Disclaimer: Am not, never will be C.S. Lewis and I don't own Narnia.
Completely separate from 21 Random Facts which simply refuses to be written. This is infused with lots of grammar and commas and semicolons and colons and my English teacher would be proud. A tad bit less angsty than 21 Random Facts and focuses mainly on hands (Peter's, but Caspian's make an appearance). Includes general happiness on Peter's part and alternates between seductiveness and distractedness on Caspian's. There is some slash so avert your eyes if you must once you get to the middle.
Stars
Peter traces the stars with his fingertips. The air smells sweet: of lemongrass and thyme and the wet grass that brushes against his ankles, wetting his socks and seeping through the fibers to his skin. The air is steady - black - around him and he runs a milky hand across the back of the great snake in the sky until he can almost feel the air above him - far above him - beat with breath. His tunic slides down his arm, the slip of fabric the only sound in the night air, and he closes his eyes to the sensation. Peter, the night after his coronation, unhurried by the call of battle and duty, allows himself to feel.
The lone calm seeps through the silken fibers of his skin up from the wet ground till he is filled with the outward-inward magic of the sky and earth. His hand slips down to rest at his side and he inhales quietly, breathes out through his nose, and the stars seem to shine, twinkle, exist just for him. The light - the only light - reflects in his skin and eyes casting luminous shadows on the ground, magnifying, and him basking in it. Since the celebration he has been alone, and now finally, finally not with the sense of being lonely. He marks his place among the stars, an incongruent spot on the great snake's back, and the magic reflected from his eyes remains in the Narnian sky forever.
Worshipped
Peter sighs Oh and Caspian runs a single finger down a part of his back as he stands behind him, and the tunic catches slightly, dragging into a small well before the finger is pulled away.
"You know what it is like to be worshipped, my King, but I can show you a different kind of worship."
Gentle hands run from shoulder to mid arm - two fingers - while a warm palm rests on the back of his neck and fingertips touch silken golden hair. Peter stands immobile as Caspian comes closer to dip his head to the side and kiss the back of his neck, nose barely touching his ear and eyes closed, lashes fluttering against skin. A shy tongue laps at the perspiration beneath the collar as the pads of a bolder thumb stroke across the soft exposed flesh of the hollow above his hip bone.
Peter bites his lip and tips his head back. His body is weary from the day's battle and he barely stands on his feet, though the night around him is still. He lets a groan vibrate in his throat as Caspian puts words into action more effectively than he ever could on the battle field, and Peter realizes it has been a while since he was worshipped and never like this.
"I've also been loved", he says and his voice breaks a little with the strain of uncertainty and muscled neck stretched backward.
Caspian doesn't reply, but Peter feels the quiet smile against his neck.
Lion
Caspian watches Peter grip the lion at the hilt of his sword. The palm closes around it, encasing it in warmth and leaving behind a thin gleam of sweat. Absentminded fingers run through the mane, fingernails inside the groves. Peter watches intently, eyes scrutinizing and lips pressed into a thin line. He nods once to a dwarf and again to a centaur who Caspian supposes are giving Peter council. He sits on the broken table waiting to possibly be called over - hopefully by Peter - but the moment never comes.
His is disconcerted by his own conflicting thoughts and when he looks again at the High King - the way the shadows lay cast on Peter's cheeks, the way his jaw swoops and curves into a determined line, the way every little - he realizes that even if they had called him over he wouldn't have been able to discern reality from fantasy, and would have only watched the way Peter's mouth had moved when he would have said "Caspian" in that low inquiring voice and all thoughts after would have been cut off.
"Caspian", said Peter in the same tone that he imagined, and Caspian was pleased at how real it sounded to his ears, though he was sure it was only in his mind. Caspian. Peter looked at him, golden eyebrows creased together in confusion and slight irritation. The centaur and the dwarf were gone and Caspian realized a little too late that he was still entranced by Peter's fingers, now, splayed delicately over the lion's face.
His eyes rose to meet the King's whose were still set in confused concern so different from their usual animosity. Caspian nodded once to him like he had seen Peter do and tried to place his eyes away from the tapering golden fingers with the nails bitten down by habit (or convenience) and the dark brown freckle on the side of his neck by his collar bone and - and then he found that all parts of Peter, even the soft leather boots encasing his feet were not safe places to look. Absolutely distracting.
"I was just thinking."
In truth he felt that he had overstepped his bounds with the King, violated him somehow unwittingly with his thoughts. And when he mentally shuddered when Peter spoke again and his hands reached out to the side in inquiry, one around the sword, the other palm up and the tension in his pants stretched just a little, he knew that he definitely had.
"Of what?"
Oh, Peter, if you knew of what. And then suddenly, he knew that he couldn't answer because the list of thoughts would just be too long and if allowed to think again, he would play back all of the images in his head directly in front of the real thing. He couldn't very well blatantly lie to the young King; Peter was known for being particularly shrewd. His eyes settled once again on Peter's hands and then trailed their way to his eyes, mapping the ripple of fabric, each crease, each imagined muscle, each involuntary twitch under the scrutinizing gaze.
"My strategy."
Atonement
There is blood on his hands and for the first time, he realizes it's not from battle. Still, the sight is not anymore innocent than if it weren't his own. The fingernails are worn down and torn from dragging and dropping heavy flat rocks on top of one another in the hope that he can at least rebuild his old throne at Cair Paravel. Hair clings to his forehead and impatient fingers push it away, blood and dirt smearing in even diagonal lines. He thinks that now - now! - Aslan will never call him back after he learns what he has done. He imagines being fitted with a crown of thorns instead of golden leaves and finds himself willing to accept just about any punishment. He deserves it; they were- his own thoughts cut off and he moans in desperation - slaughtered, killed, his fault.
A stone cuts through the flesh of his palm and nestles in the groove of his curved hand and he hisses in the guilty satisfaction of finally, finally pain. He growls, angry, frustrated because despite everything he tries there is nothing - no amount of rocks, no amount of pain - that could possibly atone for allowing his soldiers to be sent to their deaths and leaving them there. Desperate, he throws the rocks on top of one another as night sets in and one pile diminishes while the other pile grows from foundation to legs to back, the whole thing crumbling, sending white clouds of powder dust into his hair and eyes, and marked with red Peter-sized hand prints and some part of his mind tells him that he is only human, but he doesn't listen because if this is what humans do, then he doesn't want to be one.
He finishes the throne just before the sun sets, beautiful and golden against the water, and he means to laugh at this vision he has created, all jutting rock and blood smeared stone, but his throat catches and the laugh becomes a half-choked sob that carries into the air on wisps of cold breath. He shivers into it wondering how it suddenly got so cold.
Peter eyes the throne -- both what it and he have become -- and sits down, his tunic already torn and hanging loosely by threads of Narnian silver. His hands rest tightly against his knees as he pushes himself deeper into the stone. The rocks cut into his thighs and Cair Paravel, in the falling dusk, looks even more like a ruin fit to house him than a castle of any former glory. He thinks with horrible regret that that palace belonged to him thirteen hundred years ago and this belongs to him now. That was the throne of High King Peter the Magnificent; this is the throne of Peter, the Destroyer.
Flight
The first time Peter rides a horse he feels free. He knows that his hands will no longer feel the weight of a school bag or slipperyness of a train ticket or other human commodity. He thinks that his hands were made for this, this clutching of the horse's mane and this free slide of the wind across, under, between his fingers. Invisible hands slip through his hair and the valley opens up in front of him, mountains ahead, nothing but the painted white cloud on the vibrant blue sky.
Peter thinks that he has known moments of serenity: awake before everyone else on a Sunday and nothing to clutter the morning; the calming, rolling shudder of the ocean; the days of spring that beg for the barefooted joy of young boys. Nothing. Nothing compares to the fluid forward thrust of horse that carries him in a constant rhythym of ground, heartbeat, hoof as the pounding is all that becomes of his thoughts, and he forgets that he is not horse as he leans forward and grips the flanks with his thighs, settling soft leather against the grooves of horse spine.
The first time Peter rides a horse he lets his hands go free, outstretched to the side and facing the wind as his neck leans back and it is too hard to keep his eyes open, so he closes them, and the valley never looms closer, but expands, and he feels, finally, that there is no chance this - Narnia, the world, any of it - can ever end and he - his hands, his heart, his voice - will make sure of it. For Narnia.