Author's note: This piece is movieverse, and something of a re-tread of parts of my old character study piece "By Grace Restored" ( s/7660233/1/By-Grace-Restored), though with a slightly different angle partly inspired by Hillsong's "Lead Me to the Cross".
"Exactly who are you doing this for, Peter?"
Peter shoved the spokes of the wheel that much harder. The answer should be – was – evident. If this pivotal battle was won, the whole of Narnia would be won; if they lost tonight, they may well lose Narnia too. He knew it. Susan knew it. The army knew it. It was his duty as king to see that they did not fail. Yet here was another sister challenging him, and at a critical moment of battle at that.
"No, you're not listening. Or have you forgotten –" Peter pushed away Lucy's earlier admonition with another turn of the wheel. Boots stamped over stone and the courtyard filled with the shouts of a whole garrison of soldiers. The alarm still pealed in his ears, yet Susan's question clanged louder still.
When Glenstorm and the army charged through, Peter took up his sword and answered her with a battle cry.
A king was first in the attack and last in the retreat. He did it for Narnia.
._._._
Heavy were the marching feet of the troops. Heavy were the hearts of both the survivors and those left at camp. Heavy was the burden on Peter's shoulders. They had failed. The plan had failed. Too much had gone wrong. Horribly, horribly wrong.
It very nearly got worse.
Peter's blood boiled to see the apparition of the White Witch. How she came to be and what she would do almost didn't matter: an unholy alliance would be struck before his eyes unless it was stopped. He shoved Caspian out of harm's way and faced the Witch as he had before, the king and the imposter, between whom hung the fate of the nation itself. Cold anger flashed in her eyes. A frosty appraisal followed. Both faded away as she stretched forth her hand, cooling the tension with an offer of the help he needed. She knew it. He knew it. Even as he hesitated, the heat of his anger was tempered.
Exactly who are you doing this for?
He didn't get the chance to act on it, but he knew the answer. He knew it when the ice shattered, when Edmund delivered his own reproof. When he lifted his eyes to the figure on the wall beyond.
Have you forgotten who really defeated the White Witch?
He had, because he did it all for himself.
._._._
Where, where had he gone so wrong? His error had crippled him, though he had soldiered on as though it hadn't. Lucy's pointed question was the first to pierce that armour; Susan's challenge had struck in the gaps; Edmund's simple rebuke effectively sliced through. And Aslan?
Have you forgotten who really defeated the White Witch, Peter?
The final blow belonged to the Lion.
He hadn't forgotten, exactly, but he might as well have done for all his blindness – a willful blindness, like that at the gorge. His was the victory at Beruna, but only because it was given to him by the One who ended the Witch once and for all. He was the high king, the magnificent; to these he had clung rather than to the One who had made him so. His was the realm of Narnia, but that in stewardship under the King over All High Kings.
Peter sank to his knees. Defeated by his failings. Conquered by the truth. Surrendered to his King.
Exactly who are you doing this for, Peter?
This time, he did it for Aslan.
Prompt: Sometimes defeats are personal failures; sometimes defeats are the crumbling of a nation. Sometimes, like Aslan's sacrifice, a defeat can be the truest victory. Write a story about a defeat.
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