Accurate Description

Edmund


So many times I've tried

But was unable

This heart belongs to you alone

Greetings.

I am the youngest of the brothers and second youngest in the siblings.

I shall not bother to ask if you know this.

I am known as King Edmund the Just, the wise mind, and the fierce protector.

I know this, you say.

And I say that it is very impolite to interrupt.

Doubtless you're expecting some story out of my mouth of how I know myself by another name and such.

But the story that I am about to tell you one that you have already been told. My first story.

My worst story.

Yes, yes, you complain, quite rudely. I've heard the story before.

But you have heard it from other lips. From other story tellers. But have you actually ever really seen it from my point of view?

I suppose not.

Then could we please get on with it.

First, if you think you know the story so well, try and guess the name that I gave myself.

Edmund the Traitor.

Close.

Edmund the Witch enchanted.

You're getting colder. And I do not mean that as a joke with the Witch reference.

Edmund the eater ofTurkish Delight.

Now you are simply mocking me.

No, you were closest with the first.

I know myself as Edmund the Treacherous.

What's the difference.

You will find out soon enough.

Now, allow me to turn your minds back to the day I met the White Witch. You may think to yourself that that was when I truly betrayed my family.

But I had done that long before I had ever met the White Witch.

You see, I had betrayed them a long time ago, to another White Witch, in our own world.

What??!! That's ridiculous! There was no other White Witch!

So you think.

In truthful reality, every world has a White Witch. In every universe, every land, there is a White Witch.

And I followed her willingly.

My heart betrayed my siblings long before I met Jadis.

I hated them. All of them. Peter with his older brother protectiveness, never understanding. Susan, with her prim and proper ways, as bossy as a second mother. Lucy, always happy, always cheerful, always annoying.

I hated my mother for making us leave. I hated my father for going to war.

I hated them all. And I wallowed in my hate.

Time after time, I murdered them in my heart.

I choked them.

I drowned them.

I hated them.

Most people try to put me in a brighter light by saying that the turkish delight was enchanted, and that helped me along.

To be truthful, I would have betrayed them anyway. With or without turkish delight. With or without the promise of being a king.

For my heart had already betrayed them.

I see it as it is now.

I didn't see it then.

I didn't see the consequences of my actions soon enough.

Because I had wallowed in so much hate, I had let it take over me. I had let it consume me.

Once that happens, there is little hope of finding a cure.

Aslan had to pay the price for that cure.

The fact that I was sorry wasn't good enough. The changed heart could not be mended unless he cured it.

And only his death could do that.

The moment my brother and I heard of Aslan's death, I knew how it had happened and why. I put on a brave face and pretended not to know.

But I did.

I decided to try and make it up. To set things right.

I can still feel the broken wand as it slit through my stomach.

I still dream of her face as I fell to the ground, near dead.

But I didn't.

"Forgive me Aslan," I begged him as he knighted me. My voice was soft, but filled with my broken sobs.

"Please, please, forgive me."

His great head bent down as he whispered: "I already have."

I know he had. And I know he still does. But the pain of my actions has never left. The guilt and shame are always there.

Edmund the Traitor or Edmund the Treacherous.

Traitor can simply mean once.

Treacherous means more than once.

And I did betray them all, more than once.

So that is who I am.

Edmund the Just, wise king, and lord protector.

But also Edmund the Treacherous.

For being so more than once.

Now I'm in our secret place

Alone in your embrace

Where all my wrongs have been erased

You have forgiven

All the promises and lies

All the times I compromise

All the times you were denied

You have forgiven