narnia / year 1004

word count: 941

ed & su requested by leah

xXx

A light click roused Susan blearily from her shallow slumber, legs tucked up to her chest against a heap of velvety pillows on a sofa in Cair Paravel's royal common room.

She blinked in the firelight of the dying hearth, and sat up just as the tall, arched double doors on the opposite side of the room creaked open. A figure slipped inside, shedding a snow-covered cloak and tearing a bite out of a doughy roll as the doors clicked shut again.

"Oh," said Edmund as he turned. "Sorry, I didn't know anyone was still up."

"I was waiting for you," she mumbled, rubbing her eyes and glancing over her shoulder into the moonlit castle grounds sprawling out beyond the deep-set window.

She tucked a stray curl behind her ear and stood up.

"You didn't have to do that." Edmund tossed his pastry onto a side table and pulled his boots off. "You know I'm always late."

"Yes, I know… that's why I waited."

He looked up and furrowed his brow, unruly black hair curling around his pale young face, delicate frame still slender, not yet broad like Peter, though he now stood taller than Susan.

She cracked. "I don't know what you do out there for days at a time, Ed, but I do wish you'd take more care, I mean— all alone, you could be hurt, you're still only fourteen, and— and— you could at least tell us where you're going."

It all tumbled out before she could stop it, and she bit her lip at once in self reproach. She'd told herself she wouldn't scold.

Edmund only stared. "What on earth are you so worried about? What do you think I'm doing?"

Susan shook her head. Ever since the first true snowfall under their reign, Edmund had vanished off every year like clockwork, without a word to anybody as to why he would choose now of all times to retreat.

Her usually tactful tongue fumbled under his scrutiny. "Well, I only mean… I know it's winter… and… I thought you might be unhappy… because of everything before—"

"You think this is about the witch?"

She faltered. "I… it… isn't it?"

"Not at all! By the Lion, dear sister, but you do worry yourself silly over nothing."

"It— but it's not nothing, what am I supposed to think when you come home caked in ice and snow while all the world is sleeping?"

Edmund sighed, and took Susan's hands in a gesture that seemed almost too grown up for his age, leading her back to the sofa and pulling her down beside him on the velvet cushion.

She wrapped her delicate fingers around his cold palms, searching his face for an answer as he shook his head.

"It is nothing like what you imagine," he said at last. "It is not sadness that pulls me away, nor any memory of the witch. It… it's only that I love the country like this… I love to see it all white, and… and lonely. But not in a bad way, it just… gives me time to think, I suppose."

Susan watched him, fresh confusion swirling in her chest. "But… I don't understand, then, why do you sneak off so secretly instead of just saying that?"

Edmund shrugged. "I don't really know how to say it. I know I'm telling you," he added before she could point it out, "but the others would ask, and I don't really want to explain… I don't know. It's…"

He fell silent for a long time, brows twitching faintly as he gazed unseeing down at their intertwined hands, puzzling out how to articulate his thoughts.

"It's like… the first time we came here, when it was all cold and frozen… it was cold in the wrong way. A sort of… terrible beauty, I suppose, not so unlike its mistress. But then it thawed. And it melted. And even all that cruel magic could not keep hold of it. So now when it's cold, that's what it feels like to me. Perhaps it carries a memory of cruelty, but only insofar as it must to carry also the memory of defeat."

He trailed off in that dreamy sort of rambling tone he always took when he really sank into his head, and Susan watched his dark eyes, still fixed on some invisible point in space as something fluttered inside her, something caught between pride and wonder.

"The great river has never frozen, again, you know," he murmured. "Not really. It's never again been cold enough to trap its living waters for long."

Susan squeezed his hands and smiled softly as he glanced up at her.

Sheepishly, as if coming back to himself, he returned the smile.

Perhaps he'd grown even more in the past four years than she'd realized.

"I can see why you don't want Lucy knowing you think like that," she quipped. "You'd never hear the end of it, she'd be so proud."

Edmund scoffed. "This is a one time thing, okay? And I'm only telling you so you won't worry yourself to death."

Susan smiled, and this time it was her turn to look a bit sheepish. "So… you're really alright?"

"Yes, Su, I'm more than alright." He pursed his lips good-naturedly, and leaned back against the arm of the sofa, letting go of one of her hands to brush his hair back, firelight reflecting in his eyes.

For a single instant he fell into thought again, and Susan leaned back beside him, resting her head against his shoulder as he spoke softly.

"I know it's winter… but… it feels like summer to me."