A/N – mild swearing in this chapter, but no big deal…enjoy!
Deep in the forest, Sam looked at the wound with increasing panic. It wasn't all that deep, but it was bleeding profusely.
She was about to go in search of Arc when she heard boots crunching on the forest floor.
Edmund appeared holding a roll of bandages. Wordlessly, he knelt beside Sam and took her injured hand. He ripped a strip of fabric from the bottom of his tunic and wrapped it around her hand. Just as Sam was about to ask why he'd done that while a roll of bandages sat next to him, he gripped her hand. Hard. She let out a yelp, but understood he had to put pressure on it to stop it bleeding.
Finally, the flow of blood stopped and Edmund wrapped it up. Except for Sam's yelp, they did this in total silence.
Edmund stood and offered his hand. Sam took it with her good hand and stood up.
"You'll have to ride with me."
Sam discovered Edmund's horse tied a few feet away, grazing calmly on forest-floor weeks. Edmund smiled faintly.
"Arc wouldn't let me near her without you around."
Sam cracked a smile. "You're something else, Edmund."
Dinner proved to be amusing for Peter, Susan, and Lucy, because when Lucy inquired what'd happened to Sam's hand, Edmund and Sam told different versions of the story.
They got so caught up in arguing that the other 3 Pevensies simply sat back and watched.
Finally, it go to be too much.
"Quiet!" Peter bellowed.
There was silence.
"WHAT are you two arguing about?"
Edmund and Sam looked from Peter to each other, then simultaneously answered:
"I don't remember."
Lucy and Susan dissolved into laughter, followed shortly by Edmund and Sam, while Peter smacked his forehead and muttered, "Just an ordinary night among the Kings and Queens of Narnia."
Sam slept late the next morning, and when she rose she stole into Edmund's room and took a book from his shelf.
Expecting a stuffy Narnian history, Sam got a mystery novel called 'Memory Tree' that she found enthralling. And it was so that she sat in her room for two more hours in an overstuffed armchair by the window.
Edmund stumbled into his room with a clang, metal armour heavy on his shoulders. Sam jumped half a foot in her room, threw down the book, and raced to see what was going on.
"Oh," she said, upon seeing it was only Edmund. "Where've you been?"
"What are you, my mother? I was dueling."
Sam rolled her eyes, the sword matches always seemed pointless shows of muscle to her. Edmund lifted a breastplate over his head and shook out his dark hair, even curlier than usual from sweat.
He stripped down to trousers and a tunic.
Sam looked at Edmund's shirt. "Ed? What color's your tunic supposed to be?"
"Green. Why?"
"Then you're bleeding."
Edmund looked down, put a hand to his chest, and drew it away crimson.
He looked up at Sam and then at his hand again.
"Well, damn."
Yay...more cliffhanger-ness. But I promise it won't be long till I update again! (summer days are boring)