[fic] On a Transparent Belt of Ether 4/4
Feb. 14th, 2011 02:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
keire_keTitle: On a Transparent Belt of Ether
Rating: 14
Pairings: Caspian/Edmund
Genre: Romance, drama
Wordcount: 22k
Warnings: none
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Summary: Edmund the Just made his kingship telling people the right things at the right time. The night before Caspian’s coronation Edmund tells the anxious prince the right thing. It is only later, on board the Dawn Treader that he realises just what his words achieved.
Author's Note: On the whole the movie is best viewed as “the epic love story of Edmund and Caspian,” otherwise it may not be the most formulaic thing committed to film, but it’s certainly close.
Chapter breaks may seem a little awkward - I never planned for chapters. It was supposed to be ten pages, tops.
Betaed byyami_tai. <3 Thank you so much, hun, for all the hard work!
Edmund felt for poor Eustace, and yet he resented him a little, irrationally. Yes, there was no wind and yes, they needed to hurry, but they were hardly reasons for such unholy speed. Ramandu’s Island appeared in the distance, signalling to Edmund once and for all that this was if not the end, then the beginning of it.
Caspian was impeding disembarking on land as best he could, though he had the sense to be sneaky about it. All the same, they had to set foot ashore sometime, and when they did it only served to prove Edmund was quite correct and this was, indeed, a beginning of the end.
A star stood before them, as brilliant and beautiful as you might imagine, and Edmund noted with -- he couldn’t quite name the feeling, but it was more pain than relief as he feared it would be -- that Caspian was quite stricken. It was hard not to be, Edmund admitted to himself, for this was easily a creature of such otherworldliness and beauty that all else paled in comparison.
It had taken a not so subtle kick to the shin, to get the king moving again.
The star pointed the way and then, thankfully, they were off, to battle the evil. This, at least, stirred no doubt in Edmund’s mind. All the rest, however…
“Do you know, in our world it is a custom to wish upon a falling star. I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but apparently Narnia is more literal when it comes to heavenly bodies,” Edmund said as he and Caspian readied for the battle ahead.
“I ought to consider my words more carefully, it has been said,” Caspian said shortly.
“You are quite lucky.”
“How so?”
“The star has no squint, neither is she freckled. Wouldn’t compare her with Su, as it would have been my duty to side with my sister, and I don’t think I would be able to summon enough arguments for her cause.”
“Susan is the most perfect queen I can imagine for myself,” Caspian said as he meticulously checked the armour they were to don.
“Oh?”
“Remote.”
“Caspian.”
“You are right though. The star is pleasant enough, I suppose.”
Edmund waited.
“I’m sure I could learn to love her as my queen,” Caspian said with a roll of his eyes. “Are you pleased?”
“Extraordinarily,” Edmund said, though his heart sank a little.
“Who better than a star. I imagine she has little cause to care about the people of Narnia, being from so high above, let alone for what is in my heart.”
“You don’t know what she feels.”
“Did she strike you as remarkably concerned for our fate?”
“She struck me as one with a name.”
“Oh, bother the name. We’ve hardly spoken, there’s no reason to break out the royal engagement cheer. In fact, there is a fair chance she will have returned to heavens already, so this discussion is moot.”
“Lilliandil, Caspian,” Edmund said patiently. The little he knew about magic told him that there was no accident in the identity of their guide, and no accident that Caspian’s mind supplied him the image of a fallen star for his bride.
Caspian dropped the arm guard and leaned heavily on the table. “You must know that I would have sold her to the slavers in Calormen, for one more day with you.”
“You mustn’t say that.”
“It is the truth.”
“You mustn’t think it, either.” Edmund dropped his armour on the table and walked forward to grip Caspian’s face. “You must think only that she will be a fine queen, and good for you.”
“How would you propose I do so?”
“That I do not know. I do know that you shall regret it forever if you don’t put me out of your mind after I’ve gone.”
“I might as well put breathing out of my mind, or sleeping, or the sun.”
“You jest, surely.” Edmund smiled weakly, for he wasn’t immune to flattery, however overstated, when its intent was honest.
“I exaggerate, perhaps,” Caspian said with a shrug. “Though really, I stand by the sentiment.”
They were ready for battle then, though neither would move. They stood staring at one another without a word spoken between them, until Edmund thought the silence should break them both and return only broken fragments of who they were. Kingship was long forgotten, as many things are in utter silence, and they were just two hapless boys, staring at one another across a great ravine.
Lucy knocked on the door eventually, breaking the spell, and then it was time to be kings again. Caspian pulled Edmund close for a final, desperately short kiss, and out they went, into the gloom and danger of the Dark Island.
*****
Triumphs, Edmund had long ago found, were often bitter, because with most there were friends to bury and mourn. This, though, was the worst one of all, for when the evil was vanquished he felt that something was finished, and it snapped inside him like a severed tether. He was done. They were done. This was the end.
At least there was still the sea to sail, and who knew, they might yet have days before them, days of sailing the peaceful, flat sea. It was bright, so very bright that no one noticed that there were tears in his eyes more often than not, because everyone had the same blazing sun obscuring their sight.
Edmund spent plenty of the time tucked away from the glare in Caspian’s arms, anywhere they could snatch a moment of peace for themselves. They were frantic with need then, frantic to feel each other’s skin, and breath and heartbeat, and foolishly mindless of others. They cared not for the reports of the sea becoming shallower, or for the promises of land on the horizon, land that had to be Aslan’s country. They barely heard the strange news of snow upon the waters, even less when they were close enough and the snow was discovered to be water lilies.
He and Caspian were on the fighting deck, tucked in tight against one another and quite invisible from below, when Drinian declared the water too shallow to continue, and the boat was lowered.
There were good byes, solemn ones, and Lucy shed a few tears. Edmund found himself quite numb as they descended into the boat and he and Caspian took to the oars.
Exercise was wonderful in the golden sun, surrounded by a white so bright it hurt to think in its presence, feeling Caspian move in unison with him, close enough to touch.
Finally, too soon, the boat hit the sand, scraping across the bottom. Before them there was the great wave and further still, so far that Edmund wasn’t sure if they weren’t just an illusion, mountains in the mist, so high he could hardly believe they were real.
It really wasn’t a surprise to see Aslan, nor was it much of a shock to hear this was the last time he was to be in Narnia. He went through the motions, but if he were to be honest with himself it was a relief, too. Seeing Narnia without Caspian, or even worse with him, would surely break his heart, when it wasn’t even wholly healed. Edmund had very little experience with heartbreak thus far, though he felt he was about to know all there was to know on the subject, but he could still speculate that it could be worse.
“There will be no return,” Aslan said and Edmund hated him then, for a moment, on his own and Caspian’s behalf, for suggesting the choice between following through with the adventure, never to return to the world, and his duty. He was both relieved and disappointed when Caspian chose duty, but in the end he was glad. Though Caspian’s ancestors came from his world, Caspian himself was a Narnian, and therefore any world, but this would eventually cast him out, for one reason or another.
It was hard to stare at his king, then, because Caspian’s eyes were a tragedy to behold, as they separated. Edmund hoped that in time those wounds would heal, as much as he dared to hope that his own would. It was hard to nurse that hope, however, when half his heart felt like it wasn’t even his own, so eager it was to tear from his chest.
Then the waters of the great wave closed over the three of them and they were back in Cambridge, in Lucy’s room, staring at the fallen picture.
Well then, Edmund told himself.
*****
Of course, it was one thing to hold Caspian in his arms and promise him forever and a day of bravery. It was something quite different to find himself back in the cold reality of England, facing a lonely future of dubious grandeur.
Eustace proved, against all expectations, to be delightful company and comfort, never mind his age and past beastliness. Edmund was glad of the support. However, when he found himself back in his parent’s house in Finchley, alone but for the five people who ought to have been his greatest comfort, well, that was something quite different.
No one could possibly think less of him, when, a few days after their return from Cambridge, he closed the door to the room he shared with Peter, curled in his bed like a frightened child and wept until his heart seemed empty and unable to shed more tears. He’d wept for what felt like hours, but the clock on the wall showed that only half an hour had passed.
“Seems long enough,” he said out loud to anyone who would listen. He would mourn no more, he told himself in no uncertain terms. There was nothing to be achieved through tears and despair.
It took him another ten minutes to pick himself up and wash his face in cold water, not that it did him much good, but it was the best he could do at the time. Supper would begin soon and while he would much rather not let himself be seen with his eyes red, it would arouse more suspicion if he were to feign sickness.
As he made his way downstairs, ready to deflect and bluff his way through questions sure to come, he found the family in an uproar, running about like madmen.
“What is going on?” he asked as Susan passed him by, rushing for the kitchen.
“Lucy is making quite the scene, we’ve no idea what’s came over her,” she said a touch peevishly, though the worry shone in her face. “She won’t stop crying, but she says she’s perfectly fine.”
Over Susan’s shoulder, between mother’s and father’s, Edmund caught Lucy’s eye, just as red and puffy as his, and he felt that he had never loved her more than he did in that moment.
“I say, Edmund,” Susan started saying, looking at him curiously, but Lucy chose that moment to let out a wail that would break the heart of a statue and all else was forgotten.
Blessed Lucy.
*****
Edmund had developed a sixth sense over time, partly as a result of, well, everything. The White Witch had certainly helped, but then there was kingship and diplomacy, and the return to England, and subsequent visits to Narnia, so all in all he was quite adept at spotting heinous revelations as they sped his way.
Such were his thoughts when, during the Christmas break, his mother called them all downstairs. “Children, Uncle Harold and Aunt Alberta are coming for a visit, along with cousin Eustace. Please do be nice to the poor boy,” she said, and for a moment Edmund thought himself wrong, as Eustace proved to be a splendid chap and he was looking forward to seeing him, no matter the pained groans of both Peter and Susan.
It seemed that here his and Lucy’s words weren’t as easily believed after all, even by people who should know better.
A day later the party arrived and this time Edmund knew -- oh, the blighter, couldn’t he have stayed at home -- that Eustace had the most horrible thing to tell them. The adults naturally kept to their own company and even Peter, who could have stayed, being past his twentieth birthday, fled to the boy’s bedroom, along with their guest. Only Susan had chosen to remain downstairs, citing rudeness as her reason not to follow.
“I was in Narnia again,” Eustace started, and Edmund looked away. There it was, then. He listened as Eustace recounted the tale, glum though it had been, and then…
“The king died,” Eustace said quietly. “Caspian died, practically the minute they have carried him ashore.”
Lucy cried, “Oh, Edmund!” and burst into tears. Edmund could do little but bear her tears wetting his shirt and the death grip she had on his neck. In truth, he wasn’t sure he could move if a wild sea serpent had descended from above, to swallow them whole.
“Don’t cry, Lucy,” Peter said, coming over to lay a hand of her shoulder.
“He was very old,” Eustace added. “It was awful, seeing him that way.”
Lucy still wept, clinging to Edmund, as Eustace brightened visibly. “But then the oddest thing happened. We were back on the mountain, Jill and I, and the music was playing still, it was like the funeral was on even there, and it was, in a way, because Caspian was lying in the stream. Then Aslan made me pierce his paw with a thorn and Caspian just-- he woke, you see, and he was as young as he was on the Dawn Treader, it was quite shocking, I can tell you that!”
Lucy raised her head from Edmund’s shoulder then. “Oh, Ed, I am so very sorry!” she said, hiccupping every other word.
“For what?” Edmund heard himself say. “This is quite the good news.” He stood up, shaking her off as he went, and with her all caution and sense.
“How?”
“Don’t you see? He got to Aslan’s country! He got there in the end, and he will live there, and if Eustace and -- was it, Jill? -- were there too, it means we can get there too!”
“And then you can be together again!” Lucy said clasping her hands. “Oh, Edmund, you are right, this is so wondrous!”
“Wait, what? What do you mean ‘you can be together again’?” Peter rose and Edmund grit his teeth. He loved Lucy dearly, but her tongue was too loose when she was emotional.
“Let’s not do this,” he told Peter.
“No, let’s. You’ve been acting like your house had gone up in flames ever since you returned that last time. Would you mind clearing up why?”
“Yes, I rather think I would.”
“Peter,” Lucy started, but Edmund shushed her with a look.
“I want to know,” Peter said, very slowly, drawing up to his full height, “Just what is going on here.”
“Well, what is going on is my business, and mine alone.”
“If it concerns Narnia, it is my business as well!”
“Not anymore, it isn’t!”
It was odd, how easy it was to pick a fight with Peter, especially when, at the heart of it, was the mortal fear that telling him would turn it from a simple fight into something much more serious, something that could drive them apart. Edmund wasn’t ready for that to happen, not ever, so he backed down. Peter was yelling now, in his most frightful high king voice, and both Lucy and Eustace sat quietly, probably hoping his anger wouldn’t turn to them.
“Peter,” Edmund just said, when his brother paused for breath. “Please. I ask you as your brother, as your fellow king, leave this be. Let me have my little secret and think of it no longer.”
The trick to disarming Peter was to rile him up, let him scream his fill, and then spring words contrary to his expectations. He was likely then to agree to anything within reason. Edmund was gratified to learn that the trick still worked.
“I suppose.” Peter hesitated, anger all gone. “But Ed, are you okay? You haven’t been well, exactly.”
“Trust me,” Edmund said, truthfully, “I am as right now as I will ever be.”
They spoke of it no longer, and if, some time later, Edmund caught Peter giving him the most shocked, speculative look to ever cross his face, Edmund thought nothing of it, but knew that Lucy -- who was never a blabber mouth, but felt that secrets one of them had was a secret the four of them shared, unless asked otherwise -- must have told. Edmund suffered it with good grace, when Peter avoided him for a few weeks, even though they barely saw one another at the time.
To his credit, however, he recovered magnificently. Before the month was up he and Edmund were the best of friends again. Peter was the first to spring to Edmund’s defence when he announced he was going into church service and the outcry was quite unnecessary, for he would not be persuaded otherwise.
“This is one of the things that if you feel you must do it, then you must,” Peter told father some time later. Edmund, having walked through the dark living room for a drink of water to the kitchen, paused and listened.
“I am not opposed,” father replied wearily. “I just do not understand. Neither of you spent any time in church with anything but a long-suffering attitude, and now Edmund wishes to devote his life to it? Not so long ago he was ready to run off to the army!”
“I’m sure Edmund knows what he’s doing,” Peter said. “Trust me. He’s no child.”
“I suppose you must be right.”
Edmund smiled in the darkness. He was lucky to have Peter for a brother, especially when his own motives were not as pristine as might have been expected of one wishing to join the church. Theology itself was of interest, but what Edmund found truly appealing was the pretence of a calling so divine and otherworldly, that his fixation with prayer and, well, other worlds, would surprise no one.
*****
Edmund thrived in his studies. Latin, nor history for that matter, had ever been much of a hardship for him, and, as it turned out, neither was Greek and Hebrew. It was the speculative subjects that caused him trouble, but he wasn’t hailed as one of the finest diplomats of his age for nothing, the fact that this fame stemmed from a world in which trees danced was irrelevant.
He found that, though it was hard to keep the memory of Caspian out of his mind and heart, the latter was not quite as crippled, as he feared it would be. Wedding bells were still far from his thoughts, but there were women, or a woman, to be honest, who’d humoured his drunken ravings about other worlds and the symbolism of large mammals, and who was therefore a welcome companion. They’d laughed about it often, and Edmund had the distinct impression that sometime soon he would have to invite Jane home, to meet his parents, if only to quell their fears about his eternal bachelorhood, no matter how well-founded those fears were.
Then came the night, a few years after the voyage of the Dawn Treader, when they were dining with Digory and Polly, and the dreadful apparition of a silent Narnian came before them, whether to warn or summon, he didn’t know, but it was as though the sun had grown dimmer after his visit. Lucy couldn’t stop shaking ever since, and was deaf to the words of comfort.
“I cannot help but feel as if something dreadful is happening,” she kept saying. “There was such worry in his face, I cannot forget it.”
“We must do something,” Peter said immediately. “He must have been Narnian, and if the need was so strong that a Narnian appeared in our world, if only as a ghost, then something must be awry.”
The following week of frantic research and discussion had culminated with Edmund and Peter sneaking into the garden of an unremarkable house in London, under the most flimsy of pretences.
“These clothes aren’t exactly comfortable,” Edmund told Peter, adjusting the collar around his neck.
“If that collar is bothering you, how bad will the frock will be?”
“There is that. I am bound to complain for a while.” Edmund yawned then. He hadn’t slept well for the past week. Strange shadows would wake him through the night, and this very morning he would have been unable to get up at all, were it not for Peter shaking him.
“A while? Try the rest of your life.”
They got over the low walls with ease. Hopefully, at this house the inhabitants would be asleep and unlikely to disturb them, or otherwise fooled by the work-clothes. Edmund rather hoped he wouldn’t have to put his glib tongue to use and come up with an explanation for why two young men were digging in a stranger’s garden at half four in the morning. He’d tried to come up with a reason good enough prior to their arrival but came up short.
They started their search in two different places, for Digory’s directions were not precise. “We buried them around the tree, in the back of the garden,” he’d said, “but the tree had since been felled, and I don’t know if the stump remains. In any case, it couldn’t have been too deep, we were but children then.”
There is hardly a worse task than searching for small objects, which have been buried half a century previously in the shallow earth of a private garden. They were getting rather disheartened, having gone through a third of the back garden, until finally Edmund cried, “Here, Peter, I think I have it!”
Peter rushed to his side and together they unearthed the rings, yellow and green together, just as Polly had told they would be. Edmund felt his heart leap at the sight of them lying in his gloved palm. What was it they had said? Yellow to take you to the wood between worlds, green to bring you back, or out, should you choose.
“Tempted?” Peter asked, raising a brow.
“Not really, no. I think I’ve had my share of world-hopping.”
“It must have been hard for you.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“I kind of envy you,” Peter said. “I missed Narnia after the last time, but I don’t think I lost more than a week of sleep over it. You haven’t slept well since.”
“That’s not true. Even if it were, what is there to envy? My insomnia?”
“Honestly, Reverend, there’s no need to spring Latin on an unsuspecting chap.”
Edmund laughed. They were halfway down the road now, on the way to the post office. “As if you don’t know Latin at least as well as I.”
Peter walked without speaking for a while, whistling through his teeth. “Would you have stayed with… with him? I mean, if Aslan had allowed it?” he asked and Edmund looked away. It was hard for Peter, knowing what he knew, without having seen just how right it was. Edmund appreciated that, and loved his brother all the more for his acceptance.
“Yes,” he said simply.
“Lucy said so, though she found it hard to believe. I think it escapes her that you would choose Caspian over us.”
“You know how she is.”
“Which is why it is all the more surprising you entrusted her with the secret.”
“I don’t think it was much of a secret in the first place. I mean, I would have noticed before it even started, if I wasn’t right in the middle.”
“You’d think both of you would have more sense than that,” Peter said with amusement. “To think that it was you who lectured me on the value of discretion.”
“Trust me, even the little discretion we managed was still almost too hard.” Edmund shook his head and wondered how to explain to his own brother the feeling of standing at the side of someone who made you whole and not being able to touch them. He found he couldn’t find the words.
“Huh,” Peter said simply, with something much like envy in his tone, as though he understood, anyway.
They were at the door to the post office, and Peter had gone in to send the wire to the others, while Edmund waited on the sunny porch. He took the rings out of his pocket one more time. They were quite pretty to behold, in their simplicity. Curiously, they must have been the very first object he saw in his world that he knew on sight was filled with magic. If nothing else, the thrumming he heard coming from them would be convincing. It seemed to him full of foreboding, though the sound itself was quite innocent, peaceful even.
Strange.
“All done. With any luck we shall see them in a couple of days.”
“Great. Fancy breakfast? I know a splendid pub nearby.”
“It’s nine o’clock in the morning.”
“Right, right. No breakfast then.”
“I wasn’t saying no to breakfast, just the setting at this hour.”
“Okay, breakfast it is then. I’m sure there’s a café round here somewhere.”
A day later they were standing at the platform, and the curious thing was, Edmund could swear the humming he’d heard earlier, coming from the rings, was getting louder. Which had to be ridiculous, as they had them wrapped securely in cloth and put in a box, for fear of accidentally activating their magic and falling through to another world.
“Let me just check the timetable,” Peter said.
“Ten twenty-five,” Edmund said, looking out ahead. “Hey, do you know what? I think mother and father are also on this train.”
“What? How?”
“They were going to Bristol today, weren’t they? This one would get them there on time, allowing even a little leeway for traffic.”
“Honestly, where do you put all of this stuff,” Peter said shaking his head. “Shouldn’t your head be bigger by now?”
“Too full beats too empty, I guess,” Edmund said more to himself than Peter. “What time is it?”
“Ten twenty-four.”
In that moment they heard the roar of the oncoming train, though something was off. The box in Edmund’s bag was quite still but he could swear his whole arm started vibrating when he touched it, and the noise was becoming quite overwhelming, and this time he wasn’t sure where it was coming from.
Peter grasped his arm and yelled something alarming, straight in his ear, but Edmund had no idea what it was, over the roar and didn’t have time to ask questions, because then all of it -- the roar, the shaking -- was cut short, and he was sitting on the finest grass he could imagine, clad in royal Narnian garb.
“What just happened,” he started asking when he noticed his sister and brother, along with Digory and Polly. He saw that the sky above was blue as it never was in England and the most terrible and most wonderful feeling came over him; it was hope.
Off to the side there was a closed door, one that looked much like it lead to a stable, except there was nothing behind or around it. They barely had time to wonder about it, though, because a few minutes later the others came through the door: Jill and Eustace and then the strange ghost, only real this time, as real as Edmund himself. There was something distantly familiar about his face, too, but this Edmund dared not mention, even in his thoughts.
Then came the end and darkness enveloped Edmund’s once beloved world. They turned away from the still and dead world then, and as they ran through to what was on the other side of the door, the brightness and life, he couldn’t help but wonder bitterly why were they made to suffer through that.
Then… but he could hardly speak. There was a garden and in it all the people he had come to know in Narnia, and many he didn’t, and what he felt right then was indescribable, pain and wonder and the same time, because as they stood there Caspian came forth and the hush that felt on the company may have been real or imagined, but it was true in a way that Edmund never thought anything so obviously taken from a girly romance novel could be.
“You haven’t changed much,” Edmund said stupidly, for Caspian looked exactly as he had during the days on board the Dawn Treader.
Caspian laughed. “Says you. You look like you haven’t aged a day!”
“Five days since I started talking to you again, at least.”
Off to one side and as though through a foggy glass Edmund saw Lucy laughing, her arm linked through that of the star. Next to them stood a man, or a boy, he was hard-pressed to tell. He looked much like Caspian, and his armed was linked with Lilliandil’s. Further on still was Peter and Trumpkin, Tumnus, and Reepicheep and countless others that Edmund couldn’t care less about at that moment.
“Great job, you did, raising a total of one,” he muttered.
“I don’t see you bringing your progeny along, so forgive me if I don’t stoop in shame.”
They were standing close enough to touch now, and Edmund was quite sure that all around them had ceased to exist and if he was wrong he didn’t want to be right.
“I missed you,” Caspian said, so softly that Edmund would have thought he imagined the words, if, at the same time, he hadn’t heard them ring throughout his whole body. He wondered if that was how it was going to be from now on, that everything Caspian said he would hear.
It would be, he thought as finally, at long last, Caspian and he stepped forth and embraced one another as though they were to never let go again, most annoying.
Then again, even that would be alright.
THE END
Rating: 14
Pairings: Caspian/Edmund
Genre: Romance, drama
Wordcount: 22k
Warnings: none
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Summary: Edmund the Just made his kingship telling people the right things at the right time. The night before Caspian’s coronation Edmund tells the anxious prince the right thing. It is only later, on board the Dawn Treader that he realises just what his words achieved.
Author's Note: On the whole the movie is best viewed as “the epic love story of Edmund and Caspian,” otherwise it may not be the most formulaic thing committed to film, but it’s certainly close.
Chapter breaks may seem a little awkward - I never planned for chapters. It was supposed to be ten pages, tops.
Betaed by
yami_tai. <3 Thank you so much, hun, for all the hard work!Edmund felt for poor Eustace, and yet he resented him a little, irrationally. Yes, there was no wind and yes, they needed to hurry, but they were hardly reasons for such unholy speed. Ramandu’s Island appeared in the distance, signalling to Edmund once and for all that this was if not the end, then the beginning of it.
Caspian was impeding disembarking on land as best he could, though he had the sense to be sneaky about it. All the same, they had to set foot ashore sometime, and when they did it only served to prove Edmund was quite correct and this was, indeed, a beginning of the end.
A star stood before them, as brilliant and beautiful as you might imagine, and Edmund noted with -- he couldn’t quite name the feeling, but it was more pain than relief as he feared it would be -- that Caspian was quite stricken. It was hard not to be, Edmund admitted to himself, for this was easily a creature of such otherworldliness and beauty that all else paled in comparison.
It had taken a not so subtle kick to the shin, to get the king moving again.
The star pointed the way and then, thankfully, they were off, to battle the evil. This, at least, stirred no doubt in Edmund’s mind. All the rest, however…
“Do you know, in our world it is a custom to wish upon a falling star. I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but apparently Narnia is more literal when it comes to heavenly bodies,” Edmund said as he and Caspian readied for the battle ahead.
“I ought to consider my words more carefully, it has been said,” Caspian said shortly.
“You are quite lucky.”
“How so?”
“The star has no squint, neither is she freckled. Wouldn’t compare her with Su, as it would have been my duty to side with my sister, and I don’t think I would be able to summon enough arguments for her cause.”
“Susan is the most perfect queen I can imagine for myself,” Caspian said as he meticulously checked the armour they were to don.
“Oh?”
“Remote.”
“Caspian.”
“You are right though. The star is pleasant enough, I suppose.”
Edmund waited.
“I’m sure I could learn to love her as my queen,” Caspian said with a roll of his eyes. “Are you pleased?”
“Extraordinarily,” Edmund said, though his heart sank a little.
“Who better than a star. I imagine she has little cause to care about the people of Narnia, being from so high above, let alone for what is in my heart.”
“You don’t know what she feels.”
“Did she strike you as remarkably concerned for our fate?”
“She struck me as one with a name.”
“Oh, bother the name. We’ve hardly spoken, there’s no reason to break out the royal engagement cheer. In fact, there is a fair chance she will have returned to heavens already, so this discussion is moot.”
“Lilliandil, Caspian,” Edmund said patiently. The little he knew about magic told him that there was no accident in the identity of their guide, and no accident that Caspian’s mind supplied him the image of a fallen star for his bride.
Caspian dropped the arm guard and leaned heavily on the table. “You must know that I would have sold her to the slavers in Calormen, for one more day with you.”
“You mustn’t say that.”
“It is the truth.”
“You mustn’t think it, either.” Edmund dropped his armour on the table and walked forward to grip Caspian’s face. “You must think only that she will be a fine queen, and good for you.”
“How would you propose I do so?”
“That I do not know. I do know that you shall regret it forever if you don’t put me out of your mind after I’ve gone.”
“I might as well put breathing out of my mind, or sleeping, or the sun.”
“You jest, surely.” Edmund smiled weakly, for he wasn’t immune to flattery, however overstated, when its intent was honest.
“I exaggerate, perhaps,” Caspian said with a shrug. “Though really, I stand by the sentiment.”
They were ready for battle then, though neither would move. They stood staring at one another without a word spoken between them, until Edmund thought the silence should break them both and return only broken fragments of who they were. Kingship was long forgotten, as many things are in utter silence, and they were just two hapless boys, staring at one another across a great ravine.
Lucy knocked on the door eventually, breaking the spell, and then it was time to be kings again. Caspian pulled Edmund close for a final, desperately short kiss, and out they went, into the gloom and danger of the Dark Island.
*****
Triumphs, Edmund had long ago found, were often bitter, because with most there were friends to bury and mourn. This, though, was the worst one of all, for when the evil was vanquished he felt that something was finished, and it snapped inside him like a severed tether. He was done. They were done. This was the end.
At least there was still the sea to sail, and who knew, they might yet have days before them, days of sailing the peaceful, flat sea. It was bright, so very bright that no one noticed that there were tears in his eyes more often than not, because everyone had the same blazing sun obscuring their sight.
Edmund spent plenty of the time tucked away from the glare in Caspian’s arms, anywhere they could snatch a moment of peace for themselves. They were frantic with need then, frantic to feel each other’s skin, and breath and heartbeat, and foolishly mindless of others. They cared not for the reports of the sea becoming shallower, or for the promises of land on the horizon, land that had to be Aslan’s country. They barely heard the strange news of snow upon the waters, even less when they were close enough and the snow was discovered to be water lilies.
He and Caspian were on the fighting deck, tucked in tight against one another and quite invisible from below, when Drinian declared the water too shallow to continue, and the boat was lowered.
There were good byes, solemn ones, and Lucy shed a few tears. Edmund found himself quite numb as they descended into the boat and he and Caspian took to the oars.
Exercise was wonderful in the golden sun, surrounded by a white so bright it hurt to think in its presence, feeling Caspian move in unison with him, close enough to touch.
Finally, too soon, the boat hit the sand, scraping across the bottom. Before them there was the great wave and further still, so far that Edmund wasn’t sure if they weren’t just an illusion, mountains in the mist, so high he could hardly believe they were real.
It really wasn’t a surprise to see Aslan, nor was it much of a shock to hear this was the last time he was to be in Narnia. He went through the motions, but if he were to be honest with himself it was a relief, too. Seeing Narnia without Caspian, or even worse with him, would surely break his heart, when it wasn’t even wholly healed. Edmund had very little experience with heartbreak thus far, though he felt he was about to know all there was to know on the subject, but he could still speculate that it could be worse.
“There will be no return,” Aslan said and Edmund hated him then, for a moment, on his own and Caspian’s behalf, for suggesting the choice between following through with the adventure, never to return to the world, and his duty. He was both relieved and disappointed when Caspian chose duty, but in the end he was glad. Though Caspian’s ancestors came from his world, Caspian himself was a Narnian, and therefore any world, but this would eventually cast him out, for one reason or another.
It was hard to stare at his king, then, because Caspian’s eyes were a tragedy to behold, as they separated. Edmund hoped that in time those wounds would heal, as much as he dared to hope that his own would. It was hard to nurse that hope, however, when half his heart felt like it wasn’t even his own, so eager it was to tear from his chest.
Then the waters of the great wave closed over the three of them and they were back in Cambridge, in Lucy’s room, staring at the fallen picture.
Well then, Edmund told himself.
*****
Of course, it was one thing to hold Caspian in his arms and promise him forever and a day of bravery. It was something quite different to find himself back in the cold reality of England, facing a lonely future of dubious grandeur.
Eustace proved, against all expectations, to be delightful company and comfort, never mind his age and past beastliness. Edmund was glad of the support. However, when he found himself back in his parent’s house in Finchley, alone but for the five people who ought to have been his greatest comfort, well, that was something quite different.
No one could possibly think less of him, when, a few days after their return from Cambridge, he closed the door to the room he shared with Peter, curled in his bed like a frightened child and wept until his heart seemed empty and unable to shed more tears. He’d wept for what felt like hours, but the clock on the wall showed that only half an hour had passed.
“Seems long enough,” he said out loud to anyone who would listen. He would mourn no more, he told himself in no uncertain terms. There was nothing to be achieved through tears and despair.
It took him another ten minutes to pick himself up and wash his face in cold water, not that it did him much good, but it was the best he could do at the time. Supper would begin soon and while he would much rather not let himself be seen with his eyes red, it would arouse more suspicion if he were to feign sickness.
As he made his way downstairs, ready to deflect and bluff his way through questions sure to come, he found the family in an uproar, running about like madmen.
“What is going on?” he asked as Susan passed him by, rushing for the kitchen.
“Lucy is making quite the scene, we’ve no idea what’s came over her,” she said a touch peevishly, though the worry shone in her face. “She won’t stop crying, but she says she’s perfectly fine.”
Over Susan’s shoulder, between mother’s and father’s, Edmund caught Lucy’s eye, just as red and puffy as his, and he felt that he had never loved her more than he did in that moment.
“I say, Edmund,” Susan started saying, looking at him curiously, but Lucy chose that moment to let out a wail that would break the heart of a statue and all else was forgotten.
Blessed Lucy.
*****
Edmund had developed a sixth sense over time, partly as a result of, well, everything. The White Witch had certainly helped, but then there was kingship and diplomacy, and the return to England, and subsequent visits to Narnia, so all in all he was quite adept at spotting heinous revelations as they sped his way.
Such were his thoughts when, during the Christmas break, his mother called them all downstairs. “Children, Uncle Harold and Aunt Alberta are coming for a visit, along with cousin Eustace. Please do be nice to the poor boy,” she said, and for a moment Edmund thought himself wrong, as Eustace proved to be a splendid chap and he was looking forward to seeing him, no matter the pained groans of both Peter and Susan.
It seemed that here his and Lucy’s words weren’t as easily believed after all, even by people who should know better.
A day later the party arrived and this time Edmund knew -- oh, the blighter, couldn’t he have stayed at home -- that Eustace had the most horrible thing to tell them. The adults naturally kept to their own company and even Peter, who could have stayed, being past his twentieth birthday, fled to the boy’s bedroom, along with their guest. Only Susan had chosen to remain downstairs, citing rudeness as her reason not to follow.
“I was in Narnia again,” Eustace started, and Edmund looked away. There it was, then. He listened as Eustace recounted the tale, glum though it had been, and then…
“The king died,” Eustace said quietly. “Caspian died, practically the minute they have carried him ashore.”
Lucy cried, “Oh, Edmund!” and burst into tears. Edmund could do little but bear her tears wetting his shirt and the death grip she had on his neck. In truth, he wasn’t sure he could move if a wild sea serpent had descended from above, to swallow them whole.
“Don’t cry, Lucy,” Peter said, coming over to lay a hand of her shoulder.
“He was very old,” Eustace added. “It was awful, seeing him that way.”
Lucy still wept, clinging to Edmund, as Eustace brightened visibly. “But then the oddest thing happened. We were back on the mountain, Jill and I, and the music was playing still, it was like the funeral was on even there, and it was, in a way, because Caspian was lying in the stream. Then Aslan made me pierce his paw with a thorn and Caspian just-- he woke, you see, and he was as young as he was on the Dawn Treader, it was quite shocking, I can tell you that!”
Lucy raised her head from Edmund’s shoulder then. “Oh, Ed, I am so very sorry!” she said, hiccupping every other word.
“For what?” Edmund heard himself say. “This is quite the good news.” He stood up, shaking her off as he went, and with her all caution and sense.
“How?”
“Don’t you see? He got to Aslan’s country! He got there in the end, and he will live there, and if Eustace and -- was it, Jill? -- were there too, it means we can get there too!”
“And then you can be together again!” Lucy said clasping her hands. “Oh, Edmund, you are right, this is so wondrous!”
“Wait, what? What do you mean ‘you can be together again’?” Peter rose and Edmund grit his teeth. He loved Lucy dearly, but her tongue was too loose when she was emotional.
“Let’s not do this,” he told Peter.
“No, let’s. You’ve been acting like your house had gone up in flames ever since you returned that last time. Would you mind clearing up why?”
“Yes, I rather think I would.”
“Peter,” Lucy started, but Edmund shushed her with a look.
“I want to know,” Peter said, very slowly, drawing up to his full height, “Just what is going on here.”
“Well, what is going on is my business, and mine alone.”
“If it concerns Narnia, it is my business as well!”
“Not anymore, it isn’t!”
It was odd, how easy it was to pick a fight with Peter, especially when, at the heart of it, was the mortal fear that telling him would turn it from a simple fight into something much more serious, something that could drive them apart. Edmund wasn’t ready for that to happen, not ever, so he backed down. Peter was yelling now, in his most frightful high king voice, and both Lucy and Eustace sat quietly, probably hoping his anger wouldn’t turn to them.
“Peter,” Edmund just said, when his brother paused for breath. “Please. I ask you as your brother, as your fellow king, leave this be. Let me have my little secret and think of it no longer.”
The trick to disarming Peter was to rile him up, let him scream his fill, and then spring words contrary to his expectations. He was likely then to agree to anything within reason. Edmund was gratified to learn that the trick still worked.
“I suppose.” Peter hesitated, anger all gone. “But Ed, are you okay? You haven’t been well, exactly.”
“Trust me,” Edmund said, truthfully, “I am as right now as I will ever be.”
They spoke of it no longer, and if, some time later, Edmund caught Peter giving him the most shocked, speculative look to ever cross his face, Edmund thought nothing of it, but knew that Lucy -- who was never a blabber mouth, but felt that secrets one of them had was a secret the four of them shared, unless asked otherwise -- must have told. Edmund suffered it with good grace, when Peter avoided him for a few weeks, even though they barely saw one another at the time.
To his credit, however, he recovered magnificently. Before the month was up he and Edmund were the best of friends again. Peter was the first to spring to Edmund’s defence when he announced he was going into church service and the outcry was quite unnecessary, for he would not be persuaded otherwise.
“This is one of the things that if you feel you must do it, then you must,” Peter told father some time later. Edmund, having walked through the dark living room for a drink of water to the kitchen, paused and listened.
“I am not opposed,” father replied wearily. “I just do not understand. Neither of you spent any time in church with anything but a long-suffering attitude, and now Edmund wishes to devote his life to it? Not so long ago he was ready to run off to the army!”
“I’m sure Edmund knows what he’s doing,” Peter said. “Trust me. He’s no child.”
“I suppose you must be right.”
Edmund smiled in the darkness. He was lucky to have Peter for a brother, especially when his own motives were not as pristine as might have been expected of one wishing to join the church. Theology itself was of interest, but what Edmund found truly appealing was the pretence of a calling so divine and otherworldly, that his fixation with prayer and, well, other worlds, would surprise no one.
*****
Edmund thrived in his studies. Latin, nor history for that matter, had ever been much of a hardship for him, and, as it turned out, neither was Greek and Hebrew. It was the speculative subjects that caused him trouble, but he wasn’t hailed as one of the finest diplomats of his age for nothing, the fact that this fame stemmed from a world in which trees danced was irrelevant.
He found that, though it was hard to keep the memory of Caspian out of his mind and heart, the latter was not quite as crippled, as he feared it would be. Wedding bells were still far from his thoughts, but there were women, or a woman, to be honest, who’d humoured his drunken ravings about other worlds and the symbolism of large mammals, and who was therefore a welcome companion. They’d laughed about it often, and Edmund had the distinct impression that sometime soon he would have to invite Jane home, to meet his parents, if only to quell their fears about his eternal bachelorhood, no matter how well-founded those fears were.
Then came the night, a few years after the voyage of the Dawn Treader, when they were dining with Digory and Polly, and the dreadful apparition of a silent Narnian came before them, whether to warn or summon, he didn’t know, but it was as though the sun had grown dimmer after his visit. Lucy couldn’t stop shaking ever since, and was deaf to the words of comfort.
“I cannot help but feel as if something dreadful is happening,” she kept saying. “There was such worry in his face, I cannot forget it.”
“We must do something,” Peter said immediately. “He must have been Narnian, and if the need was so strong that a Narnian appeared in our world, if only as a ghost, then something must be awry.”
The following week of frantic research and discussion had culminated with Edmund and Peter sneaking into the garden of an unremarkable house in London, under the most flimsy of pretences.
“These clothes aren’t exactly comfortable,” Edmund told Peter, adjusting the collar around his neck.
“If that collar is bothering you, how bad will the frock will be?”
“There is that. I am bound to complain for a while.” Edmund yawned then. He hadn’t slept well for the past week. Strange shadows would wake him through the night, and this very morning he would have been unable to get up at all, were it not for Peter shaking him.
“A while? Try the rest of your life.”
They got over the low walls with ease. Hopefully, at this house the inhabitants would be asleep and unlikely to disturb them, or otherwise fooled by the work-clothes. Edmund rather hoped he wouldn’t have to put his glib tongue to use and come up with an explanation for why two young men were digging in a stranger’s garden at half four in the morning. He’d tried to come up with a reason good enough prior to their arrival but came up short.
They started their search in two different places, for Digory’s directions were not precise. “We buried them around the tree, in the back of the garden,” he’d said, “but the tree had since been felled, and I don’t know if the stump remains. In any case, it couldn’t have been too deep, we were but children then.”
There is hardly a worse task than searching for small objects, which have been buried half a century previously in the shallow earth of a private garden. They were getting rather disheartened, having gone through a third of the back garden, until finally Edmund cried, “Here, Peter, I think I have it!”
Peter rushed to his side and together they unearthed the rings, yellow and green together, just as Polly had told they would be. Edmund felt his heart leap at the sight of them lying in his gloved palm. What was it they had said? Yellow to take you to the wood between worlds, green to bring you back, or out, should you choose.
“Tempted?” Peter asked, raising a brow.
“Not really, no. I think I’ve had my share of world-hopping.”
“It must have been hard for you.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“I kind of envy you,” Peter said. “I missed Narnia after the last time, but I don’t think I lost more than a week of sleep over it. You haven’t slept well since.”
“That’s not true. Even if it were, what is there to envy? My insomnia?”
“Honestly, Reverend, there’s no need to spring Latin on an unsuspecting chap.”
Edmund laughed. They were halfway down the road now, on the way to the post office. “As if you don’t know Latin at least as well as I.”
Peter walked without speaking for a while, whistling through his teeth. “Would you have stayed with… with him? I mean, if Aslan had allowed it?” he asked and Edmund looked away. It was hard for Peter, knowing what he knew, without having seen just how right it was. Edmund appreciated that, and loved his brother all the more for his acceptance.
“Yes,” he said simply.
“Lucy said so, though she found it hard to believe. I think it escapes her that you would choose Caspian over us.”
“You know how she is.”
“Which is why it is all the more surprising you entrusted her with the secret.”
“I don’t think it was much of a secret in the first place. I mean, I would have noticed before it even started, if I wasn’t right in the middle.”
“You’d think both of you would have more sense than that,” Peter said with amusement. “To think that it was you who lectured me on the value of discretion.”
“Trust me, even the little discretion we managed was still almost too hard.” Edmund shook his head and wondered how to explain to his own brother the feeling of standing at the side of someone who made you whole and not being able to touch them. He found he couldn’t find the words.
“Huh,” Peter said simply, with something much like envy in his tone, as though he understood, anyway.
They were at the door to the post office, and Peter had gone in to send the wire to the others, while Edmund waited on the sunny porch. He took the rings out of his pocket one more time. They were quite pretty to behold, in their simplicity. Curiously, they must have been the very first object he saw in his world that he knew on sight was filled with magic. If nothing else, the thrumming he heard coming from them would be convincing. It seemed to him full of foreboding, though the sound itself was quite innocent, peaceful even.
Strange.
“All done. With any luck we shall see them in a couple of days.”
“Great. Fancy breakfast? I know a splendid pub nearby.”
“It’s nine o’clock in the morning.”
“Right, right. No breakfast then.”
“I wasn’t saying no to breakfast, just the setting at this hour.”
“Okay, breakfast it is then. I’m sure there’s a café round here somewhere.”
A day later they were standing at the platform, and the curious thing was, Edmund could swear the humming he’d heard earlier, coming from the rings, was getting louder. Which had to be ridiculous, as they had them wrapped securely in cloth and put in a box, for fear of accidentally activating their magic and falling through to another world.
“Let me just check the timetable,” Peter said.
“Ten twenty-five,” Edmund said, looking out ahead. “Hey, do you know what? I think mother and father are also on this train.”
“What? How?”
“They were going to Bristol today, weren’t they? This one would get them there on time, allowing even a little leeway for traffic.”
“Honestly, where do you put all of this stuff,” Peter said shaking his head. “Shouldn’t your head be bigger by now?”
“Too full beats too empty, I guess,” Edmund said more to himself than Peter. “What time is it?”
“Ten twenty-four.”
In that moment they heard the roar of the oncoming train, though something was off. The box in Edmund’s bag was quite still but he could swear his whole arm started vibrating when he touched it, and the noise was becoming quite overwhelming, and this time he wasn’t sure where it was coming from.
Peter grasped his arm and yelled something alarming, straight in his ear, but Edmund had no idea what it was, over the roar and didn’t have time to ask questions, because then all of it -- the roar, the shaking -- was cut short, and he was sitting on the finest grass he could imagine, clad in royal Narnian garb.
“What just happened,” he started asking when he noticed his sister and brother, along with Digory and Polly. He saw that the sky above was blue as it never was in England and the most terrible and most wonderful feeling came over him; it was hope.
Off to the side there was a closed door, one that looked much like it lead to a stable, except there was nothing behind or around it. They barely had time to wonder about it, though, because a few minutes later the others came through the door: Jill and Eustace and then the strange ghost, only real this time, as real as Edmund himself. There was something distantly familiar about his face, too, but this Edmund dared not mention, even in his thoughts.
Then came the end and darkness enveloped Edmund’s once beloved world. They turned away from the still and dead world then, and as they ran through to what was on the other side of the door, the brightness and life, he couldn’t help but wonder bitterly why were they made to suffer through that.
Then… but he could hardly speak. There was a garden and in it all the people he had come to know in Narnia, and many he didn’t, and what he felt right then was indescribable, pain and wonder and the same time, because as they stood there Caspian came forth and the hush that felt on the company may have been real or imagined, but it was true in a way that Edmund never thought anything so obviously taken from a girly romance novel could be.
“You haven’t changed much,” Edmund said stupidly, for Caspian looked exactly as he had during the days on board the Dawn Treader.
Caspian laughed. “Says you. You look like you haven’t aged a day!”
“Five days since I started talking to you again, at least.”
Off to one side and as though through a foggy glass Edmund saw Lucy laughing, her arm linked through that of the star. Next to them stood a man, or a boy, he was hard-pressed to tell. He looked much like Caspian, and his armed was linked with Lilliandil’s. Further on still was Peter and Trumpkin, Tumnus, and Reepicheep and countless others that Edmund couldn’t care less about at that moment.
“Great job, you did, raising a total of one,” he muttered.
“I don’t see you bringing your progeny along, so forgive me if I don’t stoop in shame.”
They were standing close enough to touch now, and Edmund was quite sure that all around them had ceased to exist and if he was wrong he didn’t want to be right.
“I missed you,” Caspian said, so softly that Edmund would have thought he imagined the words, if, at the same time, he hadn’t heard them ring throughout his whole body. He wondered if that was how it was going to be from now on, that everything Caspian said he would hear.
It would be, he thought as finally, at long last, Caspian and he stepped forth and embraced one another as though they were to never let go again, most annoying.
Then again, even that would be alright.
THE END
