Again, thanks for the reviews! I don't know if my writing is getting any better, but my chapters sure are getting longer! I hope you enjoy this one, it's sorta funny...anyway, read and review! Please and thank you!

Chapter 3

Peter grunted in pain as he was lifted onto a stretcher and carried into the castle by two guards, the medic having run ahead to gather his supplies. He tightly clutched his side, where a deep gash was present, grimacing as he felt the wet stickiness of his blood. He groggily lifted his head and looked around, eyes widening as he spotted Susan watching from her balcony. For a split second, their eyes locked, before Susan whirled around and ran back inside. Panicking, he urged his guards to move faster, hoping to reach his room before she did.

"My lord, if we walk any faster, we might cause you unnecessary pain," spoke one of the guards, a small dwarf with auburn hair and matching beard.

"I don't care! Faster!" he cried. The two guards looked at each other, silently asking the other if it was okay to do so. But as Peter's words became more rushed, they shrugged and followed his orders. "Run! Hurry up! Take the shortcut!" The poor guards could do nothing more than listen to their king's demands, confused as to why he was in such a hurry.

Peter clutched at his side tighter, wincing as he jostled to and fro, nearly falling off the stretcher as the two dwarves ran around a corner. He could see his room, and relief flooded throughout him as they ran through the doors and stopped by his bed.

"There you go, sire," said the guard, as he and his companion helped the king onto his bed. Placing the stretcher aside, the two dwarves walked outside to keep watch, the medic and his assistant scuttling in as they left.

"Help the king out of his shirt, Liam!" ordered Adair, the head medic, as he took out rolls of gauze from his doctor's bag. Liam nodded his head and helped Peter sit up, leaning him against the head of the bed and pushing pillows behind him for comfort. Peter groaned as spasms of pain shot throughout his body as his tunic was removed, his face contorting in pain as the bloody clothe was peeled from his wound.

"You're Majesty!" shouted Orion, as he rushed into the room, still dressed in his night clothes. "What happened to you? We haven't heard from you all day, and your family has been worried sick! Especially Queen Susan! In fact, I just passed her on the way here."

"What!?" gasped Peter. "Don't let her see me like this! She'll kill me!"

"W-what do you want me to do?" asked the faun, confused.

"Distract her! Don't let her into this room, no matter what! Tell that to the guards as well! Tell them that under no circumstances will Susan be allowed into the room! That's an order!" Orion bowed and ran from the room, closing the door behind him.

Outside the room, the faun cursed his luck. Leave it up to King Peter to always put him in charge of his sister. He quickly explained to the guards their orders, and had just finished when Susan came running from down the hall. Taking a deep breath, he quickly strode forward until he was directly in front of her.

"Queen Susan! What a pleasant surprise!" said Orion with fake cheer, plastering a sweet smile on his face. "I was just about to come find you! I know that you wanted to have red tablecloths for the ball, but I was thinking that—"

"Out of my way!" said Susan, roughly shoving the faun aside. Marching towards the door, she was about to enter when two spears crossed in front of her. Looking down, she scowled at the two dwarves, who tried their best to avoid eye contact. Susan may have been the gentle one, but she could be as fierce as King Peter on the battlefield if angered or worried. "What do you think you are you doing?" she asked impatiently.

"W-we've been ordered t-to not let you in, you're Majesty," said one of the guards.

"Well, then as your Queen, I order you to stand down and let me through."

"But the King ordered us not to let you enter…"

"And as the Queen I order you to let me in!" insisted Susan, becoming very frustrated.

"But King Peter is the High King, my lady…his orders are above yours…" said one of the dwarves quietly.

Susan let out an aggravated cry and stomped her foot angrily. With an indignant huff, she turned around and marched off, glaring daggers at Orion as she passed. When she was completely out of site, the three let out sighs of relief.

"I must say, that was much easier than I had thought it would be," muttered Orion, and the guards nodded their heads in agreement. He and the guards continued to keep watch and all was quiet until they saw Susan walking towards his room once more. Their eyes widened in fear as she drew closer, and Orion let out a soft, "By Aslan, help us…"

-

-

-

"That hurts!" Peter hissed, as Adair poured alcohol over the wound. "And for the love of Aslan, what are you rubbing on my face, Liam!?" he asked, as the faun rubbed a healing ointment on a large cut on his cheek.

"It's only smashed herbs, King Peter," replied Liam, as he applied more of the ointment to a scratch on his shoulder. "I think your shoulder is dislocated, sir," he said, noticing how his arm sagged, hanging lower than it normally should.

"I think it might be too—and I told you that hurts, Adair!" he said, as more alcohol was poured over the incision.

"Of course it's going to hurt, you're Majesty! It's a deep cut! Any deeper and it could have been fatal! It's a miracle that you haven't passed out from blood loss!"

"Yes, well I did for a moment earlier," blushed the king, remembering when he had fallen off of his horse. "I think it's the rush that comes with knowing that you are about to die that is keeping me going."

"You're not going to die, sire! I said it could have been fatal, not that it is," said Adair, capping the bottle of alcohol and stowing it in his bag. Taking out a needle and stitching, he held it over a candle for a moment before beginning to thread it.

"I don't mean the cut," said Peter.

"Then what do you mean?"

"Out of my way!"

"That's what I mean," Peter answered. He grimaced in pain as Adair began stitching the wound shut, listening half-heartedly to the conversation just outside his doors. He heard Susan cry out in anger, and then it was silent, and he let out a sigh of relief. However, only a few minutes later, there was a loud ruckus outside.

"You're Majesty, Queen Susan is back!" shouted Orion from the other side of the door.

"I told you that she is not to come in under any circumstances!" he called back.

"Yes, but she's brought her bow and arrows!"

Peter groaned in annoyance and called out, "Go away, Susan! You'll wake the entire castle with the ruckus you're making out there!"

"Peter, let me in!" she shouted back.

"For the love of Aslan, Susan! Go to sleep!"

"You're injured, Peter!"

"I'm fine, Susan! Go to bed!" he insisted. "Ow! Liam, my arm doesn't bend that way! Li…Li…Liam! No! AGH!"

From the other side of the door, Susan listened in a half-panic as she heard her brother's cries of pain and she knew for a fact that he was not as fine as he was telling her. Drawing her bow, she pointed it Orion.

"Let. Me. In."

Back inside the room, Peter began to fret as it went silent once more. Had she finally gone away? He hardly doubted it, but he quietly hoped that she had. Only a second later, the doors crashed open and in marched a very upset Susan, an apologetic Orion following closely behind.

"Peter!" she gasped, eyes landing on the gash in his side. "You're hurt badly! We need to wake Lucy and have her heal you!"

"What? No! This is just a scratch, right Adair?"

Adair looked up from his stitching and glanced at the two siblings. He shrugged and returned to his work, saying only, "My loyalties will always remain with you King Peter, but this is one battle I will not follow you into."

"Traitor…" Peter mumbled.

"I hardly think that can be called a scratch, Peter," she said firmly. It was a deep cut, and long too, extending from the right side of his waist, across his stomach, moving upwards to just below the left side of his chest.

"Fine, it's not a scratch…it's a tiny cut…"

Susan rolled her eyes and walked to the other side of his bed, placing her bow and arrows at the foot of his bed before scooting next to him. Peter tried his best to look away from her, but Susan would not allow it. Gently, she placed her hand on the side of his face and turned it so that he was facing her.

Susan stared at her brother with a mixture of worry and confusion. What had happened to her brother? Where had he been all day? A million questions raced through her mind at a thousand miles a minute. When she had woken up that morning to find her brother gone, she couldn't help but feel a little hurt, knowing that he was trying to avoid her. And when he didn't return, it scared her to think that he might've been in trouble. Then he came home...

"Do you know how worried I was, Peter?" she asked quietly, her voice barely above a whisper.

"I'm sorry, Susan. I just—"

"You jerk!" she cried suddenly, hitting him on the shoulder. Peter winced, but did not say anything. He knew that he deserved it. "You left this morning without so much as a word, without telling anyone but Orion…without telling me! When the farmers came, asking where you were, I was worried that something might've happened to you! Then you didn't show up at dinner, and I was so afraid that something did happen to you!"

Peter looked down at his sister, a deep sense of guilt welling deep within him. It always hurt him when Susan was worried, and it was like being stabbed through the heart when it was him that she was worried about. Reaching up, he grasped her hand firmly in his, softly rubbing it with his thumb. "I'm sorry," he said again.

Tears slowly began to leak from her eyes, and she ducked her head to hide her face. "When I saw you fall of the horse…you just lay there on the ground. You didn't move, Peter! I…I feared for the worse…I thought you were dead!"

Peter bit his lip, and looked away in shame. He couldn't stand to see Susan cry.

"Excuse me, you're Majesties," said Adair, as he finished stitching. "We'll need to bandage your injuries."

Peter nodded and released Susan's hand, sitting up straighter so as to make it easier for Liam and Adair to bandage him. He cringed as Liam rubbed more of the ointment over his newly stitched wound, grunting as he patted the gauze over it. When Liam was finished, Adair quickly wrapped a roll of bandage around his torso to keep it down, tying the ends together so it didn't fall apart.

"There you go, my lord," he said as he finished. "I'll be back in the morning to re-dress it. Sleep well, King Peter, Queen Susan." Bowing, the two healers left, leaving Susan and Peter alone.

"What happened, Peter? Where were you all day? Most importantly, who did this to you?" asked Susan, eyes shining with concern.

Peter opened his mouth to reply, but it turned into a yawn, and he rubbed his face, attempting to keep awake. "It's late and I'm exhausted," he said. "I'm calling an emergency war meeting tomorrow morning; all will be explained then. For now, I think its best that we both be off to bed."

Susan sighed in annoyance. Peter was always putting off telling her things until later, and it was starting to get old. But she couldn't deny that it was, indeed, late, and that she too was tired from the day's events. So with a nod, she agreed to go to bed. "Goodnight, Peter."

"Goodnight, Susan," he replied, giving her a one-armed hug with his uninjured arm. He blushed lightly as she kissed his cheek before pulling away, and she slid off the bed and picked up her bow and arrow. As he watched her leave, he couldn't stop himself from calling out to her. "Susan, wait!"

Susan, whose hand was just about to grasp the door's handle, turned around and gave her brother a questioning look. "Yes, Peter? What is it?"

Peter's mind froze; what in the world had he stopped her for?

"Peter? Is everything all right, Peter?" she asked again.

"Um…err…thanks, Susan," he said, rather lamely.

"You're welcome…for what?"

"F-for…for worrying about me and my safety," he said, blushing in embarrassment.

Susan let out a small laugh and gave Peter a heart-warming smile. "You're worth worrying about, Peter." And as she left, Peter's heart gave a hopeful flutter as he saw Susan's face, flushed red like the color of wine.