Disclaimer: It's not mine, if it was, I'd be rich and would probably spend a lot less time writing Fanfics for it. Don't you think?
A/N: A thousand apologies for my complete and utter inability to bash a chapter out in over what, like 2 months?! Ridiculous. * shakes head * Anyway, here it is. This really is my second to last, chapter of this one, it was going to be the last because I think it comes to a pretty natural end in this but I believe someone wanted me to write the coronation so maybe I'll do another chapter but it'll be a very very short one I think. Lots of stuff seems to happen in this chapter (well, to me anyway) and I think it probably moves a lot faster than the previous chapters but hopefully that's not a bad thing. Personally, I quite like the opening scene of this chapter but meh.
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"Good news!" Peter declared cheerfully, striding through the long grass towards where his siblings were sat. He grinned broadly "Just one more day!"
Lucy flopped on to her back with a disgruntled harrumph, her small face set in a sulking pout. "You said that yesterday!" She whined furiously.
Peter's face fell and Susan squeezed his hand sympathetically. "I'm only telling you what Nashira tells me." He snapped, hurt. Also slumping to the ground, next to Edmund.
It was the seventh day of their trek from the battlefield to Cair Paravel, two days since they had first sighted it and Peter had religiously relaid whatever their navigator (an elderly falcon by the name of Nashira) had told him to his younger siblings. Talented as she was, and aided by the ability to have a literal bird's-eye view of their journey, her estimations of journey time were often a little out due to her guesses being 'as the bird flies' rather than 'as the man walks'.
Lucy continued to pout as Susan suggested she go to sleep, declaring stubbornly that she wasn't tired, just sick of travelling. Susan and Peter exchanged a look over Edmund's head. Edmund, who lay on his side facing Susan, one arm underneath his head and the other loosely clutching Susan's, stirred fitfully in his sleep. Susan immediately murmuring "shhh." into his ear. After he settled once more, Susan began a conversation with her older brother. It was about nothing in particular and was more to distract him and Lucy from glaring at one another than anything else. Peter was obviously uninterested in whatever she said and simply 'hmmed' in the appropriate places and laughed when it was required. Susan gave up after a few minutes of this, deciding to let her siblings fume at each other if they wanted to.
Eventually, exhausted from the day's travelling and struggling to remain indifferent to Lucy's occasional furious glances, Peter laid down next to Edmund. Both Susan and Lucy tutted at him disapprovingly. Exasperated, and feeling not a small amount of sadistic satisfaction, he surreptitiously dug one elbow into his brother's back – if he had to listen to Lucy's not so subtle discontent then why shouldn't Edmund? Edmund awoke with a strangled noise somewhere between a yelp and a gasp, one hand flying to hold his back where Peter had knocked him. Susan, immediately helping him to sit up and whispering to him as tears of pain sprang to his eyes, glared murderously over Edmund's shoulder at Peter. The latter, realising belatedly that he must have nudged Edmund almost exactly where the Witch has stabbed him, bit his lip as he felt a flood of guilt wash over him. He moved forward and knelt next to Susan, placing one arm around Edmund's shoulder and hushing him uncomfortably. Even Lucy gave up her sulking to fuss over her older brother.
Edmund's face twisted in pain as he turned, rubbing his damp face into Susan's neck, whimpering quietly. Lucy stood by his side, her small, pale hand reaching up to stroke her brother's dark hair and Peter glanced around looking for someone to help. Of course there wasn't much they could do, there was no wound to be seen – just a pale, silvery scar, but the pain of the invisible wound was obvious and very real.
After a couple of minutes, the tension in Edmund's body eased and he sat back from Susan smiling sheepishly up at her, biting one nail nervously. She sighed exasperatedly and returned the smile, taking the handkerchief proffered by their brother and dabbing gently at Edmund's tear stained cheeks.
"Are you alright Edmund?" Edmund nodded stoically and Susan smiled grimly, sighing "I suppose it will hurt for a while yet Ed, but.." here she raised her eyes to their older brother, glaring. "hopefully Peter will be able to keep his elbows to himself in future!"
Lucy's small round face formed a surprised look of outrage and she stared furiously at Peter, whose face was already red and who ducked his head in disgrace.
" 'm sorry Ed." He offered sheepishly nudging Edmund's shoulder with his.
Edmund paused, nibbling his thumbnail nervously, and glanced at Susan who shrugged her shoulders at him then he said, finally: "It's alright Pete. It...was probably an accident,...wasn't it?"
Peter looked at him somewhat surprised at Edmund's good grace and rubbed the back of his neck looking guiltily at his little brother, who quite suddenly broke out into a genuine smile. Then as Peter's face broke into a half-apologetic half-elated grin, Edmund found himself laughing quietly and grinning too and soon their sisters had both followed suite. Peter and Susan's eyes made contact once more over the top of Edmund's head and smiled even wider at each other, relieved, and Susan found herself pausing just to watch and listen to their younger brother's laughter which none of them had heard for so long. She couldn't help herself, she leant over and kissed the top of his dark head once more. Edmund glared good naturedly up at her through his thick fringe of dark hair, his pout was beginning to rival Lucy's best.
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"It's so beautiful!" Lucy's awestruck voice broke through the silence of her siblings. The three older Pevensie siblings found themselves nodding dumbly at her, having lost the power of speech upon entering the magnificent throne room of Cair Paravel. The exterior of the Cair was wonderful, each and every one of the rooms - even the corridors - was spectacular but this room, this great, wondrous room seemed to take their breath away. The enormous arches which supported the great, carved roof, down to the mirror-like surface of the floor was like a dream to the evacuated city children. It was like nothing they had ever seen, once, their father had taken Susan and Peter into the abbey at Westminster but even that wondrous architecture paled in comparison to this.
Peter gulped loudly, and murmured in a would-be-casual voice, "I suppose...they're for us?" He nodded towards the four tall thrones at the far end of the hall then glanced at Aslan.
"The four thrones of Cair Paraval." Aslan rumbled impressively. "They have all been waiting for you. Narnia has been waiting for you." Here He turned his great head and studied them each in turn. Susan looked terrified, Peter – very pale and Edmund seemed to have gone a peculiar shade of green. Lucy however seemed to be positively bouncing with excitement.
"Oh Aslan! It's wonderful! Susan? Don't you think it's wonderful?"
Susan made an odd jerking movement with her head and let out a strangled "Yes, Lu."
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"What if we aren't up to it?!"
Susan stared, wide-eyed. "What do you mean 'if'!? Peter, we're children! Of course we aren't up to it!"
Peter flung himself into a nearby chair then immediately threw himself back out of it and resumed his pacing. He shook his hands agitatedly and faced Susan. "We'll just tell them....We'll tell them we're very sorry but we can't possibly stay. We'll explain to them that we're children, that we can't be kings and queens! We'll be apologetic but firm, stand our ground but be sympathetic about it, we'll...oh! It's never going to work is it? We can't just leave now." Peter leant against a wall, his shoulders slumped looking utterly defeated.
"What are we going to do?" Edmund's quiet voice interrupted the jumbled thoughts racing around his siblings' heads.
"There's nothing we can do Ed. We'll just have to go along with it and pray that when we prove how wrong they were about us, nobody gets hurt." Susan's voice was higher than usual but she outwardly appeared calm. Peter stared incredulously at her from across the lounge area.
"Are you mad? That's your plan? To just go along with it?!" Peter's pacing resumed and his limbs jerked agitatedly. There was a few minutes silence while Peter paced feverishly, Susan and Edmund sat in silence on the plush sofa and Lucy sulked spectacularly in the corner of the room. A few more minutes passed then:
"Peter will you stop? You're making me sea-sick." Peter did stop and blinked at his brother as though only just noticing him, then he too plunked himself on the sofa next to Susan.
"Sorry." And for the next few hours, silence reigned.
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"I think you're all being silly." Lucy announced quite suddenly. Three heads swivelled in her direction displaying varying degrees of curiosity, caution and annoyance. When she did not continue, Peter finally said snappishly:
"Really? How so, Lu?"
Lucy glared but continued. "Aslan thinks we're up to it! Surely, if He thinks we are then we are!"
Peter and Susan exchanged looks across the room, Edmund glanced between them and went back to chewing his nails nervously.
"We're only children Lucy." Susan explained quietly. "And besides, what about going home? They won't know where we are, the professor and Mrs McCreedy, or Mum."
"Actually," Edmund broke in thoughtfully. "I don't think time passes the way it should back home,while we're here in Narnia. When Lucy and...and I came here that time, I'd say barely a minute had passed between us coming in and us coming out again." Susan frowned at him slightly and pressed her lips together. "I was just saying." He muttered quietly to Peter, who smiled grimly at him.
"Well, I think we could do it. And I think that if we couldn't Aslan wouldn't have chosen us, and we wouldn't have ever gotten this far either!" Lucy delared stubbornly and stormed out of the room in a huff. The three remaining Pevensies were quiet for a moment then Peter spoke up cautiously.
"Maybe...Lu's right." His siblings gazed at him, looking hopefully at him. "Well, let's think about this...logically." Both boys smiled and Susan's lips twitched. "We never thought we'd be any help to these people, but we were! We defeated the White Witch! We did that!"
"WITH Aslan's help and theirs." Susan interrupted pointedly. Peter frowned at her then continued excitedly.
"There's an entire prophecy about us. Four thrones, two sons of Adam, two daughters of Eve! We were meant to do this! We can do this! I know we can do this, Lucy's right! We just...we just need a little help." Peter's animated speech trailed off as he saw the look on his sister's face. "You... you don't think we can do this." Susan raised her dark brows in a 'Really?' kind of way.
"We didn't think we'd win that fight." Edmund spoke slowly and thoughtfully, glancing from Peter to Susan. "And, I...I never thought I'd see any of you again. But I did, and we did. And Su, maybe it was because we had Aslan on our side, but even if he isn't here, I don't think it means he's not on our side any more. Peter, Susan's right. We can't do this alone." Susan looked relieved. "But Susan, Peter and Lucy are right too. Because Aslan believes we can do this, and...and that should be good enough for us to at least try." His eyes flicked back to Peter who smiled proudly at him.
A bell rang somehwere, calling the Cair's residents to supper and Lucy returned, pouting but looking more worried than anything else. "Well?" She said anxiously.
Edmund glanced at his elder siblings, slid off his chair, and silently lead Lucy back out of the room. Susan and Peter watched each other intently. Suddenly, Peter pushed himself away from the wall and held out his arm to Susan.
"Well? Shall we, your Majesty?"
Susan hesitated, glanced up at Peter's face then: "Thank you...King Peter."
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So there it is, the last/2nd to last chapter of my first fanfic. As always, please please please review. I know I don't deserve it for leaving you all with no updates for so long but please? Go on, be better people than I am ;)