england / december 7, 1946

word count: 1,015

lumund requested by abby w

xXx

Lucy woke to a sharp thump against glass, and blinked in the darkness of her bedroom, confused for a second before it came again: the unmistakable crunch of snow striking her window pane.

She threw the covers off and stuffed her feet into her slippers as she stood and crossed the room to peer down into the street, London's bright lamp posts illuminating the snowy sidewalk where a single figure stood silhouetted against it, packing a third snowball in bare hands just before he caught sight of her and waved.

Edmund?

She furrowed her brow, and he beckoned for her to come down.

Had he locked himself out?

She turned away from the window and slipped into the hall, skipping the squeakiest floorboards as she passed her parents' bedroom and turned down the staircase, drawing her dressing gown tightly around her shoulders in the chill of the empty house, the tick, tick, tick of the sitting room grandfather clock filling it with a lonely sort of thrill that only came in the middle of the night.

She reached the kitchen just as the front door opened and Edmund stepped inside, turning quickly to shut it behind himself.

So he hadn't locked himself out.

"What do you want?" she hissed, shivering in the draft from the street.

"I made too much hot chocolate."

Lucy blinked. "What?"

Edmund pulled his boots off and sat casually at the kitchen table, where two full mugs sat steaming, the thick, sweet scent of it only now striking her nostrils.

He wrapped one with both hands and sipped off the top as she stared.

"Edmund, it's four in the morning."

He glanced at the clock on the mantle and then back at her. "Yes."

She almost asked what on earth he was playing at, but her sleepy mind cleared just before she got the words out.

"You couldn't sleep?"

He shook his head.

With a sigh, Lucy silently pulled out a chair and sat opposite him.

"It's nothing bad," he clarified softly. "Just a sort of… ache, I suppose."

She knew what he meant. An ache that even the magic of London in December couldn't quite satisfy. It crept into her blood too, the sort of wild night when fauns should have been dancing and drums should have been pounding and the stars should have been shining like a sea of diamonds above the treetops.

A bittersweet smile twitched at her lips, and Edmund met her eyes.

He looked older, sitting there, moonlight from the kitchen window splashing over his face so bright and clear it might have come from the sea beyond Cair Paravel.

"Do you suppose it's the same?" he asked, as if reading her mind. "The Cair?"

Lucy wrapped her hands around the warm mug in front of her, sipping its rich, frothy contents as she thought back to Caspian's excited ramblings about the rebuild, how he expected to complete it when he returned home on the Dawn Treader, how every dwarf in the country had been employed in its stonework, carved from the very cliffs upon which its ruins stood.

Eustace's letters from school had spoken of it too, though his stay had been brief before his adventure to rescue Caspian's son.

She couldn't help but think of all her favorite rooms and secret passages, that particular way the kitchens looked with every stove roaring and the steam of every kettle and cauldron clouding in the arch of the ceiling, turning gold in the lamplight.

"I don't know," she said at last. "But… I suppose it only matters that it's there, even if it's different. It wouldn't be much of a Narnia without a Cair Paravel."

Edmund nodded, his own thoughts masked behind a noble and impassive exterior. "Perhaps not. Though I think a Narnian spirit could make any place feel like home."

Lucy smiled, her brother's voice straying into the solemn yet dreamlike musing it had so often taken up as King Edmund the Just. She brushed her thumb over the rim of her mug. "Even England?"

Edmund's dark eyes flicked back to meet hers. He smirked almost imperceptibly in the moonlight, and sighed. "Yes, I suppose, though it takes such a terrible lot of effort sometimes. Even England."

They sat together in silence, each nursing their own hot chocolate for several moments before Lucy spoke again.

"You know what England has that Narnia doesn't?"

Edmund raised an incredulous brow, unsure whether to brace for a foolish trick answer or a philosophical diatribe.

"Marshmallows."

He scoffed.

"Edmund, dear, how do you expect me to drink a full cup of cocoa with no marshmallows?"

"Very well, my Lady." He stood and pulled an overstuffed bag out of the spice cupboard, plopping it down in the middle of the table.

Lucy pulled the tie off and dumped an avalanche of puffed sugar into her mug before Edmund caught it with a sharp laugh and yanked the bag free from her hands.

"Hey! Leave some for the rest of the country!"

She grinned sheepishly over her tiny white mountain. "Sorry."

Edmund shot her a look of perturbed fondness, and stole a handful off the top of her mug as she bit back a childish protest.

He returned the depleted bag to the cupboard and sat down again, sipping his drink as Lucy popped one marshmallow after another into her mouth.

"You do have a point," said Edmund after a few minutes.

"About marshmallows?"

He laughed. "No. Before that." He leaned back in his chair. "I suppose it only matters that we're here, even if it's different."

Lucy grinned. "I am very wise, sometimes, aren't I?"

He glanced down at her mug, still heaped so high she had no hope of reaching the cocoa below. "You're running at fifty-fifty right now."

"Oh, tsk—" She flicked a marshmallow at him and giggled when it bounced off his nightshirt into his mug.

He pursed his lips, gazing dryly down at the soggy puff, but when he looked up into her eyes again, even King Edmund the Just couldn't help but smile back.