"Why so troubled, Caspian?" Edina asked as she snuck up behind Caspian who had been deep in thought.
Caspian started so violently that he fell from the windowsill upon which he had formerly been sitting. "Queen Edina! I did not hear you coming." Caspian gasped, avoiding the question.
"That is because I did not want you to," Edina said with a smirk. "You'll find I can be quite stealthy when I wish to be. Now, what is troubling you?"
Caspian avoided her eyes, "It is nothing, my Queen." Caspian made the mistake of glimpsing up and froze at the look upon the Queen's face.
"I do not appreciate lies, Caspian. If you will not tell me so then do not say anything at all. Anything else would be but an insult."
"I'm sorry, your majesty. It's just that, I can't help wondering what would have happened if I had actually helped the witch to escape." Caspian looked at the ground, ashamed to admit his weakness.
Had Caspian been looking, he would have seen Edina's eyes softening in understanding. "Oh Caspian," she said with a sigh, "you are not the first person to have been manipulated by the witch. And if you didn't notice Peter's actions, well you also weren't the last. How much of our Chronicles do you know?"
Caspian was taken aback by the sudden shift in topic and then began to think. "I do not know much. Much of your legend has been lost and I have not heard much at all."
"Well, let me tell you something. I may have more of an excuse than you or Peter given that I didn't know who she really was but I willingly betrayed all of Narnia and went to the witch." Edina looked to the stars as she said this, avoiding Caspian's shocked gaze. "They called me the Betrayer Queen during the early years of my reign. See, when I first met the witch, she introduced herself as queen. I didn't know any better and so I fell to her manipulations. Lucy told me who she really was but I didn't want to believe it and so I chose the witch over my family."
"My Queen—" Caspain began.
"Okay, that seriously needs to stop. We are not in a formal setting and it's not as if I am of higher status than you. We are both Kings and Queens of Narnia and as such are family. Call me Edina."
"Alright, Edina. Why would you listen to the witch if your sister told you what she was?"
"To hurt Peter." Edina said simply, rather enjoying Caspian's shock. "This all goes back to way before we had ever heard of Narnia. See where we are from we are not royalty. We are war refugees hiding out while our father fights. And of my sisters, I have always been able to look after myself. When my father went to war, Peter suddenly found himself man of the house with three little sisters to look after. I can appreciate now how hard that must have been for Peter, we all looked up to him so much. I myself idolized him." Edina broke off there with a rueful grin.
"As you do now?" Caspian asked, trying to make sense of the Queen's words.
"No. When we were younger I looked up to him for the position he held. He was 'awesome big brother'" Caspian could hear the quotations around the statement and allowed himself humor at the insult on the High King. "I looked up to him for no reason other than he was older and supposedly in a position to protect me. Now I look up to him as my King as well as my brother. As someone who can and has used his body as a shield to keep me from harm. I recognize his flaws and understand very well that he is far from perfect. And I love him all the more for them because it is him and not some fictitious character that I have created.
"See, my awesome big brother promised me that he would always be there for me. My awesome big brother was not who I had imagined. See, as I had always been so independent, Peter recognized that I could take care of myself but he took that to mean that I did not need him at all. That could not be further from the truth.
"I was bullied at my school and one day, one of the bullies hit me and busted my lip. My mother was patching me up and I asked her why Peter hadn't been there to protect me even though he promised he would always be there. She told me that Peter hadn't meant what he said. Now I know that she was telling me that he didn't know what he had been promising but I didn't hear what she meant, I heard what she said: that he didn't mean it. And if there is one thing every nine year old knows it is that their mother is always right.
"Peter had the misfortune of coming home right after she said that. See, he had picked Susan and Lucy up from their school and had gone to get ice cream. He had never even thought about picking me up. When I realized that I started to cry and my mother comforted me. And instead of rushing to my side and trying to comfort me as he did with Susan and Lucy, Peter just looked at my mother and said, "What's up with her?" That was too much for me and I ran upstairs.
"After that I decided that if he wouldn't treat me like his sister than I would not treat him as a brother. Poor Peter had no idea what was going on, all he knew was suddenly one of his precious little sisters suddenly hate him. He had no idea how to respond but eventually he came to the same conclusion I did and decided not to treat me like a sister. Our relationship got so bad that if we were talking to each other we were probably exchanging insults.
"It wasn't just my relationship with Peter that suffered either. I was so jealous of my sisters and angry at them for taking all of Peter's attention and so I took every chance I could to insult and demean them. It also had the bonus of not only hurting them but also hurting Peter because it hurt him to see his sisters fighting. It also frustrated him because if I had been anybody else saying those kinds of things, he could have knocked some respect into me but he couldn't bring himself to hit me. No matter how I acted.
"So when I got to Narnia and nothing changed I decided to go to the witch because I craved that individual attention and well you can imagine how that turned out. When I was rescued however, Peter seemed to realize if I had it in me to be that stupid then I was clearly not able to take care of myself and he really stepped up into what I needed him to be." Edina smiled and turned to face Caspian who looked at her, watching her with interest.
"So you betrayed all of Narnia because the High King was being mean to you?" Caspian said incredulously.
"Sort of. I can see how my actions were a betrayal but in all fairness I did not know anything about the witch or Narnia. I followed my sister into a wardrobe and ended up in a country I had never heard of and I went to the woman who had told me she was queen. I was not choosing a side in the war, simply getting away from my brother."
Caspian looked at her, considering the statement. "I understand. So how did the High King react when you told him this?"
"He hasn't. I could never tell him this. You don't have any idea just how much Peter can beat himself up and agonize over things that he thinks are his fault. You can't imagine how much it would hurt him to know that he had made me feel unimportant and as if he didn't care about me at all. No this is something that I could only ever share with you and Aslan. And I didn't even have to tell Him. He knew. He always knows."
"Thank you, Edina. For sharing this with me. This must have been very difficult for you to share but it really has made me feel better about what happened." Caspian bowed to Edina who smiled softly at him.
"No worries. We should rejoin the others before they begin to worry about us. And speaking of others, I feel I should show you just how unpleasant I can be if I don't like you. Now, about you and Susan…"