I don't own Narnia or the Pevensies. I just memorize every little detail about them in order to live a different life.
Lucy felt as if her lungs were being scrubbed with sandpaper. Her breath was coming in short, painful gasps as she stumbled along, but Ed would not relent. Her legs were on fire. Her face was streaked with scratches from the trees that were a blur in the corners of her vision. Her eyes were stinging with tears and rushing air. Her side felt as if it were splitting in two. But still, her brother dragged her along by the hand, his own breathing ragged and struggling.
After what seemed like an eternity of running, stumbling and falling, they hurtled into the massive, gnarled roots of an ancient oak tree. As high as their heads, the roots formed a protective barrier above them and a cradle beneath them of soft, cool earth, and they collapsed in it to lie there and strain for air. The rain was halted by the wood of the tree. It thudded loudly, but only a few drops trickled down to drip on their faces. For several minutes they lay sprawled and breathless in the mossy lap of the great oak. Finally, Lucy rolled agonizingly to her side.
"Edmund," she wheezed, her voice hoarse and small. Her brother lay on his back with his chest heaving in exertion. At her voice he let his head fall towards her, acknowledging her comment but unable to reply. She opened her mouth to speak again but instead broke into a fit of coughing.
When it passed, she looked up again. Even in the dark she knew he could see the tears in her eyes. Edmund squeezed his own eyes shut, shuddering, but gingerly sat up and scooted over to her, leaning back on the tree root and drawing her up into his lap. She began to sob, dropping her dagger to dig her fingers into his bloodstained tunic and pushing her face into his shoulder. Both of them were covered in mud and dripping rainwater that made the blood in their clothes run in pinkish rivulets. Silently, holding back his own tears, Edmund wrapped his arms around his little sister and held her as she quivered with grief and fear and guilt.
"I'm sorry," she bawled, muffled by his shoulder. He hugged her tighter and looked over her head into the dark of the night, back where he'd come from…back where he'd left the rest of his family…Lucy continued weeping, but he didn't know what to do. It was Susan who was good at this, or sometimes Peter.
"Shh," he muttered in what he hoped was a comforting voice. The rain was quite nearly drowning him out, and he was so very tired. He felt his eyelids grow as heavy as his heart.
"Oh, Ed," Lucy whimpered miserably, face splotchy and red. She was still crying. "I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I never meant to…"
"Shh," he repeated. He tried to remember what Susan did in situations like these. But Susan was gone. Susan was probably dying. Edmund felt an immeasurable tidal wave of panic course up through his body but he forced it back down. He was the oldest for now. He had to be responsible, for Lucy's sake, just until Peter came back. The tiny, nasty voice inside him dared comment icily: if he comes back alive, and Edmund told it forcibly to shut up, pulling his sister tightly to him.
Lucy quieted after a time. She felt utterly exhausted, not only physically but emotionally, and found that she could not even shift from her current position. Fortunately Edmund didn't seem to want to move either. And so the moonless night saw the two youngest of the Pevensie children asleep in one another's arms as the great oak cradled them and sheltered them. They fell into a shallow, troubled doze, full of dreams of dead kings and queens and being so very frightfully alone.
When Lucy woke, it was to find herself with no company but the tree. Almost instantly, she felt an overwhelming rush of cold and fright that was not alleviated by the clear sky. She struggled to her feet, sore all over, then slowly bent over to retrieve her dagger where it lay on the damp ground and lifted her head wearily.
"Edmund?" she called. There was no reply, and a sort of exhausted dread closed her throat. She stood stock still, listening.
Somewhere, almost lost in the dripping sounds of trees shedding the previous day's rainfall, she could hear the burbling of a small creek. Lucy began to move towards it, hoping fervently that she would find her brother there. She was not disappointed. She came to a small glen, where Edmund sat on the bank of the little stream and was washing the blood from his cloak, his tunic and breeches already clean and dripping. At the sound of his sister's footfalls he looked up, and his eyes were dull.
"Hello," he said quietly, wringing out his cloak. It dripped mud and pinkish, watered-down blood.
"Hello," she replied. He turned back away and continued with his work in silence. Several minutes passed, Lucy watching him, and then finally his garment was as clean as it would get. He opened it up and draped it over the branch of a low tree so that it might dry slightly before he put it on. Without a word, he looked back at his sister and they shared another moment of long, awkward silence.
"What are we going to do?" she asked finally, and her voice was choked. Edmund looked at the ground.
"I don't know."
Lucy shifted uncomfortably.
"We can't just leave them…" She trailed off, unable to speak any more for fear that she'd lose the rest of her composure. When she lifted her eyes to meet Edmund, he was staring at her with a sort of hurt irritation.
"I didn't say we were going to," he said quietly. There was a certain defensiveness in his tone that made Lucy realize how scared he was. In some ways it was comforting to know that she wasn't alone in being terrified. On the other hand the fact that he was unsure of what to do left her directionless. She didn't know how to go about rescuing people because she'd never had the need for it. Again, the two children simply stood stonily with the drips and drops of the trees shedding rainwater around them.
"Ed," Lucy said flatly. "We have to get back. We can't do this alone."
"I know," he said. She waited for him to say more but he didn't.
"Which way?" she asked at last. He sighed deeply, looking down at his sword with his shoulders slumped and eyes blank.
"I don't know," Edmund replied, sounding disheartened. His head came back up and he pulled his cloak from the branch of the tree, rolling it up instead of putting it on. "Get cleaned up and we'll leave. Call me when you're through."
Lucy watched him until he was out of sight, back to their sleeping spot, then unfastened her cloak and stepped over to the stream. The garment was a sorry mess, full of rips, bloodstains and crusted with mud. Kneeling, she submerged it in the shallow running water and rubbed at it, trying to undo some of the damage; as some of the filth floated away she wished she could forget the previous night and everything that came with it. But of course she could not, and the sorrow and dread caused her to shudder visibly.
When the cloak was free of the worst of the stains, she squeezed the excess water from it and hung it from the tree as Edmund had done. Then she gingerly stripped off the mail tunic, her arms aching from its weight, and dumped it unceremoniously on the ground. She couldn't wash it until she had a way of doing so that wouldn't make it rust. Looking down at her dress, she realized it was almost as bad as her cloak had been. Well, what had to be done had to be done. She pulled it over her head, feeling very exposed, then quickly plunged it into the creek and scrubbed at it furiously, working so quickly that it was almost presentable in less than a minute. Lucy tugged it back on and briefly struggled with the armor before it fell back in place and she tied it with the belt.
Her clothes were wet, but not much wetter than the previous night's rain had made them. Shivering from the cold and from worry, she walked back to the oak tree and found Edmund there, distractedly playing with a blade of grass. He got to his feet when she came, picking up his rolled-up cloak, and without a word they set off.
Lucy couldn't help but think, to where?
