peter knew where its secrets led.
Into this second castle he went with sword in hand
And one by one he slew the traitor’s savage band.
Peter winces and says, “Ed, if you’re not enjoying yourself too much –”
Edmund glances over and grins as he gets up. “For you, o fair and noble king? Never.”
“Sometimes I think Aslan should have left you to the White Witch,” Peter grumbles and ignores Caspian’s surprised expression. Edmund has long since got over this.
“Someone has to keep you humble, High King,” Edmund says. “Or your head will get too big for your helmet.” He looks curiously at the sword at Peter’s side and then at Caspian, who’s still wearing his sword and dagger. “What’s up? He can’t have annoyed you so much already that you want witnesses now.”
“Not for that,” Peter says easily.
“Oh, that,” Edmund says, pulling a face. “When will you learn that you can’t solve everything by fighting it?”
“It’s been working out well for me so far,” Peter points out, starting through the tunnels again.
Edmund keeps pace with him, Caspian just behind. “That’s because you never had to deal with the dwarves when they got it into their heads to argue over their place in court. Or the fauns taking more than their share of the harvest. Or –”
They fall easily into their old bickering, familiar and comfortable. As usual, Edmund finishes it off with, “If you weren’t at war all the time –”
“If I wasn’t at war,” Peter says, like he has a thousand times at before, “you’d have much bigger things to worry about than whether or not the beavers or the wood-nymphs are in the right when it comes to the trees. And in war everything can be solved by strategic application of a sword to the head.”
“And people wonder why I’m the diplomat in the family,” Edmund confides to Caspian. “He doesn’t have the patience, and Susan’s a little too open-minded. Lucy’s all right, though. Sometimes too nice.”
“And sometimes things need a sword to the head,” Peter points out.
“And the last time he tried diplomacy he nearly started another war,” Edmund announces, making his point neatly.
“I wasn’t the one who brought two hundred Calormenes across the desert into Archenland,” Peter protests.
“I wasn’t the one who gave the heir to Calormen the idea that Susan was available!”
“Neither was I!” Peter shoots back. “She was doing that fine on her own!”
“And then you had to go off to fight giants –”
“Because they were invading!”
“– leaving me to make sure that Calormen didn’t use Archenland as a stepping stone to Narnia –”
“I knew you could handle it!”
“My lords?” Caspian interrupts as they pass into a cavern with no other exits. He looks a little shell-shocked, Peter notices as he glances over.
“Of course I could handle it,” Edmund finishes triumphantly. “One of us has to be better at more than one thing. A word of advice, Caspian – when we get to the point where we’re negotiating peace treaties with the Telmarines, don’t let Peter do it. His idea of peace negotiations include the words, ‘Absolute unconditional surrender or I destroy you, your land, and everything you hold dear.’”
“I only said that once,” Peter says, aware that his smile is taking on a fixed quality.
Edmund, who’s always been good at noticing his moods, grins slightly in apology and changes the subject. “What exactly were you planning to do to Caspian, Pete?”
“Make a point,” Peter says. They’re in the wide, empty cavern that they’ve been using for weapons practice and Peter steps back, drawing his sword. “Caspian.”
“I would have been content to take your word on it,” Caspian says, moving to the other side of the cavern and drawing his own sword. He doesn’t have a shield, so Peter discards his.
“No, you wouldn’t have,” Peter says, moving to a ready position.
Edmund sighs and leans against a wall, pulling an apple out of a pocket and biting into it. “You don’t want to use practice sheathes? Live steel is dangerous.”
“And we both know what we’re doing,” Peter points out and moves before Caspian even knows what’s happening. The Telmarine prince gets his sword up in time – barely. Peter is sliding away before the clash of metal has finished reaching his ears, slashing across Caspian’s chest with the flat of his blade. If he’d used the edge, he would have spilled Caspian’s guts across the floor. The next blow would take out Caspian’s legs, cutting them out from beneath him, and the next his head. Peter slows down a little to let Caspian stagger backwards, sword in front of him and just barely managing to parry Peter’s blows. Peter disengages and slams the pommel of his sword into Caspian’s face, stopping with the metal millimeters away from Caspian’s left eye, then pivots and kicks Caspian’s legs out from beneath him, ending with his sword resting on the back of Caspian’s neck. He steps back and offers Caspian a hand up, and as Caspian straightens and lets go of his hand, Peter attacks again. Killing strike. Killing strike. Parry, riposte, feint, killing strike. Killing strike. Maiming strike. Killing strike. Caspian gets in a few good blows – he’s right, he is good, but he fights like he learned in practice bouts and not a battlefield, and he can’t pull his blows the way Peter can, so by the time he steps back, holding up both hands – Peter has knocked his sword across the cavern – Peter’s the one bleeding where Caspian has cut shallowly across his cheek.
“I concede the point,” he says. “You’re a better swordsman that I am.”
I could have told you that, Peter doesn’t say, but he resheathes his sword and wipes the blood off his cheek. “Is that what you wanted to know?” he asks.
“I didn’t really need that…literal…of a demonstration,” Caspian points out, panting. His face is flushed and sweaty and he fumbles his sword a little as he picks it up and gets it back in its sheathe; Peter is certain his hands are cramped.
Edmund tosses the apple he’s been eating away and strides forward. “We are talking about my brother here,” he says. “Give him an inch and he’ll take a mile. Practice sheathes,” he adds. “I know better than to fight with you and not have any protection. I like my head attached to my neck, thanks.”
“Around you, I’m a little more worried about my head,” Peter says, looking around for the practice sheathes. He’s sparred with Trumpkin, Reepicheep, and Glenstorm, but not Edmund, not since they’d left Narnia the last time.
Caspian straightens and goes around to the worn wooden chest in the back of the room to dig them out. Peter fits one over his blade and tosses the other to Edmund.
“Because I didn’t have enough bruises already,” Edmund grumbles and strikes, a whirling overhead blow that Peter parries, driving Edmund back across the floor. Edmund’s a little out of practice; Peter feints right and slashes shallowly down Edmund’s side, across his heart. Edmund lets out a grunt at the pressure and manages to deflect Peter’s next blow, but he doesn’t get his sword up in time to stop Peter as he swings, stopping with the leather-covered blade just touching Edmund’s neck.
“I forgot how ungodly fast you are,” Edmund grumbles, pushing the blade away with his hand and prodding his side. “That’ll bruise.”
“Probably,” Peter agrees and attacks before Edmund has a chance to regroup. They go back and forth at each other across the rough cave floor, ducking around the columns and Caspian, who’s sitting on the floor against a wall and watching with wide eyes. At one point some four or five rounds in, Edmund knocks his sword out of his hand and Peter grabs Edmund’s wrist with both hands and slams the pommel of his sword into his face. Edmund kicks him in the ankle, but without any effect, and Peter hits him in the face again, then twists until Edmund drops the sword.
“Ow!” he exclaims, stepping backwards and clutching his face as Peter picks up both their swords. He takes his hands away to look at them and winces. “I’m bleeding! I need my face!”
Peter goes over to check the damage. There’s a dark bruise blooming across Edmund’s cheek, spread up over his left eye, and the skin is split on a ridge of cheekbone, a little bubble of blood welling up. “Well, it can’t make you look worse,” he offers, and Edmund hits him half-heartedly with an open fist.
“Next time I’m hitting you in your pretty face, High King, and we’ll see how you like that.”
“You’ve already done that a dozen times,” Peter points out. He has a split lip from colliding with Edmund’s padded sword, but that’s the worst of his visible injuries. The rest of his bruises are hidden under his clothes.
Edmund scowls at him. “Are you even tired, Pete?”
“If I was, I wouldn’t tell you,” Peter says, even though he is. He’s out of practice, is what he is, and just being in Narnia helps with getting his old skill back, but not his endurance. That he has to work at. It takes less time than it might back in England, but he still has to work at it. “That might give you an unfair advantage.”
“Entirely fair,” Edmund assures him. “Trust me, entirely fair. Maybe even not fair enough.” He stretches out his wrists, wincing a little bit.
Peter echoes the motion. He’s stiff from fighting yesterday, and he hadn’t warmed up before fighting Caspian. One of these days, he will actually learn – probably when he’s doing archery with Susan – but today is obviously not that day. “Is there anything you feel might even the odds?” he asks dryly.
“Amputation,” Edmund says promptly. “But barring that – you think we can still do that old trick?”
“What – you mean that trick?”
Edmund grins and nods. “I’ll still get my arse kicked, but you need the practice.”
“And you don’t?” Peter asks matter-of-factly, digging in his pocket and coming up with his tie. “Come over here and tie this for me, Ed,” he says, “otherwise you’ll decide it’s not tight enough.”
Edmund wraps the soft material around his face and Peter’s vision goes black. He shifts his position automatically, drawing his sword. Caspian moves against the wall and Edmund takes a few steps away; Peter hears the rasp of steel as he draws his sword. There are footsteps behind him, but Peter disregards that after a moment when they don’t advance any farther.
Neither he nor Edmund says anything. The rough floor is good for this; Peter can hear Edmund move forward. He parries, and the sound of muted steel on muted steel is almost startling. For the first few minutes, he’s reacting rather than acting, trying to get back into the habit of this, and then he slides his sword away from Edmund’s and strikes. This time he’s on the offensive, driving Edmund back, and Edmund doesn’t have a chance to parry before Peter’s sword is against his chest. He’s not willing to try for the neck just now, not until he’s more sure of his current ability to not accidentally kill his brother.
“You!” Edmund half-wails as Peter shoves the blindfold up over his eyes, blinking at the sudden light. He slides the practice sheathe off and sheathes his sword, grinning and shaking his head. “Were you practicing in England, Pete?”
“Who would I do that with?” Peter asks philosophically. “It’s not like there were exactly a lot of options.” He sheathes his sword and turns around, surprised to see Glenstorm, Reepicheep, and Susan watching. Susan just shakes her head when he catches her eyes.
“You are just as skilled with a blade as the legends say,” Glenstorm tells him solemnly.
“Thanks,” Peter says. He looks around for Caspian, but the prince has slipped out sometime when Peter had the blindfold on and is nowhere in sight.
“This is ridiculous,” Edmund grumbles. “Before a week ago, you hadn’t touched a sword in a year. Nobody’s that good.”
“I did do the fencing club in school,” Peter points out. “For a while.”
“Yes, and then you got kicked out for being too violent,” Susan says.
“Narnian fencing is very different from English fencing,” he protests.
Susan shakes her head again. “Only you, Peter,” she says. “Only you. It’s not like I joined the archery club.”
Peter sighs and collects his shield from the floor. Edmund prods his face again. “You’d think I’d be used to this by now,” he announces. “After fifteen years –”
“You’ve done me pretty well a few times too,” Peter reminds him.
“Yes, but the other nine times out of ten –” Edmund says. “You could have broken my nose!”
“I haven’t done that in years!” Peter says indignantly. “Except for that one time in England,” he adds. “And that wasn’t on purpose.”
“We go to war together for fifteen years and he breaks my nose by slamming a door in my face in Finchley a week after we left the Professor’s,” Edmund says to no one in particular. “Mum was furious. She thought we’d been fighting.”
Peter claps him on the shoulder. “You might want to ice that, if we have any,” he recommends. “I’m going to bed.”
“Ha,” Edmund says bitterly. “At least I can make treaties without starting wars.”
“That’s never actually happened,” Susan says practically. “Although we did come very close a few times.”
“You mean Peter came very close,” Edmund corrects. “I was the one fixing his problems.”
Susan frowns at him. “I think Lu and I helped a bit.”
“There is a reason there are four of us,” Peter says, smiling. “I’ll see you in the morning.” He starts away, nodding at Reepicheep’s comments – something about his grip and his swing – and then stops and turns around, remembering why he’d asked Edmund to come with him and Caspian. “Ed, do you have a minute?”
Edmund raises his eyebrows, but comes along anyway. “So why were you going after Caspian like he’d just tried to invade Narnia?”
Peter shakes his head. “He asked a question – that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about.”
“What’s that, then?”
For a moment, Peter is silent, searching for the right words, then he says slowly, “Yesterday, when Nikabrik called the White Witch – you didn’t hesitate at all.”
Edmund gives him a thoughtful look. “You did,” he observes. “Why?”
Peter shakes his head. “I don’t know,” he admits. You were afraid of her, Caspian had said. You destroyed her. Why were you afraid of her? “I was just – frozen.” Given the subject, a bad choice of words, but true enough.
“I got over the White Witch a long time ago,” Edmund says slowly. “I had to, if I wanted to make it as a king of Narnia. But you – you never had to do that.” He stares at the lion on Peter’s shield. “I heard – later – that even Aslan couldn’t destroy the Witch entirely, because she’d come into Narnia at the very beginning of time, the same as him. She was – diminished in power, but not powerless. And she could be raised with the proper offering.”
“That,” Peter says meaningfully, “somehow, I guessed.”
“I think she always wanted you more than she wanted me,” Edmund continues. “I mean, you’re the oldest, and if you fell, then the rest of us would fall apart – at least at the beginning. I was just there – convenient. It was never personal with me, but you, you brought Aslan back into Narnia, or at least she always thought you did. And you took her throne. I think it annoyed her a little bit.”
“I never told you about my nightmares,” Peter says abruptly.
Edmund blinks. “What nightmares?”
Peter hesitates, and then he says, “About a year after we came to Narnia, I started having nightmares about the White Witch. I had them for years, up until a year ago, when they stopped.”
“When we left Narnia,” Edmund says.
He nods. “I had another one not two hours ago, for the first time since. And I failed, Ed. I lost you, and the girls, and Aslan, and Narnia – I saw my country covered in snow that never melted, children shivering out in the cold, the dead lying out for evil things to take. Statues, Ed, I saw statues, my people frozen and dying and dead by her hand –” He hears the harsh, ragged sound in his voice, like he’s panting for air, and has to stop.
Edmund grabs him and his hands are so warm they might as well be burning. “Come back to me, Pete,” he orders. “High King, come back. None of that happened. Narnia is free, and ours, and in the midst of summer, and the White Witch is long dead. High King Peter, come back.”
Peter draws one ragged breath, then another, fixing his gaze on the lion head on the pommel of Edmund’s sword. The eyes are miniature chips of sapphire (blue was always Edmund’s color) and they seem to glow as he stares at him. For a moment he feels the warmth of a lion’s breath on his face, and then that, too, is gone.
“Pete?” Edmund says, and Peter is aware, now, that his brother is holding him up. “Are you back with me?” On the tip of his tongue are the words High King; he doesn’t need to say them again just yet. Peter remembers.
“I’m all right,” he assures him, pulling himself together.
Edmund lets go of him. “She’s gone, you know,” he says. “Centuries ago. Aslan barred her from coming back to Narnia without –”
“Without a sacrifice,” Peter finishes. “She won’t get one.”
Almost, almost, so many times, so close to falling and failing – and he’d saved his sisters, and his brother, and himself. So many of her people and his had wanted to bring her back from whatever unholy grave Aslan had sent her to. He can’t fail now, not after so long.
Edmund touches his bare wrist, and the light touch of his fingers could be a burning brand. “I’ll see you in the morning,” he says. “That war is over. We have a new one now.”
Author:
bedlamsbardFandom: Chronicles of Narnia movieverse
Rating: PG
Summary: "They didn't call it the golden age when I was king."
Disclaimer: The Chronicles of Narnia belong to C.S. Lewis. Situations from the Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian movie belong to Walden Media. The title comes from T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets: Burnt Norton.
Author's Notes: Takes place during the Prince Caspian movie, after the White Witch and before the war meeting.
Peter wakes up screaming.
Shaking, his throat aching, he sits up and bends over to get his head in the vicinity of his knees, clutching the rough blanket between his fingers. His ragged breath breaks the stillness of the room – cave, really; the How is one big warren. He’d said he would share with Edmund, over and over again, but the badger who’s been arranging rooming for everyone had given him a look like Peter had begun carving up the minotaurs (which he’s been tempted to do; every time he looks at them he remembers fifteen years of war and can’t keep his hand from straying to his sword) and ignored him. While Lucy and Susan are sharing a room, the badger – Blackpaw – has put Edmund in with Caspian, which neither of them are particularly happy about. Peter is the High King, and the least that New-Old Narnia in exile can give him is his own room. He’s not sure how he feels about that. He’s fairly certain he doesn’t want anyone else here to see this.
Still shaking, Peter gets up and goes over to the crockery basin and jug sitting in the corner of the room, splashing cold water on his face and neck. The shock of it – it’s icy cold – doesn’t do anything for his nerves, especially given the…circumstances…of his dream. Peter wipes his hands dry on his trousers and braces himself on the wall, listening to the faint sound of singing down below in the big main room of the How. He can’t make out the words through the layers of stone and earth.
His throat is raw, the kind of raw that comes from screaming or cold. He vaguely thinks that he’d like something warm, and for that he’ll have to go downstairs. Aching like he’s just run a marathon, Peter pulls on his surcoat and hesitates for a moment before taking his dagger rather than his sword. Even though they’re at a state of war (which sums up his entire reign neatly), he’s not leaving the How, and he can do nearly as much damage with a dagger as with a sword, if he doesn’t have the time to run back up for the rest of his weapons.
The door – one of the few in the How – is made of thick, heavy wood and Peter pushes it open without trouble. Something moves in the corridor, and Peter’s hand is on the dagger before Caspian says, “High King –”
Caspian doesn’t know how close he came to being gutted in his own (however temporary) castle. Peter lets his hand drop away from the dagger. “Prince Caspian,” he returns, aware of the stiffness in his voice and trying to force it away.
“I heard you cry out,” Caspian says. “Is everything well?”
“A bad dream,” Peter says.
“Is it because of something I did?”
Not because of something Caspian did. Because of something Peter didn’t do. “No.”
Caspian is looking at Peter like he doesn’t believe him and Peter has one shining moment where he almost goes for his dagger again, because he feels trapped, and all his family knows better than to crowd him. But Caspian isn’t his family and he doesn’t know Peter well enough to know about the caves of Angrisla, about seventy-two hours alone in pitch-darkness with monsters tracking his steps and his people dead and dying around him. Peter swallows hard against the panic – it doesn’t help that he’s underground.
“I wanted –” Caspian begins. “I did something wrong.”
“Yes,” Peter says, because that’s true.
The boy looks a little surprised – Peter has to stop thinking of him as “the boy”, because Caspian is years older than him, although technically speaking Peter is more than a thousand years older – but rallies and says, “I wouldn’t have really done it.”
“Yes, you would have,” Peter corrects, because that’s true too. “You would have done it because you thought – you still think – that it would be the best thing for Narnia, because the White Witch may have held her in check for a hundred years, but at least during those hundred years no one invaded. You think that if four children,” and he’s aware of the irony in his voice, “could defeat the White Witch, you could as well.”
Caspian frowns at him, struck by surprise, and points out, “You were afraid of her.”
This is not a conversation Peter wants to have in a hallway. Granted, this is not a conversation Peter wants to have anytime, but he’d rather not have it here. He starts to turn away from Caspian, but the prince catches his arm.
“You were afraid of her,” he repeats, more certain now, and Peter thinks almost hysterically that not a week ago he hit a boy his own age for bumping him in the train station. Hitting Caspian would just result in Susan yelling at him again, though, and he’s not in the mood for that now.
“Let go of me,” Peter says, but Caspian keeps holding on.
“You destroyed her. Why were you afraid of her?” He frowns again. “Is that what you were screaming about?”
“Take your hands off me,” Peter says, and any Narnian would have been halfway down the hallway and away from the High King by now, but Caspian isn’t like any Narnian Peter’s ever known. He doesn’t take his hands away. Instead he pushes closer, up in Peter’s space. He has enough height on him that he looms over Peter and doesn’t seem to realize he’s doing it.
“I don’t understand,” he says. “You killed her centuries ago. What kind of power does she have over you that you’re still afraid of her?”
Peter has his hand on his dagger now, and the fact that Caspian doesn’t seem to notice speaks ill of him. “I didn’t kill the White Witch,” he says finally, clenching his fist hard on the pommel, feeling the little lion’s head dig into his skin. “Aslan did. She nearly killed me. Something to learn, your highness, the things that scare you don’t vanish when they die. They live on in you.”
He can see that Caspian doesn’t understand, not yet, but he will someday, if he lives long enough. Instead, Caspian stares at him and seems to make up his mind about something that Peter’s fairly certain he doesn’t want to hear.
“Is it true,” Caspian begins, “is it true that your brother was a traitor before he became a king?”
“That’s Edmund’s question to answer,” Peter says, and swallows down the panic to add with every bit of dignity he has, “If you don’t mind, I’d like some air to breathe.”
For a moment, Caspian looks confused, then he seems to realize what he’s doing and steps back. Peter takes a deep breath, then another, and forces his hand away from the dagger. He sees Caspian’s eyes fix on that, startled. He’s getting used to seeing that expression; Caspian never seems to know how to react when confronted with him. Half the time he sees the High King; half the time he sees a boy three-quarters his age. This is the problem with working with humans.
“If he’d betrayed you – when he was king,” Caspian continues after a pause, “what would you have done?”
“I would have taken his head off in Cair Paravel for all of Narnia to see,” Peter says without pause. He would have. Edmund knows that. All of Narnia had known that after the first time less than a month after his coronation.
“You would have?” Caspian bursts out. “Your own brother?”
“Brother or no, king or no, treason is treason,” Peter says flatly. He’d never had to try and convict one of his own siblings, but there were other traitors in Narnia, people he’d trusted once, people who’d turned on him on the battlefield, people who’d tried to kill him and his family as they slept in their beds. Cair Paravel has seen more blood shed in its halls than any other battleground Peter has fought on, even the Telmarine castle where his Narnians fought and died less than a day ago.
“What would you have done then?”
His head hurts. He doesn’t want to answer this, and he doesn’t want to think about it, but Caspian will be king of Narnia someday and he will have to know this. Peter eyes Caspian thoughtfully for a long time before he says slowly, “I would have gone into the field until I thought my sisters were less than likely to put a dagger in my skull while I was sleeping.”
The boy – not a boy, decidedly not, even if he seems so much younger than Peter was when he was his age – stares at him. “You would have started a war?”
Now Peter understands why Professor Kirke spent so much time complaining about England’s education system. He’s half of a mind to start complaining about Narnia’s, because what are they teaching children now? It’s a false statement, of course; he’s had the circumstances explained to him several times now, but when Caspian’s been living with Narnians for as long as he has, he ought to know this.
“I never had to start a war,” he says with elaborate patience. “I can count on one hand the number of times Narnia made the first move and still have fingers left over. Narnia was at war every year I was High King, fighting off giants from the North and Calormenes from the South. The White Witch might have been defeated, but her army scattered all over Narnia and no few of them tried to take her place. I had to reconquer Terebinthia and the Lone Islands. I was only at Cair Paravel two months out of every twelve during the best of it.”
Caspian looks beyond confused. “But – there has never been peace in Narnia like there was during the Golden Age.”
“Possibly because I spent most of your golden age at war to make sure there was something to be peaceful,” Peter says. “They didn’t call it the golden age when I was king.” They called it the Great Summer, and called him the King of Summer. He’s heard a few people whisper the title as he’s walked past. “What do you want, Caspian?” If it was just the question about Edmund – never a secret, but not something that was spoken of, and he’s surprised the knowledge has survived down the centuries.
Caspian hesitates, and then he says, “The Telmarines have legends of High King Peter too.”
“Really?” Peter says, surprised. He’d thought that of all the peoples in Narnia, the Telmarines would try the hardest to destroy his history.
“They’re…different,” Caspian allows. “Most of the stories are about the High King – you – cleansing Narnia of…creatures. And Queen Susan was your wife.”
“She’s not,” Peter points out dryly. He’s heard those stories too. Most of them are confused about whether Susan (or occasionally Lucy) is his sister or his wife. Edmund is usually relegated to background noise if he’s there at all. He’s always found it funny how these things work.
Caspian flushes. “I’ve noticed that,” he says.
He’s noticed more than that, but Peter realized a long time ago that Susan could take of herself as far as her paramours went. He waits patiently.
“My professor taught me Narnian history,” Caspian continues. “And he said that some of the stories are all true, and some of them are partially true, and some of them aren’t true at all. And I’ve heard some of them here.”
For a moment Peter doesn’t answer, waiting for Caspian to finish his thought, and while they’re both quiet a snatch of music drifts up from below, accompanied by Edmund’s sudden laugh. Some trick of the tunnels makes the words clear.
Now Peter was a noble king, brave and strong and fair,
Lucy was a healer, with her sword as light as air
And Edmund was the second son, the High King’s voice and arm
Queen Susan was called gentle, but she also would do harm!
“That survived?” Edmund shouts, and Peter resists the urge to beat his head into the tunnel wall. He concurs with his brother. It’s not the worst of them, by far – Narnia tends toward good music, but not everything that they think is good really is good – but even though he’s had fifteen years to get used to hearing his name and his deeds made common entertainment, most of it still makes him blush.
“That one’s true,” Peter confides to Caspian, because Caspian looks like the question is on the tip of his tongue. “More or less. More rather than less, actually, at least in my day.” He’s tempted to go down and listen to see how much of it has changed, but he’s really not in the mood. He isn’t surprised that Edmund is, though; after a battle, Peter broods and Edmund finds a distraction.
Caspian’s evidently heard the song before, because he brightens at this and says, “Everything I’ve ever heard says you’re the greatest warrior Narnia has ever seen.”
Peter almost answers this, and then he stops. “Wait here a moment,” he says to Caspian, and goes back inside his room to get his sword and shield, strapping on his swordbelt while Caspian watches, surprised and a little confused. “Do you think you’re a good swordsman?”
Caspian stares at him blankly. “I had the best tutors in Narnia,” he says. “And I crossed swords with you.”
“Not for long,” Peter points out. “Come on.”
He leads the way down to the lower level of the How, briefly poking his head into the wide room where several fires are flickering and a number of people, including Edmund but not Susan or Lucy, are sitting, listening to a faun sing That Damned Song.
Now inside Cair Paravel another castle hid
And only High King Peter knew where its secrets led.
Into this second castle he went with sword in hand
And one by one he slew the traitor’s savage band.
Peter winces and says, “Ed, if you’re not enjoying yourself too much –”
Edmund glances over and grins as he gets up. “For you, o fair and noble king? Never.”
“Sometimes I think Aslan should have left you to the White Witch,” Peter grumbles and ignores Caspian’s surprised expression. Edmund has long since got over this.
“Someone has to keep you humble, High King,” Edmund says. “Or your head will get too big for your helmet.” He looks curiously at the sword at Peter’s side and then at Caspian, who’s still wearing his sword and dagger. “What’s up? He can’t have annoyed you so much already that you want witnesses now.”
“Not for that,” Peter says easily.
“Oh, that,” Edmund says, pulling a face. “When will you learn that you can’t solve everything by fighting it?”
“It’s been working out well for me so far,” Peter points out, starting through the tunnels again.
Edmund keeps pace with him, Caspian just behind. “That’s because you never had to deal with the dwarves when they got it into their heads to argue over their place in court. Or the fauns taking more than their share of the harvest. Or –”
They fall easily into their old bickering, familiar and comfortable. As usual, Edmund finishes it off with, “If you weren’t at war all the time –”
“If I wasn’t at war,” Peter says, like he has a thousand times at before, “you’d have much bigger things to worry about than whether or not the beavers or the wood-nymphs are in the right when it comes to the trees. And in war everything can be solved by strategic application of a sword to the head.”
“And people wonder why I’m the diplomat in the family,” Edmund confides to Caspian. “He doesn’t have the patience, and Susan’s a little too open-minded. Lucy’s all right, though. Sometimes too nice.”
“And sometimes things need a sword to the head,” Peter points out.
“And the last time he tried diplomacy he nearly started another war,” Edmund announces, making his point neatly.
“I wasn’t the one who brought two hundred Calormenes across the desert into Archenland,” Peter protests.
“I wasn’t the one who gave the heir to Calormen the idea that Susan was available!”
“Neither was I!” Peter shoots back. “She was doing that fine on her own!”
“And then you had to go off to fight giants –”
“Because they were invading!”
“– leaving me to make sure that Calormen didn’t use Archenland as a stepping stone to Narnia –”
“I knew you could handle it!”
“My lords?” Caspian interrupts as they pass into a cavern with no other exits. He looks a little shell-shocked, Peter notices as he glances over.
“Of course I could handle it,” Edmund finishes triumphantly. “One of us has to be better at more than one thing. A word of advice, Caspian – when we get to the point where we’re negotiating peace treaties with the Telmarines, don’t let Peter do it. His idea of peace negotiations include the words, ‘Absolute unconditional surrender or I destroy you, your land, and everything you hold dear.’”
“I only said that once,” Peter says, aware that his smile is taking on a fixed quality.
Edmund, who’s always been good at noticing his moods, grins slightly in apology and changes the subject. “What exactly were you planning to do to Caspian, Pete?”
“Make a point,” Peter says. They’re in the wide, empty cavern that they’ve been using for weapons practice and Peter steps back, drawing his sword. “Caspian.”
“I would have been content to take your word on it,” Caspian says, moving to the other side of the cavern and drawing his own sword. He doesn’t have a shield, so Peter discards his.
“No, you wouldn’t have,” Peter says, moving to a ready position.
Edmund sighs and leans against a wall, pulling an apple out of a pocket and biting into it. “You don’t want to use practice sheathes? Live steel is dangerous.”
“And we both know what we’re doing,” Peter points out and moves before Caspian even knows what’s happening. The Telmarine prince gets his sword up in time – barely. Peter is sliding away before the clash of metal has finished reaching his ears, slashing across Caspian’s chest with the flat of his blade. If he’d used the edge, he would have spilled Caspian’s guts across the floor. The next blow would take out Caspian’s legs, cutting them out from beneath him, and the next his head. Peter slows down a little to let Caspian stagger backwards, sword in front of him and just barely managing to parry Peter’s blows. Peter disengages and slams the pommel of his sword into Caspian’s face, stopping with the metal millimeters away from Caspian’s left eye, then pivots and kicks Caspian’s legs out from beneath him, ending with his sword resting on the back of Caspian’s neck. He steps back and offers Caspian a hand up, and as Caspian straightens and lets go of his hand, Peter attacks again. Killing strike. Killing strike. Parry, riposte, feint, killing strike. Killing strike. Maiming strike. Killing strike. Caspian gets in a few good blows – he’s right, he is good, but he fights like he learned in practice bouts and not a battlefield, and he can’t pull his blows the way Peter can, so by the time he steps back, holding up both hands – Peter has knocked his sword across the cavern – Peter’s the one bleeding where Caspian has cut shallowly across his cheek.
“I concede the point,” he says. “You’re a better swordsman that I am.”
I could have told you that, Peter doesn’t say, but he resheathes his sword and wipes the blood off his cheek. “Is that what you wanted to know?” he asks.
“I didn’t really need that…literal…of a demonstration,” Caspian points out, panting. His face is flushed and sweaty and he fumbles his sword a little as he picks it up and gets it back in its sheathe; Peter is certain his hands are cramped.
Edmund tosses the apple he’s been eating away and strides forward. “We are talking about my brother here,” he says. “Give him an inch and he’ll take a mile. Practice sheathes,” he adds. “I know better than to fight with you and not have any protection. I like my head attached to my neck, thanks.”
“Around you, I’m a little more worried about my head,” Peter says, looking around for the practice sheathes. He’s sparred with Trumpkin, Reepicheep, and Glenstorm, but not Edmund, not since they’d left Narnia the last time.
Caspian straightens and goes around to the worn wooden chest in the back of the room to dig them out. Peter fits one over his blade and tosses the other to Edmund.
“Because I didn’t have enough bruises already,” Edmund grumbles and strikes, a whirling overhead blow that Peter parries, driving Edmund back across the floor. Edmund’s a little out of practice; Peter feints right and slashes shallowly down Edmund’s side, across his heart. Edmund lets out a grunt at the pressure and manages to deflect Peter’s next blow, but he doesn’t get his sword up in time to stop Peter as he swings, stopping with the leather-covered blade just touching Edmund’s neck.
“I forgot how ungodly fast you are,” Edmund grumbles, pushing the blade away with his hand and prodding his side. “That’ll bruise.”
“Probably,” Peter agrees and attacks before Edmund has a chance to regroup. They go back and forth at each other across the rough cave floor, ducking around the columns and Caspian, who’s sitting on the floor against a wall and watching with wide eyes. At one point some four or five rounds in, Edmund knocks his sword out of his hand and Peter grabs Edmund’s wrist with both hands and slams the pommel of his sword into his face. Edmund kicks him in the ankle, but without any effect, and Peter hits him in the face again, then twists until Edmund drops the sword.
“Ow!” he exclaims, stepping backwards and clutching his face as Peter picks up both their swords. He takes his hands away to look at them and winces. “I’m bleeding! I need my face!”
Peter goes over to check the damage. There’s a dark bruise blooming across Edmund’s cheek, spread up over his left eye, and the skin is split on a ridge of cheekbone, a little bubble of blood welling up. “Well, it can’t make you look worse,” he offers, and Edmund hits him half-heartedly with an open fist.
“Next time I’m hitting you in your pretty face, High King, and we’ll see how you like that.”
“You’ve already done that a dozen times,” Peter points out. He has a split lip from colliding with Edmund’s padded sword, but that’s the worst of his visible injuries. The rest of his bruises are hidden under his clothes.
Edmund scowls at him. “Are you even tired, Pete?”
“If I was, I wouldn’t tell you,” Peter says, even though he is. He’s out of practice, is what he is, and just being in Narnia helps with getting his old skill back, but not his endurance. That he has to work at. It takes less time than it might back in England, but he still has to work at it. “That might give you an unfair advantage.”
“Entirely fair,” Edmund assures him. “Trust me, entirely fair. Maybe even not fair enough.” He stretches out his wrists, wincing a little bit.
Peter echoes the motion. He’s stiff from fighting yesterday, and he hadn’t warmed up before fighting Caspian. One of these days, he will actually learn – probably when he’s doing archery with Susan – but today is obviously not that day. “Is there anything you feel might even the odds?” he asks dryly.
“Amputation,” Edmund says promptly. “But barring that – you think we can still do that old trick?”
“What – you mean that trick?”
Edmund grins and nods. “I’ll still get my arse kicked, but you need the practice.”
“And you don’t?” Peter asks matter-of-factly, digging in his pocket and coming up with his tie. “Come over here and tie this for me, Ed,” he says, “otherwise you’ll decide it’s not tight enough.”
Edmund wraps the soft material around his face and Peter’s vision goes black. He shifts his position automatically, drawing his sword. Caspian moves against the wall and Edmund takes a few steps away; Peter hears the rasp of steel as he draws his sword. There are footsteps behind him, but Peter disregards that after a moment when they don’t advance any farther.
Neither he nor Edmund says anything. The rough floor is good for this; Peter can hear Edmund move forward. He parries, and the sound of muted steel on muted steel is almost startling. For the first few minutes, he’s reacting rather than acting, trying to get back into the habit of this, and then he slides his sword away from Edmund’s and strikes. This time he’s on the offensive, driving Edmund back, and Edmund doesn’t have a chance to parry before Peter’s sword is against his chest. He’s not willing to try for the neck just now, not until he’s more sure of his current ability to not accidentally kill his brother.
“You!” Edmund half-wails as Peter shoves the blindfold up over his eyes, blinking at the sudden light. He slides the practice sheathe off and sheathes his sword, grinning and shaking his head. “Were you practicing in England, Pete?”
“Who would I do that with?” Peter asks philosophically. “It’s not like there were exactly a lot of options.” He sheathes his sword and turns around, surprised to see Glenstorm, Reepicheep, and Susan watching. Susan just shakes her head when he catches her eyes.
“You are just as skilled with a blade as the legends say,” Glenstorm tells him solemnly.
“Thanks,” Peter says. He looks around for Caspian, but the prince has slipped out sometime when Peter had the blindfold on and is nowhere in sight.
“This is ridiculous,” Edmund grumbles. “Before a week ago, you hadn’t touched a sword in a year. Nobody’s that good.”
“I did do the fencing club in school,” Peter points out. “For a while.”
“Yes, and then you got kicked out for being too violent,” Susan says.
“Narnian fencing is very different from English fencing,” he protests.
Susan shakes her head again. “Only you, Peter,” she says. “Only you. It’s not like I joined the archery club.”
Peter sighs and collects his shield from the floor. Edmund prods his face again. “You’d think I’d be used to this by now,” he announces. “After fifteen years –”
“You’ve done me pretty well a few times too,” Peter reminds him.
“Yes, but the other nine times out of ten –” Edmund says. “You could have broken my nose!”
“I haven’t done that in years!” Peter says indignantly. “Except for that one time in England,” he adds. “And that wasn’t on purpose.”
“We go to war together for fifteen years and he breaks my nose by slamming a door in my face in Finchley a week after we left the Professor’s,” Edmund says to no one in particular. “Mum was furious. She thought we’d been fighting.”
Peter claps him on the shoulder. “You might want to ice that, if we have any,” he recommends. “I’m going to bed.”
“Ha,” Edmund says bitterly. “At least I can make treaties without starting wars.”
“That’s never actually happened,” Susan says practically. “Although we did come very close a few times.”
“You mean Peter came very close,” Edmund corrects. “I was the one fixing his problems.”
Susan frowns at him. “I think Lu and I helped a bit.”
“There is a reason there are four of us,” Peter says, smiling. “I’ll see you in the morning.” He starts away, nodding at Reepicheep’s comments – something about his grip and his swing – and then stops and turns around, remembering why he’d asked Edmund to come with him and Caspian. “Ed, do you have a minute?”
Edmund raises his eyebrows, but comes along anyway. “So why were you going after Caspian like he’d just tried to invade Narnia?”
Peter shakes his head. “He asked a question – that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about.”
“What’s that, then?”
For a moment, Peter is silent, searching for the right words, then he says slowly, “Yesterday, when Nikabrik called the White Witch – you didn’t hesitate at all.”
Edmund gives him a thoughtful look. “You did,” he observes. “Why?”
Peter shakes his head. “I don’t know,” he admits. You were afraid of her, Caspian had said. You destroyed her. Why were you afraid of her? “I was just – frozen.” Given the subject, a bad choice of words, but true enough.
“I got over the White Witch a long time ago,” Edmund says slowly. “I had to, if I wanted to make it as a king of Narnia. But you – you never had to do that.” He stares at the lion on Peter’s shield. “I heard – later – that even Aslan couldn’t destroy the Witch entirely, because she’d come into Narnia at the very beginning of time, the same as him. She was – diminished in power, but not powerless. And she could be raised with the proper offering.”
“That,” Peter says meaningfully, “somehow, I guessed.”
“I think she always wanted you more than she wanted me,” Edmund continues. “I mean, you’re the oldest, and if you fell, then the rest of us would fall apart – at least at the beginning. I was just there – convenient. It was never personal with me, but you, you brought Aslan back into Narnia, or at least she always thought you did. And you took her throne. I think it annoyed her a little bit.”
“I never told you about my nightmares,” Peter says abruptly.
Edmund blinks. “What nightmares?”
Peter hesitates, and then he says, “About a year after we came to Narnia, I started having nightmares about the White Witch. I had them for years, up until a year ago, when they stopped.”
“When we left Narnia,” Edmund says.
He nods. “I had another one not two hours ago, for the first time since. And I failed, Ed. I lost you, and the girls, and Aslan, and Narnia – I saw my country covered in snow that never melted, children shivering out in the cold, the dead lying out for evil things to take. Statues, Ed, I saw statues, my people frozen and dying and dead by her hand –” He hears the harsh, ragged sound in his voice, like he’s panting for air, and has to stop.
Edmund grabs him and his hands are so warm they might as well be burning. “Come back to me, Pete,” he orders. “High King, come back. None of that happened. Narnia is free, and ours, and in the midst of summer, and the White Witch is long dead. High King Peter, come back.”
Peter draws one ragged breath, then another, fixing his gaze on the lion head on the pommel of Edmund’s sword. The eyes are miniature chips of sapphire (blue was always Edmund’s color) and they seem to glow as he stares at him. For a moment he feels the warmth of a lion’s breath on his face, and then that, too, is gone.
“Pete?” Edmund says, and Peter is aware, now, that his brother is holding him up. “Are you back with me?” On the tip of his tongue are the words High King; he doesn’t need to say them again just yet. Peter remembers.
“I’m all right,” he assures him, pulling himself together.
Edmund lets go of him. “She’s gone, you know,” he says. “Centuries ago. Aslan barred her from coming back to Narnia without –”
“Without a sacrifice,” Peter finishes. “She won’t get one.”
Almost, almost, so many times, so close to falling and failing – and he’d saved his sisters, and his brother, and himself. So many of her people and his had wanted to bring her back from whatever unholy grave Aslan had sent her to. He can’t fail now, not after so long.
Edmund touches his bare wrist, and the light touch of his fingers could be a burning brand. “I’ll see you in the morning,” he says. “That war is over. We have a new one now.”
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-12 01:58 pm (UTC)I know so many people who have moaned about what an ass Peter was in the new movie and how unrealistic it was that he was so good with a sword, and I just want to shake them and make them actually think about what those kids went through, and Peter in particular. He was a king and a warrior for years - did they really think he would forget all of that after just one year?
Yes. Anyway. Sorry. This is a wonderful story. Will you be writing more? ::hints::
(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-13 01:42 pm (UTC)I know. I got those comments too, and I stared at her and went, "But he's the High King." "He's a jerk! He's ordering people around!" "Because he's the High King of Narnia and an experienced battle commander." "He shouldn't order people around!" "Well, thank God of the two of us I'm the one going into the military." *sigh* And Peter wasn't just any old hero, either (neither are Edmund, Susan, and Lucy, obviously); Peter was the High King. For (I don't think it's in the book, but Wikipedia says Lewis says) fifteen years. Ruling. And it's not like they don't set it up at the beginning with post-Narnia trauma and it's not like it's not in the books; even when he's in England in book seven he's referred to as a warrior and a king by the most incompetent king of Narnia ever who (at that point in time) has no idea who he is. /rant (Stupid people. I have an allergy.)
Thank you again! I'd like to -- I'm vaguely toying with the notion of doing four pieces for Eliot's Four Quartets; this one is heavily inspired by "Burnt Norten", which is where the title comes from -- but I don't have anything definite yet.
(I love LJ's convoluted paths. One of these days, I will get around to making a chart showing how everyone in fandom is connected.)
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Date: 2008-06-13 01:10 am (UTC)Completely splendid. All through the middle it's so gigglesomely delightful (O Edmund!) that I almost forgot how poignant and chilling it was at the start, until you returned to that at the end (so great storycraft there).
That opening, now that I return to it anew, is just full of beautiful imagery that really shapes Peter very strongly for the rest of the story. The sword/dagger decision is particularly excellent. And then the many near-skewerings of Caspian... really shows perfectly the difference between these two, the years of experience and honed instinct that Peter doesn't wear and Caspian can't suspect. I agree with Ms Denorios above, you write a wonderful Peter, but I also particularly like Caspian here. He's a good boy who'll be a good man, but he's been sheltered (no fault of his own) and he really isn't yet a King, especially in this company. He has skills, but he's young yet. I think you showed that very nicely.
Objects of delight:
- Hitting Caspian would just result in Susan yelling at him again - BWAHAHA!
- “That survived?” Edmund shouts - just so many layers of splendid right there.
- Peter and Edmund's bickery. All of it, but especially the first flush of it.
- “When will you learn that you can’t solve everything by fighting it?” - Never. He will never ever learn that. Oh HEART! (And to Edmund too, because I see him asking with a sort of fond exasperation - he wouldn't actually truly see his brother change, I don't think.) Obviously, given this, double-plus heartage for “And sometimes things need a sword to the head,” Peter points out. Giggle, giggle, love.
- Peter bringing the smackdown. I especially like the litany of "killing strike" because YES. He is not a fencer. Duelling is not his thing. He's a battle king. And the point of battle is not to look elegant or display skill, it's to kill as many of the other motherfuckers as fast and economically as you can.
And then the ending, with Edmund so... grounded. This is really an Edmund who fits everything I love about him, how he's sort of extremely self-aware since realising how much his decisions can fuck things up. He's very in command of himself, and he can answer the question of why he didn't hesitate. There's a lot of strength in knowing yourself. And Peter is Magnificent, and the High King, but without the rock of Edmund I don't think he could reach as far.
Now I'm babbling. *G* This was very, very nicely done. And clearly I'm going to need to restore a Narnia icon to my hoard.
Also, there's a Something For Kate song that contains the line: "It's never a golden age until past tense kicks in." Yes.
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Date: 2008-06-13 02:20 pm (UTC)It's curious that there are, literally, four rulers in Narnia (but only one sovereign, and oh, but I'm probably abusing semantics here); they all have to rule, but it doesn't make sense that they would all do the same thing. So Peter is very good (very very good) at being High King Peter the Magnificent, warlord of Narnia (knowing what I know of military history, I can't see how Narnia couldn't have been a wartorn nation following the defeat of the White Witch), but he's got a built-in support network in the form of his siblings (which, oh my God, we see in the one canon story we have of the golden age, The Horse and His Boy. Edmund and Susan are off making nice with the Calormenes -- yeah, that turned out well, war -- Lucy is holding down the fort at Cair Paravel, and Peter is off fighting giants in the north. They don't all sit around in Cair Paravel and...I have no idea what people say they did throughout the golden age). They're there to fill in each others' flaws and holes. Peter kills things and makes problems; Edmund fixes them and keeps Peter from floating off onto a cloud about being High King. I think, of all of them, Edmund is probably the most grounded, although he has his moments as well.
Poor Caspian. After this he's never going to look at Peter the same way again. Although he's lucky he still has eyes. And I'm fascinated by the relationship between Peter and Caspian, because it's so unexpectedly complex and Caspian -- well, Caspian will one day be a great king, but Peter already was a great king and a great hero, and occasionally these points need to be made with, well, a point.
He is not a fencer. Duelling is not his thing. He's a battle king. And the point of battle is not to look elegant or display skill, it's to kill as many of the other motherfuckers as fast and economically as you can.
Yes, exactly! And I think he tried fencing because he thought he had to keep his skill up for when they got sent back to Narnia (warlord. battle king. that's awesome), but Peter is a born killer, and that's not who you want to fence.
"It's never a golden age until past tense kicks in."
Ohmygod yes, that's perfect! Because there's so much that was lost in the intervening 1300 years, and would have been even without the whole invasion and takeover, which I'm sure hardly helped at all. /sarcasm
(See, I can babble too!)
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Date: 2008-06-14 04:12 am (UTC)Something to learn, your highness, the things that scare you don’t vanish when they die. They live on in you.”
This was utterly perfect and powerful and true and I relate to it so much and it made the story for me.
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Date: 2008-06-14 10:50 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-14 04:40 am (UTC)Peter is just amazing here, also Edmund rocks, they are both so strong, each in their own way and also Caspian, poor thing :D.
Loved it, are you writing more?? Pretty please?? :D!!! Hugs!!!
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Date: 2008-06-14 10:53 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-14 06:12 am (UTC)epp.
I loved it.
One thing, and pleeaaassseee, it's just a friendly point-out, don't kill me...
Did you mean to put "Calormen"?
Because Caspian is/was a "Telmarine".
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Date: 2008-06-14 10:55 am (UTC)And no problem; I appreciate possible errata being pointed out! Thank you for reading!
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Date: 2008-06-14 07:58 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-14 10:57 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-16 02:15 am (UTC)Really great! I'd love to see more of your writing.
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Date: 2008-06-16 02:41 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-16 09:17 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-16 11:25 am (UTC)(Also, Dark Angel! I also love Dark Angel. I have a lot of love to give.)
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Date: 2008-06-18 03:48 am (UTC)Peter is my favorite character in the Chronicles of Narnia, always has been, always will be! He's one of the most noble characters in fiction, and just made of WIN! I actually had a similar battle with a friend when we went to see Price Caspian, her being on the side of "Peter's such a jerk!". I replied, of course, with the fact that he is the HIGH KING OF NARNIA! And, he's just a tiny bit mad about being sent off to England and then pulled back 1300 years later, by an over grown CAT!
BU, it doesn't matter what anyone says, because i love Peter and always will. And I am so GLAD to have found an amazing writer like you! FINALLY, someone who takes into account everything about Peter, from his noblity, to his flaws and the fact that he IS the High King, and a warload! It's part of who Peter is, nothing's going to change that.
And, of course, I LOVED Edmund. I agree. Peter is the fighter, but Edmund is the one who keeps him grounded. I loved the banter, and the interaction with Caspian, and the others and just-GUH!
That's all I can really say right now, because I'm a little speechless lol. Oh, and, PLEASE PLEASE write more awesome Peter fics! XD
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Date: 2008-06-18 07:13 am (UTC)The funny thing is that I was never much of an Edmund girl until I started writing this, so I'm so glad Edmund worked! Now I love Edmund. And Caspian, who doesn't know what he's gotten himself into.
Thank you again, and I'm glad you liked it!
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Date: 2008-06-18 04:49 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-18 07:06 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-21 07:40 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-21 09:40 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-22 03:49 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-22 08:16 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-29 09:17 pm (UTC)Memming this - and can I friend you so I don't miss anymore of your fics? I need my Peter fix now! (The random stranger signing off)
ps: If you need to know anything about wartime England, I can help. History's my thing anyway, and I've had plenty of stories told to me by family and friends. My own city was bombed, with the damage still visible today, and I live near Bristol & Plymouth, naval cities which were basically destroyed. I'd be glad to help in any way I can!
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Date: 2008-06-30 12:46 am (UTC)Friend away! I'm on a Narnia kick now, so there's definitely fic coming for at least a little while longer.
I may take you up on the postscript, too. Thank you for the offer!
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Date: 2008-07-10 01:23 am (UTC)I have to admit, when I first saw PC, I was one of those people who thought, "Jesus, Peter. Stop being so arrogant and get over yourself. And quit bossing everyone around!" I know. *hangs head* But as it got further into the movie, and Peter's character was further developed, I soon became much more sympathetic towards him and his situation. I mean, he's basically a man (not to mention a King) trapped inside a teenager's body. I can't even imagine how confusing and frustrating that must be.
I don't blame Peter for being angry about being back in England, either. Being High King for fifteen years, he must have been used to being in control of everything, all of the time. Then all of a sudden, nothing is in control. He's thrown back and forth between worlds, each time against his will, it's like he doesn't have a choice about what happens in his own life anymore. He has the right to be more than a little pissed off!
Anyway, what was I talking about? Heh. Oh, I also adored your characterisation of Edmund. He's definitely my favourite character of the whole series (I won't bore you with the reasons why, we could be here all day) and I really love exploring his relationship with Peter. I like the way that you show how he's constantly there to keep Peter grounded, stopping him from charging off without fully thinking things through.
Excellent fic, I really enjoyed it!
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Date: 2008-07-10 02:37 am (UTC)I have come to like and appreciate Edmund a whole lot more since I started writing him, so I'm glad that my characterization worked for you!
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Date: 2008-07-17 06:12 am (UTC)Just.
They're such siblings, in a way that really just makes me want to hug you--the White Witch is fair game for taunting Edmund, and the broken nose by door-slam
And yet they're also Kings and Queens in Narnia, and war was terribly hard on them.
I love Edmund listening to the folk songs, too...it's lovely to give a little thought to how history would have survived, and how hearing it would affect them.
Well done you!
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Date: 2008-07-17 06:55 am (UTC)I am inordinately fond of the broken nose by door-slam.
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Date: 2008-07-24 03:52 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-24 07:11 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-27 06:53 pm (UTC)I'm amused at how Peter being such a good fighter can make others look ordinary-if Edmund is able to fight with him reasonably well (and better in his prime), I wonder how Caspian would do against *him*?
I think it was a perfectly reasonable thing to do, joining the fencing club to keep in practice and have an outlet for his aggression. I don't see the problem there, other than not going all out in a venue that uses different rules. *shrugs* Did he learn how to fight blind *before* being trapped in the caves, or because of it?
Given the changes in your personal canon, I'm wondering if you're going to go back and edit the description of Lucy as being "too nice"? She *is* too nice in canon, and very sweet in the movie; but your Lucy is apparently taking a more expedient turn. *That* would equally be a problem, keeping that practicality of killing off everybody who poses a danger under control. Because Edmund would know quite well if Lucy were "too nice" or if she were inclined to bump people off-they may have gone on a few missions together. *grins*
I thought movie!Susan to be puzzling, in some ways...she didn't *know* Caspian, yet took his side, and at that time I don't think they'd even spoken. (They only had a couple of sentences' worth of conversation in the whole movie!) Was that attraction talking or a result of her disaffection with Aslan and tendency towards loner-ness? (The mentions in the movie were very subtle, but there.) Or a natural reaction from her oldest sister/second oldest sibling exasperation that she seems to get with Peter? I haven't seen enough on your take of her to get a focus, other than you like her to fight and not be "the Gentle". *laughs*
I read that meta on Edmund you linked here-very good. Said just about everything I'd say. :)
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Date: 2008-07-27 07:58 pm (UTC)Fencing is very difficult from straight-out fighting, though. It's precision, and it's not training to kill, and it's a bad outlet for aggression because it takes so much concentration. Peter would have done better to take up boxing.
He learned how to fight blind in the caves, and he kept up with it afterwards. (The "trick" was originally supposed to be Peter and Edmund fighting blind, but obviously that changed.)
Well, it's politics. Lucy's more inclined to be nice in politics than she is in battle.
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Date: 2008-09-20 11:55 pm (UTC)I especially liked the dynamic between Edmund and Peter. (It's my favorite, fics that focus on their brother dynamic.) How Edmund can pull him back.
I like your Peter very much. He's tough and strong and war is something he knows! That was his field of expertise while Edmund was the diplomat. I also love me some stories with sword fighting!
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Date: 2008-09-21 05:14 am (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2009-01-01 03:36 am (UTC)Still love the Peter-Edmund interplay. I love how they *like* each other, you know? In addition to the brotherly affection, the trust they built by working, fighting, and ruling together, all that...they like each other as people, and they *know* each other, and it shows. :)
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Date: 2009-04-17 09:56 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-04-17 09:59 pm (UTC)