On days where the Narnian royals weren't very busy, they all had different ways of passing the time. Peter, who didn't believe in taking a break, spent his time in what the others had dubbed "The Map Room," studying maps of Narnia, battle strategies, and treaty agreements with other countries. Susan would spend time with the castle seamstress making dresses, or at the archery range.
Edmund's idea of a fun afternoon was going down to the training field for a duel with some of the other soldiers. Lucy and Holly both liked to go to the castle library and read for a while.
But lately, Holly hadn't been in the library and Edmund hadn't been at the training field. No one thought much of it, and while Edmund and Holly had always been friends, no one ever assumed that they were together.
But as it turned out, Holly and Edmund were spending most of their free time in Edmund's living quarters. They were currently sitting on Edmund's sofa. Holly was leaning against the arm of the sofa, reading a book, with her legs stretched out across Edmund's lap. Edmund was also reading, but while Holly's book was a Narnian fairy tale, Edmund's was about Narnia's trade history with other countries.
Holly often teased him about his fascinating reading preferences.
"Did you know that Jadis cut off all trades with other countries while she ruled?" Edmund commented.
"Did you know that you've already told me that three times?" Holly asked with a snort.
"Am I boring you?" Edmund asked, pretending to be hurt.
"No, your fun facts about Narnia's trading history is so exciting," Holly said sarcastically.
Edmund smirked and sat down his book. Holly let out a surprised squeal as Edmund pulled her across the sofa to where he was.
"Well, we could always find other ways to occupy our time," he said.
"Ooh, can we go swimming?" Holly asked, trying to sound as innocent as possible.
"Not exactly what I had in mind…"
Holly laughed and Edmund leaned down to kiss her. Soon their books and the idea of going swimming were long forgotten.
And then the door to Edmund's living quarters opened. Someone gasped dramatically, and Holly was back on the other end of the sofa in an instant.
"L-Lucy," Edmund stammered, unable to look his younger sister in the eye.
"What is going on in here?" Lucy squeaked.
Holly and Edmund exchanged an embarrassed look.
"I forgot to lock the door," Edmund said apologetically, both to Lucy and Holly.
"Oh, so you usually lock the door!" Lucy exclaimed, throwing her hands up in frustration. "That makes me feel so much better!"
"Sorry, Lu," Holly said, embarrassed.
"How long has this been going on?" Lucy asked.
"About five months," Holly said sheepishly.
"Five months?" Lucy repeated. "Dear Aslan, and it didn't occur to you to tell anyone?"
Edmund and Holly exchanged another look, and Holly nodded.
"Tell her," she said softly.
"Tell me what?" Lucy asked, shutting Edmund's door.
"Well, at first we were being really careful to keep anyone from finding out," Edmund said. "And after a while, we figured out that we didn't really want to keep it a secret."
"What do you mean?" Lucy asked.
"I mean that, once Peter gets back from his trip to the Lone Islands, I'm going to tell him that I want to court Holly," Edmund said simply.
There was a beat of silence, and then Lucy let out an excited scream. Holly and Edmund laughed as Lucy ran to hug them both.
"Oh, I'm so happy for you!" she said. "I'm still traumatized by what I just saw, mind you, but I'm happy."
Lucy gushed on and on for a while, and Holly and Edmund just sat there and let her ramble. She wanted to bring Susan in to discuss a ball to officially announce that Holly and Edmund were courting, but Edmund eventually convinced her to wait until Peter got home.
After quite some time, Lucy finally remembered that she was supposed to be helping Mr. Tumnus pick new flowers to plant in Cair Paravel's giant garden. Once Holly and Edmund were alone, Edmund sighed and shook his head.
"We should put Lucy in charge of negotiations," he said. "Eventually, the other side would lose track of everything she had said and agree to our terms."
"There's another thing you get to tell Peter," Holly laughed.
Edmund chuckled in agreement. Then his mood seemed to change from teasing to thoughtful.
"What's on your mind?" Holly asked.
"You do realize this is the last time things will be this simple, don't you?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, being with a King of Narnia," he paused to dramatically puff out his chest, "is no easy task."
Holly rolled her eyes. "Having a King of Narnia as my best friend hasn't exactly been a picnic, either," she teased. "I think I can handle it."
"You're going to break a lot of hearts," Edmund said smugly.
While he meant it as a joke, Edmund was actually right. Nearly every girl at court was pining after Edmund and Peter. They would no doubt be disappointed when they learned that Edmund was off the market.
"At least other countries can't try to use me as a negotiation anymore," Holly said sourly.
"You know I never would have allowed that even before all this happened," Edmund told her seriously.
Since Holly wasn't a Queen of Narnia but she was a respected member of the Narnian Court, other countries viewed her as a chess piece. They often tried to marry her off to one of their princes or dukes in order to establish an alliance with Narnia. These offers always upset Susan and Lucy, infuriated Edmund, and even though Peter was much calmer about it, Holly knew he would never agree to such a thing either.
Even now, Edmund was grinding his teeth at the thought of sending Holly off to another country to marry a man she didn't know. Holly decided to change the subject.
"You know Susan will want to throw a huge party," she said, knowing how Edmund hated parties.
"That's not all," Edmund sighed. "You'll have to attend every single party we have, and Susan will always make us dance."
Holly snorted. Edmund was the worst dancer. At the Coronation, he stepped on her dress and tripped into a food table. He had improved since then, but he still managed to trip at least twice at every ball.
"I don't mind going to the parties," Holly said. "We'll just have to start pinning my dresses up off the ground so you don't trip and hurt yourself."
"How thoughtful of you," Edmund said sarcastically.
"Do you think making things official will change everything?" Holly asked.
"Yes," Edmund answered truthfully. "But we can handle it. We've survived worse things than parties and dances, Hol."
"True," Holly laughed.
They sat in silence for a while, and from Edmund's open balcony door, they could hear Lucy talking to Mr. Tumnus about different kinds of flowers.
"You know, I really want to go for a swim now," Edmund said after a while.
Holly grinned. "Race you to the beach."
With that, she jumped off the sofa and ran out the door. Edmund rolled his eyes and ran after her.
Please don't hate me, I'm sorry it took me so long to update! But I was very busy with graduating high school and such. And I have like three months before I start college, so I'll try to update as much as possiblethis summer.
Like I said before, this story will be separatedinto a series of one shots, so that's why there's such a huge time gap between this chapter and the last one. I might end up skipping up to a year later on, depending on how many ideas come to me for this story.
Anyway, I hope you like this chapter. Thank you for not abandoning me for being crappy at updating!