A/N: Many thanks once again to the crowd at thelionscall . com and their monday night writing group. Special thanks also to Inkling Astrophel for her valuable feedback.

Chapter 3

"Lucy?!" Edmund's voice was a hoarse whisper. "What are you doing..."

His sister lay a hand quickly over his mouth.

Shh Mericu," she whispered urgently in his ear. "No one else knows who you are. Don't break character."

Edmund quickly modulated his voice to a softer pitch before replying with an insistent whisper. "You are not supposed to be here!"

"Too late for that now Meri," she countered.

He closed his eyes and took a moment to compose himself. Yelling at Lucy would do no good, besides he would need her cooperation to get the two of them out of this situation.

"Did you see who grabbed us? Do they know who you are?" Ed's eyes grew large as he contemplated the problems that could arise from the kidnappers knowing they held one of Narnia's Queens.

"I...I don't know." Lucy replied. I saw someone following you around the periphery of the festival so I ducked into the shadows and followed you both, hoping to get a look at who they were. Before you reached the next torch, someone dropped a sack over my head."

Edmund groaned lightly, his ribs and back aching. Reaching up he rubbed a tender spot on the crown of his head. "I never saw them coming. First I knew was the dark bag dropping across my vision and cinching my arms to my waist. I tried to kick free and I guess that's when they clubbed me."

He looked up quickly. "You say you don't think they know who you are?"

Lucy looked thoughtful for a moment then shook her head.

"Then we'd better call you something else too," he whispered.

"All right, what?"

Edmund's reply was interrupted by a tickling in the back of his throat. Unable to suppress the urge to cough, he attempted to take a deep breath. His spine spasmed and popped and his ribs burned against the pressure of the undergarments that compressed his figure.

"How do you girls wear these things?" He hissed.

Susan and Lucy giggled at Edmund's complaint.

"To begin with dear, soon to be sister." Susan chuckled as she reset her grip on the strings. "They don't squeeze us as tight as they do you. Ready Lucy?"

Lucy leaned forward again, grabbing her brother around his narrowing waist. "Ready Su. Okay Ed, exhale."

It had been agreed that none of Lucy or Susan's ladies in waiting would be involved in Edmund's disguise. As Edmund emptied his lungs, his younger sister braced herself and leaned backwards. Susan groaned loudly while pulling the corset's laces tighter. He felt as if the narrowing waist of the garment was splitting him into North and South Edmund, only connected by the shrinking Isthmus of Pevensie. As the corset ceased contracting, Lucy reached up from where she was holding her brother in place to set a thumb firmly on the strings.

Susan quickly tied them off and checked how even the tension was spread. "That should be good enough for now. If we tighten it a little more each day, in a week he should be small enough to fit in to that party dress you last wore to the dancing lawn, Lu."

Edmund turned to look at himself in Susan's mirror. The voluminous feminine underwear, pantaloons, petticoats and shift were now all cinched firmly beneath the cream and ivory corset. Aside from the underwear with its imposed hints of a wasp-like waistline, he still looked like a boy.

"I look like a jester." He couldn't see how Susan and Lucy were going to soften his appearance.

"Dear sister." Susan grinned. "Until your departure for the dance, you shall practice how you hold yourself, walk, move and sit. You will learn the intricacies of feminine hair care, and you will soak in a bath of my preparation every night. By the time you are ready, your appearance and deportment will be as refined as Lucy's or my own."

Lucy frowned deeply as she grabbed one of Edmund's hands and lightly ran her fingers over the callouses he had acquired in his weapons training.

Ed's cheeks heated and he wanted to disappear into the tapestries when due to lack of breath from the corset his reaction to the tickling sensation came out as a giggle.

"Yes Lucy," Susan smiled. "Perhaps she is the daughter of a farmer? You shall need a story to explain your hands, won't you Meri?"

"Meri?" Edmund's head whipped around to stare at her.

"Short for Mericu. We can't go calling a beautiful young lady Ed, now can we?"