A/N: well. my memory is like my mothers--i've been caught up in track season and my fictionpress stuff and neglected this beloved tale. i'll change the title to static with the next chapter--which will be up at least by the end of next week. as a peace offering, i hope you enjoy this quickie chapter that i threw together in haste just now instead of sleeping. reviews are warm fuzzies. even if you say you hate my guts haha :) i promise a much longer chapter next time but this is better than nothing, am i right?
Peter was dreaming. It was one of those dreams that don't exactly feel real, more fantasy than anything, but it was such that a smile was fixed on his calm face. He was riding a horse through the woods, racing Ed. Ed eventually fell behind, with much whooping from Peter. In his stead, Susan appeared, a determined look in her eye. Peter clicked his tongue and dug his heels into the horse, waving to his sister as he left her in the dust. He rode into a clearing, past Lucy and his mother and father, who were cheering him heartily. He plunged into the thick of the trees again and rounded a bend. He glanced behind his shoulder quickly and laughed, exhilarated by his speed and success. The trees began to thicken, their ever larger trunks spaced closer and closer together. Something had changed.
The trees weren't the only things that were different. The ground was darker and seemed softer than the dry, hard-packed floor of the forest he had raced his siblings through. The air was clearer, as if it had recently rained. Peter slowed his horse, turning his head this way and that, in search of any sort of life. He could hear birds in the distance and once or twice swore he saw a squirrel. Something pulled him onward, even though he wished to turn around and return to his family in the clearing.
He let go of the reins and watched in silent wonder as his horse continued to pick through the trees dutifully. Eventually, the trees became so large and so many that he had to climb off the horse's back and continue on foot, crawling over the log-sized roots. Exhausted, he pulled himself up onto yet another and scraped his hand. Swearing under his breath he looked down and his cut hand and then onto the tree to see what had done it. There were symbols carved into the giant root. He brushed some dirt away and a leaf to reveal the letter 'c,' a star, and a circle. He stared at them for a moment before realizing what they really were. It was a moon and star and a sun, faded on the bark from the wear of time.
He felt a sense of real purpose now and hurried as fast as he could over and under and around until the trees ended. It was a clearing--but very different from the one in which three members of his family stood. It was perfectly round and surrounded by the enormous trees. Directly in the center, a tower was built from stone. He walked around it, searching for a door. The grass, though long and soft--the kind that sways in the slightest wind--crackled as he stepped. He looked up and froze. Up in a window sat a girl.
"Peter!" she called in a childish voice. "Peter, wake up!"
He was confused. Why would he want to wake up? He desperately wanted to know who the inhabitant of the tower was.
"Peter!"
And now the world was shaking and fading into black. Peter sat up in his bed quickly, searching for the culprit.
Lucy was jumping up and down on the bed, shouting for him to wake and grinning from ear to ear.
"Come on, Edmund!" she called happily. "Come, let's tell Peter!"
Edmund trudged through the door, his slippers dragging noisily on the carpet.