Greetings! This one here comes pretty soon after Them Dafty Nightmares, after Edmund knows her name but before anyone else does. I had a lot of fun writing this one. Hope you enjoy it just as much as I did :)

"Come on, Darling!" Lucy called over her shoulder, dashing through the last halls and out into the bright sun of the garden. "Faster, or they may well catch you!"

The former slave girl gathered up her skirts and caught up with the young queen. "But I don't understand," she said in her soft voice. "What are we doing? We're supposed to be in lessons."

"Phoo!" Lucy exclaimed, burying her face in a particularly delightful bunch of flowers. "I don't feel like lessons right now. The other girl giggled, sniffing at her own patch of daisies.

Lucy glanced around. No one in sight. Good. "Come on," she whispered, setting off down a small stone path. After only a moment the girl followed.

"Where are we going?" The girl they called "flower" asked as they made their way further into a forgotten and untended part of the garden.

"You'll see!" Lucy giggled, breaking through the overgrown hedge. There in the middle of a small courtyard stood a fountain still cheerfully gurgling away.

Lucy wandered around the edge, smelling the roses just starting to bloom on the vine covered corner. The other girl made her way to the fountain, moving slowly, reverently. "Look at that," she whispered, fingers brushing the surface of the pool, sending ripples out through the lilies floating in the water.

"Hm? What was that, Flower?" Lucy turned to join her. She looked down, searching for whatever it could possibly be that had so caught the other's attention. "What are you looking at?"

The girl pointed but Lucy still didn't see it. Not till a delicate finger was thrust through the water to ever so gently dig around the roots a of a particularly large lily to extract the lump that Lucy now saw certainly didn't belong there.

"Oh!" Lucy exclaimed. The girls smiled as they bent over the dripping, muddy prize resting in the victorious palm. "However did such a thing get there?" She said, carefully picking up the little figure. "It's beautiful."

"What is it?"

"A chess piece I think. We'd have to ask Ed for sure." Lucy turned the silver knight over in her hand, brushing mud from the horse's head.

"Could we go ask now?"

"Oh, I suppose. He's probably locked up in his study." Lucy turned and set off back towards the castle. "With any luck we'll be able to pull his head out of the clouds."

"Or his books," the other girl said, laughing.

Lucy smiled back over her shoulder. "Same thing!"

Edmund was indeed in his study, though he was neither buried in his books nor in the clouds. He was, instead, furiously scribbling on a bit of parchment.

"What are you doing?" Lucy asked, draping herself over his shoulders.

"Nothing," he replied sharply, making one last dash with his quill and swiping the scrap off the table and into his pocket.

"Oh, it's not like I can read your chicken scratch anyway," Lucy laughed.

Edmund shrugged and looked down at the other girl who had seated herself by his feet, just as she always did. "Good morning, Little Lady," he greeted her. "Aren't you keeping this one out of trouble?" He waved a hand in his sister's face.

"How would I ever manage that?" The girl asked, grinning rather cheekily up at Lucy who put on a pout.

Edmund laughed, reaching out to gently ruffle her brown curls. She smiled contentedly and leaned an arm up on his chair.

"You won't be able to do that much longer, you know," Lucy said rather thoughtfully as she came around to perch on her brother's knee. "Her hair's finally starting to get long enough that you'll tangle it something awful if you keep at it." She carefully straightened out the other girl's soft locks.

"But I don't mind," came the reply as the former slave leaned away.

"Of course you don't, but we can't have you looking forever mussed."

Edmund laughed again and sat back. "Well, I don't think you came here just to talk about Little Lady's hair. What is it you two lovelies want?"

"Why must we want something?" Lucy asked, curling up in his lap and nuzzling under his chin.

"Stop, stop! That tickles." Her brother pushed her away as the two girls laughed.

"Maybe if you shaved," Lucy grimaced.

"What's that got to do with it?"

"I don't know," Lucy shrugged. "You're just starting to get a bit scratchy."

"Maybe I want to grow a beard."

"Phoo. You'll be working on it forever."

"Hey," he scowled. "That's not at all amusing."

"But true."

"Oh, don't you start, Little Lady. You don't understand how long it took me to get to this point."

"He's right. Took him forever."

"Could we just drop this now? I'm quite sure you didn't come here just to talk about her hair or my beard."

"Or lack thereof."

"By Aslan, Lucy! Just-"

"I'm just teasing, Ed. But go on and show him what we found, Flower." The other girl nodded and reached into her pocket, pulling out the silver figure and handing it to Edmund. He turned it over in his hand, brushing away what dried mud the girls hadn't already cleaned off.

"It's stunning." He glanced between the two girls. "Where did you find it?"

"The Flower found it at the bottom of a fountain. Eyes like a hawk. I would have completely missed it. Did, in fact. Even when she was pointing straight at it."

"Were there anymore?"

The other girl spoke up, then. "I don't know. I didn't really think to look. What is it?"

"A chess piece." Lucy made a little sound of triumph but didn't interrupt. "I've shown you my dwarf made set, haven't I?"

The Little Lady nodded. "Peter's been trying to teach me."

Edmund scoffed. "Peter's a horrible teacher, trust me. You come find me some quiet afternoon and I'll show you properly. I don't think it's dwarf make. Though I don't know what else it could be. Possibly centaur but they don't normally make things this small or intricate. Look at the detail on the knight's armor." He trailed off, thinking.

"Now he's in the clouds," Lucy whispered.

Edmund came back, scowling and shoved her off his lap. "Oh. Go find a tapestry to sew." But he smiled and Lucy knew he wasn't really angry.

"Very well, brother mine." She kissed him on the cheek and went to the door. "Coming, Flower? I'm sure Susan has something for us to work on."

A look of horror crossed the other girl's face as she turned to Edmund. He laughed. "Or you could stay with me," he offered. "Work up your writing skills a bit?"

"How could I ever hope to compete with that?" Lucy asked, throwing up her hands in mock despair. "I'll leave you to it." And she left the room in a flutter of robes that were somehow quite indignant.

"What a funny girl, that one," Edmund said, shaking his head. They both smiled as he pulled out a little writing desk and handed it down. "Am I allowed to call you 'Miri' now?"

"I suppose so," the girl whispered, tucking a curl behind her ear and taking out a piece of practice parchment already covered with various names and letters. She reached up over his desk and found a quill and small bottle of ink. "Um," she fumbled around for another moment before he caught on and handed her a small trimming knife.

"Don't cut yourself," he warned sternly. Miri rolled her eyes at him and proceeded to clean and trim the quill just as he'd shown her previous times. She held it up for his inspection when she finished, "Beautiful", and turned to her practice.

"Would you show me which fountain it was? Later perhaps, after tea? It'd be quite something to have a complete set."

"Hm."

Edmund glanced down, setting the chess piece on his desk. Miri had her bottom lip tucked between her teeth, her eyebrows wrinkled in concentration as his name slowly took place below those of his two older siblings. She had the makings of fine handwriting, he decided. Once she figured out how to do it without the ink splotches. Lucy's name was next, followed by those of Aslan, Frank, Helen and Gale. "Why don't you practice your own name?"

Miri glanced up, leaving a drip of ink behind. "What? Oh. I don't know. How, I mean."

He smiled and reached for the parchment. "Here." Quickly, he wrote her name across the top and handed it back. He watched as she meticulously followed his every line and swirl. He laughed. "You don't have to make it look exactly like that. It's just how I write."

"Oh." She shrank in a little bit, somehow becoming smaller in a way that he knew wasn't good. He didn't want her retreating back. "But don't worry," he quickly amended. "You'll have your own style someday. It'll be lovely; small, neat and absolutely beautiful."

She looked up. "How do you know that?" She whispered.

Edmund reached down and pointed to the "t" in "Peter" and where the "m-u" joined in his own name. "See that? You've got a natural way of swooping them up just a bit. Our calligraphy teacher still complains that Lucy can't do that. He'd probably love your work."

Miri smiled shyly and went back to copying out the names she knew. "Thank you," she said softly.

"Anything, Miri," he said, ruffling up her hair for a moment before remembering and brushing it back out.

"Oh," she whispered. "Don't listen to Lucy." Miri lay her head on his knee. "I really don't mind."

He smiled and placed a hand on her head, gently stroking the light brown curls. "When do I ever listen to Lucy?"

"When you shave."

Edmund scowled down at her, but she'd turned her face into his leg, hiding the grin that had broken across her face.