The Pevensie siblings agreed that Lucy had always been the best of them - the most willing to believe. Edmund, after his disastrous time with the White Witch, had become a staunch believer, but most of the things he believed, he only did because Lucy did. She wasn't an expert on Narnia but to him, she would always embody the whimsical soul of Narnia. Peter agreed that Lucy was usually always right, as much as it had aggravated him to admit at first.
But it changed when they all grew up in Narnia as Kings and Queens. They had to be a united front and couldn't afford for things like petty jealousies to get in the way of that. By the time they found the lamppost, Peter had almost forgotten a time where his siblings weren't his best friends and most trusted advisors. They had friends outside of each other, of course. It was just different with the four of them.
When they tumbled back through the wardrobe it was like waking up from a dream, and Peter wasn't ashamed to admit that he was the first to turn back and try to go back to Narnia. It had become home and felt so real that surely it had to be the Professor's house and London that was all a dream.
He was wrong. There were two worlds, and Peter couldn't help feeling like a failure. The others couldn't either. How were they supposed to move on? Be children again?
They'd all seen too much of the world to truly be who they were before they'd entered Narnia. It just seemed that they'd seen too much of the wrong world. They were just kids again and thrown back into a war where they were just another set of siblings sent away from the blitz. They couldn't do anything to help.
Peter couldn't help draw up battle plans and strategies as he'd grown so used to. He couldn't even spar anymore - what use was a sword and shield against guns and bombs? Susan was the diplomat of the four but she knew even suggesting she take a position would be laughed off by the adults who would see nothing but her apparent age and her gender. Edmund didn't have his spy network to fall back on and Lucy certainly couldn't get to the battlefield as a nurse.
It was unsettling, the first few days back in England; the siblings were all on edge, waiting for someone to walk up to them and talk to them about Narnia and its daily runnings. They'd grown up managing a kingdom and now they weren't even allowed to make basic choices.
It was more unsettling to return to London that they thought it would be. It was so crowded and loud and the smog was awful. It was unnerving to see the destruction of the Blitz, and it reminded them of battles fought long ago in Narnia and they'd traded knowing looks.
The Pevensie siblings were restless - they always were in spring. It was noticeable, not because it was a big difference, but because they were slight enough to change them almost completely.
It changed Peter in the way that his back straightened, and his posture became impeccable, almost military-like. He became more of a leader than usual, and that always amazed his classmates and teachers. They almost forgot that when he spoke, he was their age and not their teacher. Even in small things, like when they'd split into teams for their PE class, he spoke with an authority that no teenager should have. He spoke like he expected to be listened to, and with the tone, he took it was very difficult to not obey.
He even walked differently - he was usually the picture of efficiency, but in the spring he walked regally, almost inspecting his kingdom. Of course, his kingdom was the school grounds, so not really his but he commanded respect from the very earth. His teachers, who hadn't known him before Narnia, had always commented that he was a very confident young man. Some even remarked that he was perhaps too confident, but considering his perfect grades and exemplary performances as prefect, others thought it was warranted.
In the spring the Pevensie siblings liked to walk amongst the trees to try to see if there was any wildness there. When the sun illuminated them it was like looking into the future - they held a deep-seated certainty in themselves, and in each other. It was sure that they would get far in life because they had the determination to get where they wanted to be.
The teachers liked to gossip in the staff room about them. They did about all the students, really, but the Pevensies were an anomaly. With the four being at the same school, the teachers all thought it was a guarantee that at least one of them would be rebellious, or act out. A few teachers had heard tales of Edmund's behaviour and were sure it was going to be him. They were shocked when he'd followed the example set by his older siblings and was polite to his teachers and classmates, never missed a class or a homework deadline, and even had good grades in all his classes.
That was the problem with the Pevensies - they were perfect in almost every way. Perfect grades, perfect conduct and even a perfect relationship between them. Except there was just one thing that every teacher had noticed. It seemed like none of them were really present in classes. Like they were attending to do the teacher a favour and that, really, they had better things to be doing.
It was like they were humouring the teachers, and almost any authority they ran across. Some teachers speculated that they must have been spoiled when they were children, or that they ran their mother roughshod. It was obvious that they were used to being in control, for all that they didn't broadcast it, or try to actually take control of situations. Not in a way that wasn't in an official capacity - they had when they'd been sorting out arguments and fights as prefects, but apart from that they were just detached from the rest of the school.
They depended on another in a way that was so unusual to the rest of the school. A few of Peter and Susan's classmates had younger siblings, and they would rather die than hang around them like Peter and Susan did. The Pevensies were a dependable group of siblings.
It was admirable, the lengths that they'd go to for each other, and the way that they always support one another. They were the golden standard of their school - the ones who teacher's held up their work as an example to the rest of the class. Altogether they'd gathered almost every award the school had for academic excellence, or for fostering peace within the student population.
The youngest of the siblings, Lucy, seemed to be the favourite of them. She was doted on by Peter who had fully adopted the father and big brother role in her life, and Susan always made sure that she'd eaten and drank enough and that she wore her big coat in the winter.
But it was spring, and like the rest of the Pevensies, Lucy was different in spring. She'd walk through the woods or whatever greenery she could find, and knock politely on tree stumps ("to wake them up, it's spring," is what she'd say, smiling, if anyone asked) and hum with the bird song as though she understood it. Winter was a sad time for Lucy, that was obvious to anyone who looked. She retreated into herself but by spring she'd blossom along with the flowers and trees.
Her siblings understood what she was going through, and she was grateful for it. She got weird looks, sometimes from her classmates who noticed that she was not her bright, bubbly self in the winter. She would assure them that she was fine, just winter blues and they would laugh it off. Her siblings knew it wasn't just winter blues and knew she was thinking of their first Christmas in Narnia. Knew she was trying to remember the right shade of red that Mr Tumnus' scarf was and whether the Beavers preferred fresh fish or dried fish.
It was a struggle to remember Narnia fully because it had never felt fully real - it felt too fantastical like it should be in a book instead of their memories.
Though the Pevensies got used to being back in England, they hadn't fully adjusted by the time they were thrust back into Narnia.
