CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT
RESCUE

There was absolutely no reason to so genuinely smile when he was alone, because his personal world outside of his siblings and the beautiful land they all ruled over, had seemed to come to an end when she had disappeared; she with the lake green eyes, dark brown hair, and give-'em-hell attitude, she who had enchanted him so strongly and wonderfully that he couldn't even remember the amount of times he had made a complete fool of himself in front of her the way he only ever truly did, it seemed, with girls he truly liked; girls like the very memory of some Jenny girl he had met once upon a lifetime; girls like Athena bloody Ashdown, whose very name had led him in an endless spew of letters and words he dared not throw out for the reality that they kept him sane, and instead rested upon a corner of his desk. What else could he do but suffer in silence when he was supposed to be, oh, so in love with a girl he had not even known for longer than barely a month? How else was he supposed to deal with the grief of losing her when not only he hadn't even had a chance to tell her everything he thought and wished, but even had thanked gentle Juliet Capulet for allowing him the freedom of when she had refused his proposal? How else but by finding reasons to spend time alone in his private cabinet room and write to her, cry for her, pray every single day that those men he secretly sent to keep searching ever since the words of her announced death had come from his lips would find her, even if she was dead, so that he at least could truly know he had to move on, so that he could allow himself the freedom to try to love Juno of Archenland, so that he could not wonder what if every second of every waking day; how else?

But pray, cry, and write, he did, because it was the only thing he could do even as he attempted and mostly succeeded in focusing on the royal duties he so wished to simply ignore thereafter; trying and failing not to think of her, trying and failing not to feel guilty over the truth that he was so horribly promised to someone he only liked for the mere fact that it was basically impossible to not like Princess Juno; but succeeding on his duties nonetheless. Of course, many a time before that morning he had wondered why he bothered; and many a time he had come to realise and remember that he loved the people of Narnia, he loved his siblings, he loved doing what he did, and thereafter came more guilt for even daring to forget the point of everything in the first place; it was a vicious cycle that he wished he could run away from, but he could not: for the uncertainty, for that horrible feeling in his gut that had kept telling him Athena was not dead, but above all, for the warrior herself. It was exactly because of it that he had even thought of still sending the soldiers out; only two or three at a time, good trackers, those he trusted, because maybe then eventually something would be found, maybe then his time of sorrow and what felt like eternal worry would finally come to an end.

Of course, he hadn't overseen the way his own worry would grow, to see the men he sent returning each night empty handed and with no word of a clue of where the Marchioness, or even her body (again, not that he believed she was dead, not even now) could be; the brand new strike of sorrow to suffer for the continuance of her disappearance, and so on for the month and a half since her death had been proclaimed, but was it worse than doing nothing? Than truly giving up on her for good? Oh, no; no, it was not, for he knew he would forever wonder if he'd given up too quickly, if he should have given up at all, and that thought would follow him to the end of his life, it would haunt him, it would torture him, and would thereafter become the reason he would never be truly happy regardless of the wonders of all else he loved; so he sent them, and he waited, and he prayed, and he enchanted Juno enough to make her think he did grow to love her so quickly in ways that only made him realise that he truly had not thought of Juliet as anything more than a friend, for he had flirted with her, courted her, smiled at her, but never once had he felt nervous or excited the way he always had whenever Athena Ashdown had been around; he had smiled, laughed at her jokes, even come to think of the protector's eyes as pools of amber he could get lost in, but never once did his heart jump at the sound of her voice, never once did his thoughts make him so nervous he stuttered, or stumbled or... or anything he could so fondly and even embarrassingly remember he had done in front of Athena at least once or twice. And so he was with Juno, smiling at her, finding the beauty in her long brown locks, deep chocolate eyes and soft brown skin, but never once feeling the jumps of his heart when she spoke like he had endlessly felt with the lost warrior, never once finding the other so necessary to breathe and smile as he had done with Athena at all; and what was worst of all was that he had not even truly known what he felt until it was much too late.

He had known he liked her, he had known he may even had had a fancy to her he would not admit to anyone, but love? No. Perhaps he had been too scared to admit it even to himself, but the truth of the matter was that it became so horribly obvious from the moment she had been gone for no more than a day that he even had made small now unimportant plans to tell her when she returned; but she never had, and the almost of his situation only made the pain thrive through his entire being all the more. What if he had not been afraid, what if he accepted his situation much faster, and what if he had told her? Of course the pain of her loss would have been the same, but at least he wouldn't also have to suffer his silence; oh how much of a fool he had been, how much of a scared fool, and why, when he had no reason to be, or any possible limit when he had been trying so damn hard to give her titles and rise her in position, and—

The knock that came from the closed door made the High King's lips emit a sigh of frustration as yet another letter was left unfinished for the sake of whomever it was that knocked on the door; lest someone like Edmund saw the sad writings again and a repeat of the little incident with him a month prior played a repetition. "Enter," he said, rolling the little parchment so it could join the pile of saddened letters at the corner of his desk and then lifted his gaze to the subject who almost breathlessly entered the room; and, sure, the shaky demeanour of the visitor should have been enough to make the High King frown, but it was who the visitor was that finally made that dead heart of his beat within the wild demeanour it had only taken in battle weeks prior. "Dreolind?" He wondered as the frown deepened and his feet forced him to rise from his chair with the creaking echo of the wood that screeched with the quick movement his hasty rise had broken. "You're early. What happened?"

Dreolind, the centaur who was one of the two Peter had sent that day to look for Athena in one way or another, simply allowed himself yet another breath before he spoke the very reason the sun still shone by the time he stood before the High King: "We've found her, sir." Indeed, for, as it had been normal for the past many weeks, any member of the guard did not report back to Peter until the day had ended.

But there he was; there he spoke, and those words alone were enough to ignite the High King's heart louder than before. It almost scared him, not that it was too evident by the urgency he suddenly found driving him from behind his desk so he could walk in the centaur's direction. "You're sure?" He wondered, for the hope had risen within his chest, and the only thing that mattered was her, her smile, her eyes, her voice, her... "Is she..." Oh, god, he had hoped, and for all he knew, for all he could imagine she was—

"Alive, your majesty;" Dreolind announced, taking one step back from the entrance to the room and finally matching the frown in the High King's features. "But barely; I pray you come with me at once." He paused. "I fear all may be lost if we wait any longer."

If his frowned deepened any longer, he might end up getting a cramp. "Come where?" He wondered, his breath barely coming in puffs as he begged his heart to slow, lest he become dizzy with excitement and useless, she's alive. "To the infirmary? Should you not be calling Queen Lucy for that?" Could she really be so close to him at last?

But the centaur's head shook, and the dread returned to Peter's heart in such waves that he feared the coming of another emotion for the good of the beating organ and his mind. "No, your majesty, she's by the edge of the lake." Dreolind announced; motioning with a hand towards the hallway he now stood on so the two could leave at once. "She was badly injured by the time we found her, and we feared—"

"You left her there!?" Peter exclaimed, not letting the other finish and feeling his eyes growing wide with the disbelief that soon thereafter carried him; it was unfair, that much he knew, but his emotions carried him so wildly that even the knowledge of such things did not stop him from keeping the volume of his voice as it had come seconds before. "Why didn't you bring her to the castle? Who is with her right now? How could you leave her there!?"

"She was badly injured, my king," Dreolind immediately replied, looking only at Peter regardless of how he waited for them both to go; after all, he had not been exaggerating: Athena Ashdown was alive only by the streak of a miracle, and even miracles could turn into curses if immediate action was not taken. "We dared not move her without proper care; nor I nor Theoren, who now waits by her side, but we must hurry if we wish to save her, your majesty, she—"

"Say no more." The High King easily requested regardless of the very worry that left him wishing he could just be on his way to save his love already; for he easily could have stubbornly told the other to immediately take him to her, but if he did, then he might be as useless in the process of her saving as Dreolind and Theoren had been for lack of practice and knowledge of injury care: they needed help. "Go gather four of your best guardsmen," He requested, finally exiting his room and moving to walk in the opposite direction from which he should be going. "Please, make sure they know of injury care; bring my horse and Edmund's. I will meet you all at the West exit." He announced, thus making clear the reason he even walked in the opposite direction in the first place, regardless of the quick "GO!" he commanded in the centaur's direction with enough swiftness that by the time the guard had bowed and acknowledged his orders Peter was already halfway through the hallway that would lead him to the stairs that would take him towards the Western wing.

She was alive; barely, but she was alive; she had been found. Oh, all those days he had felt it wrong to have declared her dead had had a purpose; all those days he had sent guards to keep looking for her had finally shown fruit, for she had been found, and regardless of his biggest fears of the end of her life, Athena Ashdown had been found alive; of course, the words gravely injured did not exactly help his imagination, for all he could see behind the darkness of his lids every time he blinked was the beautiful features of the Marchioness' shattered, bleeding, broken, unable to be fixed ever again. So he ran, he breathed loudly and for the sake of his heart, and he ran, oh youthful strength he held which allowed him the freedom of running down many stairs and up many others without feeling like he might faint after a while; or perhaps it was the adrenaline, the urgency his heart and soul held for the saving of the reason of his daily hope, for he wished her in the castle, he wished her safe, he wished her smiling and walking and fighting, and talking back at him as if he weren't a King. Oh, Athena, you are alive. He needed to see her, to hold her, to tell her everything, he needed to explain his tardiness for saying anything in the first place, he needed her to know, he needed her, and he—

He couldn't possibly have her now; or so he was reminded the moment he burst the door of the public dining room open and therefore interrupted the happy conversation going on between Juliet Capulet, his brother, Edmund, the kind duke of Archenland... and Princess Juno, whose eyes so easily lifted in his direction and lit up in ways Peter could only feel guilty of the very second their gazes met; he had forgotten about Juno, that much was evident by even his own surprise to find her or Lark Moor there. And he would apologise the way his manners begged him to, he would feign joy in seeing her, in making her smile; but that day, that moment, he could not care less: Athena Ashdown was alive, and she was waiting, there was no time to lose. For it, he didn't even truly acknowledge anyone in the room for more than a single gaze before his feet led him in the direction of his brother, who had said something he hadn't even been able to truly hear, because all he could hear were his own thoughts and his heart, beating wildly and worryingly for the injured warrior waiting by the edge of the river; no, no, Peter Pevensie didn't speak, he couldn't; instead, all he could do was take hold of his brother's arm and tug like a little mute child seeking for comfort, pull and pray he asked nothing in front of the guests, because if he did then the very emotions he carried would be damning enough for anyone to see that he was not as smitten with Juno of Archenland as he pretended to be. "Peter," Edmund said, the concern evident on his tone as the chair screeched against the floor for the wild movements he had to make to gain balance if he wanted to not fall by account of Peter's pulling. "Peter, stop!" He attempted shortly before a single apology to those who remained shocked at the breakfast table left his lips by the time the two left the room, but Peter refused to stop; after all, he had gotten who he needed; therefore there was absolutely no reason for him to stop: he wanted to move, he needed to move, to run, to save her, to get her back, to tell her, to... "Let go of me!" Indeed, his brother kept fighting against his hold, but even weak as he felt Peter could not let go; time was not enough, and they had already taken much too long to leave, there was no time for explanations, no time for words, no time for—"Peter, what the hell, let go of me! What's gotten into you?!"

"Athena is alive." It was all he could do, all he could say without even truly saying anything else, simply pulling his brother along and praying that Dreolind was already waiting with the other guardsmen and the horses, pray that the Marchioness could hold on a little longer, that it was not too late. He couldn't say anything more, because another word was another second lost, and he did not have the privilege of having extra seconds; at least Edmund had stopped trying to pry his arm away.

It was no surprise he had, actually, for the very shock of Peter's words as much as the very actions that had surprised him upon that pleasant breakfast had basically frozen him too; in fact, it didn't take him long to put the pieces together, or to process the simplicity of the other's announcement: Athena was alive, he had said, and if he had said so was because he had proof, and if he had proof... "Holy shit." It meant that they were now on their way to rescue her.

Could it be? Could his only best friend truly be alive? And where? Oh, he had so many questions, but he dared not ask them; indeed, he finally understood Peter's urgency as it had come: indeed, he would get a best friend back, but Peter? He would end up rescuing the girl he loved. He dared not ask another thing, and instead, he ran, pulling his arm away from Peter's hold, and not even questioning the other's actions any longer: they had a Narnian in peril to rescue at once.

-O-

It was way too far; much further than Peter had made it sound, and Edmund's worry was starting to get the best of him. Not only because the way Dreolind had had to explain to him (since Peter had refused to say a word from the moment the left the castle) had made Athena's position sound dreadful and as if she were barely hanging by a thread, but because it was much further than he was comfortable going after the entire confrontation with Ettinsmoor; hell, it was bordering the edge of each country, and the further into the woods they went the more Edmund worried. "It's this way," the centaur at the head of the group told them, guiding them as he had from the moment they had even entered the woods; but even by that reassurance, everything in Edmund's mind made him feel much more worried than the previous moment, because they were so dangerously close to the Ettinsmoor border that the very hope he had begun feeling by the beginning of their little rescue mission ended up turning into worry and dread.

And in truth, they were all going much too slowly, for his taste; what if that slowness caused them an ambush, what if they weren't being careful enough, what if... He had to stop; speculating would get him nowhere. "Could you go a little faster, Phillip?" He asked his horse as his eyes returned to the front of the group after the calculating gaze he had given his surroundings had found a close; his heart beat faster with the worry of the moment, the concern of just what could jump out at them and catch them unguarded, and again, it felt as if they moved much too slowly.

But it seemed not, for the voice of his well known horse reached him kindly and amusingly enough to at least allow a small smile to lift his lips. "I'm trying my best, sire," Even his breath seemed to change slightly as he rounded left in the direction the rest moved, following the lead of the centaur who had delivered the news of Athena's discovery, because speaking and galloping was not as easy as it sounded. "You're a little heavier than when you were a child." Indeed, the words were amusing enough to make the Just King's lips break in the short puff of a breathed laughter that showed by a small cloud that escaped his lips, thankful for the small light respite from the worries of his mind as the cold edges of the Owlwood continued to stretch around them; but even such a moment was not enough to shake him from the very urgency he felt to cross into a less exposed area as soon as possible; because Athena was waiting, yes, but also because the war with Ettinsmoor had been won, and still he would not be surprised to find a few stubborn rebels still waiting to win. After all, if the positions had been reversed, he would absolutely refuse to give up on the safety of Narnia, he would fight, scream, kill, die for the world he loved and ruled, and no one, not even his siblings, perhaps not even Juliet, could stop him from trying to save it. So if he thought that, why should someone from the losing side not think the same of the country they fought for?

Especially as the warmth of summer began to disappear the deeper they went into the woods, thus bringing shivers down Edmund's spine as much as he could see the weariness of everyone around him; even Phillip seemed to tremble under him, and the only thing Edmund could do was frown. Peter's horse whinnied and even jumped a little, finding even the High King's words hard to soothe him, but still, they went along; their surroundings grew blurrier for the fog that the late afternoon had begun to form, and thus Edmund's mind grew darker, his senses alert, his heart in his throat, and that frown that had found home upon his forehead the moment he had begun feeling wary deepened even more. They were so deep into the wood that the only sounds that followed them were the hooves of the horses and the five centaurs that accompanied them as they walked down the rocky, dry ground; somewhere in the depth of the forest a bird sang, an animal loudly called, and the echoes of water dripped all the way to where they stopped.

Yes, they had stopped, because, at the very sound of the water Edmund noted, Peter called a halt to the small group, and thereafter dismounted his horse; it didn't feel right, in fact, it felt too easy, too quick regardless of the many hours they had spent trotting to the destination, and it was for it that the Just King refused to follow Peter's suit and instead motioned to the others to follow closely behind the High King as his eyes focused upon the many different places he could think anyone could use for hiding to ambush them at last; he saw the nearest trees, the bushes, the small mountains of rock much further than he liked even through the fog that seemed to barely break by the place where Peter had walked; indeed, it all looked fine, and the truth was that he did feel much safer on the ground, where he could easily reach for his swords and fight if needed than on Phillip, who he would worry to defend if he had to fight atop him. Thus, with a heavy breath of resignation, finally Edmund dismounted too, keeping his familiar horse at his side, and finding himself unable to let go of the frown that followed him until the moment he walked side by side with Peter at last. "If we find her," he whispered, for no more than the truth that he feared any loud noise would provoke the very ambush he had feared for a while; but still, even the whispered notion did not save him from the deadly stare he noted Peter had sent him when he looked at him again; surely at the horrible use of his words, but, well, could anyone blame him for worrying a little more than anyone else? No; he had used to right words. "If we find her," for all he knew, it could be a trap: "We'll need to be as quiet, and as quick as we can. The Ettins are smart," he paused. "She could be used as bait."

It wasn't the most sensitive thing he had ever said, but even the promise of getting his best friend back was not enough to make him lose sight of what had only happened a few weeks prior, and not him, nor any deadly look from Peter would make it otherwise; not that his brother wouldn't try, or at least he assumed such for the harsh way in which he turned in place and parted his lips; but before he could actually say a word, the echoes of distant heavy breathing reached everyone's ears. As it tends to happen when a brand new noise joins the situation, everyone of the seven in the group began looking to one another, wondering, if anything, if perhaps the source of the breathing was one of them; but, god, it wasn't, and that alone was enough to have Edmund's heavy heart beating more wildly than before. "Do you hear that?" Peter wondered, as if he hadn't just been witness to everyone else's searching for the source of the sound.

But Edmund couldn't blame him; if he'd lost Juliet for months and suddenly heard she was alive and well... he cleared his throat; it wasn't the same, not at all. "Yeah, we hear it." He said, pushing all other thoughts away and tugging at Phillip's reins for the sake of his protection as much as the continuance of their walk towards the echoes of the water running freely somewhere near.

"Do you think—" Peter began, the echoes of expectancy and wonder printed perfectly within his voice.

Edmund couldn't stand it, "Try not to get your hopes up, Pete." He said, regardless of just how absolutely up his own hopes were; after all, it was not every day he got the opportunity to get his best friend back, the only person outside of his family (and now Juliet) that understood him and didn't judge him for his past, that treated him as something more than just a King; yeah, his hopes were up, but the sort of disappointment he would get if it all ended up truly being nothing more than a trap was nothing compared to the horror and devastation Peter would feel if that happened.

Still; it seemed two could play the denial game; because "I'm not" said Peter, regardless of the very evident truth that his hopes were so very clearly as up as Edmund's own.

Of course, the Just King was not fooled, and it showed by the single raise of a brow he directed at Peter entirely before the High King turned around and began walking in the direction of the hopeful sound; breaths or not, Edmund still didn't trust the situation entirely. They walked on regardless, carefully, silently, nothing but the squishing of their feet against the wet ground, and the heavy breathing that served as their guide echoing in the path they trailed; and it was that silence that brought Juliet and the very thought he had fought against even as recently as a few moments prior into his mind once again. He had known for months how absolutely crazy Peter was for the missing warrior they now so heartily hoped to find; after all, he had seen the letters, he had seen the worry in his eyes, the absolute devastation that combined with anger the moment the announcement of her proclaimed death had to be made; he had seen it, almost even felt it when he attempted to comfort Peter and he almost completely refused to be comforted at all. In fact, in ways he even felt the true horror of his grievances when the mere thought of the limit of time he and Juliet were very aware of approaching came into his mind; he could feel himself getting angry, hating the rules, hating even her righteousness for thinking he deserved a life he didn't even care to care for when he only wanted her by his side; and he hated his doubt, for the mere wonder that nothing he felt could ever be truly felt by her alike; but what exactly did he feel? God, the answer was at the very tip of his tongue but he dared not acknowledge it; how could he, when the possibility of it taking over him so strongly was almost a given if he acknowledged it at all, and what good would it do, when—Holy shit. He thought and thus interrupted the very river of enlightenment that he'd basically been drowning in, because a single droplet from a nearest tree fell at the top of his head, thus encouraging him, and becoming enough to make him look up wondrously with that frown still in the middle of his forehead and finally see that the source of the heavy breathing hadn't only gotten so much closer but was finally there, visible, broken, real.

Indeed, laying on the muddy ground was Athena Ashdown herself, but at the same time it was not her; it was a shattered version of the girl Edmund Pevensie had sparred and joked with, a barely living version of the one who had teased her so constantly about Juliet Capulet, a broken shell of the girl he had so heartily admired and cared for that even his own breath became stuck in the middle of his throat. And if he saw that through the bleeding, scarred shell of a person laying on the ground, he couldn't imagine what it was Peter then saw; no, that was a lie, he could imagine, he could already feel the effects of what his imagination could bring: his heart was shattering into a million tiny pieces, when suddenly the body of the girl on the floor stopped being that of Athena, but the very girl of amber eyes and curly brown hair he had left shocked at the breakfast table many hours before.

The echo of Peter's sword hitting the muddy ground thankfully stopped him from saying the very name he had thought, and the image before him changed into the reality once again: Athena lay there, breathing like the echoes of an inexperienced runner might bring at the dash from a deadly enemy for the sake of survival; she coughed, and even those held a wet sound that left Edmund almost completely frozen; and the blood, there was so much blood resting like a pool of its own under her entire frame that was so absolutely lethal he couldn't help but let go of Phillip's reins and walk the few steps Peter had ran in her direction; but where was all that blood coming from? She had scratches everywhere, the hair that had once been a beautiful brown now seemed tainted into a deep black that revealed itself to be red from the blood flow under her, and the bruises... he had never seen so many bruises on her, and her leg; oh, that's where it was: there was a giant gash upon her leg that seemed so black it seemed impossible, and the blood flowed from there, slowly, but surely within the soft bubbling motion from the evidently infected wound and down onto her shattered trousers and the cold ground under her; not even the heat of the near summer could warm that ground at all. "Athena," Peter said, nothing more than a whisper no one other than Edmund and perhaps Theoren, who stood close by her side in protection, could hear; god, there was so much blood. "My love, wake up."

Almost immediately, at the sound of such a word, Edmund's eyes moved away from the shattered girl and towards his brother, who so clearly smiled at Athena as if she were the light of his life, as if the entirety of the world rested in her lips, her eyes, as if every wrong in the world had suddenly been put right by the mere echo of her breathing, regardless of how rough it sounded, as if... my love; no, there was no way. He didn't... he couldn't; it was impossible, or so he said to himself, but the truth was that he had known it long ago, as much for Peter as for himself, and that very thought was the one that led him to look at Athena once again with nothing other than the deep frown adorning of his forehead as anything to show for his joy at having found his best friend bleeding on the muddy riverbank and alive; but whether it was the wildness of his beating heart that had him seeing things or the agony at the vision of someone he cared for so much being hurt so badly, the girl on the floor stopped being his best friend's shattered body once again, and the impossible image of Juliet Capulet laying bloody on the floor met him instead. She didn't move, didn't breathe, and the pretty silks of the golden dress she'd been wearing that morning, which he loved seeing on her, were no longer golden, but red, for they were tainted by the blood that flowed from her head, her neck, her arms, her chest. Please, came a voice again, but this time it wasn't Peter's, it was his own, for he no longer saw Peter smiling at Athena as she lay slowly dying that late spring afternoon; instead he saw himself, his hands tainted with the blood that flowed from Juliet's body the way he had seen so in many dreams. Please, Juliet, my love, wake up. And the words were foreign to him as he watched, they felt strange, but god would be his witness if he didn't admit... they felt right. Unlike many of his dreams, there rested no dagger anywhere near him, no treacherous weapon to claim he had been the one to take her life, but still he cried, him, Edmund cold-hearted Pevensie as most people thought of him, he cried, he begged the lifeless girl to wake up, he begged and prayed and cried, and shook her as if that would help, please, I love you, please, wake up. Please. And god, he did; he had known it long ago as he had known it of Peter: love. Damned, bloody, problematic love that could thereafter shatter him, change him, turn him into the very boy he saw crying there over the body of a lifeless Juliet.

It is too late.

A branch echoed its splitting somewhere behind him, and just like that, the image before him was of Peter's smiling and shattered features as he softly held Athena's muddy and bloody face; love... it was too late for them both, indeed. That was how it felt, at least, as a single hand lifted to wipe away the sole treacherous tear that tainted his cheeks by the time he forced his body to move to rest by his brother's side; oh, the unfairness of his mind, for bringing upon the horrors of the realisation and acknowledgment of that which deprived him from fully enjoying the discovery of his living best friend, that who he had thought to have lost forever, but still, the smallest lifts of his lips (whether for the situation or his horrible realisation, he didn't know) appeared by the time a single hand rested on one of hers. A hand that did not at all reply to his hold, and thereafter worried him enough to look at her face once again; nothing, just the rough breathing leaving her lips, but barely... had they already waited too long? "Pete," he called with the broken echo of his worry and his joy all mixed with the pool of thoughts that had claimed his sanity moments before; for the sake of his brother more than for his own, for he could imagine the very shock and relief that Peter Pevensie could feel, for he would feel it too if it were Juliet laying there; oh, yes, he would: it was exactly the same emotion cursing through his veins; it was exactly the same. "Pete, she's unconscious." Fine, he admitted it, as scary as it goddamn made it for him, he admitted it, but it was no time for such a thing; there was no time at all. They had to save Athena, they had to make her live, for if he was allowed love, then why the hell would Peter, the righteous, the noble and right, be robbed from his? No; he would not allow that, he would not let that happen even if it was the last goddamn thing he did. "Dreolind get me the bandages, we need to stop the blood flow," He sniffed away the consequence of the single tear, gulped, and looked in the direction of Theoren, who'd been standing there near them the entire time. "Help me make sure nothing is broken before we lift her; Peter," He continued as if he had never had a moment to think of anything else, turning to Peter by the continuance of his instructions; he had to save her, he had to save Athena Ashdown, or else nothing else he had discovered that day would ever come to make sense, not for him; he simply let go of her hand and instead placed it on Peter's shoulders, to shake him away from his elation for the sake of her life, to get him to help them. "Come on," he encouraged, understanding, hopeful, terrified, all at once. "We need to get her to Lucy."

At last, Peter moved; at first nothing more than his head, turning to look at him as if he were almost even offended to be shaken away from his own joy, but there was something in Edmund's eyes, probably the understanding he thereafter carried there, that entirely shook him away from the frozen state he had found himself in and finally allowed him to nod, gulp whatever thoughts Edmund could only imagine could have gotten stuck in the middle of his throat, and simply said "Yes, of course." And that was it; the centaurs that knew a little bit of wound-mending finally approached and helped Edmund secure Athena for the sake of keeping the small thread of life she hung on still holding on, making a tight knot with the bandages on her leg so the bleeding could stop at least a little, and making sure the way he and Peter carried her couldn't damage any bone that might have sprained, broken, or could be about to break.

Thankfully, it didn't take long, and with the constant lookout from the three centaurs that were not helping, the group of now nine begun to make their way back to Cair Paravel by the first and really early signs of twilight. This time, though, they galloped and went as fast as every centaur and horse could go; one of Edmund's swords was drawn, just in case, and Peter's arms refused to let go of Athena's broken body even if he tried to keep the direction of his horse alike; and then it began to rain.

Still, the only thing Edmund Pevensie could even come to think of was the simplicity of the truth he had uncovered by the most unfair of ways, the very truth that he had known and had denied, the one that had led him so wonderfully to miss her endlessly, to wish for nothing more than her whenever he could even think of anything outside of his duties, and even within: love. May Aslan help him, but he was in love with Juliet Capulet, and when, oh, when had that even happened? He didn't even want to think about it, because the prospect of the time such a thing had been true utterly terrified him. One thing was having feelings for her, even lusting for her the way any teenage boy would lust for a girl when his hormones started taking hold of him (not that he knew the reason for that exactly, but he'd read enough), but a whole other one was... love. But oh, he did, he loved her, and it scared him; he loved her and he wanted to scream about it; he loved her and regardless of the endless fears that had kept him in a state of denial for so long, he wanted her to know, he needed her to know.

He could remember Peter's letters, the way he had mourned, the way he had seemed to have something other than Athena's loss weighing down on him, and he didn't know what that was, but he could guess: the very thing that the version of him in that horrible daydream of his had spoken and begged Juliet to know, I love you; the same thing Peter himself had been unable to keep to himself by the very moment he even became able to touch her and see her, my love. He had never told Athena, just like Edmund, for one reason or other (denial, he was now in denial about that) had never even thought of telling Juliet any such a thing; and what if, indeed: what if something as horrible as what had happened to Athena came to happen to Juliet? Would he then be okay with having to live with the regret of never telling her his truth? Would he be begging at her deathbed to wake up just so he could say it one time? Sure, with her, it was different: Juliet was immortal, thus one death would never be permanent, but still, what could be the point of waiting if the truth was loud and explainable upon his head? He was no good with words, sure, but god, he had to try, he had to do something; he couldn't possibly make the same mistake Peter had made of not telling her in time and thus live with the consequences when it was too late, as it now had become for his oldest brother for the mere truth that his hand was promised to another. No, no, indeed, Edmund could not wait until then; for what if something like that happened to him too, what if he was the one that died before she knew anything, what if something happened to make him unable to tell her physically one way or another, what if?

He hated that single question; there was no reason for him to wait for something else to happen when he knew the truth already and so loudly. No, indeed, no reason to wait, and it was exactly for that very truth that the Just King made up his mind about it as soon as the hooves of his horse hit the familiar grounds of Cair Paravel: As soon as he could be sure Athena was taken care of, as soon as he knew he was no longer needed for that situation, he would find Juliet Capulet and he would let her know everything once and for all. He would tell her...

Oh, he would tell her of his undeniable gut wrenching, fear inducing, head spinning truth of love.

To Be Continued