DISCLAIMER:**The character names of Chronicles of Narnia are owned by Douglas Gresham. The original content, ideas and intellectual property of this story are owned by NeverTickleASleepingDraco, 2011. Please do not copy, reproduce, or translate without express written permission.*
(I recommend listening to White Blank Pageby Mumford and Sons during this chapter)
I paced around my room, biting my fingernails.
Edmund's best friend was a girl? Oh dear. Everyone knows that boy and girl best friends don't remain friends!
I stopped suddenly. What in Narnia was I doing? Edmund and Alyanah were just friends. And besides, even if they were more than that, I should feel no reason to be jealous. I'd only known the bloke for two and a half months! Lucy told me Edmund had known me for four years, but I hadn't known him.
Males were probably the most confusing thing in this whole universe.
Naturally, I just had to fall for someone I was not supposed to fall for.
Hang on. Fall for? Was I falling in love with Edmund? With Edmund? Bugger. Oh, well this just makes everything better doesn't it?
So now that I knew my feelings for Edmund and had that out of the way, I now had Jonathon to think about. Ugh, Jonathon. The name made me shiver, even if it was in my thoughts. He would have me all to himself this whole week, what with the Pevensies busy with their guest. Oh, goodness! I suppose I could stay with Elena, but I can't avoid him all week! My, what a challenge that would be!
I stopped biting my fingernails and walked out the door, hoping that I would somehow find my way to Elena's room by myself.
I suddenly found myself attached to someone's elbow - an elbow that smelled of cinnamon and oak.
My heart rate sped up a bit. "Hello Edmund," I said, trying to contain the tremble in my voice. What could have possessed him to be here with me instead of Alyanah?
"Lia," he replied heartily.
"Why are you here?" I asked, before I could even ponder the words I had spoken.
"I beg your pardon?"
"I - sorry, that came out wrong. Why are you here with me? Why aren't you with Alyanah?" I corrected myself with venom that I intended not to use.
"She's unpacking. Why are you cross, Lia?" We stopped and I leaned myself against the wall, having to move back a few feet.
I ran a hand through my hair, which was down. "I don't know. I feel like with her here you're going to ignore me. But I don't know why I even care if you ignore me! Yeah, you're my best male friend but I've only known you for only nearly three months!"
"Are you...jealous?"
I suddenly was consumed with an anger and frustration. One of my pet peeves was definitely when someone told, or mentioned, that I could be feeling something I wasn't. I don't understand why it bothers me so much. "I'm. Not. Jealous." It might be because I'm blind, people think they can read me like an open book. Quite the opposite really, I should think.
"Are you sure, because it kind of sounds like you are?" said Edmund, with a definite edge to his voice.
"Don't tell me what I'm feeling, Edmund Pevensie!" Why was I getting so cross with him? He hadn't done anything wrong!
"Oh really? It seems like I know exactly how you feel! You probably feel a bit betrayed, a little hurt, maybe?"
"Stop thinking you can read me, Edmund!"
"Stop thinking you don't need help! You might not with some things, Cecelia, but you do with a lot more than you think! Just ask for help sometimes!"
"No! I don't think you get it. Being blind is like being a road of ice. I'm 'delicate' but still am trampled upon. People take advantage of me, Edmund. I get made fun of by the girls in the court. I can feel the looks and I know that they are looks of pure pity! I don't need this from you! I don't need the lecture I've had a thousand times already!" My voice rose with every sentence until I was near shouting at him.
His voice was deadly calm, but obviously restrained. "Then maybe you need it once more for it to actually sink in and get it through your bloody stubborn skull!" He was yelling at me by now.
On the inside, I was hurting. I felt like Edmund had just put a cold hand around my heart, squeezed, and left it there. On the outside, I remained stoic, as if his words didn't affect me at all. "I thought you, of all people, would treat me as a normal person. But now I see that bringing me here was just out of sympathy. My gratitude, Your Majesty, for showing me that even the kindest of men can turn on their ways."
I put my hand along the wall and walked away from Edmund until I reached a corner and turned around it. I stopped there, out of his sight, until I heard his boots click away in the opposite direction. Hearing him sigh and turn a corner finally broke my walls. I slid down the wall until my bottom hit the ground and it was there that I sat and sobbed for hours on end, or perhaps it could have been only mere minutes.
"Cecelia?"
I turned my head to the deep voice. "What do you want?" My knees were curled up to my chest and my arms covered my face, my hands buried in unruly locks of hair.
I heard a scuffle of boots and heard cloth slide against stone as Jonathon slid down the wall beside me. "I - I just wanted to help," he stuttered.
"I'm sure," I muttered. I was still crying, not sobbing, but still close enough.
"Come on, let's get you to your room." I felt Jonathon put an arm around my back and another under my knees. He picked me up.
"Don't touch me!" I cried, hitting his chest. It was no use as he didn't let me go and he kept letting me cry into his chest. I didn't care that this was Jonathon. Hell, it could've been Peter. I just didn't care. I needed someone right now, and that just so happened to be Jonathon.
I put my arms around his neck to balance myself. Once we got to my room, he set me down on my bed and sat next to me. He took both my hands in his. "What's happened, Cecelia?"
"E - Edmund. He yelled at me. I mean, I yelled at him to. I didn't think that him bringing me here was just a - a sympathy act. I thought he truly wanted to help me."
"I'm so sorry, Cecelia," said Jonathon. It sounded like he was actually sorry, and it was rather convincing, but it still didn't seem as though he did it full heartedly.
"Yeah, okay." I suppose he took that as a hint to leave, which it was. After he got up and left, I threw myself down on the pillows, taking good long nap.
He walked away from the sad girl's room, an almost sadistic smile on his face.
He'd done it! Well, most it. He'd gotten the stupid girl and the ignorant king to dislike each other. Well, at least one of them disliked the other. But that was really all that mattered. So long as one of them had no feelings for the other, his plan was safe.
Now he just had to get her in the right place at the right time, and he knew just the way.
Dinner was more or less an awkward affair.
Not for everyone, of course. Edmund and I were the only ones not talking. Everyone else was talking joyfully about their day or plans for the next. My head was bowed and my hands were unceasingly messing with the food on my plate. I could sense Edmund's look across the table from me. In my head, it was a pleading look, asking me to forgive him. He even ignored Alyanah when she tried to talk to him.
"What in the name of Aslan is going on with you two?" Lucy's voice cried, begging for an answer.
The voices in the room died down immediately.
"I've been wondering that too, Lu," Alyanah said, genuinely curious.
"Nothing, Aly, it's fine," piped Edmund.
"I've finished my dinner," I said suddenly, standing up from my chair. I walked away from the dinner table and out the door, heading toward my room.
After an hour of brooding, or so I assumed, a knock came at my door. "Come in," I said, my voice muffled by a pillow.
The door creaked and a timid voice asked, "Lady Cecelia?"
I sat up straight. "Lady Alyanah?"
"Oh, do please just call me Alyanah, or even better, Aly."
"Well then you may simply call me Cecelia, or Lia. Whichever you prefer." I had no clue why the hell she was in here, more or less why she sounded timid.
"May I sit down?"
"By all means." I felt the bed dip down beside me.
"I haven't really gotten a chance to know you yet. Well, it's only been a day, but still." I cracked a small smile. She was a lot nicer than I thought she would be toward me. All the other girls (who weren't royalty) were all very two-faced and snobbish. Alyanah was very kind so far. "I figured we would get to know each other."
"That would be nice! But I'm wondering something, Alyanah," I mused.
"Ask away!"
"Why aren't you with Edmund? You did come here to see him, didn't you?"
"Oh, I'm not really sure. You were someone new, and I love meeting new people. Edmund seemed as though he wanted to be alone. I'm not sure why. What happened today, Lia?" she asked, audibly scooting closer.
My cheeks burned in embarrassment. "Oh, well, I was walking toward my friend Elena's room and Edmund started walking with me. I asked him why he wasn't with you and he said you were unpacking. Since I didn't know you, really, then, I guess I said it harshly without meaning to. He asked me if I was jealous, and I got angry, because when people assume or tell me I'm feeling something I not it really, really makes me furious. So I got mad at him, we had a little yelling match. He said that I needed help sometimes and that I should get that through my stubborn skull." I heard Alyanah gasp. "It wouldn't really affect most people but Edmund has been my best male friend for two months now. He treated me like a normal person, not some fragile blind girl, like most people do."
I was suddenly wrapped in thin arms as Alyanah wrapped me in a sudden hug. I was surprised. I had only really met her about five minutes ago and she was hugging me already! I liked her, a lot. "Oh! Well, thank you...Aly. But I feel like you should hear Edmund's side of the story. I don't know it, but it'd be a good idea to hear it."
"I don't care! That was rude of him! He's been my best friend for nine years now, he ought to know better, the brute!" I laughed loudly at her comment. "I am truly sorry, Lia."
"It's alright, really. Now, how did you meet Edmund?"
"Oh! When he first became king, when he was eleven, there was a ball, and my father was invited. He was a blacksmith in a nearby village, who makes things for the castle. Anyway, my father was invited and Edmund was the only one there who was my age. So, naturally, being the mischievous eleven-year-olds we were, we played a few pranks, minor ones, and made fun of ladies in puffy dresses who looked like raccoons. Whenever my father came to the castle after that I would go with him and Edmund and I would sit and talk for hours. After he died a few years ago, I stopped coming to the castle, seeing as everyone was so busy and I worried to make the journey alone. Only recently did I make the decision to just pluck up the courage and go. I had gotten a letter of course, asking me if I would come. It was rather odd. It wasn't in any of the Pevensie's handwriting. It wasn't even signed! So, I wrote another letter to Edmund to tell him. And here I am!"
"Sounds like something Edmund would do," I said thoughtfully.
"Lia, I've been wondering something." I nodded, telling her to continue. "Do you fancy Edmund?"
I hesitated briefly, wondering if possibly she would go tell Edmund. I decided that she was too nice for that. "Oh, it's quite beyond that."
I heard her gasp and giggle uncontrollably. "You lovehim?" She clapped a few times. "Oh this is brilliant! I saw the way he was looking at you when we first met. I think he loves you too." The last few words were whispered in my ear.
My cheeks burned scarlet. "T - there's no way he loves me! I'm blind, for Aslan's sake!"
"That doesn't mean anything! You're beautiful, and kind, and smart, and friendly, but sarcastic and seemingly witty too! Or, that's what I've gathered from Edmund. He talked about practically nonstop today when he visited me. He said all these nice things about you and I just couldn't wait to get to know you better!"
"He talked about me? To you? He's only known me -" I stopped suddenly. He hadn't known me two months. He'd known me for four years!
"How long, Cecelia?"
"Oh, um, f - four years. I've only known him for two months."
"It's you!" she suddenly cried. I was taken aback. It's me? "You! You were the one Edmund couldn't stop talking about!"
"Yes, Aly, we've been over this. You told me already."
"No, silly! Four years ago, after his trip to Calormen! After he came home from that battle in Archenland, he talked nonstop about a girl he'd seen. He thought you were an apparition, because you seemed to just stare off into space and float about. I think he drew you once..." she trailed off.
"Well, I've only just met him two months ago on a trip he took to Archenland. We became friends there. Jonathon, who's here in the castle, told my father he wanted me to marry him three years ago. I got the news that I was engaged to him two months ago and I have hated Jonathon since I met him. I made a deal with my father. If I could find love in Narnia in one year, then I wouldn't have to marry Jonathon. If I didn't...well..." I trailed off.
"Oh goodness! I'm so sorry!"
"No, it's okay," I replied quickly and curtly. I hated pity but I wasn't going to get angry. Not at her. "So, you don't have feelings for Edmund? None at all?"
"Oh, no of course not! Edmund...Edmund's like my brother. That would just be weird to the extreme."
I laughed and we continued talking about our lives, our passions, our hobbies, even our pasts, all through the night.
Alyanah was a much nicer person than I thought she was. We were going to be great friends.
The door creaked open to the young king's room and the blonde head of his brother popped in. "Ed? Can we talk for a bit?"
He set his book down on the bedside table, and nodded, allowing his brother entrance. "What's up, Peter?" He sat up straighter.
Peter came and sat down on the trunk in front of Edmund's bed, his legs too long for it. Edmund stood up from his oh-so-comfy bed and stood against one of the posts of his bed, arms crossed. "I wanted to ask you about Cecelia." Edmund's pulse sped up just a bit. "What exactly is going on between you two?"
"Nothing." And that was absolutely true. After today, nothing would ever happen. "Really."
"Oh, please, Edmund. Spare me. I've seen the way you look at her. Now what's really going on? What happened today? Don't lie because I know when you're lying." Peter pointed an accusing finger at him.
"There's nothing going on really. I mean, I fancy her, maybe even more than that. But she does not fancy me under any circumstances. We had a little blowout today." Edmund rubbed the back of his neck nervously.
Peter sat up straighter, his shoulders tensing. He didn't talk to Cecelia much, but he still felt like an older brother towards her. He didn't want anything - or anyone - harming her. "What did you fight about?" he asked cautiously.
"I don't even know!" Edmund cried loudly, throwing his hands up in the air. "I started walking with her and we got to talking about Aly and then next thing I knew we were yelling at each other! I don't even remember what I said." Edmund sighed, completely exasperated.
"Really? Or you just don't want to tell me?"
"Both, sort of. I remember a few things - things I wish not to tell you - but I don't recall everything. I wish I could so I knew what to apologize for."
"Well, I suppose you'll just have to figure that out."
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Hannah. x