Prompt: "the Gifts (from Father Christmas) are different/swapped/Edmund gets one"

Pairings: Gen

Content warnings: N/A


Chapter 72: Edmund's Torch, Alpha Version


"Oh, but, Ed, Father Christmas didn't leave you out! Here, he sent this along for you," Lucy shouts, a little overeager, too excited to be reunited with him and trying her best to ignore the strained tension between the four of them since he arrived in Aslan's camp after his rescue.

She hands over a lumpy package wrapped in butcher paper-apparently, Mrs Beaver wrapped it for them, to protect it during the journey-and it really does feel like Christmas as he tears the paper off. Inside, to his confusion, is a lantern although he doesn't recognize it as such first. It's perfect round and crisscrossed with rope that becomes a braided handle to carry it up at the top; there's no opening or latch to put a candle in, but when he touches the rope, blue light shines like a beacon inside, making him jump.

His siblings look just as perplexed at him. "We're not sure how you're supposed to light it, but I'm sure we'll figure out something," Susan offers him kindly.

He blinks at her. "You don't see the light?" Their confusion doubles and he realizes the lantern's light is only for him to see. It's an odd present; thoughtful, but not exactly a weapon for battle.

Still, years later, it makes for excellent use when one night, as he crept back to bed from a midnight snack, he'd use it to sneak up on an assassin outside Peter's bedchambers. He finds out in that moment that it was also indestructible the whole time when he uses it to crack the assassin over the head.

Useful, indeed.


Notes: Why a lantern? I decided very quickly that I didn't want to give him a weapon like the other kids, which probably would have been remarked upon in canon, but something still useful. Funny enough, I came up with the lantern idea before I recalled Edmund's torch from Prince Caspian, but once I remembered it, it felt like kismet. I also really like the idea of Edmund being a spymaster, and this just seems like something that would come in super handy when having to do any sort of spywork.