Out of the Garden of Eden
It was no wonder, he thought to himself idly. The pale sunlight streaming through the open window of his quarters warmed his upturned face as he sat on top of his bedcovers, his history textbook left opened and forgotten on his lap. It was no wonder that his brother was handling it so well.
Peter, with his golden hair, his back always and unfailingly ramrod-straight, had not been crowned the High King for nothing, after all. He was not called the Magnificent without good cause. Peter, who was so much better at pretending. At slipping out of the skin of a grown and mighty Narnian king and into that of a not-quite-but-almost grown and normal English boy. Peter, who was at the moment playing cricket on the lawns, just as they used to before they had known there. Called upon by Aslan to take an entire kingdom into his heart while still a schoolboy, really – it had been enough to quickly turn him into an admirable paragon of what every man, Narnian or English, ought to have strived to have been.
A man did not complain.
"It is for the good of Narnia, somehow," his brother had explained in his measured, deep tones. He had spun the silver coin faster and faster on the smooth wood of the desktop. Both boys had stood transfixed by the sight. "It is for my own good."
A king was not weak.
Yet he could not help but think that, crown or no crown, he would not have taken it nearly as well as his brother was taking it. He had always thought, for some unvoiced and unknown reason, that Narnia would always be there. Always within their fingertips, in their eyes and ready to burst out of their chests. And they were all so surprised, and then hurt and sad and more than a tiny bit angry, that first time after they had stumbled back through the wardrobe wearing those long forgotten oversized fur coats once again. Wearing the awkward gait of youth and burdened by the memory of what should have been.
But the hope that they could somehow, just maybe, find Narnia again never really left them. It kept them alive. It kept them sane. It gave them breath. Wardrobes, after that, were different to them. Like a talisman. Or a monument. All of the possibility of seeing their dreams realized once more lingered, potentially, behind each door. They imagined that they could hear the whispers of their old friends, or taste the salt of an ocean breeze on their parched tongues. Every time that they closed their eyes, Cair Paravel stood there in all her inimitable glory, painted in bright slashes of color against the canvas of eyelids squeezed shut in prayer.
And then when Aslan had called them back into his strong arms a second time, it was a homecoming both sweeter and greater than anything they had ever known before.
But for Aslan to have told his brother and his eldest sister that it was to be their last time. He was scared, then, for the first time since he had faced Aslan as a repentant traitor, before he had known the unfettered love of that perfect wilderness. Afraid of knowing that the time would come when he would have to leave the warmest embrace he knew. Terrified that England could never even hope to be enough for him without the tantalising promise of Narnia lingering at the very edges of his soul.
What if, one day when he was ancient and grey, he shut his eyes and could not see her, no matter how hard he strained. What if she slipped into oblivion without either his knowledge or his permission.
What would become of King Edmund the Just, of Edmund Pevensie, when he was not allowed to return to his home.
A king was his state.
And he was Narnia.