Author's Note:
Hey guys! Back again with another chapter!
This is one of the longest chapters I have written to date. It WAS going to be even longer than this, but I couldn't keep you guys waiting, so I moved a lot of stuff to the next chapter.
Thanks all for the kind reviews! Seeing that people like my work is the best part of doing it. Seeing familiar faces, and new faces in the reviews everytime a new Chapter is uploaded makes the time I spend doing this worth it. It's crazy to think that people want to tune in to read my work.
Next chapter is pretty much all planned out, and will most likely be a long one as well, so come prepared.
That's it from me, enjoy!
Chapter 23: Restless Nights
Peter
An explosion rocked Peter awake, the force causing his head to spin and his teeth to vibrate. He sat bolt upright in his bed, looking around his room frantically. Trying to locate the source of the sound. As the ringing in his ears dissipated to a slow throb, he took stock of his surroundings. Luckily, it seemed his room had been somewhat unscathed by the blast. His furniture was all intact, his walls remained structurally sound, and the clothes his mother had folded for him remained neatly placed on his dresser. His windows hadn't been so lucky however, Peter saw that they had showered his room with shards of broken glass. Even if they hadn't been hit, the explosion must've been close.
Through the now-vacant window frame, the noises from outside started filtering in. The people of his neighborhood had grown accustomed to the night-time bombing by now, the task of evacuating out into the bunkers was mundane. But this didn't sound like any other raid Peter had experienced. Intermittent screaming followed by machine gun fire echoed from down the far end of the street. Sirens had started to blare their slow wail as more blasts sounded from further away. Shouts pierced the cold night air, some seemingly close, others could be heard crying out from other parts of the city. The whole situation was surreal. Peter knew that he should be evacuating to the backyard bunker with the rest of his family, but something carried him towards the open window.
He trod lightly, careful to avoid cutting his feet on the broken glass as he made his way to the sil. Peering out, he could see many fires raging off in the distance. The light inside Big Ben had gone dark, and Peter had no idea of the time. He looked down into the street below him and saw army men rushing forward, ducking behind cover whenever they could. One of the men lifted his rifle over an upturned cart and let loose a few rounds towards something at the other end of the street. Another of the men had rested his rifle on the top of a partially-destroyed wall, and was shooting at the sky while peering down the sights.
'Is he trying to shoot the planes?' Peter thought, confused. He didn't normally see soldiers outside during a enemy bombing run. He poked his head further out the window and looked up, trying to get a glimpse of what the soldier had been shooting at. What he saw were people. There were men descending from the sky, hanging from large parachutes.
A spray of bullets started hammering the soldiers on the street. Most of them ducked their head behind their makeshift barricades, but one of them had been caught dashing across the road, and was not so lucky. Peter saw his body jolt, and then collapse onto the ground.
Peter leapt back from the window, horrified at what he had just seen. This was not a raid, this was an invasion. They had finally come, the Germans. After all this preparation, it was actually happening.
He had stayed in his room too long. He had to get his family. The bunker would not be safe for them. They would have to get out of London somehow. He flung open his door and ran down the hall.
"Mum!" he cried out, coming to a stop on the landing. He looked around, expecting her to appear from her room with the emergency supplies that he knew she kept beside her bed. But the door to her room was already wide open, and his mother did not appear.
Peter decided to go get his siblings instead, their mother would have to wait. Edmunds room was the closest, he turned the corner towards it. Yet something was wrong, Edmund's door lay ajar as well. Peter peered his head into the room.
"Edmund?" he called out. But his brother was nowhere in sight. He was beginning to worry now, where was everyone? The yelling and gunfire from outside was getting closer now, and Peter swore he could hear German voices shouting from close outside. They HAD to leave NOW.
"LUCY! SUSAN?" Peter yelled frantically. He ran down the stairs to his sister's rooms to be greeted with the same as before, open doors and empty beds. Peter whimpered in panic as he ran his finger through his hair and backed up against the wall.
"PETER!" Susan's voice shrieked suddenly from outside. Peter pushed himself off the wall and dashed to the backdoor.
"PETER! HELP!" he heard her scream again. He desperately yanked open the door and exited into the backyard.
But he was too late. Three large angry looking soldiers stood in the backyard, wearing grey uniforms with rounded, steel helmets.
'Germans.' Peter thought.
One of the men looked towards Peter, turning his nose up at him. The soldier standing in the middle laughed, before dropping Susan's lifeless body to the ground, a bloodied knife sunken into her abdomen. Next to her lay the pale bodies of his mother, Edmund, and Lucy. Lucy's limp hand was still wrapped around her teddy bear, yet her once-bright eyes lay open, staring into the dark sky.
The whole world had gone silent. The sounds of battle had stopped, and the soldiers had disappeared. Peter paid it little mind though, he dropped to his knees beside his slain family and wept. He had nothing, no one.
"I know what you fear, Little King." came a female's voice from above him.
Peter turned suddenly, looking up in shock. He was breathing heavily, his breath a white mist, permeated by the night air which had grown cold and harsh. He expected to see more soldiers, but he saw nothing. The night seemed to thicken and Peter felt a chill run down his spine.
"This is what remains should you send your family into war." the voice continued. "They will be slain, and it will be your fault."
Peter didn't know where this voice was coming from, but it was speaking to him.
"B-But they don't deserve this!" he cried in response, tears still flowing down his face. "They didn't need to die! They weren't soldiers!"
"These ones are not." the voice answered. "But the family you brought into Narnia are slowly becoming soldiers, pawns in a battle that is not theirs to fight. Should they go to battle, this will be the result. You will see them all die one by one, and be powerless to stop it."
Peter looked down at Susan's blank face. He felt his heart pang as he looked into her cold eyes.
"They can't-" he sobbed. "I can't see them die."
"You won't have to." the voice said, soothingly. "I can offer you a way out."
Peter looked up again. "How? Anything to prevent this…"
He couldn't see the voice, but he could somehow feel the air around him grow excited, almost with anticipation. The scene in front of him changed. He was sitting at the dining table, with his family around him. His mother was wearing a flowery dress, with a white apron covering her front half. She was busying herself cooking up bacon and eggs at the stove. Peter's father sat at the head of the table reading the newspaper, a smoking cigarette planted firmly between his lips.
His siblings were all sitting around him, munching on bits of toast and chatting between themselves. Peter could hear birds singing through the window as the sun shone through, bathing the room in a warm glow. It was a perfect day, just like before the war.
Susan stood up suddenly.
"I should be headed to school." she announced to the table. It sounded like Susan, though her voice had a tinge of warble to it, as if Peter was hearing it through a layer of glass.
Susan bent over and gave Peter a kiss on the lips, lingering for a moment before pulling away. She ran a finger over his cheek before straightening back up and walking off towards the front door. No one at the table had batted an eye at this exchange, in fact they all seemed quite unbothered by the whole thing.
"Go back home, Little King." the voice came again. "Take your family and leave Narnia. Act quickly before it is too late. There is nothing but death for you here."
Peter looked around again frantically, but no one else reacted in the slightest. It seemed like he was the only one who had heard the voice. But then the scene had begun to fade, and as it did he felt himself being pulled away, and something hard was poking into the side of his head.
He looked down and saw that his head had been resting upon a large rock. His leather vest which he had been using as a pillow lay off to the side, seemingly having shifted from underneath him during the night. The grass was now damp with the early morning dew. Not far away from him a campfire smouldered, a few embers still glowing within its depths. He could see rows of tents further down the valley, and a few fauns and animals were mingling about them.
'Another dream…'
Peter sighed in relief. These vivid dreams had been plaguing him for a while now, with each of them granting him troubled sleep and restless thoughts. They were all confusing in some way, some of them made absolutely no sense, and some were horrifying.
This one had been different though…
Peter was tempted to brush the whole thing off as just another nightmare, but he felt that it was something more. Normally in his dreams, he had very little control over his own self, as if he was simply viewing the dream through the eyes of another. In this latest one, he was able to control his actions fully for the first time. Almost like a lucid dream, but without the flying.
The very top of the Sun had just risen above the skyline, bathing the clouds to the east in a warm glow of orange and yellow. While it only provided a small amount of light, it was enough to make out the camp and the valley around it. Peter had never really considered how beautiful Narnia looked when not covered in snow. The mixed colours of the trees and flowers were smattered across the landscape, almost like a painting.
The scenery did nothing to lighten Peter's mood however. He thought back to the previous night. How had it all gone so wrong? Peter wanted to wait till morning, and had a whole explanation planned for what he was going to say to Susan. But when the moment had come, he had messed it up badly. He had done a horrible job at putting his feelings into words, and his heart pained as he remembered the look of despair Susan had given him as he had exited the tent that night. He was lucky to find this campfire not too far away from the tent. It had been unattended, which seemed odd looking back, almost as if it had been placed for him.
Peter was thankful anyhow. He didn't much feel like answering to a bunch of the soldiers as to why he wasn't sleeping in his own tent. God, he didn't think he'd ever be able to face Susan again.
"Sleep poorly?" came a gruff voice from beside him, which startled Peter from his thoughts. He had a flashback to his dream, but this was no disembodied voice. Peter looked up into the smiling face of a centaur.
'Oreius…' Peter recalled. He no longer had on his armour, and was instead wearing a simple cloth tunic over his torso. Peter had seen Orion multiple times before, but it was odd to see him not dressed like he was about to go into battle.
"Nightmares." Peter responded to his query. "I've been getting them regularly since we arrived in Narnia."
Oreius crossed his arms and looked down, nodding his head.
"Nightmares were frequent in Narnia when the White Witch was powerful. Many of my kin would wake screaming in the middle of the night, haunted by visions." he said. His voice was rough, but soothing somewhat.
"Did you get many nightmares?" Peter asked the centaur.
Oreius grimaced slightly upon hearing Peter's question.
"I got them, everyone did. Some unlucky ones would get them every night. The Witch instilled them in all Narnians." He paused for a second before continuing, dropping his voice slightly. "Although, I get the feeling that in many ways it was our fault."
Peter sat up, resting his hand on his knee.
"How was it your fault?" he questioned. "If it was the Witch's doing, then how could Narnians be to blame?"
Oreius chuckled softly.
"We all feared the Witch, all of us. That fear only made her magic more powerful. Even the Witch's most loyal followers aren't spared from the nightly terrors, it's used as a way to keep them in line. Many who didn't join her side were too scared to act out. Narnia had been blanketed by fear." he curled his lip upon saying those last words.
"However…" he continued suddenly. "With Aslan's return, and the arrival of your Majesties, hope has found its way into the hearts of many. The nightmares have become less frequent, people are less scared of the Witch now that they have the hope you, your family, and Aslan have brought."
Peter didn't know what to say to this, he certainly didn't know what hope he could provide against the Witch, he wasn't even certain what they were doing sticking around in Narnia.
"May I ask why you are sleeping out here, your Majesty?" Oreius questioned. "Surely your tent is large enough for all four?"
Peter grimaced, so much for avoiding these questions.
"Me and Susan… We-We had a fight." he said, looking away. "I decided to give her some space."
Out of the corner of his eye, Peter could see Oreius looking down at him.
"Lover's quarrel perhaps?" he questioned.
Peter blanched, almost choking on his own tongue.
"W-What?" he said, coughing.
Oreius let out a hearty laugh.
"Forgive me your Majesty, I could not keep it quiet for much longer."
Peter looked up at the centaur, stunned.
"What do you mean?" he asked, dumbfounded.
"It was just a hunch at first." he conceded, looking away. "When you and your family first arrived, I noticed you and her Majesty Susan exchanging many a longing look. I thought that you were simply closer than most siblings, that maybe as the elder two you had developed a sort of Mother-Father connection in relation to the other." He paused once again, took a deep breath in, and continued. "It was more than that though, wasn't it? I saw the look you and Susan gave each other when you saved your sisters from those wolves. And again when you were talking on the hill before. You love each other, no?"
Peter swallowed, looking down at the grass. Had they really been that obvious? How many others had noticed?
Oreius seemed to know what Peter was thinking.
"Don't worry your Majesty, I believe I am the only one who suspects anything." he reassured. "But you and her Majesty should be more careful if you intend to keep this a secret."
Peter pursed his lips, looking down at the camp.
"That won't be a problem anymore." he said, solemnly.
"Just because you had a fight doesn't mean it's over forever." Oreius said. "If you both love each other, you will work past it."
Peter felt a sob rising in his throat.
"The fight we had… It was because I decided to call it off." he choked. "It was all wrong, it would destroy the family if it got out. I am supposed to keep them safe."
Oreius was silent. The sound of the camp below filtered in as soldiers began busying themselves with making breakfast and chatting amongst themselves.
Finally he spoke.
"I was the son of a great chieftain back in my clan. He was a great man, always cared for the future of our people. Not just of the centaurs, but of all Narnia folk. '' he told. "I had two older brothers who were trained for the glory of battle, as is the way of our people. Even the women centaurs were trained in battle, it was the way of the world. You had to be a strong warrior to survive. I, however, was not like my kin. I went along to my battle training, I did what was asked of me as a centaur warrior, but in my heart I relished in the calmer side of life. I spent many of my free days trotting through the forests. Admiring the beauty that Aslan had breathed into the world. The trees seemed like mountains, towering above the ground, with their canopies providing a soothing amount of shade in the summertime. I would pick fruits to blend into delicious wines and juices. I can still picture the colours that they would make as I mixed them. Purples, yellows and greens all swirling together in a large black pot as I roasted it over the fire. I can almost remember the wonderful smells it produced. So sweet, yet with hints of savoury."
Oreius closed his eyes, inhaling deeply.
"It was during one of my many trips into the forest. I met the most beautiful centaur, Alys. Like me, she had foregone a life of warfare, she instead busied herself helping the other woodland creatures. The relations between fauns and centaurs was strained, they despised our love of battle, thinking us savage, and we thought them to be weak. But she was one of the few that they trusted. I first saw her playing in the woods, frolicking in the flowing rivers with some female fauns. I waved to her, yet upon seeing me she dashed back into the treeline with the others."
Peter looked up, entranced as Oreius told his tale.
"Alys was initially apprehensive of me. She was afraid that I would reprimand her for associating with the fauns, for not wearing her clan's armour while outside the village. She steered well clear of me at first, but after a while I would see her watching me from further away as I picked my fruits and herbs. She would try to hide, ducking behind trees, but I knew the woods as much as she did, enough to tell what sounds were natural and what sounds were signs of a follower. Eventually, one day I confronted her as she was trying to hide. We talked, she wanted to know what I was doing. I showed her my bag of fruits, I told her of my passion for brewing, and she just stood there, listening intently as I explained the tastes of the different ingredients, and how they mix together. After that, she told me of her love for nature, her love for the other people that inhabited the forests and plains. Her gentle demeanour enamoured me."
Oreius looked up towards the sun, his face bathed in its orange glow.
"She and I quickly developed feelings for each other. She would take me on secluded trips to meet the fauns. They knew who I was, and didn't let the son of a centaur chief anywhere close to their camps, but with her vouching for me, some of the more daring came out to greet me. We would meet by a waterfall, and would talk for hours on end. In return, I would take her on my trips out into the forest, and when night fell, I would sneak her into my tent and show her how I made the wines. I didn't worry too much about being caught though, I was in love."
Oreius's face turned sullen.
"And then the White Witch rose to power in Narnia. Aslan had disappeared and the world began to freeze. The forests which I had spent many days in grew cold. The plants which I would harvest from no longer bore their fruits. My clan led an uprising against her, fighting wherever we could to thwart her, to little avail. Both my brothers were killed leading troops into doomed offensives against the enemy."
"I'm sorry…" Peter said, breaking his silence.
Oreius smiled sadly, his gaze not wavering from the sunrise.
"All of a sudden I was the heir of the clan. My father was too old now to fight himself, he was dying. He called me into his tent one night and said to me, "Son, the fate of this clan, and on defeating the Witch, rests on your shoulders now. You must lead us to victory, or our kind will fall.". I was now expected to lead our people into battle, even though I had never been trained as a leader."
Peter could relate to what Oreius was saying, everyone was looking to him as a leader, yet he knew not what to do.
"I spoke to Alys one night. I told her that I had to go off to battle, to fight this new evil. Oh how I begged her to come with me. I wanted her to stand by my side, to have her near me, so I could protect her. She would not agree. She did not seek battle, she saw the act of killing as abhorrent, even if we were killing the servants of the Witch. We fought, I tried to make her understand that if we didn't succeed against the Witch then everything would perish. She understood that perfectly, but knew in her heart that she wouldn't be able to slay another if it came to that. The very next day I left for war, and have not been back since."
Oreius looked down, staring at the grass.
"Do you regret it?" Peter asked after a pause.
"Sometimes." Oreius said softly. "I have been fighting for a long time. For the past few years, my life has been devoted to this war. Even if we win, I've got a clan to lead, I'm not certain that things could go back to the way they were. But I am fighting for Alys. I hope that one day I can go back to her in a peaceful Narnia."
Peter stayed silent, not sure what to say.
"My point is your Majesty, that you should think about what you are fighting for. If we do win, will you be happy without Susan by your side?" Oreius asked.
Peter wasn't sure. He had done all this to keep Susan and his family safe. He didn't want to end up hurting her, but the memory of the look on her face last night stung his heart and tightened his chest.
Oreius seemed content with Peter's silence on the matter.
"I will leave you now your Majesty, I hope that I have helped you in some way." and with a bow of his head he trotted off down the hill towards the camp, leaving Peter sitting by the smoking campfire, alone with his thoughts.
