AN: In case you were confused, I own nothing.
Timeline: just over one year after the children were crowned at the Cair
"Help me to understand, Lu." Peter wrapped his arms around the newly turned nine-year-old, oddly disturbed by her sudden tears and the sweaty head that had buried itself deep into the red velvet of his over tunic. "I can't fix it if you won't tell me what's wrong."
"You can't fix it." The birthday girl shook her head, letting the short hairs of the rough fabric rub over her face, so different from their brother, who would have rather spent an extra hour on the field with Orious than let his skin be subjected to such an affront. "Just let me hide for a minute."
"Hide from what, Lu?" The fourteen year old's thickening fingers reached in to pry her face out from under his arm, where she had deposited it. "Since when does Narnia's valiant queen hide from anything?"
"Since now."
A quick glance around the room assured him that all was well with their other siblings, Susan surrounded, as usual, by a crowd of the oak dryads who were so drawn by their queen's gentle strength. It had been the dryads' idea to host this feast, and the sturdy maidens were arrayed in the bright colors of their autumn best, looking for all the world like their fiery amazon spirits might burst at any moment from the soft silks that draped from muscled shoulders and bound back thick hair from chiseled faces. Unless the threat came from the dryads themselves, there was nowhere safer for Susan than in their adoring presence.
Edmund looked about ready to jump out of his unaccustomed party clothes, but, as the Just King sat on a mossy boulder, surrounded by no less than a dozen young squirrels, all questioning him in unison regarding the complexities of Narnian law regulating a claim on misplaced valuables, namely of the hard shelled, edible variety, Peter could find no cause for concern greater than the invariable tongue lashing that Edmund would subject him to as his little brother fought against the never ending subtleties of the squirrel's mother tongue.
"Tell me who it was, Lu, and I'll send an entire pack of angry mongoose after them."
"Peter Pevensie!" Pale brown eyes sparked amber glass as she finally pulled away from him, sharpening chin tipped up just far enough to catch him in her gaze. "You would not!"
"I would if would make you smile." He smoothed her hair back from her face, ruffling it where it had pasted itself, sweaty, to her neck. "And then, I would send you to Susan to straighten you out, lest Narnia think that they had gained a ragamuffin queen."
"Don't say that." She stiffened and pulled away from him, turning a little, as if to hide her returning tears from the older brother who still noticed everything. "You don't understand."
"Understand what, Little Fox?" Peter folded to the ground, pulling her down to lean against one of the magnificent trees that surrounded the clearing, dozens of patient fathers, watching in half slumber as their daughters displayed themselves for all the forest to see. "Talk to me, or we'll both be here until after the moon returns home."
Quietly, the nine year old laid the back of her hand against his leg, exposing the thin pale scar of a cruel rope burn. "It's still happening."
"Where?" It was Peter's turn to stiffen as he turned on his little sister, memories of the bloody wound painting themselves against her pale skin. "Does Edmund know?"
"No." She almost pulled the limb away, hiding the not quite fresh scar, but changed her mind and left it sitting where it lay. "Don't tell him. Not now."
"Before the moon next greets the sun."
"At least a full sky dance." She pulled out from under his shoulder, nothing child-like about her posture as she defied him. "Let him sleep through the morning. Tell him in the evening when he has the night to plan."
"Perhaps they ought to have crowned you the High Queen," Peter knelt and dropped a kiss onto his little sister's brow. "You have the perception for it. A full sky dance it is. Now," He stood and pulled her to her feet, the difference in height exposing her age for what it was, "go and find someone with opposable thumbs to straighten out your hair. We oughtn't to give the nyads anything else to gossip about."