Disclaimer: Edmund and Peter Pevensie and all the characters and situations in the Chronicles of Narnia belong to C. S. Lewis and not to me.
PETER
"Peter, don't! Don't, I'm begging you!"
Still panting from the struggle, Peter pulled tighter on the rope binding his brother's wrists and then knotted it. Edmund lay in the trampled grass trembling, his dark eyes wide with helpless fear.
"Peter, please. Don't do this. You can't do this."
Half choked with tears, Peter turned his face away. Two or twenty-two, Edmund was his brother. His baby brother.
"I have to, Ed. You know I have to. It's almost moonrise, and it'd be too late after– after–" He broke off, scrubbing his eyes with his fists. "I tried– I was trying to kill it before it could get to you. It was too fast for me. And now– Don't hate me, Ed. I tried, and now it's too late."
"Peter, it's not too late. Let me go." Edmund held up his hands, the bonds forcing the palms together in a semblance of prayer. "Let me go, and we'll get help. Somewhere there must be a cure. It hasn't been that long, and it was just one bite."
"It is too late!" Peter grabbed him by the shoulders, dragging him into a sitting position, shaking him. "There's no such thing as just one bite! One bite or fifty, once it's in the blood, it's too late!"
"No, we can–"
"It was a werewolf, Ed." Peter spat the words through clenched teeth. "A werewolf. We both know what that means."
Peter glanced at the sickening heap of fur and blood and death-stench that lay still warm only a few feet away, Rhindon buried to the hilt in its belly. Killed, but at a terrible price.
Edmund looked at it, too. Looked at it and then back at Peter, his eyes dark and pleading. Disbelieving. Shattered.
"Pete . . ."
"Don't." Again Peter turned his face away, feeling something crushing and tearing the heart out of him. "Don't, Ed. Don't."
Edmund drew his knees up to his chest and rested his forehead and his bound hands on top of them. Slight and shaking. Helpless baby brother.
Peter feathered one trembling hand through the dark hair. "Ed–"
With a cry, Edmund flung himself forward, driving his shoulder into Peter's chest, knocking the air out of him. They were both tested and proven warriors and kings, but Edmund was still the lighter of the two, and it served him well now. He scrambled up and bolted towards the trees, but Peter was on him in an instant, tackling him at the knees, slamming him onto the unforgiving ground.
Edmund thrashed against him. "You can't do this! Not to me! Peter, not to me!"
Steeling himself, Peter seized his brother by the ankles and dragged him back into the center of the clearing, back near the site of the kill, near that thing that also had once been a man. Quick and efficient, he cut one end off the rope that bound Edmund's wrists and used it to secure his ankles as well. Then he once more sat his brother up.
"Oh, Peter, please," Edmund breathed, helpless, hopeless, the fear in his eyes now terror. "Pete–"
The word was choked into nothingness, and Peter crushed Edmund to him, pressing his lips to the dark hair as his tears fell into it.
"Ed. Eddie. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I'd do anything to make this stop, but I can't. It's too late. There's no cure, and I have to do it. Don't hate me."
He felt tears soaking into his shirt and his brother's silent sobs.
"Shh," Peter whispered, stroking his hair once again. "It has to be this way. You know it does. I can't lose you. I can't let you get away from me. I love you, Eddie. You know that, right? You have to know that. If I could make it be some other way–"
His throat closed around the words. He could feel his brother trembling in his arms, helpless to stop the change they both knew was coming.
"Whatever happens, Eddie, I won't let you go."
Above them, the heartless moon broke the clouds and turned them pale and silver under its light.
And when the sun rose and he was a man again, Peter wiped brother's blood from his mouth and wept.
