And when my time is up, have I done enough?

“A man takes his sadness down to the river and throws it in the river           but then he’s still left with the river. A man takes his sadness and throws it away                                                                   but then he’s still left with his hands.” Peter Pevensie. High King of Narnia. Wolfsbane.

[tarkheenazenobia-blog]

Ophelia|| Peter and Zenobia

[tarkheenazenobia-blog]

asenseofduty:

Peter had been staring at the paper in his hands for far longer than he should have. He knew this and still he stared, gaping at the folded corners and the way the thin paper caught under his fingernails. They weren’t dirty anymore because Susan had made him wash himself, hands included, once he returned from the search party. He didn’t know what they were searching for—who it was, what it was, just thieves and wands and witches—but he still went. The dust on his boots, unnoticeable because it was hidden by the desk, was fresh and it belonged to the vault. He had avoided the path with the caked soil, muddy and hard like concrete, because the blood had dried and nobody had been sent to clean.

He had sat there a few hours, but he hadn’t cried because he thought it might make Isla sad and because he knew the guards outside the doors and around the piles of gold and gifts were listening. Instead he had stared at her, much as he stared at the piece of paper in his hands now, and the mile she had, the petulant curl at the end and the uncharacteristic wideness of her eyes. He had stormed out of the vault and ran to his study and ask not to be disturbed. But the storm inside him had subdued after he had kicked around his furniture and pushed his papers off the desk, and even after that, he had had to pick it all up, put everything in its place.

So now he was staring at that piece of paper, that had nothing written but dinner at 7, ask isla and that was the last thing he had picked off the floor, after returning everything to the way it had been before his outburst. The knocking at the door caught him off guard but the young lady barging in immediately after was even more surprising. The sound of his chair scraping the wooden floor was strident in the silence and he managed to sneak a glance at his guards’s shocked faces outside while she closed the door. The piece of paper, however, had flown off in the middle of his antics and ended up near the bottom of her dress. He regarded that with an ounce of annoyance that was undeserved but inevitable as she, obviously ashamed, made the proper introduction. 

Standing as he already was, he bowed with his head and sighed. Next thing, he made his way to the door and opened it, saying, “it’s fine, Nathaniel. Just open if you hear something strange, I will leave it unlocked.” His guard nodded with a surlier expression than necessary and Peter closed the door with a smile, making sure to pick up the paper as discreetly as possible. Returning to sit at his desk, he started, “since you arrived at such a terrible time for all of us, and you come from Rabadash’s court, I presume, I don’t expect you to know how to behave—not that you’re doing anything wrong, mind you, don’t feel bad—but please don’t barge in and close the door like that. I just warn you because my siblings might not be as understanding and I would not like for you to get yelled at.”

“I… had forgotten we had a meeting today, so I don’t have anything ready. What is it you came for?”

When Zenobia heard him speak, she noticed how his dialect was completely foreign to her, and then she realized something. She was the foreigner here. She was the one with the accent, and the weird dialect. That she didn’t belong in this country. Then again, her personal views didn’t even belong in her home country. She was an odd wanderer, and did not belong anywhere. “Forgive me…” softly said Zenobia, not making eye contact with the High King. 

Her eyes then shot up and looked at him as he mentioned that she didn’t know how to behave. “Excuse me, High King Beter, but I do know how to behave. And with all do resbect, your excellency, I was raised to have utmost resbect for others. And it is not my fault that you forgot our meeting, but I do understand the utmost stress you are in. I was sent imbrombtu, by Tisroc, and it was last minuet, so I am stressed as well.” And as he said her Tisroc did not know how to behave she laughed. “

“And as for Rabadash not knowing how to behave, I agree with you one hundred percent. I was raised with him, and he is…odd, and his court is odd as well. Trust me there are things him and his brothers have said to me that have made me want to bull my hair out.”  

She then went back into the politics mood. “Ah yes, Rabadash sent me, for something, rather odd. After what happened two years ago, Rabadash cannot leave the city without…turning into a donkey.” She stopped for a moment to hold her laughter, and cleared her throat. “He sent me to ask if there is a way to restore it, him and court are still in an outrage.” She then sighed and took a step forward. “And he sent me, and I have to obey him, or I will face horrible consequences.” 

 Her tone and face became more serious, as the last words escaped her mouth, looking in all seriousness, to the High King. A little bit a fear in her eyes, and she thought about the possible response the Tisroc would’ve given her if she disobeyed. 

[asenseofduty]

Peter was not expecting this sort of rebuttal from a woman that looked like the harshest thing she had ever done was raise her voice at a puppy, so her answers—especially the variety of them—caught him off guard. He had forgotten how tiresome it was to deal with calormenes. He was, he realised now, much too tired to have this sort of conversation. Her answer left him unimpressed, give what he had seen of the other members of her party as of yet, but it still picked at the flecks of anger that he had buried since the night of the treaty but that still burned like coal waiting to light a fire inside him.

He wanted to be hurtful. He wanted to lash out. He wanted to tell her she did not, in fact, know how to behave, that she was thoughtless and he ought to have let his guards take her away so he could rest, that she had no idea of the situation or what was happening, and that he didn’t care at all about her or about whatever goddamn thing Rabadash was stupidly plotting from his seat and sent her to orchestrate. But he knew that was not what he truly felt, that she did not deserve to be the receiver of a wrath that was not meant for her and that she had no ounce of blame for, and that to do so would be to harm Narnia and himself more than he should ever have opportunity to do.

“Please do not presume to know what I feel,” he said, angrily, because he couldn’t help himself. But he tampered down as best he could and sighed. “Forgive me. I am not in my best mood as of now. But I shall warn you a last time: don’t knock on doors and barge in. We are at... a dangerous time. My own guards, but especially my siblings’s, will treat very harshly whoever they feel has threatened us and everything right now may be misconstrued as a threat. I would not like to have you taken to the dungeons in a grave mistake, and I’m sure neither would Rabadash, so let us remember my advice, shall we?”

He pulled out the papers that Tumnus had left on his desk two days ago, if he recalled well, and that should have some sort of information about the meeting. As he scanned the lines Tumnus had written in his elegant lettering, Peter tried to pull himself out of the sea of sourness he was currently drowning in. In truth, he would’ve been annoyed with anyone that had come through the door but the fact that this girl represented terrible work that he had no interest in just made it worse. “Ah, yes, Rabadash,” he said, quirking the corner of his lip quizzically. His eyes scouted her face as she talked about him, and her reasons to be there. Everything she said matched the information Tumnus had jotted down, but he didn’t think she was the sort to lie. They were usually much smoother. Rabadash was a fearsome ruler, and a stupid one at that. The laughter that Zenobia had swallowed was surely to be shared by the rest of his people. 

“I was aware of the fact he is a donkey—or was, I believe. My siblings were there and it was Aslan who punished him. But, I’m... quite sorry,” he said, looking into her eyes. He was thinking of the punishment Rabadash might inflict on her and the rest of her party. “I cannot do anything to help. Neither can anyone else in Narnia, or the rest of the world. It was on Rabadash’s shoulders to avoid being turned and now it cannot be undone. Only Aslan has that power.” And, Peter thought, I would not help that ass even if I could.

[asenseofduty]

dungeons deep and caverns old | peter and edmund

The way the castle was built was something Peter didn’t quite understand. He knew how to cross through it, knew every path and secret crevice, had learned its insides and changed them since the moment it was proclaimed their home by Aslan’s paw. But he could never get himself to picture it the way he knew Susan could, for example, like a vivid sketch inside her mind that she could jot down in beautiful watercolours. Peter knew which turns led to which chambers but he didn’t understand the ways the air flew in and out, the way it stayed up in the air and didn’t crumble into the beach—or at least, he didn’t know enough for his satisfaction. When they had overseen the projects for the new tunnels and every time they wanted to change or modify the existing chambers and towers, Peter had to check on the project and give his green light so they could continue but he was not in charge of any of them nor did he have the capacity to understand the principles that went into a project of the magnitude.

He knew certain things, though, out of touch and experience. He knew the way the gales hit the windows up on the highest towers, slamming into the glass like desperate bodies. He knew the way the chimneys in the first floor below ground were the warmest, although he didn’t know if it was because of the dark or because it was the servant’s first floor. He knew, most of all, that the openings at the sides of the cliff made the dungeons and the lower rooms of the castle, have the sort of drafts that chilled one to the bones during the ugly days and nights. Cair Paravel had been carved into stone and slammed by water that was not warm and every cavernous room below ground was proof of this. Before, he and Isla had made sure that the guards, especially the giants at the vault, who were tall and had a lot of blood that was hard to get flowing and easy to cut, had enough fireplaces and blankets to fight their way through the biting cold that was merciless at night.

Except, of course, now there was no Isla. Peter had left Tommen up in their tower, with Lilia tucking him in and playing her part, and only his booted steps had echoed as he went down the thousand steps to reach the vault. He carried fire and blankets, as it had become custom, a cracking torch to light his way through the darkness of the lower levels. The darkened halls smelled of soil and never changed shape even during daylight. There was perpetual fire in some places, the ones he tried his best to reach first. He had the staff send out warm meals every night to the guards that had to spend their nights guarding entries that they had never seen, that had not needed to be guarded before. The twisted paths that led nowhere but that needed someone there, just in case. The dungeons smelled of sea salt, close as they were to the walls that hit the sea, and were always wet. His boots picked up the dust and turned it to mud as he went towards the last part of his journey: the vault room.

Peter always thought it smelled rusty. Like the oxide compounds they had learned about in school, the first chemistry class that the war had ripped off his hands. In one of his recent nightmares, he looked down to see his hands turning steel, red at the edges, and then the steel turned stone and then there came the soft feeling of guilty satisfaction and he woke up to look at Tommen, who slept in the same bed as him since the night Isla had been turned into a statue. He greeted the giants and the guards at the vault, he gave them their blankets and let them be, feigning ignorance at their pointed questions of “another night in here, king Peter?” as if they didn’t all know. The boys inside the vault, that looked to be guarding the mountains of gold but were, instead, guarding the statue in the middle of the cavern were the least talkative of all. They nodded their thanks and turned around and, like every night he had come down, they went away and left him alone with what remained of his wife.

There was a draft in the place where Isla’s statue stood. The wind flew in and hit his back mercilessly. Dried off his tears instantly. He thought it was too cruel that he could not move her to a warmer place. She must’ve been cold. She didn’t like the cold. She liked to tuck her frozen feet between his thighs to warm them up, and sneak her arms around his waist, and nuzzle her nose against his neck. He had ran out of blankets and the wind kept flowing in. It was too cruel.

[tarkheenazenobia-blog]

Ophelia|| Peter and Zenobia

“Zenobia, where are you going?” asked Zarah, in the afternoon, as Zenobia was getting ready to meet with the Narnian High King. “To meet with the High King I told you.” said Zenobia, in Calormene. Her younger sister rolled her eyes, and Zenobia, continued getting ready, in her Calormene clothes. “What are you going to do?” asked Zenobia. “Ma bareef” shrugged Zarah with a laugh. Zenobia, groaned and put on her headpiece, and looked at Zarah. “While I am in the meeting, I am begging you, do not cause trouble.” said Zenobia with a stern tone. “I won’t!” said Zarah, in full honesty. Zenobia then smiled, and left their chambers. 

Zenobia walked out, and stopped for a second. She was terrified on going to see the High King Peter, for she was sent for a way to fix the Tisroc. But part of her didn’t want to, for she felt like she was just doing this to live up for her father’s legacy. Oh when her father, had to meet with foreign officials, was he ever nervous? Or was he not because he was a man? She was a woman in a male dominated profession and society. But in Narnia, where things different? Where they equal? Who knows. 

She turned to a servant and asked where High King Peter’s study was, and a servant, directed her to his study, and the door was closed. She thanked the servant, who was on their way. She exhaled deeply, for she heard things, about how the King was supposedly barbaric. 

But when she knocked the door and opened it, she did not see a barbarian. She closed the door behind her and saw a man- a rather…handsome man. For she had never seen such golden hair and eyes of the sky. She was left almost speechless. She looked at the High King for a few moments, taking in for who was in front of her, and was just- in awe. She then realized she might’ve stared to long, and curtsied, keeping her head down. “Your excellency,” began the Tarkheena. 

It was like she nearly forgot who she was. “My name is Tarkheena Zenobia Mustafa, and I have been sent all the way from Calormen by the Tisroc to meet with you, High King Beter.” She hoped, her Calormene accent wasn’t that noticeable, for she felt embarrassed on how she pronounced his name. And then she slowly looked back up at him. 

[asenseofduty]

Peter had been staring at the paper in his hands for far longer than he should have. He knew this and still he stared, gaping at the folded corners and the way the thin paper caught under his fingernails. They weren’t dirty anymore because Susan had made him wash himself, hands included, once he returned from the search party. He didn’t know what they were searching for—who it was, what it was, just thieves and wands and witches—but he still went. The dust on his boots, unnoticeable because it was hidden by the desk, was fresh and it belonged to the vault. He had avoided the path with the caked soil, muddy and hard like concrete, because the blood had dried and nobody had been sent to clean.

He had sat there a few hours, but he hadn’t cried because he thought it might make Isla sad and because he knew the guards outside the doors and around the piles of gold and gifts were listening. Instead he had stared at her, much as he stared at the piece of paper in his hands now, and the mile she had, the petulant curl at the end and the uncharacteristic wideness of her eyes. He had stormed out of the vault and ran to his study and ask not to be disturbed. But the storm inside him had subdued after he had kicked around his furniture and pushed his papers off the desk, and even after that, he had had to pick it all up, put everything in its place.

So now he was staring at that piece of paper, that had nothing written but dinner at 7, ask isla and that was the last thing he had picked off the floor, after returning everything to the way it had been before his outburst. The knocking at the door caught him off guard but the young lady barging in immediately after was even more surprising. The sound of his chair scraping the wooden floor was strident in the silence and he managed to sneak a glance at his guards’s shocked faces outside while she closed the door. The piece of paper, however, had flown off in the middle of his antics and ended up near the bottom of her dress. He regarded that with an ounce of annoyance that was undeserved but inevitable as she, obviously ashamed, made the proper introduction. 

Standing as he already was, he bowed with his head and sighed. Next thing, he made his way to the door and opened it, saying, “it’s fine, Nathaniel. Just open if you hear something strange, I will leave it unlocked.” His guard nodded with a surlier expression than necessary and Peter closed the door with a smile, making sure to pick up the paper as discreetly as possible. Returning to sit at his desk, he started, “since you arrived at such a terrible time for all of us, and you come from Rabadash’s court, I presume, I don’t expect you to know how to behave—not that you’re doing anything wrong, mind you, don’t feel bad—but please don’t barge in and close the door like that. I just warn you because my siblings might not be as understanding and I would not like for you to get yelled at.”

“I... had forgotten we had a meeting today, so I don’t have anything ready. What is it you came for?”

[nylonsandlipstick]

Headcanon: Peter loves to knit. He learned from his grandmother when he and his siblings and parents visited her home for a few weeks during the winter. Not having much to do, Peter would sit inside all day listening to his grandmother tell stories while she would knit. After a few days of that, Peter asked his grandmother to teach him to knit a scarf, which later led to knitting a hat, then led to learning to knit just about anything imaginable. He was a fast learner and was able to knit nice matching sweaters for himself and his family. Later in Narnia, he would take a few hours out of his week to knit scarves and sweaters and hats for his soldiers and servants for Christmas. The Narnians looked forward to every Christmas when they would receive a lovely handmade gift by the High King himself.

[thegoldenagegraphics]

Victory at the expense of the innocent is no victory at all.

[asenseofduty]

and all i loved, i loved alone | edmund and peter

[pevensie-edmund]

Edmund eyed Peter, closely following his brother into the dimly lit passage way and down the stone steps. He tried to sculpt the images and possibilities that Peter was, but knew that there was so much that Edmund did not know and he could never correctly define the emotions Peter was feeling. How long had it been since the two spoke, saw each other, interacted? Edmund wasn’t sure, but knew that Peter was mostly wondering through their last meeting. The worst possible outcome rested heavily on everyone’s mind, and Edmund didn’t have the heart to ensure that Peter knew the stakes that they were up against. 

After all, hope was scared, and Edmund refused to ruin it, especially when the dark reality harshly fought against it. Weighing the circumstance, he concluded the odds of the outcomes. It looked as though it was more likely to be the worst outcome, but Edmund prayed that he calculated incorrectly. 

However, as the group stepped on to the ground floor, he realized he prayed a little too late. Rubble laid across the floor, and from what Edmund could tell in the dim light, the two giants appeared gravely upset. And from his experience, they were not creatures to upset. It was one of the reasons that they had this job. 

Peter looked back at him, and for a split moment, Edmund could see the emotions resting in his brother’s eyes. The anxiety and fear were strong, and therefore Edmund kept his face strong and sure. One of the two needed to keep a hopeful presence, and even though Peter was doing a great facade, Edmund knew that only reached so far. Right now, his sole position was to be there for his brother, no matter what they were about to hear or see. 

The giants looked back and forth to each other, slightly dazed and confused. However, the one of the left finally spoke up. “We saw Peridan come down, and not long after we saw Princess Isla and her guard enter.”

The second giant continued, his gruff voice showing his irritation. “It was official business, or so we believed. Then, next thing we knew, more guards came down here and some right awful battle happened.”

A brief silence crept over the ground floor, as the first giant spoke up again. “Some thieves broke in and someone escaped, but we hadn’t seen who. Princess Isla hasn’t been seen since she entered, your majesty.”

[asenseofduty]

Peter’s throat nearly closed up right there. He wasn’t sure he would’ve questioned it much if it had really happened. His mouth felt dryer than it had ever felt before, even with the campaigns against Calormen, early in the reign, that they soon found out could not be sustained. Peter and Edmund, disguised and escaping, had spent days wandering the desert to find the passage into Archenland. The water had run out. Peter still could recall their peeling lips and reddened skin that hurt even to look at. And this was a thousand times worse. This was hope rapidly flooding out of his body.

Peridan was dead. Peter had seen his severed head tumble out of a box, staining dear Tumnus’s fingers red. Peridan was alive. The giants, who he trusted as much as he trusted all his staff, had vouched for his presence at the Vault. Peter didn’t know what was real anymore. But Isla had come down, and she was here, and if there was a guard with her, she may still be alive. Any guards would have given their life for her. There may still be hope.

“Edmund, I...” Peter started, searching in his brother’s eyes for anything that could help him. He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know what to do. He took a step forward to his brother, pleading for something he wasn’t sure. But if there was anyone he trusted in this world, it was his siblings. It was Edmund. And even if Peter went down, he knew they would remain. And as long ad they remained, everything would be fine.

“Please,” he said, throwing a last look at the men and giants gathered there, before running to the passageway that would lead to the vault. He soon heard the rustling of armour, the sound of steps, and if they were readying to follow him, he didn’t care. There was nothing he wouldn’t take on in that moment, alone or accompanied. Edmund would stay behind and ask more questions

His own steps echoed as he entered the darkened passageway, the lack of any single heaving voice another boulder on his back. There had been a battle and it seemed only the giants had lived to see the end of it. Was it wrong that he wished for a thief’s body? It was not proper for a king to wish others suffering but Peter was hardly a king then. He was barely more than a man. And he thought, was it not wrong what he wished but how fervently he wanted it to be true? That this pain was not reserved just for those at his side?

The hallway that lead to the vault rooms was broader than one may think and extremely longer than he wanted it to be. Peter ran along the path he so few times had taken, heart beating wildly inside him, ran until he almost slipped. He blinked out the dark and soon he caught sight of a body, that of a jaguar. He knelt down to inspect the corpse, a small puddle of blood was what almost made him slip. He reached out to touch the fur, matter with blood, staining his fingers.

“There’s another Cat here, sire,” called out the young guard that had followed him first. Peter cursed. He sprung on his feet in a second, smearing the blood of the jaguar in his tunic. It would stain. He didn’t care. He heard more people approaching. “It’s well dead. I say, they got it the wrong way with something like paws. It was definitely very sharp. Looks straight up like a ripped curtain—”

“Listen, I—I understand,” he cut out. He stepped towards the young guard, laying a hand on his shoulder. The rapid stream of apologies he had begun cut short. “But I need to find my wife,” he said, the desperation in his voice evident. “And I need you with me—Daniel, is it?—if there’s something else inside the vault room, yes?” 

The guard nodded, eyes wide. Three other guards crept behind them, jogging to where Peter and the young guard were. “You two stay with the bodies until my brother or a constable come and tell you what to do with them. You, come with us,” he ordered swiftly. The eldest guard nodded and, dragging Daniel with him, followed Peter along the rest of the hallway, uncertain of what they were to find at the end of it.

[asenseofduty]

Lifting her arms, she continued. "Come here."

He wanted to say something. It seemed heroes in novels always had a thing to say, and even though Peter had given up the notion of being a hero a long time ago, he felt as if he should, if only once, to fill as if he had done something well. If only to have something to fill him. 

Instead, he stumbled into his sister’s arms, at once feeling so very worn and so much younger than he was. He hadn’t been a child since the blitz, but, oh, how much these newly made scars felt like the crumbling buildings the bombs had made of London.

[asenseofduty]

"If you would be grieving, at least make sure that there is reason to do so." She moved closer. Lips pursed and brows furrowed. "She wouldn't want you destroying yourself like this. She wouldn't want you to give up or even think of such thing."

“I am not—I am trying, Susan,” he said. “With every breath I take, I am trying. Narnia... she needs me.”

[asenseofduty]

Susan waddles in his room, grim faced but blazing eyes. "Peter." If there was anything she never wanted to see in this household, it was this slow breaking which could be amended immediately. "Remember. She's stone, not dead."

“And what difference does that make?” He snapped, tears welling in his eyes. He didn’t need a lecture. He didn’t need Susan being smart. He knew she only wanted to help but he didn’t—he needed his wife. “What difference does that make when I’ve got to tell Tommen he may never see his mum alive ever again? I can’t even say she is with Aslan because she’s not, she’s here, trapped and stone and I can’t help her, Su. I... I don’t know how to make it better for her.”

[williammoseleyfannarnia]

Charming 💘

[asenseofduty]

Lilia looks at him for a moment, unsure of what to say, before stepping forward and wrapping her arms around his shoulders, pulling him close. "I'm sorry" she whispered into his shoulder.

Peter sighed into Lilia’s hair and embraced her back. Lilia, who was like another Lucy to him, didn’t look at him with pity, but with a sorrow he felt a thousand times more. 

“Thank you,” he whispered at her. He didn’t want to cry, even if Lilia’s comforting presence moved him to tears, he had done it enough already. He pulled away and offered her a small smile, too sad to be uplifting in any way. “How are you holding up?” 

[asenseofduty]

*nods* I know. It's hard to process... and deal with. Painful, to be sure. *side hug* I won't try to give you a bunch of words that won't help, about how it'll be better. I know too keenly they're of no use... But I will say this: It's going to be hard for some time... and you'll likely never heal fully. But I beg of you, Peter, don't lose yourself. A part of you is in stone... but you have to trod on somehow. But take comfort in this - You don't have to bear this by yourself. You're not alone.

I know I must be strong for Tom and for the country but… Lion’s mane, Kar, I’m just so tired. Every corner of this castle reminds me of her. Every time I go to sleep, I expect to find her already wrapped in our sheets and—and she’s not. She’s alone in the vault, turned into stone. And I can do nothing about it.

[asenseofduty]

and all i loved, i loved alone | edmund and peter

[pevensie-edmund]

The golden eyes stared at him, yet focused on nothing. The glimmer, the pride, and the strength had vanished, instead they were empty: a symbol of the future, of the conclusion of every path. They captivated Edmund, consuming his thoughts and plaguing his mind with images- memories- of a man, who meant no harm: a man, who sought only to help protect Narnia from the shadows that’d forever lurk. They had moved too quickly, and took the most precious object anyone possessed: life. Peridan was a skeleton of the past. 

 Chaos ensued. The events that followed were hazy, while oddly vivid; it was a moment Edmund couldn’t digest, but knew it’d become a clearer picture come every night. His senses were absorbing every small, faultering face, while scanning the room to listen for a sign. There had to be a reason for all that had happened. They had to had done something wrong. Clues were always left behind, and yet, they never deciphered them. Petra had distracted him, others had distracted him. If he hadn’t focused on his personal gain, his personal feelings, then maybe they would’ve been ahead. Instead, the entire court stood in the wake of complete obliteration. And Isla was seemingly the next victim.

Isla. Edmund dared to look at Peter. He wished he hadn’t. A leader of a country of men, who’d live forever bleeding out guilt: the king always fell the hardest. The empty fear, which tainted every part of the caring soul, radiated off of him, and despite his composure for the court, Edmund knew. The hope drained from is veins, while he desperately clung onto it. It was useless, though, realistically thinking; Isla left alone to investigate the thing that they had missed: the greatest error of the kings and queens. 

He forced a stoic expression, immediately following his brother to the vault. He kept a pace behind Peter, knowing not to cross him in the battle of hope and reality, but remained faster than the rest. He needed to be there in case the unmentionable was found: Isla body lying lifeless in a puddle of her own blood. Edmund’s stomach churned, as he desperately pushed away the image. She couldn’t be dead; it didn’t make sense. Tommen deserved to have a mother: Tommen. Edmund had been present at his birth, and Isla loved the boy before she had officially met him in this world. There was a bond that could never be broken; Tommen needed her. Peter needed her. 

Edmund’s mind called out to Peter’s, begging for him to calm down, not to let his emotion hinder his job, but Edmund held his thoughts. Sometimes emotions were what drove a person. They ensured the job got done. This was a situation where emotions were inevitable. As the first doors opened, he prayed to Aslan that Peter would forgive himself for whatever they discovered within. 

 The silence, to Edmund, spoke the most. There was no breathing, no movement, and no scurrying from surprise. His heart clung to the hope that Isla was safe in her chambers; that she never came down to the vaults in the first place. But his mind argued. It told him to be prepared, to hold in his emotions, and above anything, be there to protect and help Peter. The shadows were gone, only the darkness remained. 

“We have plenty of men, Peter. No matter what we find. We’ll be able to take care of it,” replied Edmund, lowly and softly; the words felt foreign and strange. They held hope, strength, and courage, which matched his swift movement of taking out his sword. It was all in the same, but he felt the farthest away. 

He was scared, frightened out of his mind, not for himself- he could die peacefully at anytime- but for Tommen, for Isla, and for Peter. He was terrified for his brother that life would never be the same once they reached the innards of the vault. 

[asenseofduty]

Peter couldn’t draw his eyes away from the darkness of the vault and the wrongness emanating from it. There was a part of him still alert, the soldier he carried inside, the one that held the swords and called the orders, that studied the silence and the called the orders: it was the part holding it all together. The other sides of him were stunned dead, terribly afraid for what was to come. His whole world had been reduced to that threshold and the deafening pounding of his heart in the silence.

Peter eyed his brother, hoping to see something inside him that would keep his dying hope aflame. Edmund wouldn’t lie to him. “We will,” he whispered, tremulously, and led the men towards the vault. The moment his body started moving, the soldier in him overtake him, sharpening his sight and clearing his ears. This wasn’t war but, Peter felt it as he gripped his sword, it would be soon. And he needed to be prepared for anything that came with it. He instructed them not to make much noise—there could be an ambush down there, and it wouldn’t do for them to be dead before they could reach Isla.

How long had it been since he had seen her? It couldn’t have been more than an hour, two at most. She had brushed his hand. He didn’t remember what she had said to him, but he remembered her smile. If he had known! Oh, if he had known. He would’ve done so much more, he would’ve ditched all of those terrible ambassadors and courtiers, and he would’ve danced all night,twirled her around the room and kissed her longer. Isla, he thought helplessly, please. Tommen needs you. I need you.

There were still some candles shining on the wall, though many had been blown off and the light the remaining shed was dimmer than he would’ve liked. He could see the steps as he was going down, could hear the rustling of everybody’s armors as they followed him. Edmund was right behind him, a constant presence. 

He was the first one to reach the ground floor, the first one to see clearly the mess of rubble and the two giants that were guarding the gates to the hallway that would lead to the actual vault. Peter noticed with a sharp, cold pang of fear that they were injured. Apparently they had noticed him, too, and Edmund no doubt. “Who goes there?” Bellowed one of them, the one less injured. “Step forward! If you thieves have come down here again, I will crush you with my bare hands.”

Peter sent a glance to his brother before he stepped forward, the rest of their guards coming down to join them. “It’s High King Peter,” he announced, making sure he placed himself where there was more light, for he knew giants had bad sight and after an attack, they could certainly mistake him. “Pray tell, what has happened here? Where is Princess Isla?” 

[asenseofduty]

Peter? *approaches him worriedly, placing a hand on his shoulder* How are you holding up?

I... I don’t really know, Kar. I mean, Isla is just—goodness, how can I be?

[therestofyourstory]

“The Worm King’s Lullaby” by Richard Siken

1. 

The holes in this story are not lamps, they are not wheels. I walked and walked, grew a beard so I could drag it in the dirt, into a forest that wasn’t there. I want to give you more but not everything. You don’t need everything.

2.

This is what they found on the dead man’s desk when the landlord let them in: twenty-eight pages, esoteric and unfollowable, written with perfect penmanship and a total disregard for any reader, as if the intended audience was a population not quite human. Angelic script, says the detective, lifting the pages, feeling their heft, and he wonders what he means because it isn’t. His partner nods but ignores him.

A park bench, white roses, dark coats and white roses, snow and repetitions of snow— it’s hard to read but pretty much how they found him dead on a bench in a black coat, the snow falling down.

Twigs and blackbirds, snow and red horses, the ghosts floating up, the snow falling down— the detective is weeping— and the black coat.

3.

Someone has to leave first. This is a very old story. There is no other version of this story.

4.

It’s getting late, Little Moon. Finish the song. It’s not that late. You are my moon, Little Moon, and it’s late enough. So climb down out of the tree. Is it safe? Safe enough. Are you dead as well?

The night is cold, it is silver, it is a coin.

Not everyone is dead, Little Moon. But the big moon needs the tree. There is a ghost at the end of the song. Yes, there is. And you see his hand and then you see the moon. Am I the ghost at the end of the song? We are very close now, Little Moon. Thank you for shining on me.

5.

He was pointing at the moon but I was looking at his hand. He was dead anyway, a ghost. I’m surprised I saw his hand at all. All this was prepared for me. All this was set in motion long ago. I live in someone else’s future. I stayed as long as I could, he said. Now look at the moon. 

[asenseofduty]

and all i loved, i loved alone | edmund and peter

Frankly, Peter was afraid.

This was not a novel occurrence, Peter wasn’t made of the sturdier stuff others seemed to be. He cried at night, when it all got too much, too quickly. He liked the smell of the roses in his wife’s balcony. His heart was flooded with fondness every time he looked upon any of his siblings or his son. He was not a cold man with a shriveled heart, for all the moments that had begged to turn him into one. 

So being afraid was something he was bothered about, because fear always hindered performance in some way, but was ultimately used to hiding. He was King. When things happened, he couldn’t lose it, no matter how worried he was. Peter had learnt how to manage his different types of fears as years went by. The small ones, constant worries about minimal things; the nightly ones, when lives he had taken haunted him back; the abstract ones, when he sat and thought and the uncertainty made his throat close up; even the realer, tangible fears that came with being important, a fear not for yourself but for the ones you love and the threats that loom over them.

“Where is the Princess Consort?” He had bellowed, back then, when Peridan’s head had rolled out of the wooden box in Tumnus’s hands. (That, he couldn’t even think about. His mind kept turning to the golden eyes and the red staining the marble floor and he didn’t dare look at it much.)

A guard had taken her to the Vault, Akira had answered with a heaving voice, like her mind had caught onto something faster than Peter’s. The Vault was empty, unprotected. The keeper’s head was at the feet of his guests. His wife was down there, and at whose mercy? Akira had watched as he gathered guards and his brother—his sisters, bless them, would take care of the upper level—and marched down the halls to the Vault. He had ordered her to make sure Tommen was alright.

Fear was such a tricky thing.

Every step he had given towards the Vault had been sure and fast and desperate. Every step made his heart beat louder, throw itself against his ribcage with more strength. It had risen up so quickly, so alarmingly, when his mind had caught up to the implications of Isla’s absence, the danger taking tangible form, coiling like a snake in his stomach. It had sprung like lightning, equally as sharp and electric inside him. The fear of the worst: blooming, cutting right from the inside. Every step he gave was a stolen breath, a stab of the lightning bolt he held inside. It was numbing in its overwhelmingness: a fear so absolute it enveloped everything, pounding in his ears, filling his lungs. Gone was any sway in his step, any cloud in his head that didn’t look like worry. Behind him, as he practically ran down the stairs, he could hear the many steps that followed him, his brother’s right behind him: as always, the closest.

Peter could hardly breathe. But Edmund was there, and as long as Ed was there, he’d have something to lean on. The vault’s first doors were open, the silence from inside plunging a dagger to his heart. Silence wasn’t good. He pulled Rhindon out its sheath, the sword gliding silver in the torchlight, a sharp, acute sound being mirrored by the other swords being unsheathed, his men following unspoken command. “We don’t know what might be in there,” Peter said, the tremble at the end of it only for Edmund to hear. Isla is, he wished to think. Isla is, alive and well.

[xx-lionhearted-xx]

//This is my absolute favorite deleted scene from PC and I’m honestly so aggravated they cut this out. The look on Peter’s face when Caspian asks him about his future gives me the feels every time, the way he says he was thinking about a career in medicine as he turns to look at his armor. Part of me feels like that’s part of the reason why he’s so accepting at the end of the film when he’s told he can’t come back to Narnia. His life was on the line and he had a duty to his country and his people, yet he never weighed the affect his life in Narnia would have on his life in our world. He was so desperate to get back to Narnia in the beginning of the movie, even though the Narnia he came back to wasn’t the Narnia he remembered, and he grows up so much throughout PC and probably realizes that even though he isn’t a king here, what he does in our world is just as important as what he does and has done in Narnia. Having always been a source of guidance both as a father figure to his siblings and a leader to the Narnian people, he probably wanted to pursue a career in medicine, probably as a doctor, so he could help people and be like a beacon of hope and leadership to the ill. The entirety of this scene is just so phenomenal, though, and you really get a glimpse of the Peter from London, the schoolboy who got into fights in the train station, and a life he’s just starting to build separate from Narnia that involves him making his own decisions and applying the skills and faith he learned in Narnia to the real world.