The next morning, Twittertwig awoke to a still morning. The only sounds were the song of a bird in one of the trees, accompanied by the crackle of a fire starting near by. He yawned, turning over on his side, unconsciously reaching out for his younger brothers; he caught his youngest brother on the nose, making him jolt awake. But when he flipped over to knock his other brother awake, his hand met thin air.

"What…" he started, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. "Where's that little beast?"

"Wha-wher-wha?" Moonstick croaked, laying his head on his brother's shoulder, eyes still closed.

|"Nelson is gone," Twittertwig said plainly.

Moonstick's eyes remained shut. "Maybe he's by the fire."

Twittertwig glanced over to where Tummus was nervously making breakfast.

"Nope,"

Moonstick's eyes flew open. "Twittertwig…what if…what if it was those bad people?"

"It couldn't have been," Twittertwig snapped. "C'mon, let's go find the others," He picked up his brother's paw, and led him towards Tummus.

"Hey," he said.

Tummus jumped, spinning around. "Oh, oh! It's you, thank the Lion you're up!"

Twittertwig cracked a smile at the Faun's anxiety.

"Do you know where our brother is?" Moonstick whispered.

Tummus leaned down, looking the Squirrel in the eye. "We have no idea. We thought he just went for a walk, but he never came back. Irliris and Darien already went looking."

"Do you think…?" Twittertwig started.

"That's not possible," the Faun cut him off. "We would've heard something. But come, if we don't hear anything by noon, we'll return you to your mother. But first, let us eat breakfast."

Meanwhile, Fordunus had gone into Hogwood to purchase a house and some human clothing. The rest of the camp restlessly waited for his return. Lucy had started to become worried for herself and her brother. It hadn't occurred to her the night before how dangerous the situation may be, the Valiant Queen was too optimistic to think dark thoughts. But deep inside, butterflies were fluttering n her stomach. But as the morning progressed, she tried to hide her anxiety by cheering the rest of the group up with her strained, yet, joyful smile.

Edmund tried pushing his fear out of him by passing the time doing mindless tasks. The guards would find him wandering into the woods, returning with unnecessary branches and berries. He'd bring them to be packed in with the rest of the rations, only receiving a raised eyebrow and an anxious Beast attempting to pack the berries in the already-stuffed sacks. After the third round of this, Lucy approached him.

"What in the world are you doing?" she asked him. "I think we have enough food there to feed the entire army!"

Edmund didn't answer, he just turned back to the forest. Lucy grabbed his arm.

"Edmund! Edmund! Stop it!"

Spinning around, he snapped. "What now, Lucy?"

"I know what you're doing, brother. I know, and I'm scared too. But please, don't keep doing this! You're going to tire yourself out."

He raised an eyebrow. She pouted.

"Alright, I'll stop. Just let me go one more time, okay?"

"Whatever," she muttered. "But I'm going with you."

He bit back a dismissal and nodded. Offering his arm to his sister, they set off into the forest.

As they walked, the mood lightened. Instead of fretting over the situation, they found things to laugh and smile about. They were so intrigued in their conversation, that they didn't realised they walked so far.

"Hey, Ed," Lucy said, stopping dead in her tracks. "How far did we go?"

He stopped and spun around, taking in their surroundings. Biting his lip, he answered

"A mile at least."

She frowned. "We should get back, don't you think?"

"You're right," he agreed. They started back the way they came, but he stopped in his tracks.

"What's this?" he asked.

Reaching down, he picked up a small red hat. Fit for a squirrel.

"Wasn't…wasn't one of the children wearing that yesterday?" Lucy asked.

He turned it in his fingers, observing the size and shape. "I think so."

Lucy took it from his hands. "I think we should go back."

Nodding, he started walking again. They walked for a few minutes until, out of nowhere, a twig cracked.

Acting on instinct, Edmund stopped and drew his sword. Lucy wasn't far behind, her dagger drawn and at the ready.

"Who's there?" Edmund called out.

Another twig cracked. And then a yelp.

"Show yourselves!" Lucy cried.

And out bounded two of their very own. Irliris and Damin came trotting up to meet them, bowing.

"We apologize for frightening you, Your Majesties," the Centaur said, as Irliris nodded furiously.

The two Monarchs relaxed at their presence. No battle would be breaking out.

"Apologies accepted," Edmund said. "Now, why aren't you two with the rest of your party?"

Damin opened his mouth the answer, but then it clamped shut. He had no idea how to answer that question. Luckily, Irliris answered for him.

"He's gone! We all woke up this morning and he was gone!"

Lucy looked over at her brother, concerned. "Who was gone?" she asked.

"The middle one, my queen. Nelson by name."

"That explains the hat," Edmund muttered. "Where do you think he went?"

"We believe he went looking for his mother," Damin answered.

Lucy gasped. If she'd known it would've hurt the poor little Squirrel so much, she'd let them come too…

"Here," she said, kneeling and dropping the hat in front of Irliris. "Does it smell like him?"

He nodded.

"That little-!" Edmund started, quietly.

"Ed, stop! Okay?" Her brother's frustration wasn't helping the situation. She took the hat back from the Fox, and stood beside him, gently whacking him on the arm.

He nodded curtly, rubbing his arm mockingly.

"What else do you smell, Irliris?" she inquired.

He sniffed.

"There are many scents here…it's hard to make out the Squirrel's…I seems like he…he has been taken…"

"So that's it then," Edmund said. "We'll take this back to his mother. You two, go and get Tummus and the other little ones. Now go! And please make haste!"

They saluted, heading back in the same opposite direction.

"Our plan just gets more complicated by the second…" Lucy muttered. Trailing off, she asked sharply.

"Who's going to break it to his mother?"

"You thought of it first," he smirked. "C'mon, it might not be safe her still."

They rushed off, hurrying back to camp.

"He…he wouldn't! Nelson, oh, Nelson!" Mama Squirrel was hysterical. "What have you done?"

Tears were involuntarily streaming down Lucy's face. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Squirrel. There's nothing we can do until we get down to the bottom of things."

Mama nodded solemnly, still shaking. "I understand, Queen Lucy. Does this still mean you're going on with you plan?"

"This just gives us more reason to go through with the plan," Lucy answered simply. "I'm sorry again."

"No need to apologize," Mama muttered. "You didn't take him from me, it's his fault for wandering."

A watery smile surfaced on the young queen's face. "It's not his fault either, Mrs. Squirrel. He just missed you."

The Squirrel sniffed. "I know."

They sat like that for a moment, until Edmund walked into the tent.

"Lucy," he called. "Fordunus is back."

Yes, yes, I know. I squirrel wearing a hat? It's Narnia, you never know…Haha… Not as good as I wanted. I kept running back and forth from the TV where I was watching a Christmas movie. Anyways, I saw VDT last night! It was good. I'll have to admit, I'm more of a bookverse person, so it kind of ticked me off how they changed a lot of the plot. In truth, Reep and Eustace made the movie a hundred times better. And I don't know why, but I felt bad for Edmund during it. (SPOILER) I found it really mean how Drinian was pretty much like "yeah, I'm only gonna listen to Caspian, not you," when he first got there. And a lot of the information is inaccurate (like when Caspian introduced Ed as the High King, or maybe it was just my ears playing tricks.) The acting was good though, Georgie still did her hilarious expressions and stuff. Yeah, so rant over. I'll stop. There's no point to it.

REVIEW S'IL-VOUS-PLAIT.