Chapter 4 – The Picnic Crisis

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the stuff you are about to read about. Obviously. I also do not own this cup that I'm drinking my ice water out of, because I think it belongs to my aunt, but she left it at my house. And it also says Ikea on it since it's from that store and so I really don't know why I can even touch it, because I have deep rooted fears and bad memories from Ikea.

Author's Note: This will probably be the last chapter I can post until mid-July, seeing as I have two consecutive, and both very long vacations spaced two days apart from each other. Sorry!

-----

Narnia – August, Year 1004

-During the time in which Peter was 17, Susan was 16, Edmund was 14, and Lucy was 12.

-----

King Peter and Edmund pulled their horses to a stop in a clearing in the forest, and Oreius stopped galloping beside them. They were stopping to have lunch before they continued on with their hunt.

Oreius watched carefully while the two kings hopped off their horses. While they were certainly getting older, Oreius had known Peter and Edmund since they were quite young, since the year they had entered Narnia. He always seemed to feel a certain sense of protection towards them.

That day in late summer, Kings Peter and Edmund had decided to go on a hunting trip. They invited Oreius, and while he didn't care much for hunting, he decided to come along to keep an eye on the adventurous young men.

"Shame that Susan and Lucy couldn't come," Peter said as they unpacked the picnic lunch that Queen Susan had helped them put together that morning.

"It's not that they couldn't come, Peter," King Edmund pointed out. "They simply didn't want to."

"True," King Peter agreed. "Well now, you have to admit, Lucy wouldn't have minded coming. Too bad Su wouldn't let her."

" 'It's simply disgraceful, Lucy! A lady, hunting? Now really, Lu, be reasonable!' " Edmund mocked his sister, putting on a high voice. Peter laughed at his brother's imitation. Still, Oreius said nothing.

"Su had some sort of lunch party planned for today, did she not?" King Peter asked his brother.

"I believe so. That wouldn't be out of the ordinary at all, though. She has parties at least once a week now," he answered while pulling a particularly large sandwich out of the picnic basket. Oreius would be surprised if Edmund was able to eat all of it.

"Suitors are starting to call for her, as well," Peter pointed out.

"She definitely enjoys all the attention, though."

Peter laughed. "That's for certain."

"Do you think Lucy will have as many callers when she's Susan's age?" King Edmund asked.

"That I don't know, Ed. The only caller she has for now is Mr. Tumnus," was his brother's reply.

"He isn't calling on her in that way, Peter!" Edmund said indignantly, almost in a scandalized manner. Oreius got the idea that King Edmund was very protective of his little sister.

"I know, I know, Ed," King Peter replied, laughing a little at his brother's reaction. "You haven't said much this afternoon, Oreius – how do you feel on the matter?" Oreius could tell that the boy was joking, but he didn't know how to reply to the question.

"Not my place, Sire," he finally replied.

"Aww, come on, Oreius!" Edmund said. "You must tell us – do you think—"

He was cut off as they all paused to listen. A sudden, loud crashing sound had come from the forest. It was too dark within the trees to see if anyone was there.

"What was that?" Peter whispered. Before anyone could answer his question, the galloping hooves of a horse sounded. There was a sharp, whizzing sound of something shooting through the air, and then –

"Ahh!" Edmund shouted in pain. Both Oreius and Peter turned quickly to Edmund to see what the matter was.

An arrow was protruding from the younger king's stomach.

Oreius stood immediately towards the forest to see who had shot the arrow, but as soon as he did he could tell the attacker was already gone. He turned quickly back to Edmund, who was gasping slightly.

Peter was already at Edmund's side, his brother's head in his lap. Oreius remembered King Peter telling him of Edmund breaking the Witch's staff, years ago at the Battle of Beruna. He remembered Peter saying that the consequence was Edmund being stabbed in the stomach. During this time, Oreius had been frozen by the White Witch's staff, but Peter had told him the whole story. Now, Oreius knew that the arrow in Edmund's stomach could be even more fatal than it would have been otherwise, since the King had had a previous injury there.

"Oreius! Go directly to the castle. Tell my sister Lucy to come at once, with her cordial. Go as quickly as you can, we may not have much time," King Peter commanded of him.

"Sire, it took several hours for us to get to this spot from the castle –"

"Then you'll certainly have to hurry, won't you?" the king snapped back at him, his sharpness surely the result of anxiety and tension.

"I'm on my way, then, Sire," Oreius said without another word. Arguing with King Peter wouldn't help anything, he knew, and there didn't seem to be an alternative plan to Peter's. He just hoped he could get there and back fast enough.

"May the Lion be with you," Peter said to him quietly.

-----

"Okay, Ed," Peter said shakily to his half-conscious brother. "This is going to sting a bit, but it needs to be done…"

Peter wrenched the arrow from his brother's stomach.

-----

Oreius ran to the castle, quicker than he knew he could run. They had journeyed quite slowly and leisurely on the way to the picnic spot, so he hoped he could get to the castle much quicker than they had come. Still, he knew that the trip couldn't be made in less than an hour, and it would take the same time to come back.

Two hours minimum. That's how long it would take him to get to Cair Paravel and back with Queen Lucy. He wasn't sure if King Edmund would last that long.

"Make haste, Oreius," a voice whispered in his head. There seemed to be a slight purr at the end of the sentence.

"I'm trying my best, Sire," he replied aloud, his breathing heavy and short.

"I know you are. But everyone can use a little help at sometimes, can't they?" Oreius felt a warm breeze, which he knew was Lion's breath.

"Thank you, Sire," he said quietly, feeling the speed that he was moving at double.

-----

Oreius arrived at Cair much quicker than expected, thanks to the help of Aslan. Still, he knew time was limited.

He burst through the doors into the castle. "Queen Lucy, Queen Lucy!" he called.

A female faun, adolescent-aged, that Oreius knew to be named Zelle usually handled all the callers that came to the doors of Cair Paravel was standing in the entry hall. She seemed very annoyed at his disturbance.

"Queen Lucy is down the hall at a party," the faun said exasperatedly. "Would you like me to retrieve her for you?" Zelle gave off the air that she really did not want to retrieve Queen Lucy from the party.

"Yes, please do. And this is extremely urgent, make haste!" Oreius used the words that Aslan had said to him, make haste.

"If you say so…" the faun tread slowly down the hall in the direction of the large ballroom that Queen Susan had most of her parties, obviously not taking any consideration to what he had said about hurrying. Oreius could hear laughter and chatting coming from the room.

A minute or two later, a rather bored looking Lucy emerged from the party room. Oreius had heard from Kings Peter and Edmund that she didn't enjoy parties quite as much as her sister.

"Oreius!" she said, surprised. "I thought you went hunting with Peter and Edmund! Why are you back so soon?"

"Something very grave has happened, my queen."

-----

Oreius told Queen Lucy to get on his back. Centaurs were never ridden; it was considered extremely disgraceful. However, there was no time to saddle up a horse, and Oreius could get the both of them back to the clearing quickly.

He ran again with the speed Aslan had given him, while Lucy clung tightly to keep from falling off. He heard her sniffling quietly. "Oh, Edmund," she whispered tearfully every now and then.

Before the two of them left the castle, Lucy had demanded that they bring Susan along. Oreius had protested, saying that King Peter only asked for Lucy to come, and the more people that were traveling to the clearing, the slower the trip would be. Lucy finally agreed, but before she left she quickly told Susan where she was going and about what had happened to Edmund.

"Go, Lucy, go quickly," was all that Susan had said, her eyes tearing up.

Now Oreius wished that the elder Queen was here, so that maybe she would comfort Queen Lucy. The younger girl was weeping all the while that he was hurrying to the place in the woods where King Edmund was, and he didn't know what to say or do.

The trip back to the clearing seemed to take twice as long as the trip to Cair Paravel. Finally though, after what seemed like hours, they had arrived.

-----

To Peter, it had seemed like hours that Oreius had been gone. Sitting on the forest floor, his younger brother's head in his lap, Peter watched Edmund slowly slip away from him.

At first, Peter had tried his best to keep his brother conscious. "Ed! Ed, stay awake! Don't go to sleep on me, Ed!" he had repeated over and over. But not long after Oreius had left, his brother slid out of consciousness.

From then on, Peter concentrated all his being on watching Edmund. Making sure that the boy's chest kept rising and falling; that he kept breathing. And he stayed as still as possible, to keep from moving Ed at all.

After awhile, Peter realized that he hadn't been blinking, and he had been holding his breath. He was so intent on watching his brother that he had forgotten about himself.

Peter had done all he could. He had wrapped the wound in his own shirt to keep the blood flow as minimal as possible, but other than that, he didn't know what else he could do.

So he sat there. And waited. And waited.

Then, after what seemed like hours, Oreius finally arrived, Lucy in tow.

-----

Oreius knelt so that the girl could easily slide off his back. She rushed to her brother immediately.

"Edmund, oh, Edmund!" she cried, seeing the blood seeping through the makeshift tourniquet that Peter had created for him. Lucy wasted no time in kneeling down at her brother's side to help him.

Oreius watched as the girl shakily uncapped the stopper to her cordial, the bottle sparkling like diamonds in the dappled, greenish light that made its way between the leaves of the trees above.

The centaur felt that from this point forward, there was nothing he could do to help. He had retrieved the queen from the castle and brought her here, but what else could he do? He wanted to help the children. Yet, all this time he felt as if he was intruding on their family crisis.

Lucy let two drops of the red juice drip out of the cordial, into Edmund's mouth, which Peter held open.

Oreius waited on bated breath, along with Peter and Lucy.

And again, they waited, and waited, and waited for what seemed like hours.

And then Edmund opened his eyes.

-----

Back at Cair Paravel, everyone was gleeful. Lucy was absolutely giddy with joy, and Susan couldn't seem to stop giggling as well. Peter was very quiet and withdrawn, but smiling all the same.

Still, Oreius watched from the doorway, smiling, but still feeling as if he didn't really belong. He still felt like he was intruding on the Pevensies' moment.

Edmund was sitting up in his bed in the infirmary branch of the castle, completely healed, despite the unnatural pale tone to his skin that lingered on from the incident. He was smiling weakly, and even laughed occasionally at Lucy's giddiness, despite his feebleness.

Oreius turned to go. While he was pleased that all had turned out right for King Edmund and the rest of Pevensie siblings, he would leave them be. The family deserved some time alone.

"Wait! Oreius!" Peter called to him, and followed him out of the room.

"Yes, King Peter?" Oreius asked once they were out in the hall.

"I just wanted to say thank you. Without you, I don't think that Edmund would have made it…" He paused for a moment. "I can't bear the thought of losing Ed, or any of them. Without you, today, that nightmare might have become real. So thank you."

Oreius was lost for words for a moment. Finally, he said, "I really don't want to intrude, your majes—"

"Intrude? Of course not, Oreius! You've done so much more than just a favor for us today, Oreius. Come back in – I think Ed would like to thank you as well."

Oreius felt like King Peter was really being sincere, and he no longer felt like he was intruding. He was about to follow Peter through the doorway back into the infirmary, when he paused for a moment to think.

King Peter had said that his brother wouldn't still be alive if it weren't for Oreius, but Oreius realized that King Edmund wouldn't be there if it weren't for King Peter. Oreius remembered his fleeting thoughts of how going back to the castle to get Queen Lucy was a waste of time and hopeless, and how King Peter's demands were pointless. He had thought that there was no hope of saving the younger king in time. But Peter had been right.

Oreius remembered what Peter had said to him right before he left. " 'May the Lion be with you.' " Peter had trusted that Aslan would help them through the situation. And in the end, Peter's plan had worked out, with the help of Aslan, and King Edmund had been saved.

Oreius noticed also that the arrow had been taken from Edmund's stomach, and that Peter had wrapped his brother's wound.

And also, when Susan and Lucy questioned who had shot the arrow, and Peter had replied that it was probably a hunter, who had missed his target (which Oreius rather doubted), he noticed that neither Peter nor Edmund would take vengeance. Oreius thought that that in itself was quite kingly and graceful.

Thinking about all that Peter had done for his younger brother that day, one word came to Oreius's mind – magnificent.

King Peter the Magnificent.

The words rang through Oreius's head again and again, and he thought of how fitting they were, as he re-entered the infirmary and was thanked over and over by all four of the Pevensie siblings.

King Peter the Magnificent.

From that day on, Oreius knew that Narnia was in good hands.

-----

Author's Note: I hope that you don't hate me. I think I hate me. I think I need to go hide under a rock. Feel free to tell me to jump off a cliff if you must. This chapter was very hard to write and I think it might suck awfully.

Still, I would like to dedicate this chapter to elecktrum, seeing as she gave me this idea in the first place! She mentioned wanting to see a chapter from a point of view outside the Pevensies, and so here it is! Hopefully, it wasn't so terribly dreadful…

Anonymous reviewers of Chapter 3: Thanks sooo much to Samantha and jedijaina! I should have replied to everyone else who left a signed review. And now I think I will go eat some chocolate or something and hope that my death due to angry fanfiction readers isn't too terribly harsh.