They all had them. Even Susan, who had never gone to battle, had been injured by a stray arrow. Lucy was not yet old enough to have to take part in communal showers after gym class, and when she bathed at school, she took care to go when none of the other girls were awake or in the dorm, for a Valiant Queen she had been, and in battles, no matter who you are, it's hard to participate without being marked. Peter, Edmund, and Rachel were all old enough, and all quite involved in sport, to need to shower with their peers. The gasps were the first day. The boys were looked over with respect, while horrified eyes turned away from Rachel. Tired, amused grimaces were on all three faces when the whispers spread like wildfire throughout their respective schools. Soon, each, separately, was called into an administrator's office and asked to show their marks to a nurse. Stripping down to undergarments, each revealed the trophies of battles and long wars, hard-fought and hard-won. The white pucker the size of his hand was Edmund's worst, between the arch of his ribs, though a wide red line decorated his left shoulder blade, along with similar smaller lines curling round his arms and dividing a hamstring and calf through their middles.
Rachel undressed with a sort of unwilling pride, sighing as she heard the swift intake of breath from the nurse. Thickened white scar tissue lay in a diagonal stripe across her stomach and a second line divided her back into asymmetrical halves. A red pucker lay under her right arm and another on her right biceps, with purple and white criss-crossing her shoulders, calves, forearms, and hamstrings. Having healed by herself more than the kings, all the smaller scratches and cuts she received had not been healed by Lucy's cordial, which could remove minor scarring, though not major wounds' scar tissue, as proven by Ed's particular marks. Peter was, perhaps, the most impressive. Four parallel red bands started midway down his back, wrapping around his right side to halt messily where his left ribs curved. In addition to this, white lay along his neck and in a half foot lick down his left side. His right thigh bore a broad red stripe, with another running the length of his left calf. Slender and pale, his forearms were laced with thin scars.
The three explained, having co-ordinated before school started, that they had been in a riding accident while living in the country. Each claimed to have fallen from their respective mount down a ditch lined with gorse and blackberry bramble. Edmund told them he'd landed on a stump and was lucky to be alive, and the rest of the scars could pass as recently healed, but relatively minor, scratches. While a few may have been minor, especially those that so delicately twined about the limbs of Peter and Rachel, the truth was that they were long healed, and had taken many years to appear as faded as they now were.
Peter remembered, with a vividness that made his eyes sparkle with unshed tears, when had he held his brother in his arms, trying to ignore the hot flood of lifeblood that streamed from Edmund's stomach, down Peter's embracing arms. Rachel recalled with a wince the werewolf that had sunk it's claws deep into Narnia's High King and refused to let go. It had been an ambush; Peter had been wearing no armour, and the wolf's broad nails had scraped a fearful quantity of flesh from his young body before falling to Rachel's throwing knives and Edmund's arrows. Thankfully, werewolf claws are not long, so the would was not deep enough to warrant Lucy's assistance, frantic though she had been to give it. Edmund recalled this too, as well as the near-gutting Rachel had received from hag she had let inside her defences in order to loose the knife at the wolf attacking her king. Edmund thought fondly on the griffin Alnis who had given him a mighty scratch through his leather pauldrons when her talons had gotten in the way of a hasty rescue. All three remembered lying in their tent, battle after battle, groaning and cursing together their injuries and enemies alike, each wincing as a laughter-instigating comment caused the jarring of recently bandaged and stitched up slashes.
They shook their heads kindly at their worried headmasters, each assuring that the scars would soon fade, that they only appeared so gruesome because they had been so recently acquired. They met later to chuckle over the worry their masters felt. It was so easy to dissuade some people when you had practised on Susan and Orieus concealment of the seriousness of countless wounds.
"Did the girls ask about those when you first started?" Edmund gestured to the raised scar tissue that ran in four short thin lines, each spaced not even a centimetre apart, across Rachel's left cheekbone. Peter ran a finger over the familiar marks.
"No," she answered slowly. "No one has ever said anything to me about them. I reckon- maybe no one else can see them."
"But I can feel them. They're real," Peter protested.
"Yes, but- I don't know . . ." Rachel's shoulders drooped in concession.
"Aslan is real. We can feel him, but we rarely see him." Edmund's black eyes met those of his brother and friend. "Those scars are probably the same in that respect."
"Yes." Rachel smiled softly and nodded.
"I suppose so, Ed. You must be right." Peter shrugged.
"Aren't I always?"
"Cheekiness. Sheer, unashamed cheekiness." Peter shook his head, and devilish gleams appeared in each brother's eyes.