Disclaimer: since I am presumably still alive to post this (thank you for not killing me), I'll take the chance to admit I don't own this story.
Beta'd by trustingHim17!
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The Telar stood as still and silent as the statues they resembled, till the middle one finally gave a sharp bark. The Telar all folded their wings against their backs, and the three holding the rulers set them back on their feet.
"Great going, Peter, now we're all in trouble again," Edmund muttered under his breath. He hadn't wanted Peter out of his sight, not after the fears that had raced through him when Peter couldn't answer (Peter couldn't be gone, he couldn't)—but he'd wanted all of his siblings back safe at Cair Paravel more than his own calm. He could have faced the trouble on his own, with Aslan on his side. Or with himself on Aslan's side, rather. Now, just when he'd been about to be given what he'd wanted, Peter had had to go and spoil it. Possibly. The Telar still seemed to be thinking.
Then the middle Telar—the one in charge, Edmund was sure—boomed something towards the Queens, and Edmund froze, because the one holding Lucy shifted. He stood behind her, and he was lifting her arms in his own and holding them out, her bound hands in the air. What was he doing?
Another Telar walked around from behind them, and he held a steel knife.
"Stop!" Edmund yelled, surging forward, only to be caught by four or five hands. He twisted, fighting, trying to get to her, hearing Peter and Susan yelling the same, and watching as Lucy swallowed, the torchlight shining on her wide eyes as the Telar took one of her hands—and pricked one finger.
Edmund quieted, panting, watching. The Telar put one hand below her bound ones and squeezed her pricked finger with the other, waiting till a single drop of blood—Edmund could barely see it fall—splashed from her finger into his open palm. He let her go, speaking again in their rumbling tongue, and closed his hand.
"Lucy?" Edmund heard Peter ask.
"I'm all right, it doesn't really hurt," his younger sister replied bravely.
Thank Aslan. Peter, if you provoke them again, I'm going to bash you over the head with Rhindon's hilt. Not something he would say out loud, but-
More sounds rolled from the mouth of the Telar with the knife, and Lucy froze, staring at him. He waited, everyone waited, but Lucy didn't move. The Telar gestured at Susan, and Lucy cleared her throat.
"Judduham—that's the name of the Telar in front of me—is going to do the same thing to all of you he just did to me, but he's asking us not to be afraid. He said he wouldn't hurt us."
"You understood him?" all three of them demanded, and Lucy nodded. The Telar—Juddahum—growled something again.
"He said that's what he's doing—it's their kind of magic, and it allows all of them to understand us, and us to understand them."
"Sounds useful to me, and I wish they'd done it before," Edmund muttered to himself. He watched careful as Juddahum walked towards Susan. She watched him with wary eyes, but she held her hands out, letting him take her right and prick her finger, squeezing till a drop of her blood fell on his palm. He closed that hand and repeated what he'd said before. There was a brief pause.
"Good afternoon," Susan said, her tone carrying the hint of a question, and Juddahum nodded and spoke back. "Thank you, I am sure it will heal soon," Susan responded, voice calmer. Juddahum spoke one short word and turned to walk the width of the cave towards Peter.
"Last to see Aslan, last to fight the witch, and now last to understand the giant stone creatures who want me for something. At least this one's not my fault," Edmund complained, again under his breath, but watching intently as Juddahum repeated the ceremony. He spoke to Peter briefly, and Peter thanked him. Then at last the Telar moved towards him. Edmund held his hands out quickly. The stone fingers were firm but did not hurt, and the prick of the knife hurt no more than the prick of a pin. Edmund noted curiously that, though three drops of blood had fallen into Juddahum's palm, no trace of them remained. When he closed his palm, spoke the spell, and opened it again, Edmund's blood vanished as well.
Juddahum did not speak as he returned to the ranks of his kind, and Edmund noted that uneasily. But now that they could understand each other—in theory, anyway, and Edmund would really like to test that—perhaps they could figure out what this was all about.
The Telar spoke first, the sounds becoming words the instant they reached Edmund's ears.
"What is it you were yelling?" asked the Telar in the middle of the three, grey eyes on Peter.
"I am High King Peter, throned by Aslan of the realm of Narnia." The Telar swept his wings forward around his shoulders and bent his head, and Peter, recognising it as a salutation, bowed back—and didn't fall over with his hands bound, Edmund was relieved to see. "I sought your attention because you are taking my brother, and I demand to know where and why."
"I am Zedekah, leader of the remaining Telar," the middle one responded. "We need a king."
"For what?"
Zedekah's wings moved up and down with his shoulders as he shrugged. "We need a king."
"You are the leader of the Telar already; why do you need a king?"
"We need a king," he repeated for the third time, and Susan spoke for her side of the cave, the Telar turning as one to look at her.
"Please understand, you brought us into the cave over the heads of our enemies. Are they your allies?"
"The filth at the entrance?" the third, two-winged member of the three sneered. "They are nothing but the sparrows below us."
"This is Jumak, head of the King's bodyguard," Zedekah stated. Somehow, I'm not reassured by that statement, Edmund thought. "I understand the two of you are Narnia's Queens." He made the same sweeping motion with his wings to Susan, then Lucy. "We share this cave because their presence proved that Narnians do not come here, but we have no dealings with the creatures at the entrance. We are only here for a king."
"And you found two of them, and two Queens. What do you want with Edmund?" Peter broke in.
"We-"
"Need a king," Peter chorused with him. "Why won't you tell us why?" The Telar said nothing, and Edmund felt his stomach twisting. "If you need a king," Peter asked slowly, and Edmund looked at him sharply, "why does it have to be Edmund?"
"Don't you dare, Peter!" Edmund snarled, and for the first time since they could understand each other Zedekah looked at him, then back at Peter.
"Khonat remembers more of humans from the days before," Zedekah said gravely. "He said that the taller one in your young is older, and the shorter is younger. It is a hard thing for a country to lose its king. We wish to leave the older, for it is usually the older who is the higher. We do no more harm than we must."
"Why is this something you must do?" Lucy broke in, over Peter's objections, and again the Telar swivelled towards her, even faster than they had towards Susan. But again they answered with silence. "Please, tell us, why do you need Edmund?"
"We need the crown of a king," the Telar holding her said, his hands holding her so carefully.
"Quiet, Sirrioth!" Zedekah thundered, and the Telar bowed his head, his wings falling limp till the stone feathers at the bottom brushed the cave floor.
"My crown will not come off," Edmund broke in. Very slowly, Zedekah turned to him.
"I know." The stone eyes stared, and Edmund watched, the cynical part of his mind, the part he'd never been able to completely quiet, laughing as stone wrinkles appeared on Zedekah's forehead. It looked funnier than the Professor ever had, but the rest of Edmund, the part growing into being a King, noticed how the leader suddenly looked old. He appeared weary, as if it suddenly took effort to move.
"Zedekah!" the one-winged Telar snapped, hitting Zedekah's shoulder again, and Zedekah shook himself, the wrinkles disappearing, his head coming up, and his wings lifting as if to take flight.
"Peace, Khonat." The Telar turned back to Edmund. "Your crown will come off at our command," he told the King quietly. Edmund held his gaze, questioning, hoping he'd say more, but he turned away, towards the Queens. "Sirrioth, Tenelkah, Jumanuth, take the King and Queens home. Jumak, you will accompany them and see them safe."
"My place is back home, to see this done!" Jumak whirled on his leader, his tone like smashing stones, his wings half-spread and his arms rising in fists.
"Your place is where I say it is," Zedekah replied, as immovable as a mountain. He stared at the leader of the bodyguard, and gradually Jumak's wings and fists came down.
"As you command," he said sullenly.
"Take my sisters home," Peter broke in quietly. The Telar had been watching their leaders, and Peter, with a twist of his body, slipped out of the stone grip and walked forward till he stood before Zedekah, looking up at the tall monkey face. "I go with my brother."
Jumak broke the silence with a harsh, long laugh, probably at the sight of a boy challenging a stone creature four times his size. "Now that is a king!" he chortled, wings flapping to keep up upright as he doubled over. Edmund scowled at him, heart hammering.
"Peter, you can't, Narnia needs-"
"We're coming too," and Edmund closed his eyes as Lucy's voice interrupted him. Couldn't any of his siblings see sense? He looked pleadingly at Susan, who was biting her lip, the bruise on her cheek still darkening in the light of the torch. Please, he thought at her, go home where you're safe. Take the others as well. Susan looked back at Zedekah
"He's our brother." Zedekah did not respond. "Please, if you won't give him back, can't you see we need to go with him?"
"At least one of you should go back to Cair Paravel," Peter responded, turning, dwarfed by the figure behind him. "We can't leave Narnia without any of us."
Edmund hurried to help him. "And they'll need you as well, Peter-"
"And it really should be both of you," Peter finished quietly, ignoring Edmund.
"But we can't leave you here, we really truly can't," Lucy protested, before a small yelp of surprise escaped her when Sirrioth scooped her up and cradled her, rocking her as if she were a baby.
"Zedekah." The warning tone came from Jumak. "You cannot give them their way just because they are children." Zedekah did not respond.
"You did not know we were children?" Susan asked, and Zedekah looked at her with the same slow look he had given Edmund.
"News came to our country that two Kings and two Queens had defeated Jadis, the White Terror." Zedekah's voice rumbled like the stones falling slowly, slow enough to trace their path, remembering their news. "We did not think the strength of children could have defeated, and so we came for a king. When we took you from Cair Paravel, one of the few names of this place that remain in our memory, refreshed by the story of your crowning, we took speed over sight. When we landed and set you down to bind you, that none would twist and fall during flight, and blindfolds that none would fight, many of us did not remember your kind being so small. When we set you here we went to take council, and to confirm with many minds the evidence of our minds, that you were indeed children. This is a hard thing for us."
"Why?" Lucy asked, her head barely visible from the cradle of Sirrioth's arms.
"Our young are still."
As one the Telars' wings drooped, a soft scratching filling the cave as stone feather tips touched the floor, before a mourning silence took its place.
"It will not be easier for them if they come." Khonat the One-Winged placed a hand on Zedekah's round arm. "It is not easy for any of us, and if they come, they will have to see it happen."
"Even if they see what they have saved?" the leader responded, turning to him. "Even if they see that it is easy? Will it not be easier then?"
"Please let us come," Susan asked softly. "We may even find another way to help you, without you keeping our brother."
"I do not think that is possible," Zedekah responded heavily. "But you may come." He raised his wings, tone rising in command. "We fly home."
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A/N: Yep, ALL OF THAT was going to be in the former chapter, but it was 10pm and it wasn't written yet, and a part of me thought I could make it to them heading toward Lucy with a knife, and the thought itself made me realise I should be in bed and not testing my self control.
A/N2: so, guess what! The Silent Assassin started (finally!) to tell me the rest of her story! I've got the outline written down, but I'm kind of wondering if people want me to finish this story first and then begin hers, or alternate? I realised I'd never asked which one people like better. Also, she needs a name. Any ideas? That she's being stubborn on.
Response to Anonymousme: Welcome back again, and good to hear from you! To clarify, the Telar had originally planned to take three back to Cair Paravel and keep Edmund, but the Four (well, three of the Four) persuaded the Telar to take them all, so they could stay with Edmund. This story does not, sadly, have a specific update schedule, it's much more "when life gives me an hour to sit in front of my computer for the first half of a chapter" sort of thing. But if I do cliffhangers I promise to do my best to update within a few days, if I can. I'm sorry "Those We Couldn't Save" hurt your heart, but I'll admit I chuckled on reading that review-it reminded me of the movie Howl's Moving Castle. :)