I just love how every once in a while when the Narnia movie cast reunites it's only ever Anna Popplewell, Georgie Henley, and William Moseley because Skandar Keynes is just a normal man now. Guy is a political advisor, he's got a career and I imagine they send him emails every once in a while like hey Edmund would you like to come do a little nostalgia thing and look at props with the gang for this YouTube channel or this magazine and he's like No I am Busy Fuck Off
You mean to tell me that the pevensie siblings had ruled Narnia for DECADES before they had to come back to their normal lives, taking in the fact that time never passed at all in their world, only for them to do algebra and latin again in school all over again?? I wish the psychological aspect of this was expanded more because wtf? They probably hadn't picked up an algebra/latin textbook in decades so they come back and forget basically anything they've learnt in school?? Would it have slowed down their learning progress? Is that why peter was sent to professor kirke's house specifically for tutoring?? because kirke could understand the impact of moving completely different worlds and adjusting to it knowing that he'd be too old to return, while simultaneously continuing his life like nothing happened?? Or am I just reading into it too much because this still kinda blows my mind lol. Their perception of time would've been really fucked up.
pairing: peter pevensie x f! telmarine princess!reader
synopsis: princess!reader (Ella), heir of the Telmarines, alongside brother!caspian, are left to protect their people after the death of their father—with their Uncle now ruling as King of the Telmarines in Narnia. their world flips upside down when their Uncle learns his wife has given birth to a son, and reader comes to discover more of her mother's past… a magic she was taught to fear. (plot follows the second narnia movie!)
summary: traveling between worlds is no easy feat. unless, of course, peter pevensie is there to hold your hand.
content warning: mild descriptions of violence
word count: 4.2k (estimated 17 min reading time)
a/n: following a winter break-induced narnia fixation, i wrote this blurb about a year ago. i've been holding onto it, waiting to post until i had another piece to post alongside it since i fear there isn't a strong demand for narnia fics LOL. but i'm in the middle of a big piece right now (for thg...), and pretty stuck in one spot, so i went and started reading my drafts. this one is sweet and simple and innocent. i really enjoyed hunkering down to write it and listening to my lion witch wardrobe soundtrack cd (you have to immerse yourself when doing these things, otherwise what's the point!) last winter. thank you to everyone who still reads my work! i usually don't come on here until i'm about to post something, which is infrequent. but i'd like to change that. all love to each of you
masterlist archive of our own
Summary: Traveling between worlds is no easy feat. Unless, of course, Peter Pevensie is there to hold your hand.
The underground was a mess. Students were hurrying over one another to make it home in time for high tea, eager to escape the station and fall into the embrace of the warm homes that long-awaited them.
Peter Pevensie strode through the current effortlessly, his tall stature and calm demeanor dividing the sea of people with ease. Beside him, a girl in a distinguished Saint Finbar’s uniform walked closely. It was frequent a passerby’s luggage would knock against her knees as they squished between her and Peter to find their train. However, their progress was unhurried, and the two of them were lost in a conversation that drowned out the surrounding pandemonium. Having missed him since the day before, she had much to say about what transpired in their hours apart, particularly about a classmate who had taken to stealing her ideas for a series of paintings.
Peter shook his head. “People like her are probably too insecure about their own ideas that they feel they have to steal from others to prove they’re better than them. Though it makes sense she has her eyes on you. You’re the best artist I know,” he said matter-of-factly. It could hardly be read as a compliment and just a mere observation as plain as truth to him.
“Flattery will get you everywhere, Peter Pevensie,” she said with a roll of her eyes.
He grinned, raising his voice to be heard over raucous students, “I mean it! You couldn’t pay anyone else at that school to have a thought half as original or interesting as yours.”
She looked away, warmth in her cheeks forcing her to avert her gaze.
“I guess so,” she said. “Thanks, Peter.”
It ended up sounding mechanical and not at all sincere but her mind had drifted somewhere else by the time she parted her mouth.
There was something unusual about Peter. He wasn’t at all like any other boy she’d met before, and she’d always known this but never had the words to explain what the difference was exactly. This frustrated her to no end, just as it did right then. It could be something as simple as a look in his eye that held an uncanny sense of knowing, or a turn of phrase that she should hear from a man twice if not three times his age. The only other people she’d met to inhabit a similar strangeness happened to be the three other Pevensie siblings she’d become acquainted with. As much as she’d grown to enjoy their company, if there were ever an automobile made with five wheels, she’d certainly be the fifth one.
As her mind wandered, Peter started talking about football: a topic he’d recently become passionate about after joining the school’s team at the beginning of the term, when suddenly, a forceful shove interrupted him.
“Watch where you’re going!” Someone spat and continued on.
Peter turned and glanced down his nose at the boy, whom he recognized as a younger student from Hendon House. He turned back and resumed talking, apparently deciding it wasn’t worth the trouble.
He was then quickly shoved again, this time from behind with glaring intentionality. It was the same boy.
“You think you can just push people around, tosser?” He said. He’d completely halted in his tracks and had no intention of disarming himself.
Peter, taken aback by the unfounded abrasiveness, put his hands up in a calming manner as one would do with a riled dog. She held her tongue, despite choice words surfacing in her mind.
“There’s no need for that. We’re not looking for trouble, kid,” Peter said, looking down on the boy who barely made it past his shoulders.
“Kid?” he echoed indignantly. “Who’re you calling ‘kid’? Are you trying to have a go at me?” He inched closer, his hot face nearly in Peter’s chest.
“That’s alright, mate,” Peter said dismissively, ultimately deciding to turn away. He placed a guiding hand on the girl’s back to draw the two of them away from the boy, but when she looked back she noticed he was dropping his bag and rolling up his sleeves. It became apparent then that the situation was about to escalate past words. Of course, they should be the unlucky ones to cross paths with a rampaging child.
She ignored Peter’s attempt to leave and spun around to face the boy.
“Can’t you just bugger off already?” She snapped, uninterested in imitating Peter’s poise.
Peter’s head whipped at the sound of her voice, unable to hide the smirk on his face. The boy, already tinged red to his ears, now bore a striking resemblance to a summer beet. He stammered and shifted in such a way that she couldn’t be sure he had the decency not to strike a girl.
“Shut your mouth, cow. This doesn’t concern you!” He shouted.
The thing that happened next occurred so quickly, that it took a few seconds for her to register it. Peter’s smile fell in an instant and a blurring motion soared past her eyes that she realized to be his fist. It collided with the boy’s jaw and sent him flailing to the ground with a wince-worthy thud.
“Peter!” she exclaimed, her hand flying to her mouth as he moved to stand over the kid, his fists clenched at his side.
Passersby scurried like ants at the sight of a dispute, but some of them in Hendon House uniforms couldn’t help but watch with their mouths agape. Peter stood unmoving, waiting for the kid to stand back up.
“I’m sure you wouldn’t want to say that again, would you?” He asked, and she found herself grateful not to be able to see his face anymore as he said it, for the ruthlessness in his tone frightened her a little.
The boy was raising himself onto his elbows, but before he could respond, more boys wearing Hendon House uniforms stepped forward from the crowd with the same hostility in their eyes as the one sprawled on the floor. They appeared older, maybe a year above Peter even.
One after the other, they lunged for Peter, throwing their fists and jabbing pointy elbows. They didn’t care to know the reason why they were fighting but did so enthusiastically regardless. The girl in the Saint Finbar’s uniform had moved out of the way and after frantically considering what she should do to remedy the situation -- whether it be to intervene or seek help, she ultimately decided to leave them to it. There were so many fists flying through the air and bodies being shoved into walls and, frankly, Peter held his own despite being outnumbered three to one. Standing there with folded arms, she began to wonder…where on Earth had he learned to fight like this? He was dodging their stiff swings and striking them in spots so tender that they’d double over upon being hit. It was the practice of someone who’d been fighting all their life.
Within the crowd, she found the familiar faces of the other Pevensie siblings, Susan, Edmund, and little Lucy, watching with amusion. They were not at all impressed by the sight, but clearly found it the least bit entertaining.
Two of the boys were splayed out on the floor. One of them was mustering the fortitude to stand, and the third boy had Peter locked in the crook of his arm. Peter thrust his elbow into his ribs, causing the boy to loosen his grip. This allowed him to slip out of the embrace and send a bloodied fist straight into his chest, knocking the kid to the floor. Just as he was knocked down, the others managed to stand back up and stumble over to continue fighting once again.
Thankfully, before the mindless beating could continue any further, bobbies broke through the dwindling crowd and blew their whistles, forcing the boys apart. They shooed them off and chastised the crowd for their sadism, not leaving the boys with anything more than a slap on the wrist each. The mongrel children hobbled away, clutching their sore jaws and ribs and cursing under their breath.
Peter strode back over to the girl, and even though a bead of sweat clung to the furrow of his brow and the skin of his knuckles was raw; he appeared puzzlingly radiant. It was almost as if he enjoyed the fighting to some extent. Despite this, he seemed worried as he looked her up and down like he could be incited to fight once more if she had a single hair out of place.
“Are you alright?” He asked.
“Are you?” She retorted incredulously.
“Yes, but it went on longer than I expected. I was worried we might miss the train,” he confessed after appearing content with her answer, and casually tugged his bag back on his shoulder. It took everything in her not to scoff at how easily he moved on from what had just taken place.
Edmund strolled over from the steps and looked between the two of them bemusedly.
“What was that all about?” He asked.
“It wasn’t anything special,” Peter assured him. “The bloke ran into me.”
Edmund shook his head as if he were the older Pevensie, then walked away whilst making an off-handed remark insinuating that Peter always felt the need to show off around certain people.
Susan and Lucy emerged before Peter could respond, and similarly, Susan also chastised him for his boyishness.
“I’m sure they deserved it. Peter never throws the first punch, after all,” said Lucy, having not been there to see the beginning of the fight.
The three younger siblings strolled ahead to where they could wait for the train, leaving her and Peter to walk behind them.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” She asked once again, looking down at his hands.
She had half a mind to take them and look closer, to rub her thumb over the reddened joints and tell him she knew how to fix it. There was a salve her mom used to make for these sorts of things. But she didn’t. That wasn’t something they did. Even though the punch had been thrown for her, she was certain he would’ve done it for anyone because that was the sort of person he was. On top of that, she knew Peter Pevensie didn’t harbor similar feelings for her as she did for him, so it was indisputable that an action so tender as that would be absurdly inappropriate.
The foundation for this belief was baseless, of course. Anyone with the least bit of sense could see Peter was really quite enamored with her.
“You don’t need to worry about me, I’m made of tougher stuff than that,” he said, hiding a smile. “But I’m sorry you had to be spoken to the way you were.”
“That’s alright, I’m made of tougher stuff than that,” she replied, mimicking his tone with a playful poke.
“Oh, are you?” Peter responded, a teasing glint in his eyes.
Once the two of them reached the others, the separate conversations merged into one. Everyone had seemingly forgotten about the altercation that just took place, or otherwise didn’t find it interesting enough to talk about and instead opted for more lighthearted discussion.
“It’s been too long since I’ve eaten anything that doesn’t come from a can or a box,” Edmund complained. “Hendon is too lazy to even cook a sausage. We’re lucky if we get something as middling as seared Spam.”
“Saint Finbar’s is much the same. It can be so miserable,” Lucy whined.
The girl at Peter's side rose at the remark. “Now that you mention it, my mother is supposed to be making pot roast tonight. She usually does it about once a month if all is well. I’m sure she’d be happy to have you all over."
“Oh, we really shouldn’t. Four mouths is quite a lot to feed,” Susan politely interjected.
“Does she make it with carrots and potatoes and brown sugar?” Lucy asked, most curiously.
“Yes, every time.”
“Please stop. I think my stomach might eat itself if you continue,” Edmund groaned.
Amid their spirited laughter, Susan flinched in her seat and swatted at Lucy.
“Knock it off!” She scolded her younger sister.
Lucy looked confused. “I didn’t do anything!”
Then, Edmund jerked back like he’d been pinched in the neck.
“Quit it, Peter,” he mumbled.
Peter opened his mouth to protest but closed it just as fast upon feeling the same sensation.
“Wait, this feels like—” Susan started.
“It can’t be,” Peter said.
She reached down to rub a tingly static feeling out of her leg. It felt like both her feet had fallen asleep, but even as she uncrossed her limbs, the sensation traveled up her bones, through her calves, to her knees, and most peculiarly up her thighs. She’d never known what it felt like to have her thighs fall asleep.
“What is it?” The girl asked, feeling left out of some practical joke, which was a common occurrence among the siblings as much as they tried to include her. Peter looked at her with widened eyes, like he wasn’t sure what to do. He then quickly reached for her hand but before she could react, she blinked and he was gone. In fact, everything was gone. The station, the approaching train, the other Pevensies. The world had simply escaped her.
She couldn’t move her legs at all, nor her arms or her head. It was as if she was completely without a body, and just a pair of eyes observing a blurring world that shifted colors when she blinked. She screwed her eyes shut but the colors penetrated through the thin skin of her eyelids. And even though she couldn’t see her body, the ticklish feeling of static encompassed every part of her, filling her with eruptive, exhaustive energy. She felt like she could laugh just as much as she could cry. It was frightening and it was beautiful; it felt like everything at once and then nothing at all.
The transition between worlds took less than a second and the instant she felt the ground once again, the fugue washed over her and disappeared into the earth. And though the sensation lingered, the memory of it was muddled like a boring dream.
A little ways from where she lay were the Pevensie children. They arrived seconds before and hadn’t yet taken notice of her. Instead, they were running about, their bare feet padding into wet sand, stopping to cup water and sling it at one another. None of them were too confused about where they were since it was a return they each long-awaited in their own ways.
“How I’ve missed the water here!” Susan exclaimed.
The usually composed girl was a sight to behold, with the hem of her skirt dampened by the sea foam and the breeze blowing loose her plaited hair. Lucy couldn’t keep herself from grinning, and Edmund giggled with the rest of them, noticing the way the air felt in his lungs when there wasn’t smog to dirty it. Peter had discarded his blazer in the sand and stood on the shore, where the water tickled at his feet. He looked out over the horizon of the quiet sea and saw the rising southern sun turning the sky around it a shade of orange he’d only ever seen here, and never back home. It was the same sun he once watched rise for fifteen years during his reign as High King.
He’d forgotten many things about his time spent in Narnia, as was customary when romping between worlds. But the sight of that sun was something he wouldn’t forget for the rest of his life. The last time he’d seen it, he’d been a man, and there he stood, a boy once again.
It was then that he remembered the girl left behind, the one he reached for. And even though he couldn’t remember her name or the details of her face, which was something he knew better than his own only an hour ago, for a reason beyond him, he wished she was there beside him right then. The sun suddenly appeared paler without her there.
The sounds of merriness, of the younger siblings splashing and crying out, had pleasantly faded into a sweet song accompanying his ruminations. But when his cheek felt the spray of the sea and he whipped around to see Lucy running away squealing, whatever wistfulness remained in him was picked up and carried away by the breeze. They were finally back, and that should be enough.
“I’ll get you, Lucy!” He shouted and took off after her.
He chased her down the seabank with a grin on his face and golden hair in his eyes, until her little feet carried her away from the water and towards the great cliffs that loomed over the shore. She was surprisingly fast and sand flew from under Peter’s feet as he fought to catch up, but just as he was about to reach the young girl and swing her over his shoulder, she lost her footing and tumbled into the sand. Lucy, a giggling mess, held up her hands in surrender and scrunched her eyes tightly. But when she opened them again, Peter was no longer looking at her. Rather, his gaze was fixated on something behind her and by the look in his eyes, she couldn’t tell if she should be afraid. He stood still, blinking rapidly as if to clear his vision. Lucy, ever so brave, turned to see what it was.
“Is that—” she started to say.
He didn’t wait for her to finish. Though breathless only a second ago, he tore through the sand with newfound vigor.
There she was, shrouded in violet shadow made by prodigious rock, enveloped by the soft beach and dampened sea breeze like a child asleep in her bed. Her hair and the lapels of her burgundy coat rose and sank with the wind. And as he ran, her name came back and he called out to her.
At once, she began to stir, raising her head to the sound. The boy fell to his knees beside her, unsure of what to do, or what to say, or how to feel. All he knew was his heart was thudding behind his ribs, and it wasn’t because he tired himself from running.
She stiffly raised herself onto one elbow, squinting up at him.
“Peter?” She said softly, but as her eyes took in the surroundings, the innocence of confusion rapidly morphed into fear.
She looked around wildly, and her voice wavered “Where am I?”
“You’re here,” Peter said, although much more for himself and less so to answer the question.
“I must’ve hit my head,” she mumbled, looking away from him. “Or worse…”
She pulled away from him and looked out at the impossibly blue sea and its sweeping horizon. The disorder of the underground felt so distant now, even though she’d just been there minutes ago. Or perhaps it was hours ago. She saw the silhouettes of the Pevensies watching her, not unkindly, from the far shore. A halo of warm sunlight surrounded their heads so from a distance they looked similar to angels.
“I’ve died, haven’t I? I’ve died and gone to Heaven…” she said with near-conviction.
“No,” Peter answered, frustrated as he wondered how many ways he could tell the truth. “This isn’t Heaven. You aren’t dead—”
“Then where am I?” She cried, hot tears welling in her eyes. “This isn’t real. None of this is real.”
The boy looked to his sisters and his brother for guidance, as he once did when they served on his council some time ago. But neither did they have answers for him. They’d been guided by a gentle hand through the wardrobe on their first journey to Narnia, but had they just suddenly appeared as she did, they would’ve been frightened as well. But most importantly, under the advisory of Professor Kirke, none of them, not once, had ever told anyone else about this world beyond theirs. Even if they’d been permitted to, finding the words to describe it would’ve been impossible.
He had to try nonetheless.
At once, he submerged his hand into the cool sand to let the grains rest in his palm. He then calmly took her hand and let it trickle through his boyish fingers into hers. Her apprehension persisted, but not more so than her confusion.
“Do you feel that?” He asked quietly. “Doesn’t it feel real?”
She pinched the fine grain between her fingers like she was inspecting it closely, then released it just as he did. She grabbed another fistful and watched it fall just the same. It was real enough. It felt just like the sand in Brighton when she’d gone on holiday with her parents some summers ago.
Not only did it feel genuine, but if she’d been embraced by a dream, and she was truly sleeping soundly in her bed back in London, it should make no sense she felt as awake as she did. Nor if she were no longer amongst the living, why she should feel so alive.
From the grains of sand, she met his expectant gaze.
“Yes,” she whispered. Though it was hardly a consolation that she wasn’t in the afterlife, and that he could be a conjured image of her dying mind. There weren’t many other ways to make sense of her situation.
She squinted her eyes and looked at him as if he were the same grain between her forefinger and thumb.
“Are you real?” She asked quietly.
The question appeared to humor him despite its earnestness. A smile flickered across his face before resolving into a more thoughtful look, like he was considering something. It only lasted a second before he reached for her hand once again.
This time he brought it to his cheek. And though she’d never touched his cheek before, the feeling of it was distinctly Peter and there was no way it could’ve belonged to another person. His skin felt soft and warm to the touch and it fit the shape of her fingers like it was always meant to find its place there. Without thought, her thumb smoothed over his cheekbone, and he, perhaps thoughtlessly as well, leaned into the touch. Their hair flickered across their eyes as the wind swelled and rested around them, but it was no disturbance. Her eyes met his and saw an air of hesitation behind the cerulean fog. He was hanging onto her every breath.
“You are,” she answered at last.
“I am,” he replied.
“But I don’t understand,” she said, so only he could hear. “We were just about to board the train, weren’t we?”
“Yes, we were,” he assured her. “Something happened that brought us here, but I don't fully understand what it was either. It’ll be okay, though. I know a little about this place.” He looked back on his siblings who by then had retreated to the water but were still curiously turning their heads to catch wind of the conversation. “We all do.”
At once, Peter pulled himself off the sand.
“Come on, I’ll tell you everything,” he said, extending his hand for her to take.
If up until this point she ever doubted his sincerity, she found trust settling over her all at once at the sight of his hand. The knuckles were still raw, with bits of tender skin sitting grievously over swollen joints. It was the same hand of the same boy who’d been so quick to rile at the slightest distasteful comment towards her, and perhaps he would’ve done the same for anyone, but at this moment she was no longer certain.
She gingerly accepted his help and the two of them began making their way to join the others. As they walked, with his hand still in hers, she rubbed the skin over his knuckles gently.
“I know something that can fix that, by the way,” she said, eyeing the injury.
He looked off to the side and smiled sheepishly, “That’s good to hear. I was just trying to be cool earlier, it actually hurts quite a bit.”
The two of them laughed together, and from the shore, Lucy, Edmund, and Susan could see that something strange, but not entirely unwelcome was happening. Though none of them would admit it, the secret of this world existed as a burden ever since they returned to London. There hadn’t been a single soul that could understand what they’d been through, and to no fault of a stranger’s own, but they’d never been able to grow close to another because of that. They each felt outcasted in their own lives, never feeling fully embedded in their world or amongst the people around them. This was the curse of knowing.
Whichever forces called them to return to Narnia, and whichever voice beckoned the girl to follow suit, had undoubtedly shaken their lives once again. They couldn't possibly know what awaited them here after all this time, but they were back. Finally back.
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