Serena had been born to be adored and pampered in a marble palace, not stumble through a thick forest all wet, tired and hungry.
She did her best to force that fact from her mind as she made her wandered helplessly through the woods, stopping now and then to consult Edmund's compass. The simple euphoria of having escaped from her prison was quickly being replaced by doubt. For just how long could she venture south before running into someone who could help her? What if she continued to stumble her way through the woods until she died of starvation or exhaustion?
Who cares? Keep running. She told herself.
The sun was beginning to dip lower and lower into the horizon. She had less than a few hours before the forest became too dark for her to journey any further.
Serena raised her head and tried to see with the setting sun in her eyes. What she saw was the most welcome sight she'd ever seen, and not just because she'd always loved the way his profile looked when it was silhouetted against the fading light.
"Ed!" She exclaimed, stumbling into his arms.
He whipped around, a look of utter surprise on his face. "Are you a dream, or a ghost?" He asked in a whisper, hugging her tightly despite the fact that she was dripping wet.
"Neither. Don't be too disappointed."
He let go of her abruptly to look her up and down. "God, Serena, you look terrible." He said, hurrying to unfasten his cloak and wrap it around her. "Where have you been?"
"I don't know," She replied. "The cellar of some house in the woods, I think."
"What happened? We've been looking for you for days."
"I just got out now, all the guards were drunk, and I hit one of them-"
"You'll never cease to amaze me." He muttered as he inspected the pattern of bruises around her left wrist.
"What about you? Why are you here?" She asked.
"To rescue you, of course," He said, frowning slightly. "You seem fine without me, though. We've been scouring the area, trying to find you. "
"Are Susan and Lucy alright?"
"They're fine. Peter and the girls set up camp a mile or two back; I was just taking a few men to look around for any sign of you."
"I guess you can cut that short and go home now."
Edmund spared her a small smile. She could tell that there were about a thousand things he was deciding not to say or ask.
"Let's go, then." He said, letting her loop her arm around his.
"There you are, dearie." They both whirled around to find Serena's jailer with a bloodhound's leash in his hands. "Did you really think you were that clever?" To Serena's satisfaction, his head was bandaged and his nose was still bloody.
She opened her mouth to answer, but Edmund managed to get his point across first.
There was a painful crunching noise as he gave the man a punch to the face that sent him staggering several feet backwards. It was rather impressive, considering how the man easily outweighed Edmund by at least a hundred pounds.
Edmund hauled the man to his feet by the front of his shirt and shoved him against a tree.
"You'd best start talking." He said, with the voice and expression he adopted when he wanted something done, no questions asked.
There were people who considered Peter to have the more intimidating presence, but those were people who'd never seen Edmund angry. And as far as Serena could tell, he was positively livid.
The man's Adam's apple bobbed perilously as he recognized who he was talking to. "I-I didn't do nothing, Y-Your Majesty."
Edmund gave him another generous shove into the tree.
"They-they asked if they could rent my house! That's all!" He began to babble nervously. "They asked me to rent them the house! And then they had me put a barred door into my cellar, and watch the door so that she didn't escape, I didn't know what they wanted or what they were doing!"
"And you didn't realize, at any point, that your prisoner was the missing princess?"
"I-I didn't until I got a good look at her! They threatened to kill me if I told anyone." He said pleadingly.
"You should rot in a dungeon." Edmund said. "But I might just kill you first."
"L-look, I didn't kidnap her! They were the ones who brought her to the house, all tied up. I even untied her!" He looked at Serena for mercy.
She crossed her arms and looked away. There was little chance she'd amass even a shred of pity for him.
"Who's 'they'?" Edmund demanded.
"I-I don't know. A bunch of horsemen, foreign, from the way they talk. I didn't ask!"
"You didn't think to ask, even though you're the only human in this area for miles around?"
"I didn't know, I didn't know!"
"Where's the house?"
"North! Two miles from here, a little west of the Falls." He squealed.
Edmund was silent as he pondered it. "Give me your boot." He said, finally.
"Your Majesty?" The man gaped at him.
"Give me your stinking boot." He extended a hand impatiently.
The man bent over and cautiously handed his shoe to Edmund, who pulled out a knife and began disassembling the leather boot.
"Don't think you can lie and get us lost looking for the house." Edmund said, waving the knife threateningly in the man's face. "I know what's west of the Falls."
"My apologies. I'm sorry, I forgot, I never meant to mislead you, I forgot-"
"Save it." Edmund replied coldly. He walked over to a tall poplar and rapped on its trunk twice with his knuckles. He turned around briefly and gave the man a fearsome glare. "And don't even think about running."
He said a few, whispered words to the tree; and the poplar lowered one of its branches to shoulder height. Edmund handed the tree a square of leather from the man's boot, saying, "And tell Peter to bring two dozen men and a few bloodhounds with him."
The poplar raised its branches back up, and Serena could see bunches of leaves ushering the dirty brown square of leather towards Peter's camp.
"Let's go." Edmund roughly grabbed the man by the scruff of his neck and steered him down a dirt path running through the forest. "You're lucky I'm letting Peter decide what to do with you."
They were a strange looking group walking through the forest, with the man limping because he was missing a shoe and Serena leaving a trail of puddles wherever she went. They were also a silent one, save for the man's frightened whimpers. Edmund kept a white-knuckled grip on the man's shirt and wore an expression of pure murderous intent.
He shoved the man into the care of the nearest guard (a terrifying eight-foot tall minotaur) as soon as they reached camp, and dusted off his hands as if the man had been a particularly filthy animal.
"Lucy'll be happy to see you, I suspect." He said, leading Serena into the center of a ring of tents, where someone had a blazing fire going.
"Ed, you brought her back!" Lucy said joyously, springing up from her place in front of the fire to grab Serena's hand, just like he said she would.
"Of course I did." He said reassuringly. "I'm going to go find Peter; he's probably tracking the house with the dogs."
"That's the first time he's been in a good mood since he got here." Lucy told Serena as soon as Edmund left. "Peter's still hoarse from a shouting match they had this morning."
"Over what?"
"God knows. Anything under the sky you can argue about, probably." She shook her head in disgust. "I've got your clothes in my tent, do you want to change?"
"Wouldn't you?" Serena asked, wringing a steady stream of water from her skirt.
Lucy frowned, looking annoyingly like Edmund. "I wish Peter would let me go with him, I'd like to give those people who grabbed you a good punch or two too."
"You Pevensies can be extremely vengeful." Serena observed as she rifled through her trunk for something to wear.
"We're absolutely terrible." Lucy agreed cheerfully. "Why don't you just wear that? It's a little chilly for anything else." She pointed at the dress of evergreen-dyed wool Serena was holding up and considering.
"I'm not too fond of the color." She admitted. "But I suppose that's not very important."
"Don't be so picky, you'll look fine."
"I should return this to your brother." Serena said, emerging from behind the curtain she was changing behind with Edmund's cloak in her hands.
"You might as well keep it, and we can burn it in the fire later. I hate that one." Lucy wrinkled her nose at the cloak Serena was folding into a neat rectangle.
"I don't think he'd like that. It's too wet to burn anyway."
"Oh, fine." She sniffed. "I'll just have to wait until Christmas to get him a nicer one."
Serena slipped out of Lucy's tent and found Edmund's. It seemed almost dilapidated in how somberly neat it looked.
She lifted the flap and stepped inside. Lighting a candle on the small table in the center of the space, she looked around the dimly lit tent. What she saw almost made her cry out in surprise.