Disclaimer: I do not own Narnia, or even pretend to. None of the elements pertaining to book, movie, or anything else are mine. Only what you do not see elsewhere is mine.
Peter was walking home from the football field when an eager little boy accosted him.
"Lucy told us the story of Princess Ileana," he said. "Have you heard it?"
It took all Peter's self-control to only shrug and say lightly, "Yes, many times. I'm not particularly fond of it."
The little boy quickened his steps to match Peter's rapidly lengthening ones and said, "You know, I don't really blame the High King a bit."
Peter stopped dead in his tracks and turned to face him. "You don't?"
"She was pretty," the little boy replied. He thought for a minute. "But, now that I think about it, it was a stupid thing to do. I mean," he said philosophically, "if you were the King of Narnia for that long beforehand, I think you could have seen that she was after your treasures."
It was all Peter could do not to slap himself in the face. "See?" he said, sighing heavily. "Even you think it was stupid."
Lucy was sitting at the kitchen table shelling peas with Edmund when Peter burst into the room. "Lucy," he said, almost dangerously, "why must you tell these neighborhood children about Narnia?"
"They're only fairy tales to them, Peter," she replied coolly, expertly snapping open a pod and stripping out the round green peas.
"But did you have to tell them about Ileana?" he persisted. "Even a nine-year-old told me it was stupid to fall for her! He even used the exact words, 'If you were the King of Narnia, I think you could have seen that she was after your treasures.' Ed, no matter how much you try to convince me otherwise, they all know it to be me!"
"He doesn't know it was you, Pete," put in Edmund. "He was using 'you' in the broad sense—ungrammatically, you understand. In this particular story, we were actually King Paul, Queen Suzanne, King Edward, and Queen Eloise, and Lucy asked them what to call the country. After several lame answers, I suggested Narnia."
"Look, Lu, I just don't want all my diplomatic blunders out for the world to see!" a somewhat chastened and pacified Peter explained.
"So, how do you think I feel when she tells the story of Edgar the Traitor?"
"Or about Queen Suzette falling for the ignoble prince?" Susan called from the living room.
"Do any of you actually think they know I'm talking about us?" Lucy asked practically.
"Yes," Edmund replied, "but I certainly don't think they would imagine that they're true. They've got minds of the caliber of the Busybody Society."
Susan put away her novel and joined them in the kitchen. "You have a Busybody Society after you, too?"
"Headed by Newkirk, who fills the rest of the gang with exceedingly impossible ideas."
Helen opened the kitchen door and the four children snapped to attention. "It's all right, dears," she chuckled. "I'm not the Gestapo. Now, what's this about 'exceedingly impossible ideas,' Edmund? Planning something?"
"Not exactly," Peter answered. "Ed's trying to impress us with his extensive vocabulary. He got it from poring over the dictionary, as I understand it."
True enough, but it was the Narnian dictionary, Pete. And you were the one who suggested it after Susan told me in front of a Colormene delegation that I sounded like Amy March. (A/N)
"And I thought it was a good idea, so I tried it, too."
And learned bad definitions like "foreign: as in 'Foreign as courtesy is to Ettinsmoor and a giant is to wisdom.'" Edmund could not help but smile to himself at the thought of the gentle, bumbling ways of the good giant Rumblebuffin.
Helen smiled for an entirely different reason. It was not exactly like Peter to think any idea of Edmund's a good one, let alone try it himself, but she was not about to argue and perhaps risk another well-planned and poorly executed fistfight. "I see. So, when did you go through the dictionary?"
There was a slight pause before Lucy replied in a small voice, "While we were in the Professor's house."
Helen laughed nervously. "As strange as it may seem, dears, I feel that you became adults while you were away, even Lucy. So much happened there." She sighed.
That night, the four Sovereigns of Narnia came together in council, seated in a row on Edmund's bed. Peter began.
"Our brother the Just hath reason on his side, my lieges," he said, his voice slipping easily into the court language of his older years. "For it presses upon me strongly that should we continue in the way wherein we go, our secret shall be manifested and dire consequences shall arise."
By the Gentle Queen's rights, she might have spoken next, had Edmund not taken her place.
"I call to remembrance the thing which Professor Kirke spoke of—the magic rings. Peradventure a brave soul will discover our secret, construe the truth of the matter, and use the rings for evil, as his wicked uncle the magician did."
"My Kings," Susan said, "I perceive that in this ye are too suspicious. For what manner of man would endeavor to unearth the magic rings? We shall only be as much like the folk of this land as we can be, helping the others in this undertaking, lest haply we should stumble and place our fair land in danger."
"Aye," Lucy said. "We go forward in this our endeavor, remembering the Lion to Whom we belong and the people we left behind. Come, fair consorts, let us to bed. It is late, and methinks I hear a light step on the stair withal."
A/N: For those of you who have not read Little Women, Amy March was constantly using the wrong word or mispronouncing the right one; as she was perfectly serious the result was rather comical.
