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[fic] Along the Midnight Edge 11/14
Title: Along the Midnight Edge
Rating: 18
Genre: drama, romance
Pairings: Edmund/Caspian
Wordcount: 80k
Warnings: it is rated 18 for potentially disturbing themes
Summary: Narnia ended a mere two hundred years after Caspian’s reign, as though he was the climax of her 2,500 years’ history. He was. There were stories unfolding in Narnia of which none of her rulers were aware, and stories must run their natural course, even though their heroes are dead.
[CHAPTER ELEVEN -- Then on the earth partially reclining]
“Should we pack water?”
“There’s snow.”
“I have matches and chocolate. Some bread, though that won’t be much good if it’s as cold as you say. Sleeping bags, and extra gloves.”
“Butane?”
“Of course. As much as we can carry, but it’s not much.”
“We have the rings; we can always leave Narnia and look for provisions elsewhere.”
Susan didn’t look convinced. “Time is working against us then.”
“We’ll manage.”
“Are you ill? That almost sounded like optimism.”
“I have been in a train crash.”
“How long is that excuse going to last?”
“As long as I can make it.” Edmund tightened the fastening of his backpack, which was smaller than Susan’s. She wasn’t convinced by his insistence that everything was fine. “Are you ready?”
“I suppose.”
They were standing in the middle of their living room. Though it was cold outside, it was only the British autumn, which meant that outside they only needed to turn their collars up and maybe add a scarf, and they were both wrapped in snow-jackets and trousers. Yet Susan’s hair was brushed and coiffed and there was the hint of lipstick on her mouth. She could always be trusted to maintain a sense of effortlessness; if all else failed, Edmund could count on Susan to look as though the effort was hardly worth mentioning.
“The way I’m told this works,” Edmund said as he opened the box, “is that the yellow rings will take us to a wood between worlds. Digory said there are pools there, and each pool is its own world.”
“I suppose it is no less crazy than finding a whole world in a wardrobe.”
“Here.” Edmund handed Susan a green ring from the box. “Put that in your right pocket. Digory said the green ones only work when you are jumping into a pool, so that’s not going to be a problem.”
“Unless I get robbed.”
“I have spares. The green ones are quite useless, until we get to the wood, anyway.” Edmund carefully shook out a yellow ring onto the coffee table, put the box into his back pack and grasped Susan’s hand. “Ready?” he asked.
“As I’ll ever be.”
As soon as he touched the ring, the world became muddled, as though a milky glass had descended between them and the room in which they stood. Edmund felt a lurch in the pit of his stomach, as though they were moving, and he tightened his hand around Susan’s. He was relieved when she squeezed back.
It was seconds later, but they were long seconds, when they surfaced in the most serene forest Edmund had ever had the pleasure of seeing. It was quiet and golden, the kind of place where it is always a sunny, summer Sunday afternoon.
“It’s beautiful,” Susan said in a hushed voice.
Edmund had to agree. He would have loved nothing more than to lie down under a tree and watch the sun filter through the leaves. Nothing seemed important, not here.
He shook his head. “Digory said this would happen. Come, we need to find Narnia.”
“Every pool a world, did you say?” Susan said, in a changed voice. Edmund looked around and his heart sank. There were hundreds of pools, each one indistinguishable from the other, save for the one from which they had just emerged, which had a strip of grass around it cut away. It looked fresh, as though it had only been done minutes previously, though Edmund knew from the tales that Digory had been a child of eleven when he’d done it.
“It can’t be too far,” he said, looking around. “Digory said he and Polly emerged from England -- our pool -- together with Jadis on a horse, a cabbie and his uncle, and the horse wandered into a nearby pool, to drink, and they all followed. So, if they emerged from here…”
There were three pools in the immediate vicinity, which a horse could easily approach.
“Should we just try them in turn?” Susan asked.
“There’s only three,” he said doubtfully. Then something else caught his attention. A little to the left there was something that might have been a pool once, but had grass growing into it, so that the remains of water were only visible when the sunshine hit it just right. “Or four.”
“That’s very nearly ground,” Susan said.
“Narnia is a dead world. Almost dead.”
“Seems about right.”
“Shall we, then?”
“I had really hoped you were going to propose,” Susan said wearily as she took out the green ring from her pocket and put it on her finger. “Mother has been dropping the most dreadful hints about children and I have the perfect dress to wear to your wedding.”
Edmund couldn’t stop the laughter then. It proved to be infectious, and together he and Susan laughed until their sides hurt. “Why was that so funny?” she asked when they straightened and wiped away the tears.
“No idea.” Edmund turned to the pond. “Let’s go. I’m kind of hot.”
Hand in hand they stepped into the pool, but the magic took hold long before their boots touched its surface and they were falling through, into another world. The golden-green light illuminated their way down, gradually dissipating in the silvery darkness, until the sky was full of stars and the landscape around them glittered with reflected light.
They stood on an endless white plain, untouched by human life. Above, there was nothing but the stars, before them nothing but snow. Edmund took a shuddering breath and was blinded by the white mist that escaped his mouth. The silence was absolute; each heartbeat thundered in his chest as though it were a cathedral bell.
“This is Narnia?” Susan said in horror. Her face was whiter than the snow and it was only partly because of the cold. Her hand trembled in Edmund’s and she might have cried, but the vicious cold must have told her it would not be a good idea to have moisture on her face.
“Unfortunately.”
“It really ended.”
“Well, plenty of it is still around.” This earned him a smack on the head.
“Don’t joke.”
The started walking eventually, as the cold was far too biting to allow for lengthy pauses. Edmund wasn’t sure of the precise direction, but it was light enough to see for miles, and there was a hill up ahead, far in the distance, that looked like it might be the How, bereft of trees and illuminated by the unfamiliar skies. How fortunate that they were transported so close, Edmund thought and his heart beat all the stronger, for somehow he knew that every step was bringing them closer home.
A screech cut through his musings.
Edmund jerked his head up and took a wrong step. His ankle wobbled and he skidded on the ice and he fell, pulling Susan with him. This was fortunate, in a way, as the fall took her from the range of the great talons, which clutched at the empty air. Edmund saw the creature sail a little way further, than turn against the starry sky.
“Edmund! Are you okay?”
“Perfectly fine,” he said, getting up slowly, to avoid putting weight on his left leg. That had been dangerous and it was about to get worse. Two more creatures had been lurking in the shadows between the stars on the sky and were presently coming towards them. Edmund regretted not having packed a sword, or a gun, or even a knife. Strange how far his mind strayed from swords in England.
“I think we should run,” Susan said.
“Agreed.”
Edmund started running and she matched his pace with ease, though it wouldn’t be long before she would have to pull him forth, as he could already feel the strain upon his freshly healed legs. Time was against him, always against him.
A dragon landed on the snow before them, reared its head and roared, as Edmund tried to get between its dripping fangs and Susan, but then a sword flashed through the night and its head rolled to the ground.
Edmund held out a hand and Caspian pulled him close until they were finally wrapped in one another. There was no tenderness there, no gentle reassurance; Edmund was acutely aware of the hilt of the sword against the small of his back, even through the thick jacket, of teeth against his lower lip and cold fingers digging into his side. His right arm -- thankfully he had the foresight to keep the cast on -- was caught between them at an awkward angle, groaning under the strain, but all that didn’t matter, when he could claw weakly at Caspian’s chest; they were back, he was back, and this time there would be nothing at all to stand in their way.
Caspian hiccoughed, which may have been a strangled sob, but it ended up in laughter, when the hitch caused their teeth to bump and they broke apart, just far enough to allow for speech, and laughed and cried at the same time.
He was home.
“What on earth are you wearing, you moron,” Edmund asked, when it occurred to him that he was clutching the collar of Caspian’s shirt, and that he wore no other garments. “It’s bloody cold!”
“Susan!” someone yelled from behind Caspian’s back, and Edmund half-turned to find Susan, frozen in a look of utter shock, which quickly turned into tears as Lucy and Peter both enveloped her in a hug.
“You don’t look well,” Caspian said, finally deigning to take even half a step back. He brushed his thumb against Edmund’s mouth. Edmund realised the coppery taste on his tongue was blood, probably from a split lip.
“Oh, thank you. I needed that,” he groused, even as Caspian laughed and licked the blood off his finger. He kissed him again, slower and more gently, lapping at the cut as though he was a cat trying to heal it.
It was a low growl that finally brought Edmund to his senses. Somewhere to the left another of the dragons was crawling towards them, and though the carcass was likely his primary intention, soon there would be more of them to worry about. High above the dark creatures were circling, and they seemed to be getting bigger with every passing moment.
“Inside,” Peter said shortly.
They hurried towards the cave’s entrance, some of them looking fearfully over their shoulders.
“How long has it been?” Edmund asked, as soon as the outside light dissolved in the utter darkness of the How.
“We don’t know. A while,” Lucy said. “It had been pretty quiet, save for the occasional creature to kill, we’ve been bored. I don’t think it was too long though.”
Far in the corridor there was light and soon they stepped into the chamber of the Stone Table, where Eustace and the rest were seated upon the makeshift chairs.
“How long had it been for you?” Peter asked, curiously. He held Susan’s backpack in one hand, the other was wrapped around her waist. Lucy walked on her other side, clutching her arm. Both of them, like Caspian, had ignored the need for warmth, as they were only wearing thin shirts.
“Eighty-two days, or thereabouts.” Edmund sank onto a stone gratefully. His leg was bothering him. It wasn’t painful and it was fully functional, but there was a prelude to pain, a kind of dull throb, that started in the ankle and occasionally sent waves as high up as his hip. Soon it would start giving out underneath his weight and then he would really be in trouble.
Thankfully, it was warmer here. Not nearly warm enough to be comfortable, but at least he didn’t need to breathe shallowly for fear of hurting his throat. He started to undo his jacket only to find that the cast on his arm prevented him from shedding the backpack. He cursed and turned at least twice, before Caspian took hold of the straps and relieved him of the luggage, and then the jacket.
Then came the matter of disentangling Lucy from his waist. She had latched onto him the moment the jacket was off and refused to let go, even when Jill and Eustace joined in on the hug over her head. Peter merely ruffled his hair, though that might have been because there was no visible part of Edmund left to hug. His hand lingered in Edmund’s hair and Edmund was glad to find that he didn’t feel the burning need to leap away from the touch.
“What happened to you?” Caspian asked, staring fixedly at the cast.
“Train,” Edmund said. “Then a hospital.”
“Train,” Peter said. “The train? The one to Bristol?”
“The very same.”
“But it was such a long time ago! We’ve been here for ages!”
“Definitely the same train,” Edmund said, frowning as the memories of the station came flooding back. He couldn’t recall the actual accident (he was more than a little grateful for that), but the aftermath was stark and vivid in his memory.
“What is a train?” Caspian and Emeth both asked.
“A kind carriage. A very long one, only with no horses and a lot faster,” Eustace said. “You look awful, by the way,” he told Edmund.
“Thank you, I noticed.” There were ants matching up and down his right arm, from the tips of his fingers all the way to the shoulder. A spasm of pain twisted his face when he tried flexing his fingers.
“How did you get here?”
“Magic rings,” Susan said, holding up her hand. The green band glistened in the magical light. She was pale and despite the jacket, which still hung loosely around her shoulders, she was shaking. Edmund swore under his breath and went to sit by her. She turned her face into his shoulder and shook even harder.
“Don’t cry,” he whispered into her hair. “Su, it’s fine. Everyone is well.”
Lucy, thankfully, seemed to realise the trouble. She came to sit on Susan’s other side, as she used to back home. “It’s fine, it really is,” she said. “I’m alright, see? We are fine.”
“It is not,” Susan said, hiccoughing to get her tears under control. “You died! All of you! Edmund, when I got the news, they told me he was in surgery, that he was badly hurt and might still die!” She let out a sob into the utter silence. “I had to go and see you, dead!”
Lucy wrapped herself around Susan tightly, as though to dispel the gloom of the vision. “I am fine, Su. Peter is fine. Don’t cry.”
“Right now we are better than Edmund looks, that’s for sure,” Peter said. He was angry, by the tone of his voice, but he came to sit by Susan as well. “We are so happy to see you,” he said with feeling.
“Is that a royal we, or are you speaking for the room?”
“I’m talking for myself and Lucy, certainly. Eustace and Jill too, I presume. I cannot speak on Emeth’s behalf, as I do not believe you have been introduced.”
Edmund looked across the room, to where Caspian was perched on a stone. His dark eyes bore into Edmund, as though there was nothing else of interest. His expression was impassive, and Edmund knew that the empty space Peter left hanging in the air was deliberate. There had been conflict since his disappearance, he surmised. He didn’t need to expend much effort to determine the causes -- Peter was quick to anger, there had certainly been words exchanged between him and Caspian that had bordered on outright hostility in the place of the usual banter and presto, they had an open feud, when one blamed the other for his disappearance and no one was able to settle the argument to anyone’s satisfaction, or even offer a distraction to absorb them.
Susan, meanwhile, stood. She rubbed at her face with the sleeve of her sweater and walked to Emeth, holding out her hand. “I am very pleased to meet you, Emeth,” she said with the air of the great queen she used to be. “I am Susan Pevensie.”
“Queen Susan the Gentle,” Emeth said, taking her hand with a courtly bow. “You honour me.”
She turned to Caspian then who gave her hand a surprised look, then hugged her instead. “It is good to see you, Susan.”
“I would say likewise, except there is clearly much I haven’t been told,” she said icily. “Just how long have you been depraving my brother?”
“Most of my life, though I confess it has become much easier now that he is in physical proximity,” Caspian said pleasantly.
“This is not a matter for levity!”
“It is also not a matter for open debate,” Edmund said, getting up faster than he probably should have. “Su, I am sorry. It is what it is. And you,” he added turning to Caspian, “do me a kindness and never speak another word for as long as you live.”
“As you wish.”
“He ‘felt strongly’ about this? Really?” Susan hissed at him, fire blazing in her eyes.
“Well, it’s not like I could have said anything else, could I?”
Susan opened her mouth, closed it, counted to ten (her eyes would flicker to the sides every time she did, Edmund had learnt to see the signs back when she was learning how to count -- how these things remained in his head, it was remarkable) and let out a breath. “I would have you be honest,” she said. “Instead, you make me look a fool. To think that I encouraged Jane to propose to you!”
Now it was Edmund’s turn to gape.
“Excuse me?”
“You weren’t deafened in the crash, as far as I was told.”
“Are you crazy?”
“Which one of us is canoodling with him?”
“Definitely Edmund,” Caspian said. There was the odd mixture of amusement and jealousy in his voice. “I rather think I would be able to tell the difference.”
“What did I say about not speaking!”
“Edmund, are you mad?” Susan asked again, but he just shook his head.
“My abysmal mental state aside, what news? I see no one has been killed in my absence.”
“It is peculiar,” Peter agreed. “The stars retreated as soon as they saw you were really gone. They chose to devote their time to looking instead. If I had known killing you was such a prize, I might have used it as a bargaining chip long before.”
“You mean to say there has been no trouble?”
“I never said that. There had been trouble. Everyone suspected we have hidden you away, so there are search parties all over the world, which is the only reason we haven’t had a visit from the army yet, I expect.” Peter shook his head. “Why did you come, Ed?”
“I was worried.”
“Well, no offence to your worries, but you shouldn’t have. I have half a mind to send you home this minute.”
“No offence to your half a mind, but no.”
“You are not safe here.”
“Nobody is safe here,” Jill said. “We had at least one skirmish with the stars once you were gone, thankfully Rilian called them off. They didn’t look too concerned with our well-being.”
“What if we all left?” Eustace said. “Digory said one ring is enough to take a number of people through. We could leave here and hide in our world.”
“I don’t think it would be quite so simple,” Edmund said, shaking his head. “It doesn’t seem right to leave the matter wide-open.”
“Says the man who inspired a world-wide manhunt.”
“I’ve given it some thought. I had plenty of time, believe me. Even if I had stayed in England, it’d have been a matter of time before I got back here. What difference does it make, if I stay away for decades instead of days? That, and it won’t be long before the search expands,” Edmund said casually. “Stars are everywhere, after all.”
“Do you think this feud would cross into England?” Eustace asked.
“I would have made it my priority, in Rilian’s place.”
“Wonderful. Tell me, then, is there a point to your presence?”
“Is the pleasure of my company not the point?”
There was silence. Peter’s eyes bore into him. “Ed, what happened? Why did you return?”
Edmund looked at the floor before him. “I should have died in the train crash. I wish I had. Don’t,” he added when Peter opened his mouth to speak. “I beg you. Never ask me what happened. Not once.”
Peter gave him a long, searching look, but nodded. He knew, Edmund thought; he knew because he was Peter and that was how he reacted to one of his siblings being endangered.
The rest looked between the two of them with questions in their eyes, but they said nothing. Edmund turned to look at them all, but the light flickered and he couldn’t see their faces too clearly. He turned towards the magical vial in surprise, and it shone bright and true, but all of sudden there was a black spot in front of it, blocking the light. Oh, he thought. That cannot be good. He stumbled to the nearest flat surface and lay down on the cold stone, focusing on the uneven ceiling rather than the whirling of the floor.
Icicles were hanging overhead, reflecting the bluish light in fine spots, as though it was not a ceiling at all, but a limitless sky full of stars. Shouldn’t the image frighten him, he wondered, when the stars of this world wished him so much harm? Perhaps it should. It didn’t. He watched the light dance and found it beautiful.
“Edmund?” someone asked, eclipsing the wondrous play of light on the ice.
“No, don’t come too close,” Susan was saying. “He needs to breathe.”
“We don’t, Su,” Peter said.
“Oh.”
“I know. We are still adjusting.”
“I’m fine,” Edmund said. Above his head the lights twinkled and wasn’t there a tune to accompany the dance?
“When did you last sleep?” Susan asked, consulting her watch.
“At night?”
“We left late in the afternoon, oh, you idiot! It is four in the morning!”
“You don’t seem too sleepy.”
“I am not recovering from a major trauma. You need to eat, and you need to sleep.”
“As you command,” Edmund said, trying to sit up. He found himself pulled up unceremoniously until his head spun and then lifted, as though he weighed nothing at all. “What on earth!”
“Sleep,” Caspian commanded, adjusting his hold, and if Edmund wasn’t feeling like the world was dropping from beneath his feet he would have hit him. He was no maiden to rescue in such a flamboyant fashion. “Frankly, I am tempted to agree with Peter, you shouldn’t have come.”
“There are a lot of things I shouldn’t have done,” Edmund said darkly as he was carried out of the chamber, “yet here we are.”
He couldn’t see where they were going, only that after some minutes Caspian took a turn and walked into what had to be a room, judging by the way their voices carried. “Sleep,” Caspian said, setting him down on unfolded blankets. “We can talk tomorrow.”
“What tomorrow?”
“We can talk when you wake up, then. Is that better?”
Caspian disappeared for a few moments and returned with his backpack. “You should eat,” he said, but Edmund was too tired. He managed to swallow a couple piece of chocolate, unfold his sleeping bag, and he was asleep.
*****
Edmund woke up, or at least dreamed that he woke up. His gaze met with complete darkness, so thick he found that he needed to touch his eyes to make sure they were open.
“Why are you staring?” he asked out loud. There was warmth of a body at his side, though how he knew he was being watched, how Caspian could see anything, Edmund had no idea.
“You’ve changed,” was the answer.
“It wasn’t that long.”
“You’re sadder. You’ve lost weight. Then there’s this.”
Edmund felt a light touch on the side of his head, trailing the scar from the eyebrow to behind the ear. “Does it offend you?” he asked quietly.
“A little. I should like to kill whoever gave it to you.”
“It’s not quite so simple,” Edmund said, thinking of lions and trains and the sight of his own bone, protruding through the flesh of his arm.
Caspian smiled and nestled his head against Edmund’s neck. “If you’re asking if I mind the sight, the answer is no. It makes you look older. More like you.” He sighed and his breath moved Edmund’s collar. “Why are you so sad?”
“Lucy and Eustace and Jill -- my parents, too -- they all died in the crash. I didn’t see them die, I don’t think I ever got around to thinking of them as dead.” It was so hard to speak, almost as hard as it was to remember. “It was Peter. He’s such a fool.”
“I have observed as much, yes.”
Edmund frowned and jabbed Caspian, hard. This was no joke. “I think he saved me. I think he put himself in harm’s way for my sake, and it killed him.”
“It also killed you, how else would you appear in Aslan’s country alongside him?”
“How would I disappear, if I wasn’t alive?”
There was a rustle of fabric and Caspian was above him, pressing his mouth to the scar on his head. “I missed you. It was so bleak when you were gone, I thought I might break and disappear.” His mouth traced the outline of Edmund’s ear as he whispered. “I went looking for Rilian when I couldn’t find you, begged him to kill me then and there, because I couldn’t stand your absence any longer.”
“One would think you were a girl, the things you say sometimes,” Edmund said even as he sank into the feel of Caspian’s neck beneath his lips, into the roaring of his pulse, the sharp, salty smell of him. He had drowned in it all a long time ago; the surface was nothing but a memory and he gladly fell deeper with every breath. “One would think you are too fond of romance novels.”
“I did wonder,” Caspian said, pulling up Edmund’s sweater over his head. “If you were a woman, I would have had a much easier time keeping you, back on the Dawn Treader.”
“I don’t think that even deserves a reply.”
“No, I have considered that quite carefully. You would have been with a child long before we were even done with the journey, and then you would have had to stay.”
“I rather doubt it. If I were a woman, you would have been too busy romancing my cousin,” Edmund said. “Unless we are positing a scenario in which our genders are reversed, in which case there would have been Lucy.”
“I wouldn’t dare to go after Lucy,” Caspian said, an Edmund had to agree. He’d entertained murderous thoughts about men and boys who looked at her with anything other than genuine friendship, in either world. “Besides, who would I fight with? She is much too pleasant.”
“I was rather surprised you never tried seducing Peter, if a fight was what you were after.”
Caspian had managed to get the cast off his arm and paused at the sorry sight beneath. Edmund flexed his fingers and Caspian nuzzled into the palm of his hand, then mouthed along the thick scar tissue, which ran across the bone, halfway between wrist and elbow. “Ridiculous.”
“Certainly.” Edmund let out a brief laugh. “But you fight so often, one must wonder what is it that drives you, when there is little genuine animosity.”
“I have the utmost respect for Peter,” Caspian said.
“Liar.”
“It was worth a try. Let me try again, then. I do love him; he is your brother, and therefore he is my family as well. As brothers, I thought it natural that we fight.”
“It is comforting.”
In the darkness Caspian grinned wickedly. “If you’re asking if I find him handsome, however, I must say I do.”
Edmund dug his teeth into Caspian’s shoulder, suckled on the skin hard enough to make a vivid mark. “You are a beast.”
“Oh yes.” The s trailed away, slippery and sizzling.
How strange that Caspian was so heated, Edmund thought in a daze, arching into his touch, when there was snow and ice in the cavern. Perhaps it wasn’t quite so cold. He sat up, dislodging Caspian in the process, only to find that the temperature around them was far too low for his comfort. “How is it that you are not cold?” he asked accusingly, burrowing back into the sleeping bag. “I’m freezing!”
Caspian let out a breathy laugh, but crawled up to shield Edmund from the cold. “Is this better?”
“Marginally,” Edmund said. “Again, how are you not cold?”
“I don’t know. I was fairly distraught after your disappearance; we all were. I ran outside without bothering about clothes, to search, then we realised the cold doesn’t do us much harm, when after an hour or so of stumbling in the snow and yelling we could still easily have gone on.”
“That does make sense.”
“I feel the cold,” Caspian said, settling comfortably with a leg on either side of Edmund’s thigh. “I just learned not to mind.”
“That is something to look forward to.” Edmund trembled, came undone at Caspian’s touch. The temperature didn’t bother him any more; his skin was on fire, every nerve, every pore burned, for Caspian, because of Caspian, with Caspian.
“You shouldn’t have come,” Caspian whispered into his ear. “It was foolish,” he told Edmund’s collarbone. “You are not well.” His beard tickled Edmund’s sternum.
“Name one thing that presently is well,” Edmund managed.
“It doesn’t seem right to add to the misery, then.”
Edmund clenched his eyes shut, though in the darkness it made no difference at all.
“You don’t seem too upset at my return,” he said, when his breath slowed down enough to allow for speech. Caspian stretched beside him, pulled him close. Their bodies aligned in the darkness, an awkward fit in the narrow sleeping bag, but it was a closeness Edmund wouldn’t have traded for the most luxurious royal bedroom.
“You disappeared before our very eyes,” Caspian said. He was breathless, restless, inconsolable. Edmund wrapped his arms around him, soothed as best he could. He kissed the crown of his head, combed his fingers through his hair, pressed his lips against Caspian’s mouth until at last his breath quieted. “We didn’t know what had befallen you, whether you were taken by Rilian, or Aslan, or some other force. I am thankful to see you alive, even if I do agree that it might have been safer had you stayed in the other world.”
“You wished I wouldn’t return?”
Caspian allowed himself a moment of reflection. “Now that I know you were safe all the while, yes.”
“If by safe you mean recovering from a serious accident.” Edmund sighed. “No, I don’t think I am safe, being away from you.”
The only answer was a puff of warm air against his cheek. Edmund could wager a guess as to what was going through Caspian’s mind, for it occupied his, as well. They had so little hope, one had to make use of whatever was there.
Edmund smiled at nothing in particular. “I did have an idea.”
“Let us hear it.”
“The dragons,” he said. “I take it there aren’t many of them around?”
“We had the occasional skirmish, but for the most part the stars drove them away. There must be a lot of them. We saw them in the distance often.”
“Do the stars kill them?”
“Far as I was able to see if they expend the effort, yes, but it seemed to me they are just as frightened of the creatures as the creatures are of them.”
“Excellent. It is more than I hoped for.”
“You mean to use them,” Caspian said slowly. There was dread in his voice, but also curiosity. “You mean to have them for your armies.”
“I do. Eustace got to control one, I saw the others react. I believe it would extend to them all, if someone determined enough tried the trick again. They are made of the same stuff, after all.”
“Frightful, wrong stuff.”
“I know,” Edmund said. His voice was light. “But there is so little that we can do otherwise, and in any case how hard can it be to resist the influence of dragon-like creatures? They aren’t intelligent, are they? No, hear me out.” He took Caspian’s face in his hands, a gesture completely lost for the lack of light to see by. All the better. “I have seen this stuff before, I am certain. With the White Witch. I can conquer it. I know what to expect, I know what it does. I can do it. I have done it, once before.”
“You were rescued then.”
“I’m far from claiming I rescued myself in any capacity. What I did was foolish and malicious, but I had seen her do evil, and I rebelled against it.”
“I do not like this. There must be some other way to vanquish the stars.”
“The stars aren’t my biggest concern at the moment.”
Caspian frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“Aslan was on the tracks when my family died,” Edmund said. “Given how rare it is for lions to wander across the British railway system, I presume his presence there had a purpose. I spoke with the man who drove the train, he swore up and down that a lion told him to do so, and there are no talking beasts in England. Aslan was there to see me dead, I’m sure of it.”
Caspian stared at him. Edmund half-suspected a cry of disbelief at the revelation, but there was none. He merely looked, without a word, and though Edmund couldn’t see his face he felt the trembling of the arm wrapped around his waist. Even then, he thought as a burst of affection flickered through his senses, he felt safe.
“So you see, there is even less of a choice before me now. I can do it,” Edmund said. “You must trust me when I say I can survive it, more or less unchanged.”
Caspian shrugged. “I have no doubt that you could, which doesn’t make the idea any less disturbing.”
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“I expect you to support me, when Peter inevitably starts raving.”
“You intend to tell him what you plan?”
“Please, am I a fool? He would never allow it.”
“In that case, I don’t allow it.”
Edmund laughed and disentangled himself from Caspian’s arms. “Did you intend for that to sound discouraging? Because you failed.”
“It thrills me how important my judgement is to you.”
“It’s the only way I know to save you,” Edmund said quietly, then stilled and very deliberately looked straight at where he knew Caspian lay. “Tell me that I mustn’t do it, then. I swear I won’t, I swear on Peter’s life, if you look me in the eye and forbid it.”
There was nothing.
Edmund smiled. A moment’s worth of groping around the ice-cold ground revealed that his backpack was lying not far from the bedding. Edmund delved into the side-pockets and came up with a torch. He flicked it on and shone the beam of light into Caspian’s eyes. With its help he managed to locate their clothes, most of which thankfully never made it out of the sleeping bag and were therefore warm enough to put on.
There was enough ice in the room to allow for a very uncomfortable clean up, thoroughly hindered by Caspian roving hands. “We are going to have to rejoin the rest sometime,” Edmund said eventually, when his shuddering became so bad Caspian drew a blanket around their -- still naked -- shoulders.
“I know. Is it so wrong to keep you to myself for a few minutes longer?”
Edmund closed his eyes, for whatever good that did him, and turned into the embrace. “If you’d had your way, we’d still have been locked up in the cabin of the Dawn Treader. It would have been splendid, I grant you. If there was a chance,” he said slowly, feeling Caspian’s heartbeat beneath his palm. He shook and it had nothing to do with the cold. “I would have gladly stayed here forever, with no one but you for company.” Caspian’s arms tightened around him and Edmund bit his lip to hold in the tears.
“Maybe we should go with my plan, for once, when we agree.”
“If you can find a way to enforce it, absolutely.”
Caspian couldn’t think of a way, offhand. “How much time do I have to come up with something?”
“Until I have an opportunity,” Edmund said. “Shall we get up now?”
Rating: 18
Genre: drama, romance
Pairings: Edmund/Caspian
Wordcount: 80k
Warnings: it is rated 18 for potentially disturbing themes
Summary: Narnia ended a mere two hundred years after Caspian’s reign, as though he was the climax of her 2,500 years’ history. He was. There were stories unfolding in Narnia of which none of her rulers were aware, and stories must run their natural course, even though their heroes are dead.
[CHAPTER ELEVEN -- Then on the earth partially reclining]
“Should we pack water?”
“There’s snow.”
“I have matches and chocolate. Some bread, though that won’t be much good if it’s as cold as you say. Sleeping bags, and extra gloves.”
“Butane?”
“Of course. As much as we can carry, but it’s not much.”
“We have the rings; we can always leave Narnia and look for provisions elsewhere.”
Susan didn’t look convinced. “Time is working against us then.”
“We’ll manage.”
“Are you ill? That almost sounded like optimism.”
“I have been in a train crash.”
“How long is that excuse going to last?”
“As long as I can make it.” Edmund tightened the fastening of his backpack, which was smaller than Susan’s. She wasn’t convinced by his insistence that everything was fine. “Are you ready?”
“I suppose.”
They were standing in the middle of their living room. Though it was cold outside, it was only the British autumn, which meant that outside they only needed to turn their collars up and maybe add a scarf, and they were both wrapped in snow-jackets and trousers. Yet Susan’s hair was brushed and coiffed and there was the hint of lipstick on her mouth. She could always be trusted to maintain a sense of effortlessness; if all else failed, Edmund could count on Susan to look as though the effort was hardly worth mentioning.
“The way I’m told this works,” Edmund said as he opened the box, “is that the yellow rings will take us to a wood between worlds. Digory said there are pools there, and each pool is its own world.”
“I suppose it is no less crazy than finding a whole world in a wardrobe.”
“Here.” Edmund handed Susan a green ring from the box. “Put that in your right pocket. Digory said the green ones only work when you are jumping into a pool, so that’s not going to be a problem.”
“Unless I get robbed.”
“I have spares. The green ones are quite useless, until we get to the wood, anyway.” Edmund carefully shook out a yellow ring onto the coffee table, put the box into his back pack and grasped Susan’s hand. “Ready?” he asked.
“As I’ll ever be.”
As soon as he touched the ring, the world became muddled, as though a milky glass had descended between them and the room in which they stood. Edmund felt a lurch in the pit of his stomach, as though they were moving, and he tightened his hand around Susan’s. He was relieved when she squeezed back.
It was seconds later, but they were long seconds, when they surfaced in the most serene forest Edmund had ever had the pleasure of seeing. It was quiet and golden, the kind of place where it is always a sunny, summer Sunday afternoon.
“It’s beautiful,” Susan said in a hushed voice.
Edmund had to agree. He would have loved nothing more than to lie down under a tree and watch the sun filter through the leaves. Nothing seemed important, not here.
He shook his head. “Digory said this would happen. Come, we need to find Narnia.”
“Every pool a world, did you say?” Susan said, in a changed voice. Edmund looked around and his heart sank. There were hundreds of pools, each one indistinguishable from the other, save for the one from which they had just emerged, which had a strip of grass around it cut away. It looked fresh, as though it had only been done minutes previously, though Edmund knew from the tales that Digory had been a child of eleven when he’d done it.
“It can’t be too far,” he said, looking around. “Digory said he and Polly emerged from England -- our pool -- together with Jadis on a horse, a cabbie and his uncle, and the horse wandered into a nearby pool, to drink, and they all followed. So, if they emerged from here…”
There were three pools in the immediate vicinity, which a horse could easily approach.
“Should we just try them in turn?” Susan asked.
“There’s only three,” he said doubtfully. Then something else caught his attention. A little to the left there was something that might have been a pool once, but had grass growing into it, so that the remains of water were only visible when the sunshine hit it just right. “Or four.”
“That’s very nearly ground,” Susan said.
“Narnia is a dead world. Almost dead.”
“Seems about right.”
“Shall we, then?”
“I had really hoped you were going to propose,” Susan said wearily as she took out the green ring from her pocket and put it on her finger. “Mother has been dropping the most dreadful hints about children and I have the perfect dress to wear to your wedding.”
Edmund couldn’t stop the laughter then. It proved to be infectious, and together he and Susan laughed until their sides hurt. “Why was that so funny?” she asked when they straightened and wiped away the tears.
“No idea.” Edmund turned to the pond. “Let’s go. I’m kind of hot.”
Hand in hand they stepped into the pool, but the magic took hold long before their boots touched its surface and they were falling through, into another world. The golden-green light illuminated their way down, gradually dissipating in the silvery darkness, until the sky was full of stars and the landscape around them glittered with reflected light.
They stood on an endless white plain, untouched by human life. Above, there was nothing but the stars, before them nothing but snow. Edmund took a shuddering breath and was blinded by the white mist that escaped his mouth. The silence was absolute; each heartbeat thundered in his chest as though it were a cathedral bell.
“This is Narnia?” Susan said in horror. Her face was whiter than the snow and it was only partly because of the cold. Her hand trembled in Edmund’s and she might have cried, but the vicious cold must have told her it would not be a good idea to have moisture on her face.
“Unfortunately.”
“It really ended.”
“Well, plenty of it is still around.” This earned him a smack on the head.
“Don’t joke.”
The started walking eventually, as the cold was far too biting to allow for lengthy pauses. Edmund wasn’t sure of the precise direction, but it was light enough to see for miles, and there was a hill up ahead, far in the distance, that looked like it might be the How, bereft of trees and illuminated by the unfamiliar skies. How fortunate that they were transported so close, Edmund thought and his heart beat all the stronger, for somehow he knew that every step was bringing them closer home.
A screech cut through his musings.
Edmund jerked his head up and took a wrong step. His ankle wobbled and he skidded on the ice and he fell, pulling Susan with him. This was fortunate, in a way, as the fall took her from the range of the great talons, which clutched at the empty air. Edmund saw the creature sail a little way further, than turn against the starry sky.
“Edmund! Are you okay?”
“Perfectly fine,” he said, getting up slowly, to avoid putting weight on his left leg. That had been dangerous and it was about to get worse. Two more creatures had been lurking in the shadows between the stars on the sky and were presently coming towards them. Edmund regretted not having packed a sword, or a gun, or even a knife. Strange how far his mind strayed from swords in England.
“I think we should run,” Susan said.
“Agreed.”
Edmund started running and she matched his pace with ease, though it wouldn’t be long before she would have to pull him forth, as he could already feel the strain upon his freshly healed legs. Time was against him, always against him.
A dragon landed on the snow before them, reared its head and roared, as Edmund tried to get between its dripping fangs and Susan, but then a sword flashed through the night and its head rolled to the ground.
Edmund held out a hand and Caspian pulled him close until they were finally wrapped in one another. There was no tenderness there, no gentle reassurance; Edmund was acutely aware of the hilt of the sword against the small of his back, even through the thick jacket, of teeth against his lower lip and cold fingers digging into his side. His right arm -- thankfully he had the foresight to keep the cast on -- was caught between them at an awkward angle, groaning under the strain, but all that didn’t matter, when he could claw weakly at Caspian’s chest; they were back, he was back, and this time there would be nothing at all to stand in their way.
Caspian hiccoughed, which may have been a strangled sob, but it ended up in laughter, when the hitch caused their teeth to bump and they broke apart, just far enough to allow for speech, and laughed and cried at the same time.
He was home.
“What on earth are you wearing, you moron,” Edmund asked, when it occurred to him that he was clutching the collar of Caspian’s shirt, and that he wore no other garments. “It’s bloody cold!”
“Susan!” someone yelled from behind Caspian’s back, and Edmund half-turned to find Susan, frozen in a look of utter shock, which quickly turned into tears as Lucy and Peter both enveloped her in a hug.
“You don’t look well,” Caspian said, finally deigning to take even half a step back. He brushed his thumb against Edmund’s mouth. Edmund realised the coppery taste on his tongue was blood, probably from a split lip.
“Oh, thank you. I needed that,” he groused, even as Caspian laughed and licked the blood off his finger. He kissed him again, slower and more gently, lapping at the cut as though he was a cat trying to heal it.
It was a low growl that finally brought Edmund to his senses. Somewhere to the left another of the dragons was crawling towards them, and though the carcass was likely his primary intention, soon there would be more of them to worry about. High above the dark creatures were circling, and they seemed to be getting bigger with every passing moment.
“Inside,” Peter said shortly.
They hurried towards the cave’s entrance, some of them looking fearfully over their shoulders.
“How long has it been?” Edmund asked, as soon as the outside light dissolved in the utter darkness of the How.
“We don’t know. A while,” Lucy said. “It had been pretty quiet, save for the occasional creature to kill, we’ve been bored. I don’t think it was too long though.”
Far in the corridor there was light and soon they stepped into the chamber of the Stone Table, where Eustace and the rest were seated upon the makeshift chairs.
“How long had it been for you?” Peter asked, curiously. He held Susan’s backpack in one hand, the other was wrapped around her waist. Lucy walked on her other side, clutching her arm. Both of them, like Caspian, had ignored the need for warmth, as they were only wearing thin shirts.
“Eighty-two days, or thereabouts.” Edmund sank onto a stone gratefully. His leg was bothering him. It wasn’t painful and it was fully functional, but there was a prelude to pain, a kind of dull throb, that started in the ankle and occasionally sent waves as high up as his hip. Soon it would start giving out underneath his weight and then he would really be in trouble.
Thankfully, it was warmer here. Not nearly warm enough to be comfortable, but at least he didn’t need to breathe shallowly for fear of hurting his throat. He started to undo his jacket only to find that the cast on his arm prevented him from shedding the backpack. He cursed and turned at least twice, before Caspian took hold of the straps and relieved him of the luggage, and then the jacket.
Then came the matter of disentangling Lucy from his waist. She had latched onto him the moment the jacket was off and refused to let go, even when Jill and Eustace joined in on the hug over her head. Peter merely ruffled his hair, though that might have been because there was no visible part of Edmund left to hug. His hand lingered in Edmund’s hair and Edmund was glad to find that he didn’t feel the burning need to leap away from the touch.
“What happened to you?” Caspian asked, staring fixedly at the cast.
“Train,” Edmund said. “Then a hospital.”
“Train,” Peter said. “The train? The one to Bristol?”
“The very same.”
“But it was such a long time ago! We’ve been here for ages!”
“Definitely the same train,” Edmund said, frowning as the memories of the station came flooding back. He couldn’t recall the actual accident (he was more than a little grateful for that), but the aftermath was stark and vivid in his memory.
“What is a train?” Caspian and Emeth both asked.
“A kind carriage. A very long one, only with no horses and a lot faster,” Eustace said. “You look awful, by the way,” he told Edmund.
“Thank you, I noticed.” There were ants matching up and down his right arm, from the tips of his fingers all the way to the shoulder. A spasm of pain twisted his face when he tried flexing his fingers.
“How did you get here?”
“Magic rings,” Susan said, holding up her hand. The green band glistened in the magical light. She was pale and despite the jacket, which still hung loosely around her shoulders, she was shaking. Edmund swore under his breath and went to sit by her. She turned her face into his shoulder and shook even harder.
“Don’t cry,” he whispered into her hair. “Su, it’s fine. Everyone is well.”
Lucy, thankfully, seemed to realise the trouble. She came to sit on Susan’s other side, as she used to back home. “It’s fine, it really is,” she said. “I’m alright, see? We are fine.”
“It is not,” Susan said, hiccoughing to get her tears under control. “You died! All of you! Edmund, when I got the news, they told me he was in surgery, that he was badly hurt and might still die!” She let out a sob into the utter silence. “I had to go and see you, dead!”
Lucy wrapped herself around Susan tightly, as though to dispel the gloom of the vision. “I am fine, Su. Peter is fine. Don’t cry.”
“Right now we are better than Edmund looks, that’s for sure,” Peter said. He was angry, by the tone of his voice, but he came to sit by Susan as well. “We are so happy to see you,” he said with feeling.
“Is that a royal we, or are you speaking for the room?”
“I’m talking for myself and Lucy, certainly. Eustace and Jill too, I presume. I cannot speak on Emeth’s behalf, as I do not believe you have been introduced.”
Edmund looked across the room, to where Caspian was perched on a stone. His dark eyes bore into Edmund, as though there was nothing else of interest. His expression was impassive, and Edmund knew that the empty space Peter left hanging in the air was deliberate. There had been conflict since his disappearance, he surmised. He didn’t need to expend much effort to determine the causes -- Peter was quick to anger, there had certainly been words exchanged between him and Caspian that had bordered on outright hostility in the place of the usual banter and presto, they had an open feud, when one blamed the other for his disappearance and no one was able to settle the argument to anyone’s satisfaction, or even offer a distraction to absorb them.
Susan, meanwhile, stood. She rubbed at her face with the sleeve of her sweater and walked to Emeth, holding out her hand. “I am very pleased to meet you, Emeth,” she said with the air of the great queen she used to be. “I am Susan Pevensie.”
“Queen Susan the Gentle,” Emeth said, taking her hand with a courtly bow. “You honour me.”
She turned to Caspian then who gave her hand a surprised look, then hugged her instead. “It is good to see you, Susan.”
“I would say likewise, except there is clearly much I haven’t been told,” she said icily. “Just how long have you been depraving my brother?”
“Most of my life, though I confess it has become much easier now that he is in physical proximity,” Caspian said pleasantly.
“This is not a matter for levity!”
“It is also not a matter for open debate,” Edmund said, getting up faster than he probably should have. “Su, I am sorry. It is what it is. And you,” he added turning to Caspian, “do me a kindness and never speak another word for as long as you live.”
“As you wish.”
“He ‘felt strongly’ about this? Really?” Susan hissed at him, fire blazing in her eyes.
“Well, it’s not like I could have said anything else, could I?”
Susan opened her mouth, closed it, counted to ten (her eyes would flicker to the sides every time she did, Edmund had learnt to see the signs back when she was learning how to count -- how these things remained in his head, it was remarkable) and let out a breath. “I would have you be honest,” she said. “Instead, you make me look a fool. To think that I encouraged Jane to propose to you!”
Now it was Edmund’s turn to gape.
“Excuse me?”
“You weren’t deafened in the crash, as far as I was told.”
“Are you crazy?”
“Which one of us is canoodling with him?”
“Definitely Edmund,” Caspian said. There was the odd mixture of amusement and jealousy in his voice. “I rather think I would be able to tell the difference.”
“What did I say about not speaking!”
“Edmund, are you mad?” Susan asked again, but he just shook his head.
“My abysmal mental state aside, what news? I see no one has been killed in my absence.”
“It is peculiar,” Peter agreed. “The stars retreated as soon as they saw you were really gone. They chose to devote their time to looking instead. If I had known killing you was such a prize, I might have used it as a bargaining chip long before.”
“You mean to say there has been no trouble?”
“I never said that. There had been trouble. Everyone suspected we have hidden you away, so there are search parties all over the world, which is the only reason we haven’t had a visit from the army yet, I expect.” Peter shook his head. “Why did you come, Ed?”
“I was worried.”
“Well, no offence to your worries, but you shouldn’t have. I have half a mind to send you home this minute.”
“No offence to your half a mind, but no.”
“You are not safe here.”
“Nobody is safe here,” Jill said. “We had at least one skirmish with the stars once you were gone, thankfully Rilian called them off. They didn’t look too concerned with our well-being.”
“What if we all left?” Eustace said. “Digory said one ring is enough to take a number of people through. We could leave here and hide in our world.”
“I don’t think it would be quite so simple,” Edmund said, shaking his head. “It doesn’t seem right to leave the matter wide-open.”
“Says the man who inspired a world-wide manhunt.”
“I’ve given it some thought. I had plenty of time, believe me. Even if I had stayed in England, it’d have been a matter of time before I got back here. What difference does it make, if I stay away for decades instead of days? That, and it won’t be long before the search expands,” Edmund said casually. “Stars are everywhere, after all.”
“Do you think this feud would cross into England?” Eustace asked.
“I would have made it my priority, in Rilian’s place.”
“Wonderful. Tell me, then, is there a point to your presence?”
“Is the pleasure of my company not the point?”
There was silence. Peter’s eyes bore into him. “Ed, what happened? Why did you return?”
Edmund looked at the floor before him. “I should have died in the train crash. I wish I had. Don’t,” he added when Peter opened his mouth to speak. “I beg you. Never ask me what happened. Not once.”
Peter gave him a long, searching look, but nodded. He knew, Edmund thought; he knew because he was Peter and that was how he reacted to one of his siblings being endangered.
The rest looked between the two of them with questions in their eyes, but they said nothing. Edmund turned to look at them all, but the light flickered and he couldn’t see their faces too clearly. He turned towards the magical vial in surprise, and it shone bright and true, but all of sudden there was a black spot in front of it, blocking the light. Oh, he thought. That cannot be good. He stumbled to the nearest flat surface and lay down on the cold stone, focusing on the uneven ceiling rather than the whirling of the floor.
Icicles were hanging overhead, reflecting the bluish light in fine spots, as though it was not a ceiling at all, but a limitless sky full of stars. Shouldn’t the image frighten him, he wondered, when the stars of this world wished him so much harm? Perhaps it should. It didn’t. He watched the light dance and found it beautiful.
“Edmund?” someone asked, eclipsing the wondrous play of light on the ice.
“No, don’t come too close,” Susan was saying. “He needs to breathe.”
“We don’t, Su,” Peter said.
“Oh.”
“I know. We are still adjusting.”
“I’m fine,” Edmund said. Above his head the lights twinkled and wasn’t there a tune to accompany the dance?
“When did you last sleep?” Susan asked, consulting her watch.
“At night?”
“We left late in the afternoon, oh, you idiot! It is four in the morning!”
“You don’t seem too sleepy.”
“I am not recovering from a major trauma. You need to eat, and you need to sleep.”
“As you command,” Edmund said, trying to sit up. He found himself pulled up unceremoniously until his head spun and then lifted, as though he weighed nothing at all. “What on earth!”
“Sleep,” Caspian commanded, adjusting his hold, and if Edmund wasn’t feeling like the world was dropping from beneath his feet he would have hit him. He was no maiden to rescue in such a flamboyant fashion. “Frankly, I am tempted to agree with Peter, you shouldn’t have come.”
“There are a lot of things I shouldn’t have done,” Edmund said darkly as he was carried out of the chamber, “yet here we are.”
He couldn’t see where they were going, only that after some minutes Caspian took a turn and walked into what had to be a room, judging by the way their voices carried. “Sleep,” Caspian said, setting him down on unfolded blankets. “We can talk tomorrow.”
“What tomorrow?”
“We can talk when you wake up, then. Is that better?”
Caspian disappeared for a few moments and returned with his backpack. “You should eat,” he said, but Edmund was too tired. He managed to swallow a couple piece of chocolate, unfold his sleeping bag, and he was asleep.
*****
Edmund woke up, or at least dreamed that he woke up. His gaze met with complete darkness, so thick he found that he needed to touch his eyes to make sure they were open.
“Why are you staring?” he asked out loud. There was warmth of a body at his side, though how he knew he was being watched, how Caspian could see anything, Edmund had no idea.
“You’ve changed,” was the answer.
“It wasn’t that long.”
“You’re sadder. You’ve lost weight. Then there’s this.”
Edmund felt a light touch on the side of his head, trailing the scar from the eyebrow to behind the ear. “Does it offend you?” he asked quietly.
“A little. I should like to kill whoever gave it to you.”
“It’s not quite so simple,” Edmund said, thinking of lions and trains and the sight of his own bone, protruding through the flesh of his arm.
Caspian smiled and nestled his head against Edmund’s neck. “If you’re asking if I mind the sight, the answer is no. It makes you look older. More like you.” He sighed and his breath moved Edmund’s collar. “Why are you so sad?”
“Lucy and Eustace and Jill -- my parents, too -- they all died in the crash. I didn’t see them die, I don’t think I ever got around to thinking of them as dead.” It was so hard to speak, almost as hard as it was to remember. “It was Peter. He’s such a fool.”
“I have observed as much, yes.”
Edmund frowned and jabbed Caspian, hard. This was no joke. “I think he saved me. I think he put himself in harm’s way for my sake, and it killed him.”
“It also killed you, how else would you appear in Aslan’s country alongside him?”
“How would I disappear, if I wasn’t alive?”
There was a rustle of fabric and Caspian was above him, pressing his mouth to the scar on his head. “I missed you. It was so bleak when you were gone, I thought I might break and disappear.” His mouth traced the outline of Edmund’s ear as he whispered. “I went looking for Rilian when I couldn’t find you, begged him to kill me then and there, because I couldn’t stand your absence any longer.”
“One would think you were a girl, the things you say sometimes,” Edmund said even as he sank into the feel of Caspian’s neck beneath his lips, into the roaring of his pulse, the sharp, salty smell of him. He had drowned in it all a long time ago; the surface was nothing but a memory and he gladly fell deeper with every breath. “One would think you are too fond of romance novels.”
“I did wonder,” Caspian said, pulling up Edmund’s sweater over his head. “If you were a woman, I would have had a much easier time keeping you, back on the Dawn Treader.”
“I don’t think that even deserves a reply.”
“No, I have considered that quite carefully. You would have been with a child long before we were even done with the journey, and then you would have had to stay.”
“I rather doubt it. If I were a woman, you would have been too busy romancing my cousin,” Edmund said. “Unless we are positing a scenario in which our genders are reversed, in which case there would have been Lucy.”
“I wouldn’t dare to go after Lucy,” Caspian said, an Edmund had to agree. He’d entertained murderous thoughts about men and boys who looked at her with anything other than genuine friendship, in either world. “Besides, who would I fight with? She is much too pleasant.”
“I was rather surprised you never tried seducing Peter, if a fight was what you were after.”
Caspian had managed to get the cast off his arm and paused at the sorry sight beneath. Edmund flexed his fingers and Caspian nuzzled into the palm of his hand, then mouthed along the thick scar tissue, which ran across the bone, halfway between wrist and elbow. “Ridiculous.”
“Certainly.” Edmund let out a brief laugh. “But you fight so often, one must wonder what is it that drives you, when there is little genuine animosity.”
“I have the utmost respect for Peter,” Caspian said.
“Liar.”
“It was worth a try. Let me try again, then. I do love him; he is your brother, and therefore he is my family as well. As brothers, I thought it natural that we fight.”
“It is comforting.”
In the darkness Caspian grinned wickedly. “If you’re asking if I find him handsome, however, I must say I do.”
Edmund dug his teeth into Caspian’s shoulder, suckled on the skin hard enough to make a vivid mark. “You are a beast.”
“Oh yes.” The s trailed away, slippery and sizzling.
How strange that Caspian was so heated, Edmund thought in a daze, arching into his touch, when there was snow and ice in the cavern. Perhaps it wasn’t quite so cold. He sat up, dislodging Caspian in the process, only to find that the temperature around them was far too low for his comfort. “How is it that you are not cold?” he asked accusingly, burrowing back into the sleeping bag. “I’m freezing!”
Caspian let out a breathy laugh, but crawled up to shield Edmund from the cold. “Is this better?”
“Marginally,” Edmund said. “Again, how are you not cold?”
“I don’t know. I was fairly distraught after your disappearance; we all were. I ran outside without bothering about clothes, to search, then we realised the cold doesn’t do us much harm, when after an hour or so of stumbling in the snow and yelling we could still easily have gone on.”
“That does make sense.”
“I feel the cold,” Caspian said, settling comfortably with a leg on either side of Edmund’s thigh. “I just learned not to mind.”
“That is something to look forward to.” Edmund trembled, came undone at Caspian’s touch. The temperature didn’t bother him any more; his skin was on fire, every nerve, every pore burned, for Caspian, because of Caspian, with Caspian.
“You shouldn’t have come,” Caspian whispered into his ear. “It was foolish,” he told Edmund’s collarbone. “You are not well.” His beard tickled Edmund’s sternum.
“Name one thing that presently is well,” Edmund managed.
“It doesn’t seem right to add to the misery, then.”
Edmund clenched his eyes shut, though in the darkness it made no difference at all.
“You don’t seem too upset at my return,” he said, when his breath slowed down enough to allow for speech. Caspian stretched beside him, pulled him close. Their bodies aligned in the darkness, an awkward fit in the narrow sleeping bag, but it was a closeness Edmund wouldn’t have traded for the most luxurious royal bedroom.
“You disappeared before our very eyes,” Caspian said. He was breathless, restless, inconsolable. Edmund wrapped his arms around him, soothed as best he could. He kissed the crown of his head, combed his fingers through his hair, pressed his lips against Caspian’s mouth until at last his breath quieted. “We didn’t know what had befallen you, whether you were taken by Rilian, or Aslan, or some other force. I am thankful to see you alive, even if I do agree that it might have been safer had you stayed in the other world.”
“You wished I wouldn’t return?”
Caspian allowed himself a moment of reflection. “Now that I know you were safe all the while, yes.”
“If by safe you mean recovering from a serious accident.” Edmund sighed. “No, I don’t think I am safe, being away from you.”
The only answer was a puff of warm air against his cheek. Edmund could wager a guess as to what was going through Caspian’s mind, for it occupied his, as well. They had so little hope, one had to make use of whatever was there.
Edmund smiled at nothing in particular. “I did have an idea.”
“Let us hear it.”
“The dragons,” he said. “I take it there aren’t many of them around?”
“We had the occasional skirmish, but for the most part the stars drove them away. There must be a lot of them. We saw them in the distance often.”
“Do the stars kill them?”
“Far as I was able to see if they expend the effort, yes, but it seemed to me they are just as frightened of the creatures as the creatures are of them.”
“Excellent. It is more than I hoped for.”
“You mean to use them,” Caspian said slowly. There was dread in his voice, but also curiosity. “You mean to have them for your armies.”
“I do. Eustace got to control one, I saw the others react. I believe it would extend to them all, if someone determined enough tried the trick again. They are made of the same stuff, after all.”
“Frightful, wrong stuff.”
“I know,” Edmund said. His voice was light. “But there is so little that we can do otherwise, and in any case how hard can it be to resist the influence of dragon-like creatures? They aren’t intelligent, are they? No, hear me out.” He took Caspian’s face in his hands, a gesture completely lost for the lack of light to see by. All the better. “I have seen this stuff before, I am certain. With the White Witch. I can conquer it. I know what to expect, I know what it does. I can do it. I have done it, once before.”
“You were rescued then.”
“I’m far from claiming I rescued myself in any capacity. What I did was foolish and malicious, but I had seen her do evil, and I rebelled against it.”
“I do not like this. There must be some other way to vanquish the stars.”
“The stars aren’t my biggest concern at the moment.”
Caspian frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“Aslan was on the tracks when my family died,” Edmund said. “Given how rare it is for lions to wander across the British railway system, I presume his presence there had a purpose. I spoke with the man who drove the train, he swore up and down that a lion told him to do so, and there are no talking beasts in England. Aslan was there to see me dead, I’m sure of it.”
Caspian stared at him. Edmund half-suspected a cry of disbelief at the revelation, but there was none. He merely looked, without a word, and though Edmund couldn’t see his face he felt the trembling of the arm wrapped around his waist. Even then, he thought as a burst of affection flickered through his senses, he felt safe.
“So you see, there is even less of a choice before me now. I can do it,” Edmund said. “You must trust me when I say I can survive it, more or less unchanged.”
Caspian shrugged. “I have no doubt that you could, which doesn’t make the idea any less disturbing.”
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“I expect you to support me, when Peter inevitably starts raving.”
“You intend to tell him what you plan?”
“Please, am I a fool? He would never allow it.”
“In that case, I don’t allow it.”
Edmund laughed and disentangled himself from Caspian’s arms. “Did you intend for that to sound discouraging? Because you failed.”
“It thrills me how important my judgement is to you.”
“It’s the only way I know to save you,” Edmund said quietly, then stilled and very deliberately looked straight at where he knew Caspian lay. “Tell me that I mustn’t do it, then. I swear I won’t, I swear on Peter’s life, if you look me in the eye and forbid it.”
There was nothing.
Edmund smiled. A moment’s worth of groping around the ice-cold ground revealed that his backpack was lying not far from the bedding. Edmund delved into the side-pockets and came up with a torch. He flicked it on and shone the beam of light into Caspian’s eyes. With its help he managed to locate their clothes, most of which thankfully never made it out of the sleeping bag and were therefore warm enough to put on.
There was enough ice in the room to allow for a very uncomfortable clean up, thoroughly hindered by Caspian roving hands. “We are going to have to rejoin the rest sometime,” Edmund said eventually, when his shuddering became so bad Caspian drew a blanket around their -- still naked -- shoulders.
“I know. Is it so wrong to keep you to myself for a few minutes longer?”
Edmund closed his eyes, for whatever good that did him, and turned into the embrace. “If you’d had your way, we’d still have been locked up in the cabin of the Dawn Treader. It would have been splendid, I grant you. If there was a chance,” he said slowly, feeling Caspian’s heartbeat beneath his palm. He shook and it had nothing to do with the cold. “I would have gladly stayed here forever, with no one but you for company.” Caspian’s arms tightened around him and Edmund bit his lip to hold in the tears.
“Maybe we should go with my plan, for once, when we agree.”
“If you can find a way to enforce it, absolutely.”
Caspian couldn’t think of a way, offhand. “How much time do I have to come up with something?”
“Until I have an opportunity,” Edmund said. “Shall we get up now?”