AN: Once again, I feel I must remind everyone that some things may be seem a little confusing here but it will all be cleared up by the end of the fic.
It is often a sad truth that quite frequently the most innocent, trusting, over-all light-hearted people will be taken advantage of; and if the dryad Lucy trusted and followed away from the cottage clearing back into the forest-which seemed such a very different place at night-had been on the wrong side, the poor girl would likely have been led right into a trap and there would have been an end to her. Thankfully, that was not the case and the dryad was on the right side, a good, honest, truly loyal Narnian who thought 'the dwarfs for the dwarfs' were mad little men and would have taken up a fight against them without a moment's hesitation. She only thought she would like to help the poor little girl who seemed so eager to meet Edmund; it had never occurred to her that perhaps it wasn't the smartest idea seeing as both brothers were trying to steer clear of Susan White and Rose Lucy so that no harm from Nikabrik or any of the other wayward dwarfs would befall them.
As if in a trace, Lucy trailed after the petals that hovered a few inches away from her nose, went a little ways away, and then flew back in the form of a little purple-pink cloud-like silhouette as it changed again and zigzagged in and out of the numerous trees they passed like a long pearly ribbon. They stopped and took the contour of a bird-like creature suspended above a low branch in clear few of the silvery moonlight spilling into this part of the forest in a way the sun never could. A few feet away was another silvery reflective object appearing thinner and line-like from a distance.
"I say," Lucy whispered, more to herself than to the dryad who remained in a sort of parody of a bird on its perch. "what is that sort of snaky thing?"
The dryad did not answer other than to let out a sound so nightingale-like that if she didn't know any better Lucy would have believed it really was a nightingale.
"I guess I'll go and look..." Lucy decided, feeling strangely unafraid considering that this was the first time she had ever been so deep in the forest without supervision at night.
Whenever she and Susan had lost their way at night, Susan, being the practical older sister that she was, thought only of their safety and pretty much forbid any exploring. If more than an hour after sunset, they had not found their way home, Susan almost always made them go right to sleep. It wasn't that Lucy didn't love her sister or appreciate all that she did for her (Susan's good sense had, after all, kept both of them from breaking their necks countless times), but the notion that the world was not so dangerous, at least for this one night, was very alluring to a girl of Lucy's personality. So she pressed on through a few branches so thin that they could almost be considered twigs until she came to the 'snaky thing'. It was a little stream, not the same brook she and Susan had been at earlier that day, but a completely new place, one that if Lucy had seen before, she didn't remember. How beautiful it looked! All silver and blue and white with dozens of yellow fire-flies soaring above and around it. The sight nearly took her breath away so that she almost forgot even about the dryad who'd led her there and how she had come across this marvelous place.
Then she saw the unicorn, he was standing with his front hooves in the stream, his tail swishing back and forth contently as he tossed back his stunning mane. Less than a foot away, was Edmund in his scarlet tunic on his knees bending over the stream to splash some cool water on his face.
Lucy was so happy to see him that she actually felt her heart give a lunch of complete joy and excitement that kept her from crying out and rushing over to him right away. It was almost like being struck dumb; she just found she couldn't stop staring over at him unwittingly. He had been something amusing and startling (in a good way) when he'd visited her dreams and left the gifts, and on the rare occasions when he would actually speak with her before leaving, but in this place and this time he seemed much more wonderful. The words-though Lucy secretly blushed just a very little bit when she thought about it afterwards-'positively glorious' came to her mind.
Smiling (well, more like beaming, actually), Lucy came forward out of a sort of thicket she'd barely even realized she was technically standing at the edge of while she watched him.
Edmund's hand reached for the hilt of his sword; he stood up straight and took a step back, close to the unicorn in case he had to make a speedy get away.
Oh, I do hope he wont! Lucy thought sadly-realizing how quickly he could get away again, if only he would stay put for more than five seconds!
He seemed prepared enough to climb onto the unicorn's back and ride, ride, ride as far away as suited him, but he hesitated when he recognized Lucy and saw her earnest little face peering out at him. He found himself wondering for a moment why Susan was considered the pretty one of the two sisters. He had even heard tales of Susan White Pevensie's beauty from travelers in the neighboring villages when he'd stopped by with his unicorn disguised as a regular horse (no small task!) and he himself wearing a dark cloak over his royal clothing. Goodness knew his brother was at least ten times more smitten with Susan than any of those travelers had been (poor guy, thought Edmund). But as Edmund looked at Lucy's face, he couldn't help but think that she had a certain charm of her own that was far too over-looked. He liked her sort of prettiness; it wasn't so delicate and floppy-looking in the way most pretty people were pretty. It was a stronger, rounder sort of elegance and her smile was more than a little pleasant.
"Hullo again." Lucy finally managed to part her smiling lips enough to speak.
He thought about ignoring her and going away as quickly as the unicorn would take him, then he changed his mind. "Hi."
Her smile widened, her whole face was aglow with joy and total satisfaction. "Oh, I am glad!"
"Glad?" Edmund blurted out, taking a step towards her, followed closely by the unicorn who was curious about this unfamiliar friendly-looking girl and being of a horse-like breed was probably wondering if she had any lumps of sugar or else a carrot on her that she might be willing to share. "What of?"
"That you didn't just go away like you always do." Lucy clarified.
"Oh, that."
Lucy blinked at him, fighting back the urge to touch the side of his hand-the one closest to her-just to make sure he was really there in the flesh and they were really speaking outside of a dream. Then again, a dream would be better than nothing and whatever this was, it felt real enough.
"Where have you been?" she asked finally, voicing the question that had been on her mind since he and his brother had left them.
He shook his head. "Long story."
"Is there anything Su or I could do?" Lucy's tone was meeker and less certain now.
"About what?" Edmund's brows came together in a slight frown.
"About whatever's wrong..." her voice trailed off and she wondered why her tongue felt so heavy, as if she was breaking some unspoken code by flat out asking. It was so odd, she'd never felt like this before. So weak and so strong at the same time. It didn't make sense; she cared, she was too happy to care, she was frightened, she was excited, she was just fine, she was strangely lonely.
The unicorn came to Lucy now and nudged her right hand with his nostril. "Hallo, there!" she stroked him and cooed into his soft velvety ears. Looking back at Edmund she asked what the unicorn's name was.
"He hasn't got one yet." Edmund told her. He had been far too busy as of late to bother thinking up a good name for the unicorn and it wasn't as if he could just come up with something retarded like, 'fluffy' and let the poor animal be emotionally scared for ever, it required more forethought.
"He should have one." Lucy kissed the beautiful creature's nose.
"Of course he should." Edmund agreed, giving the unicorn a gentle pat on the side of the neck. "He's been a perfect brick, I just need to come up with something worthy of him, you know?"
"Yes, of course." Lucy could understand that.
"So, how have you been?" Edmund finally came up with, though his tone was somewhat awkward-it was only to be expected considering they hadn't spoken much outside of Lucy's dreams (actually, they hadn't even spoken very much in them either, when he really thought about it).
"Fine," Lucy told him rather shortly, not out of crossness but out of lack of anything else to say. For some reason, she didn't think to mention the rude dwarf to him and as nothing else very interesting (other than Edmund himself showing up again) had happened as of late, didn't have much to go on.
"I guess you'll need a ride home?" Edmund offered. He didn't really want her to have to leave just yet, he was sort of enjoying talking to her, getting the feeling that once the awkward introductions and formalities got out of the way, she would be a lot of fun, but he didn't want her-or her sister for that matter-to get anymore involved with his family's unfortunate curse than she already was. It was too dangerous, they were coming too close, if Nikabrik...no, he wouldn't think about that now.
Lucy didn't want to go back to the cottage just yet; she'd only just started talking to him! She had so many things she still wanted to know. Was he as monosyllabic in answering questions as his brother was? Why was he watching over them-was it merely because he had to look after good children, or was it something else altogether? How had Peter become a bear? What had he been like before? She didn't ask any of these questions, though. Instead, she just stood there, looking at him, begging silently for answers.
Before he could say anything more to her, however, there was a sudden sharp mob-holler of, "The dwarfs are for the dwarfs!"
Edmund shuddered and let out a moan. "Not again!"
"Who are they?" Lucy asked, taking a step closer to Edmund and actually grabbing onto his lower arm out of fear as the little wild-looking men popped out of the thicket quite close to them.
"Dwarfs." he said bitterly, talking through his teeth.
And, in fact, they were. Lucy could see them for herself now that they were in clear eye-shot of the moonlight and the stream. They were mostly black dwarfs, like the one who had stolen her fishing rod, but there were a few others who weren't. None of them looked at all friendly and in the moonlight, the one in the front-who looked the most like the thankless dwarf she and Susan knew-seemed far more dangerous, simply because of the late hour. Suddenly Lucy found herself longing childishly for the safety and comfort of the bed back at the cottage-how could she have ever thought of leaving it? Susan was right, the world was dangerous, the forest was, too. At least she could comfort herself in the realization that Edmund was not about to deliver her up to these dwarfs. He was, in fact, standing with his sword pointed out at them as a warning for the group to come no closer.
"Is that her?" The dwarf in the front-Ginarrbrik-wheezed.
"What does it matter to you? Go away!" Edmund snapped at them, shaking his sword in a smooth stroke a few feet in front of Ginarrbrik. "Get!"
"If she's the one, we'd best kill her now, wouldn't want any queens anymore than we want kings." Ginarrbrik said, a grim but wide smile spreading across his face.
"The dwarfs are for the dwarfs!" The group cheered.
"It isn't her, you imbeciles!" Edmund exclaimed, his tone dangerously angry. "Certainly you can see she isn't old en-" suddenly he stopped, getting an idea. Apparently, the dwarfs had gotten wind of the fact that his brother was in love with one of the Narnian maidens from this area and seeing Edmund talking to Lucy, had mistaken her for his brother's sweetheart, young though she was. What if he let them think they had gotten rid of the lass, the one they suddenly deemed a threat not thinking clearly enough to realize that Peter could never marry in his current form (well he could, but it would be really, really weird)?
Lucy goggled helplessly at the dirty little creatures, getting the idea-though she had no notion of what was really going on-that they wanted to kill her. She wondered why they would want to kill her when she didn't even know them. Perhaps they were Nikabrik's relatives and were very angry about the ruined beard? If so, they really had to learn to take a lighter view on life.
"Lucy," Edmund's lips were so close to her ear that if they weren't moving ever so slightly to whisper-in the lowest voice she had ever heard-they would have been basically kissing her lobe. "You need to trust me on this, alright? Pretend to faint or something and then play dead...count back from three in your mind and then just do it, okay?"
She had no reason to distrust Edmund, in fact, whether or not it was entirely sensible of her, she already liked him quite enough to trust him completely. Counting back from three just as he had told her to do, Lucy let her eyes widen and roll back as deeply as she could make them go before allowing herself to collapse on the reasonably-soft turf below. The thought of holding her breath until the dwarfs went away frightened her too much to go through with it, so she just held it back except for a very little bit, just the necessary breaths, struggling to keep her chest from moving up and down too much and possibly giving her away.
Her eyes were closed but she could still hear everything that was going on around her. Edmund's 'startled gasp', the dwarfs cheers (jeers?) of surprised delight, their horrid little feet as they took a step closer to see for themselves, Edmund's snarl (which reminded her very much of his brother) and command that they keep back and quit crowding her.
"You wicked dwarfs have already gone and frightened the poor lass to death, she had such a dreadful state of health and you-" Edmund's voice carried with too grand an echo to sound truly realistic, but the dwarfs didn't seem to notice. At any rate, it fooled Ginarrbrik, and as he was the leader, he was the only one who really mattered.
"Is she really dead?" Some smart mouth in the middle of the group just had to ask.
"Course she is." said Edmund, his heart beating like a drum, terrified that 'liar' would be written all over his face. What would he do it they didn't believe him? He couldn't let them actually get close to Lucy's body, who knew what they might do to her? She trusted him, he had to protect her. She would have been better off falling into that gorge that first day they'd met than ending up at the mercy of the 'dwarfs for the dwarfs'.
"We'll need proof to show Nikabrik later." Ginarrbrik's raspy tone decided.
Edmund grimaced. What he could let them take without actually harming her? What was more, he hadn't counted on them taking anything to Nikabrik-who would surely know that neither girl was dead and reprimand his army of little men for being so daft. Thankfully, he was being overly discreet in appearing, even to his own people, until his beard grew back in (too vain to be seen very often with out it) so it would buy Peter and Edmund some time to come up with something.
"You could take a lock of her hair." It was the only thing Edmund could come up with, although he felt more than a little sorry at having to offer even a strand of it up; he liked Lucy's hair, he thought it was sort of pretty.
Ginarrbrik came forward with a rather large knife. "Fine then."
"Are you going to take a lock or a wig's worth?" He couldn't help snipping sarcastically.
The dwarf pouted and somehow Lucy could sense his displeasure even with her eyes still being tightly closed-it really wasn't all that difficult.
"Let me do it." Edmund sighed, taking out a small pair of scissors from a traveling pack he had with him. Kneeling down beside Lucy's body, he whispered, "I'm really sorry about this."
Lucy took a risk and opened her eyelids just a crack. Through them, she could see Edmund with his scissors in one hand and a very thin lock of her hair in the other. Nervous and feeling what may well have been the first prick of vanity she'd ever felt in her life, she shut her eyes all the way again. Then she heard the snap of the blades closing and forced herself not to wince. You're supposed to be dead, she had to remind herself.
A couple of minutes later, Edmund was thrusting the cut-away lock into Ginarrbrik's nasty, callous, soil-stained hands. "There!"
Handing the lock to the dwarf at his left, Ginarrbrik, still holding his knife, pounced on Edmund and pinned him to the ground. Although it was a surprise attack, it was not completely unexpected and Edmund had been through worse before so he knew what to do and wasn't afraid. Lucy, on the other hand, her eyes opened just a slit, was utterly terrified. She didn't even have the comfort of biting onto her lower lip to keep herself from shouting (corpses didn't bite) so it all had to be done with ordinary will-power.
Ginarrbrik raised his knife as if he was giving Edmund a slash across the throat; the unicorn neighed loudly and charged. The dwarf had no wish to get killed in such a manner and, looking down at his victim, who did seem at least partially injured, decided to retreat and take the rest of the 'dwarfs for the dwarfs' with him.
When they were safely away, Lucy dared to get up and run over to Edmund. Her breath got caught up in her throat when she saw the red slash across his, not very deep, perhaps, but still vivid.
He opened his eyes and smiled at her; a sort of winking smile. Looking both ways, he sat up and gently slid his hand over his throat. When he pulled it away, the red mark was gone. "Don't cry, he didn't really get me, I only wanted to make him think he did. It was a trick, an illusion..." his eyes twinkled ever so slightly. "...but I hope a very good one."
"Whoa." Was all that came out of Lucy's mouth, this had all happened before she'd even gotten a chance to work up a good sob.
Standing up, he gave the unicorn a pat on the flanks which Lucy noticed for the first time had some scars on them. "Come on, we'd best get you back home where its safer."
"But why did they-" Lucy felt as though she simply must know; it was getting to be too much.
"Don't ask." Edmund told her, obviously having no intentions of explaining anything that had just happened as he climbed onto the unicorn's back and offered her his hand. "And I say, Lu, I am really sorry about your hair."
"It was only a lock." Lucy said, a little uneasy at how intense his tone was when he said that, as though he really was very sorry about it. "But tell me, who were they? Who was that Nikabrik person they mentioned?"
Edmund shook his head. "I told you, don't ask."
Lucy sighed and took the offered hand, allowing him to swing her up onto the unicorn's bare back, right in front of him. His arms went around her to grasp the creature's mane but it seemed that he was mostly holding on with his knees anyway.
When they got close enough that Lucy could see the cottage in the distance, Edmund stopped the unicorn and helped her off. He went with her all the rest of the way on foot, always looking nervously over his shoulder every few seconds. When her hand went to the latch, Edmund turned to leave. It appeared he didn't mean to say goodbye at all, but Lucy wasn't about to let him off that easily; She wanted to thank him for everything he'd done for her, and of course, for saving her life back there in the forest-even if she didn't understand it. Standing on the tips of her toes, she leaned forward and kissed his right cheek.
It wasn't anything particularly shocking; all the same, his face turned a bit red and the smile on it was just a little different from the other smiles Lucy had seen on his face that night. He didn't say anything about it though; he only went back to where he'd left the unicorn-he had a long way to travel if he wanted to get to his brother and tell him what had happened before the dwarfs told him their version.
AN: Please review, I'm really curious to know what you readers think of this chapter because it took me a while to come up with the ideas for it.
