𝘥𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘥 [30.4.21]

"NEARLY READY?"

I look up at Susan, who stands in the open doorway with her armour on, hair plaited back, and her bow and quiver strapped on — ready to break into the Telmarine palace. I nod, returning to tieing my vambraces as that familiar pre-battle sensation washes over me, making me feel invigorated and apprehensive all at once. It's nerve-wracking and makes my heart race, but I can't help loving it.

Her footsteps light, Susan enters the little room we've been using as our sort of shared quarters. Wordlessly, she stops in front of me and reaches her hands out to take over tieing the laces.

I laugh a little, remembering all the countless times she'd come to help Peter and me with our armour before battle. "Thanks."

She smiles. "If I'd kept watching you, I might've gone mad."

"It wasn't even that bad," I argue. "I've put on my own armour loads of times before."

Susan laughs at that. "Well yes, but that doesn't mean it's any better than when I do it."

I roll my eyes and try not to fidget too much while she works. "Where's Caspian?"

"Probably with Glenstorm or Arryn," she replies. "Why? Did you need something?"

A frown pulls at my lips. Why would she think that? "No," I say. "Just wondering why he's not with you."

Her fingers hesitate, and I notice colour climbing across her cheeks, but she plays it off as smoothly as she can. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Her denial only encourages me. "He hasn't stopped gawping at you since yesterday."

The red dusting her skin flares a deeper shade, but she says nothing to dispute my claim.

"So you do fancy him, then."

Susan pulls harshly on the laces, tightening the vambrace around my forearm too much in retaliation for the accusation. "I never said that," she insists, looking up at me with her sharp blue eyes.

I know full well I've just hit a nerve, and even though I'd love to keep bothering her about it, I know better than to wind her up right now. So I change tactics.

"Well," I say cautiously, "Arryn's got me convinced he fancies you."

Her eyes narrow the slightest bit, the confusion evident in her voice. "Then why hasn't he said so?"

I shrug, not knowing enough about the Telmarine prince to have a proper answer.

Pursing her lips, she sighs through her nose and returns her attention to my vambrace. I've seen my sister disappointed enough times to know this is one of them. Her practiced movements are stiffer and rough, expression hardened to conceal her true feelings. Seeing her like this, I find regret crawling up my throat. Why would I ever bring it up? What was I thinking?

"Su," I begin gently. "He's probably just nervous. I mean...it's not exactly easy talking to someone you really like. Especially when they're always armed," I laugh.

"Oh, don't be daft," she scolds lightheartedly. "It's hardly difficult for you to talk to Arryn."

I'm prepared to protest, but thinking back on it, I realize she's right: I've never had any issues talking to her before. It's always been so easy for us — natural — like in another lifetime, somehow, we knew each other.

"That's...different."

Susan arches an eyebrow, not believing me. "Oh, really?" She finishes with the knot on my armour, tugging it firmly before releasing my arm and gesturing for the other. I'd already done it up myself, but I can't deny it's not as tight as I'd like it to be. So I hold my arm up between us, palm turned upward. Fixing me with a deploring look, she begins untying my unsatisfactory knot. And under my sister's prying, iron gaze, I feel myself caving.

"I...I'm not sure what it is," I admit. "It's strange with her. It's like we already knew each other, and...Ryn was someone I didn't know a part of me had been waiting for."

Susan has stopped, the laces held loosely in her fingers. When I look up and meet her gaze, I find her smiling broadly with a strange, mischievous light in her eyes.

"What?" I ask.

She shakes her head fondly, still smiling like she knows something and plans not to say a thing about it. "So have you talked to her?"

My eyebrows scrunch up. Talked to her? "Of course–"

"No," she cuts me off, trying not to laugh. "About this, I mean. Clearly, there's something between the two of you."

I hesitate. Susan isn't wrong, but how can I admit what I'm feeling for someone I only just met?

"Oh, quit worrying about it," she muses. "From what I've seen, she likes you just as much."

For a moment, my heart stops. I stare at my sister with wide eyes, unable to believe what she's saying. "You're serious?"

Amusement lines her voice. "Yes. I don't know how you could miss it." Again, she stops what she's doing to place her full attention on me. "I know we're not in England, and at some point we might have to go back, but...don't let that keep you from her. It's not often we come across someone who makes you you, again. And," she adds, picking the laces back up, "we all happen to like her very much."

I feel my whole chest warm at her words. "You do?"

Susan nods, smiling nostalgically. "I think if they could meet her, Mum and Dad would like her, too."

━━━༻❁༺━━━

[30.4.21]

All at once, the change happens and she passes out, her body shrinking and returning to normal as she collapses to the cobblestone. Instinctively, my arms shoot out to catch Arryn and pull her against me, her bruised and bloody skin cold to the touch. Somewhere in my mind, the fact that she's completely unclothed registers, but the adrenaline-high, hysterical part of my brain doesn't let me dwell on it. She's bleeding and we still need to escape.

Trying to shield her from the army's view as best I can, I gather the girl in my arms and press one hand to the gushing sword wound on her shoulder, hoping to staunch the flow of blood. Peter turns away and calls for one of the combat medics, if any escaped the palace, while I listen to someone already running toward us.

Susan's voice manages to permeate my panicked state. "What happened?" She asks.

Arryn's blood is sticky and hot against my hand. I feel my words catch painfully in my throat. "I...I don't know." God, I should've been there.

My sister appears in my vision, kneeling on the cobblestone next to us with the best reassuring smile she can manage. "She'll be fine," Susan says softly, then motions for me to hand over Arryn. "Give her here. And take off your shirt."

I hesitate. The idea of letting her go when she's exposed and injured and just saved me makes me want to hold onto her and keep her safe until the world ends. Then my logic sets in and I know Susan and the medics are entirely more capable of helping her than I am. A moment passes before I relinquish the unconscious chimæra to my sister.

My heart clenches painfully in my chest at the sight of Arryn's back: scarred and discoloured with bruising and dry and fresh blood.

Susan shoots me an urgent look and I tear my eyes away, fumbling with the clasps and buckles of my jerkin to get it off. She's going to be okay, I remind myself. She'll be fine. But nothing can calm my racing pulse, roaring like a hurricane in my ears. She isn't dying. I know she isn't dying and I'm being a lunatic overreacting like this, but I can't help it. She was bleeding out right in front of me, barely able to keep her eyes open or say anything before passing out. And looking at her dirty, battle-worn face and limp body, it isn't hard to believe she's dead. She looks dead.

My chest feels like it's caving in on itself every time I take a breath. Oh my god–

"Ed!"

Damn it. I unbutton the front of my tunic as quick as I can, tearing it off as a female faun and a centauress hurry over, the latter taking the article of clothing from my hand with a grateful smile. Susan helps her slip it on Arryn's unconscious form.

I watch them get to work wrapping her shoulder, feeling sick to my stomach the longer I look at her unmoving body. She's not dead, I remind myself. She'll be fine.

A cheetah races forward, yellow fur matted with patches of blood. "Arryn? Dear one?" Tail lashing, she peers up at the faun busy treating her shoulder wound. "Will she be alright?"

"Right as rain," she answers. "No need to worry."

The cheetah turns around, fixing me with a stare that makes my blood run cold. I remember Ezrik and Verdan mentioning Arryn's feline friend being quite nasty and realize this must be her: Nyssa.

"What happened to her?" The cat demands.

I open my mouth, but the next words don't come from me. They come from Peter.

"She got stabbed," he replies thickly.

I turn around to stare at him, still atop his horse. Peter. Arryn had mentioned something about my brother and nearly attacked him just a minute ago. What did he do?

"How?" My feet carry me toward him, the dangerous words coming from my mouth not my own. "What did you do?"

His mount shifts its weight anxiously, sensing the building tension between us. Peter tightens his grip on the reins and clenches his jaw. "I tried to get her out."

I feel the blood in my veins ignite. "You let her get hurt?"

"Ed–"

"You!?" I'm seething and I know it but there's nothing else to cling to. He let this happen to her. "You led us to a massacre and you couldn't save one person!"

"Ed, stop!" Susan, the voice of reason, tries to deescalate the situation. But I've already given in to this and I don't see any way of stopping it.

Peter started again. "I tried–"

"You could've stopped it!" My hand itches to draw my sword. "Everything was going wrong and you could've called it off!"

His eyes are clouded with despair. "You're upset," he says calmly. "I know. We all are."

I nearly laugh out loud from disbelief. "Are you?"

"Edmund!" Susan cries in disbelief.

His blue eyes harden to diamonds, the horse dancing in place anxiously beneath him.

My hands are shaking, but my voice is steady with rage. "Arryn stood between a bear and our sister the same day we met her," I remind him. "She's spent her life fighting for Narnia and she trusted you to do the same. Remember that the next time she saves one of our lives."

The wind howls around us and he stares at me with an expression like death. His mount snorts and tosses its head nervously, and with a quick jerk on the reins, Peter wheels the animal around and through the gathering of Narnians. Glenstorm regards me with his heavy gaze, conveying his pity and understanding before going after the High King.

The cheetah — Nyssa — lifts her head to peer up at me, a mischievous glint caught in her eyes. "I think I might like you, king," she muses.

"Glad to hear it."

The moment I turn around, I'm met with the exhausted, disappointed face of Susan. She stands with her arms crossed in front of the busy nurses, blocking my view of Arryn. "I can't believe you two," she chastises, sounding much too similar to Mum. "This is hardly the time for one of your gormless barneys."

My irrational rage is finally retreating, but I'm no less furious about the whole thing. "He deserved it," I mutter. "Somebody had to knock him off his bloody pedestal."

Laughter rumbles from Nyssa's throat. "Yes, indeed. And I'm glad I got to see it."

My sister doesn't respond, but I know she's thinking the same thing.

"Can I do anything else?" I ask, nervous being unable to see Arryn while the nurses tend to her.

Susan suppresses an irritated groan, glancing over her shoulder at the chimæra. "She's fine, Ed. All you can do is wait and let the medics work."

She's right, as always, and after a minute they finish bandaging Ryn's sword wound and hand her off to a centaur called Suncloud, one of Glenstorm's sons, to carry her as the army starts to move out.

The miserable trek to Aslan's How begins without a moment to spare, and with nothing else to do, I make sure to stay as close to Arryn as possible. As it happens, Nyssa has the same intentions and thus the two of us end up walking in silence together behind Suncloud, through the woods and across the plains. We watch as our friend is passed between Caspian and Ironhoof and a number of other centaurs before I convince them I've waited long enough.

It's a relief to have her back in my arms, where I can feel her steady breathing and the occasional twitch of her muscles as she dreams of something I can only hope isn't a nightmare. Even though there's blood on her scarred skin and purpling bruises beneath the dirt and grime, I can almost imagine her laughing face from the day we spent hiking the gorge, her teasing words echoing in my ears and lifting the corner of my mouth into a smile.

I'm not sure she'll be the same as she was after that bloody night, watching her friends' lives bleed away beneath an enemy's blade and turn the castle bailey red. I'm not sure if any of us will be the same after this war ends — if it ever will.

But I'm sure as hell going to do everything I can to find a reason for her to laugh again.

▬▬ι══════༻❁༺══════ι▬▬

author's note

happy one year to chimæra!

i hope you guys enjoyed this chapter and the bit of insight on peter's attitude from the previous chapter. and we finally got to see how nyssa and edmund became acquainted after arryn blacked out! i really love how their relationship is just a few smart quips here and there and the rest of it is silence lmao

i intended to have a few more scenes in this chapter before i released it but i never got around to writing more and y'all wanted edmund pov so here it is!

i'm open to taking requests if there are other scenes you'd like to see in edmund's pov. i am going to be very selective about what i choose tho, since i obviously don't want to rewrite the whole story from ed's perspective lol. plus, there are a few scenes that should be kept only in arryn's pov, like the scene at the spring after the white witch ordeal.

anyways, i hope you guys enjoyed the double update. you all deserved it after my months-long absence (whoops)

thank you for your patience and don't forget to vote and comment!