The small apartment was dark when he finally got there, and even the couple upstairs had stopped fighting for the day. He walked softly down the hall, not wanting to wake his surely exhausted siblings. He was glad that they were all back together again, and all of their salaries made them capable of moving out of the dorms. They were lucky to have found this apartment, though it was near the river that kind of smelled.
Edmund kicked off his shoes and dropped his trousers on the floor of his bedroom. He clumsily undid the buttons off his button up and climbed into his bed wearing a t-shirt and pants.
"Edmund! Wake up!" Lucy pounded on the door. Edmund jolted awake breathing heavily. "Wake up!" She yelled again. He fumbled for his phone to check the time and was shocked to see that he had slept too late.
"I'm up!" he called to her, trying to make that God awful noise stop.
"Hurry!" She called. He jumped out of bed and pulled out a pair of dark jeans and a sweater, hurrying into them. He was pulling on his shoes while hopping out of the door and down the hall. Lucy was in the kitchen and held out a plate of toast to him.
"Why didn't the Costa's fight? Are they alright?" Edmund questioned, as he usually relied on their early morning fights to get to work and classes on time.
"Mrs. Costa threw him out last night before you got home. Don't worry, I saw him buying flowers at the minimart this morning when I was running. He'll be back by three." She told him while he stuffed his phone in his satchel and the toast in his mouth.
"He better be. I have to go." He said, running out the door.
Mr. Costa was sitting on the steps and waved at Edmund when he walked past him. He had missed his bus, so he would have to ride the subway. The air was cold and he hunched against the breeze. The subways were crowded and made him miss horses and clean Narnian air. He really missed them when he nearly face planted into the extremely hairy chest of a man wearing a t-shirt with a deep V-neck that read: 'I shaved my balls for this?'. He finally reached the bookstore, only five minutes late. He rushed in, the doorbell jingling. "You're late." Alex commented.
"Overslept." Edmund said simply.
"Well I covered for you with Dakota. Told her you were in the back double checking how many Andrea Gibson books we have in stock." Alex said, stepping out from behind the counter.
"Thanks." Edmund replied.
"Take this out to table four. The crepes are for the blonde girl, omelet for the girl with the sleeve tattoos, and the oatmeal for the guy." They told him while handing him a round tray with food on it. Edmund hurried to the table and began placing the dishes in front of their recipients.
Lucy's POV:
Lucy sat in her first class of the day. The lecturer was saying something about ethics. She was a queen of Narnia, she didn't need to hear about ethics from a man with a ponytail and a sports car. Instead, she was finishing her homework for another class. She wanted it to be done early, because that professor was kind of a jerk about her being so young. She had taken advantage of the schooling and tutors her parents had given her and so had graduated early. It had been especially easy to be motivated into doing extra work when she knew that doing it would reunite her with her siblings, the only people who didn't treat her like a child. She had argued with her parents for three months before they agreed to let her live without them and go to Columbia University. It had been a little easier when she told them she was going to be a doctor.
Lucy did her homework quickly, knowing that she would need it done before she had to go to work. She had a shift at Forever 21, also known as hell run by white girls with Starbucks. The lecturer droned on while a pretty East Asian girl slipped into the seat next to Lucy. Lucy normally wouldn't have taken much notice, but the girl appeared to be college age and had a baby in a sling. The girl bounced the baby slightly and smiled at Lucy when she saw her looking at the baby. "Do you mind if I feed her?" The pretty girl whispered.
"Sure, go ahead." Lucy whispered back. The girl went about undoing the buttons of her shirt and pulling a breast out for the baby to latch on to. Lucy went back to her homework.
Half an hour later the class was over and Lucy was hurrying to pack up and leave when the girl paused and turned back to her. "Thanks for being alright with me feeding him. Some people aren't." She told Lucy.
"Its fine, it's totally fine. She's very cute." Lucy assured her.
"Oh don't I know it. I swear I hear about how adorable she is more than I hear a hello. Not that I'm complaining! It's nice to know that people don't find my baby repulsive." She smirked. Lucy laughed, high and rolling, like a burbling brook. "I'm Tammy and this is Pansy" She said, smiling and gesturing to the baby.
"I'm Lucy." They smiled at each other, before gathering their things and going their separate ways.
Lucy was trying to hurry down the sidewalk, ignoring the occasional catcall, when she began to feel as though someone was following her. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up instinctively and she glanced around, slipping her hand into her pocket to reassure herself that the mace she carried was there. She kept walking, putting her feet down a bit more firmly than before, liking the way the heels clacked on the pavement. It wasn't long before she reached the store, and forgot the sensation of being watched when she stepped into the loud and shiny store.
Edmunds POV:
The day was drawing to a close but people still streamed into the bookstore. It was a popular place, for certain groups of people. The woman who founded it had intended it to be a safe space for the MOGGI and disabled, the immigrants and the people of color. It was known to sometimes refuse police officers in uniform service, and for its policy on only hiring people like the ones it catered to. It was beloved by many, especially those who had never been in such a place. They didn't write calories on the main menus, as that could be triggering for those with Eating Disorders, but did have some separate menus with them. They had a fairly large supply of books on CD, especially for being a rather small place. Name a LGBTI+ book, they had it. A CD, a movie, a book, or a magazine that was about the marginalized or created by the marginalized, it was at Everybody Reads. There was a bulletin board of doctors who were good for transitioning and people who could take someone in, reminders about free clinics and when Dakota would be offering free and discounted therapy sessions.
It was a nice place to work, and Edmund enjoyed it. He missed Narnia, they all did, and he wouldn't exactly call himself content or even satisfied, but he was managing. Susan had accepted the change better than any of them, but not one of them thought that she didn't miss it. Edmund wiped the counter and untied his white apron, as his shift was over. Before he left he had Teddy ring him up a cup of coffee to go, and paid for it before hurrying out into the brisk breeze. His bag over his shoulder and the hot drink in his hands, he started walking home. He caught the subway just before people got off work, and so it wasn't as hellish as it could have been.
He got off the subway a few blocks from the apartment, wanting some fresh air. Or as fresh of air as you could get, in New York. The blood curdling shriek nearly made him spill the hot coffee down his front, and his head whipped around towards the source in time for the second scream. He hurried into the mini mart and darted to the back door, opening it with his heart pounding but his hands steady. He found a young boy, maybe thirteen, standing next to a dumpster, shaking like a leaf. Edmund reached out and pushed the boy behind him slightly, looking down the dark alleys for what had made him so scared.
A woman appeared behind them, talking worriedly to the boy, hustling him inside, barely sparing Edmund a glance. Edmund looked down the seemingly empty alleys one more time before going back inside. The woman was asking the boy what had scared him so much. "I-It was a-a Tiger!" The boy stuttered, before Edmund slipped out the door and back into the cold.
A tiger? Someone else may have dismissed this as a child's over active imagination, but Edmund wasn't in the habit of not believing in something just because it seems like its magic or impossible. Not anymore.
He walked home, wondering what a tiger would be doing in the city, if in fact there was a tiger. He was still a mostly logical person. He was so lost in thought that he hardly heard the rough voice in call "Your Majesty?" from the shadowed alleyway of his building. He did hear it, however, and stopped dead in his tracks. He strained his ears, and heard the voice call again, "My King?"
Edmund's stomach nearly fell out of his feet. "Jalur?" He stage whispered into the darkness. The tiger made a growling sound and stepped out of the shadows, with something like hesitation. "Jalur." Edmund whispered again, overwhelmed at seeing his old friend and palace guard.
"King Edmund." Jalur greeted with an animal bow. Suddenly Edmund snapped out of his extreme shock, and remembered that they were on a residential street of NYC and anyone could see them.
"Come." He said quickly.
The tiger matched his swift pace and followed him into the small entrance of the square building. They kept silent as Edmund led him up the hardly well-lit stairs, and they were lucky they didn't meet anyone on the way. Their apartment was on the third floor, He unlocked the door quickly and held it open for Jalur to leap past him. He had barely locked the door and slid the chain into place before he had been knocked to the ground. He laughed and grinned over the tiger's excitement, such a display rarely seen from the most grouchy palace guard.
"Your Majesty what is this place? How did you come to be young?" He rumbled.
"It's hard to explain, and to do so would take rather a long time. I shall tell you the story, but first I must ask how you came to be here?" Edmund said, and he almost felt like a king again.
His coffee sat in his hands forgotten, the tiger before him seemed unable to stop looking at him. "We were searching for you and your royal siblings, your majesty. General Oreius led us through a place where we could barely move through the trees, and we were then in this loud place." The tiger said simply.
"Searching?" Edmund asked.
"You went to hunt the white stag seven days ago and did not return." He replied with his gravelly voice.
"Who went searching?" The just king asked suddenly.
"General Oreius, Captain Sepphora, Sir Tumnus, Guards Lambert and Briony, and me." Jalur told him.
"Did they- did they all come here?" Edmund asked, terrible possibilities flitting through his head.
"Yes."
"Where are they? Why are you alone?" Edmund questioned. Two centaurs a faun and two talking wolves loose in the city? They would be caught and experimented on!
"I know not where they are your majesty. The general and captain went east together, the wolves went south. I went north. Sir Tumnus went west." The tiger told him.
Edmund reached for his phone, pulse rate picking up. "When you went through the trees, what was it like? Where you came through?"
Jalur thought for a moment before saying "it was a large grassy place, with stone paths." Oh Aslan no. Edmund fumbled with his phone and dialed Peter, bouncing in his nervousness.
"Hello?" Peter's voice came through.
"Peter! Listen, there's not a lot of time to explain. The portal opened back up. A search party came through. We've only been missing for a week. They started in central park and went west, south, and east. I have Jalur with me and I'll go look for them too." He told his brother anxiously.
"What? I mean, alright yeah I'll go search, but. Just what?" His brother was understandably shocked and confused.
"So you'll search… Jalur how long would you say you walked before you found me?"
"Perhaps fifteen minutes?" Said the tiger.
"alright, check east of central park, everything with twenty minutes I guess? It didn't take Jalur very long so I think they must have started near the end that's close to us. I'll call the girls." Both boys hung up.
"What is that rectangle?" Jalur rumbled. "I'll explain as much as I can later. Stay here!" Edmund said firmly, hurrying out the door and dialing Lucy's number next.
"Hello?" She answered.
"Lucy, you're not going to believe this."