A Family Again

Tennessee

"Peter said to get out of here!" exclaimed Beaver grabbing at my hand and trying to pull me away, I didn't move my eyes were fixed on the White Witch who was just turning to the back of her chariot as if to get off. I knew what Peter had said, he had said it to me told me to get the girls and leave, but I wasn't going anywhere. I was going to help in the actual battle not just stand on the rocks and give orders, I needed to help, no more lives would be lost at my hands it ended here.

The Witch, with graceful stride was walking, now out of her chariot and taking lives with here, one was stabbed, another turned to stone and broken there was a fire in her eyes that almost wanted me to turn back. She turned her head briskly toward where the bulk of the action was taking place, up by where Peter was. She was moving toward him, she was going to take him and he wouldn't even see it coming.

"Come on!" Beaver shouted again taking my sleeve between his furry paws and digging his sharpened claws into my sleeve and skin so I would not try and run, but I'd try anyway. My feet stopped but he kept pulling me, I wanted to tell him to go on ahead but he would soon find I would not be catching up.

Bravery and courage was boiling inside me it was going to burst out no matter how hard I tried to keep it in, so why bother? It was something that I had never felt before though it wasn't power, it was a sort of headstrong feeling mixed with love and justice. That was it, justice; I was going to do what was just and fair to protect my family. I had never been just before anything to get my way, the slice of pie bigger than anyone else's, whether that meant more attention, or just plain more for me it didn't matter, what mattered was what I was doing now I was putting everything else behind me all because of this simple feeling that I was going to do something right for once that someone could, say good job Edmund, and not feel like they were giving the words away or lying to me. I was not lying to myself any longer either. I was making a headstrong decision with the right intension that made all the difference to me.

"Peter's not king yet!" I replied pulling my arm from his grip, leaving a trail of bloody scratches across the top of my hand that I would then draw my sword with. Beaver made one final attempt to catch me, but couldn't seeing as my arm was now stretched over my head. I ran through a crowd of fauns who were shooting arrows at a rather large troll like creature to no avail, it blocked the arrows with one massive hand and walked right through, crushing some as it went. Their terrible screams filled my ears and told me to stop, but I couldn't I needed to help my brother, a brother, it felt, that I had only just begin to love as someone I could believe in.

The first born always gets attention, as does the baby, and seeing as the second born is a girl she also gets attention for just being the first born girl in the family. Where did that leave me? I was not the first born, nor was I last, but I wasn't the first born of my gender either. The place that that left me was forgotten, unless I was to act out, tease, steal, bother, be an all around bad child. A child that a parent would spend all year looking for summer programs for them to join, just to get them out of their hair.

But at the same time I was power hungry looking for someway to come out above my brother and sisters and I had found it through the White Witch. I had been trusting, trusting to just about the worst person you could ever be trusting towards, an evil tyrant bent on one thing, power, that one thing was what I had wanted too. So warped by the idea of someone doing what I told them to do for once, my mind twisted around this new idea of domination.

I tried to calm my racing heart and drop the idea of ever being important as I leapt from one ledge to another and stumbling through the tall and rolling green grass towards the Witch who was picking up speed and her strides got longer and faster, still Peter was unaware, it wouldn't have made a difference if I yelled, shouted, or screamed, he wouldn't have heard me. He was swinging his sword wildly at a gruesome looking beast which must have been twice his size of him with large threatening horns and thick, matted, black fur, swinging a heavy metal axe at him. If she didn't kill him it would.

My brain was telling me to scream to Peter anything that might make him look up, but that would defiantly get the Witch's attention too, so I clenched my mouth shut, too picking up my stride. My eyes widened as she lifted her staff, she would turn him to stone, and I wouldn't let it happen.

I took the sword in both my scarred hands and ran toward the ledge lifting it over my head and jumping, ready to bring it down hard on the crystal end of the staff and break it not knowing I was setting myself up for death itself. The crystal was two feet away, a foot away, six inches away, three, two, one, it was gone. She had spun on her heels and was pointing to strait at me, shoving it hard at me just before I shifted my standing ever so slightly causing her it to tear through the cloth on the outside of my armor, but I wasn't hurt, and now the crystal was right in front of me.

Everything in the world went quiet as my sword smashed through the frosty white, glassy crystal of her staff, and suddenly a blur light escaped from the flying shards that fell like the last of her snow upon the ground, turning into water and seeping into the still grass. All that was left of the staff was a long metal staff with a long sharp shard of crystal left on it.

Peter looked up from his battle to see what I had done, my heart skipped a beat, he couldn't look up he couldn't stop fighting or the beast would kill him but this was not the case, no he looked up in time to see his only brother be killed.

The White Witch's face was full of disbelief and rage, but without hesitation she found another way to kill me almost instantaneously. I didn't see what was coming, but Peter did as she took the staff in her left hand and with tremendous force raised it high and plunged it into my stomach through my armor and deep inside my body. It was like a million cubes of ice being shoved down your shirt when you're least expecting it, or getting snow up your sleeves when you are playing in the snow during the winter, but not as forgiving. It made everything in you, right down to your last blood cell feel frozen solid, like it would never thaw again, the spring would never return upon your life and even the gentlest of pleasures would never touch your face ever again.

There was instant pain and then there was nothing, I didn't hear Peter call my name but his mouth moved, I didn't know my hand flew to my wound but it must have, I didn't feel my body hit the ground but it did, as the Witch yanked the staff out of me and I fell into blackness the only thing I could feel was a cold dark blanket of nothingness all around me.

With one hand on my injury and another clutching my green and soft deathbed, my fingers pulling grass from their roots and earth lining my skin, and growing in quantities beneath my finger nails. I starred into the sky, the white clouds turning darker and darker with each passing second while the clear blue sky filled with red light as if the sun was setting on my life. With what was left of my strength I lifted my head to look over at Peter, but it was a blur he was a hero in danger, but I couldn't tell this I could feel anything not even the wind on my face that blew across my grave.

I wanted help but at the same time I wanted Peter to run, they were retreating anyway, why come back for me if it would risk their lives? I didn't want them to take their revenge on the Witch, why bother? He might be killed if he did. I tried to wave my hands as if to say stop, but I couldn't do it, it felt as if six or seven cinderblocks had been placed on each hand and a tarp laid over my body. My head fell backwards onto the rippling fields and I was left alone, centaurs and fauns ran around me, but no one stopped, no one noticed I was there, no one knew I was still alive, and to be honest I wasn't sure either. The world was plunging head first into a cold, dark winter.

There I lay, not knowing what had happened, if Peter had died or lived, or if my sisters had returned, until my eyes finally slipped into darkness, tears of pain crusting on my eyelashes and around the corners of my eyelids as my hearing returned.

But only slightly, just enough to hear a powerful and deadly roar, but it was muffled by the cold clutches of what was to come, and I really wasn't sure if I had actually heard it or not. It was Aslan's roar, the roar of the saving lion, but he was dead, my head was too blurred by bereavement to think, I couldn't even fathom the idea of who was past and who was living.

I suddenly heard another two voices, I recognized them, but couldn't put a face to either. They were calling for someone, "Peter! Peter!" they screamed. Who was Peter again? The name sounded familiar, but… there was nothing I could compare it too. It was strong and true, like a hero's name, did I know a hero?

I didn't want to think anymore I just wanted to be at peace, I kept telling myself that but I could still hear myself think. Why, did I want to stay alive that badly?

I could hear myself breathing, deep, heavy, staggered breaths as the clutch on my stomach got tighter, blood seeping through my armor and staining my fingers and palms, but then my arm was pulled away from my wound by someone with a gentle touch and caring hands. I opened my eye to look at who it was.

Suzan, my sister, it was my sister… she was crying. Why was she crying? What did she have to cry about? Her tears fell softly on my face, warm like a summer's night when after having dinner you would go outside to sit in a hammock and watch the stars as if the Earth beneath you almost didn't exist. She pulled the metal helmet off of me so that my head lay in her hands, her fingers slowly stroking my hair ever so softly and brushing it from my eyes. I blinked hard at her and tried to say her name but couldn't, I only just opened my mouth, nothing came out. This only made her shake lean down to kiss my forehead.

From my glaze on her I looked in front of me, sitting at my feet it was my brother Peter, he too was crying like he was going to loose something, but I couldn't remember what, but it was important for whatever reason. He looked frightened resembling the feeling of which he wasn't sure what was going to happen, his hands were shaking and would try and reach out to touch my boot, but he would retract his arm in fear like he was afraid of me or like I was a precious relic that you weren't sure if you could touch without it falling apart. Peter looked up at Susan who was not meeting his eyes, but instead stroking my hair again.

There was a quiet muffled sound from above me, where my younger sister stood, I wanted to ask Lucy why everyone was crying, but I couldn't form the words and breathe at the same moment.

My eyelids suddenly became heavy, I closed them and my breaths became quicker and closer together as the muffled cries of the girls morphed into weeping sounds, and then one stopped abruptly.

I felt a drop of something hot and sweet fall on my tongue and then nothing, but the girls beginning to cry again, this time I could also hear a low muffled cry, well sort of. One I had never heard before, or at least not recently. It was trying not to crack under pressure, but it defiantly wanted to just break down and weep with the girls it sounded a little bit like Peter when he was tired and he had just been woken up.

That was when I noticed that I could no longer feel my chest moving up and down or hear my raspy breaths, what had happened? I wasn't dead, I could still feel pain so I wasn't dead, but I wasn't breathing either.

"Lucy," said a voice I could just barely recognize as the great lion, Aslan, "… His wounds are too deep."

"Just give it a minute," Lucy answered almost irritated the Aslan didn't trust her, "It'll help, I swear it will, that's what he said, Edmund's our brother, we can't just leave him."

"Lucy, there are others that need us, no more lives shall be lost because of Edmund," Aslan said gently, his soft but powerful paw landing on my chest with slight pressure, "… He's gone."

I didn't understand what had happened, no one was gone or at least I didn't think so. I felt the presence of Peter leave my feet, and Suzan and Lucy hug my head before setting it down ever so gently and left too. And then I was alone. I didn't want to have been the cause for the lives lost, I wanted as many as possible to live, but as soon as they were gone I felt so alone and I wanted them back.

The still reality of being secluded came in as if I was standing on the tracks of the nine o'clock train and it was just that time. I had never known that silence could have been so loud before then, like a million forces of nonexistent screams that you couldn't hear. Being that of past or beyond help was ornery and frustrating to say the least, I wanted to talk, but I couldn't and this feeling only grew stronger until I wanted to scream my bloody lungs out. This feeling vanished suddenly at what I made out coming toward me from a black curtain I couldn't see through or not yet at least.

I wasn't sure how long I had lay there alone before I heard the footsteps of someone return, and Peter's voice filled my ears, "I'm… so sorry," he said in almost a whimpering tone and then his footsteps began to beat away.

There was a sudden building in my chest like something I had felt before, and then I let out a sound through my open mouth, it was a cough to regain air in my lungs and the pain of my wound returned to me stronger than ever.

Peter turned to look at me in disbelief not wanting to get too close if it had just been in his imagination.

I made a small hissing sound while my hands moved to the place where I had been run through, "Ouch!" I squealed wrapping my arms around my mid section and trying to sit up, but I couldn't, it hurt too badly. I looked up at Peter for some sort of help, but he was in such a severe shock he didn't even move. His blue eyes looked even bluer than normal, but that might have been because they were quickly filling with tears.

"Peter?" I asked quietly lifting my head so I could see him over my rising and falling chest, "… Peter?"

Peter lurched forward slightly and then ran back and dove forward towards me sliding through the grass on his knees. He then hesitated for a moment; I did the same, and he hugged me without care of how much blood was spilled on him. I hugged him too… it reminded me of hugging Dad. Peter was a lot like Dad, but he wasn't that's what had made me dislike him the most, sometimes he thought he could take the place of Dad, it was just one more way it made me feel smaller than I needed to feel. But it was just now that I realized that he was my brother and I needed to trust and love him, because he loved me.

"Come on, can you get up?" Peter asked trying to pull me up, but I yelped and did no more than sit myself up slowly.

"No, not really, it's not healed," I said pulling some of my armor off of where the wound was. It was still wasn't pretty, but it was smaller.

"Just sit, don't move you'll hurt yourself," he said in an extremely concerned way that i had never heard before.

"It'll be fine," I said trying not to show too much pain on my face as I put my hands back over my injury to stop it from opening.

Peter put his hand over his face like he was disappointed in something that I assumed was me.

"This is all my fault," he said after some thought.

"...No harm no foul," I shrugged with hope we could just let bygones be bygones.

"But you were harmed."

I shrugged again, "It's not like you didn't try and help…. We're family; we need to look out for each other."

Peter looked as if he was very proud that I had said this, proud that I had finally recognized this.

He moved so he was sitting next to me, swallowed hard, and called for our sisters who came running even though they didn't know what they were running to. Both did the same thing, hesitate as their eyes filled with overwhelmed tears and raced forward to hug me, putting me in pain without knowing it until I made a slight cry and drew backwards.

"Are you alright?" Suzan smiled.

"I-I'm okay… I can't really get up," I answered quietly.

"It's still healing," Peter added while leaning backwards into a more relaxed looking position and stretching his arms above his head.

"… I feel really… happy," I sighed. It was true, more than I had felt in years, since I had first started school. Everyone seemed to notice this in me, just the idea of me being back to the way I had been for most of my life.

Lucy and Suzan sighed and hugged me again, then moved to sit next on the right side of me, with Peter on the left. We stayed that way for more than just a few moments, that's the way we stayed for an hour or so until the sky grew red with the life of a new day to come in our new home. Aslan knighted me after my wounds were healed a while later, and we spent that night sitting sleeping in the grassy hillsides of the home we had won, as a family.

We didn't need to be a family again, we were a family again.

Hi, thanks everyone for reading this little one-shot! Remember this is not the scene from the movie, it's from the book, but in some parts I did a little combining of the book and the movie. Thanks again, and please review!