Disclaimer: It ain't mine

Disclaimer: It ain't mine.

I Am Capable of More Than It Seems

Being the baby of the family always has its perks.

My siblings are usually annoyed with me when I use the 'I'm youngest' excuse to get out of anything. But it does come in handy at times- I'm always just a bit smaller than Aleks and Damien, and I can act like I don't know any better about things. But when someone underestimates me, I can always come back and kick their rear. That makes it fun to be me.

I'm glad there's none of the 'middle child' issue in our family, because Aleks and Damien are twins and then comes me. Although I supposed you could say there is a middle child, because Aleks was fifteen minutes younger than Damien. But she's also the only girl in our family, so that helps.

And now, I was going to put my abilities to the test.

As the youngest among us (Lucy's birthday is a month before mine) I was going to do the wheedling. I was also going to be the one who secured a few things for the plan.

First off, to get our most royal clothes. They were hung in a wardrobe in my room. I laid each of them on the bed in the corresponding room.

Then, to get our crowns. They were beautiful little circlets; mine laid with emeralds, Dame's with sapphires, and Aleks's with amethysts. I again put them in the corresponding rooms.

Now, the hard part. There was one lady of the palace who had all the cosmetics you could possibly think of. Name anything, she had them. I would have to secure these.

My idea was this: Peter would come and ask to talk to the lord who was her husband about the Calormenes. Susan and Lucy would come and call on the lady, and ask her to come and walk with them in the gardens. Edmund would be around the corner. He knew how the door would shut and lock itself, and he knew how quick the door would close. He would motion for Susan and Lucy to leave, then run in and get the door open.

I would slip inside, look through their apartments for the case of cosmetics, and then get out as fast as I could with it, Edmund heading out the opposite direction. I would get the case to Aleks in her room, and then she'd draw up the next set of plans.

So here I was, standing in my position. I was with Nikolai, which was to be my excuse should one of the lords or ladies pass and wonder what I was doing. Nikolai was good at his role, jumping around and playing with a random bit of string from a tapestry. I heard Peter knocking on the door and speaking to the lord. I heard the door shut again, and the two passed me. I smiled innocently up at them and they continued walking.

About fifteen minutes passed and Lucy and Susan passed me on the way to the door. They knocked, and I heard the shrill voice of the lady answering. After a while, the voices started fading away, and then, instead of the slow creaking of the door shutting, I heard a clunk, as if something had stopped it. I stood, peering round the corner. It was Edmund's foot, stuck in the doorway to keep it open.

He motioned for me to go, and I ran in. Years of sneaking around our palace with my siblings has taught us to walk and run lightly. I looked around, saw an open door into a room that positively glowed with pink, and darted in.

There it was! The great wooden case of cosmetics. I snapped it shut, latched it, and got out. I looked around and then hightailed it for Aleks's room. I could hear the footsteps of Edmund darting in the opposite direction behind me.

As soon as I was in Aleks's room, she opened the case, laid it on the bed, and looked it over. "Yes, this will do perfectly. Thanks, Adrien."

"You owe me."

-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Later, after everyone had all gone to bed, I stayed up, sitting in bed and feeling a little lost and lonely. After the big ordeal, everyone had seemed too busy to do anything and I was once again the littlest, the unimportant one.

It was always, 'intelligent, beautiful Aleks' or 'strong, handsome Damien'. But then it was always, 'of course, little Adrien'.

I wanted a little reassurance. So I did something I had done often enough. I got out of bed, poked my head out the door into the dim hallway, walked the few steps to Damien's room, and opened the door quietly.

I was surprised to see Aleks in there too, both of them awake and sitting up. I climbed onto Damien's bed next to them, and I saw what was resting between them.

It was a book of drawings. It was turned to our favorite page, a picture of the three of us and a great, roaring lion behind us. In our mother's handwriting, below, it said, Adrien, Damien, Aleks, and Aslan. Vos es tutis.

"What does vos es tutis mean?" I asked.

"You are protected." Damien replied.

We looked at each other for a few moments, then piled into one of our famous group hugs.

I wasn't unimportant. Everyone else was just stressed out.