A/N: Yes, I'm being good to you, aren't I, posting two days in a row? (And tomorrow it'll be three!) Check out my profile for news, and see if you can figure out why. (And maybe look at my challenge/do my poll?) Anyway, here it is – the chapter containing the 'Ad esse franci' preview!

I would like to thank my –

New reviewer: WillowDryad

Chapter rating: T

THIS IS A TRIGGER WARNING AND DOES CONTAIN SPOILERS!
Triggers: Emotional moments, language (very mild, only one phrase), severe injury (temporary blindness), reactions to (and a vague description of) the effects of a bomb going off in a city, and a frantic scene that happens right before the bomb goes off (the characters do die, but not the slightest bit graphically – the description is extremely vague). Oh, and attempts at humor.

See [1]

Peter had wished, at times, that he didn't have to witness the horrors he sometimes did. The darkness that covered his eyes now, however, was much worse, and his fumbling fingers as they tried to find his younger brother's shoulders only served to make tears start their descent down Edmund's face.

They stung slightly, warm and salty against his cold hand, and he felt his own throat tighten at the pain he had caused his sibling. "Peter…" Edmund's voice held the tiniest hint of a plea, and his hand clutched his older brother's.

Peter turned his head away, but at the moment, all he wanted was to see his brother's face.

Salt [2]

"The amount of salt you eat will kill you one day, Edmund," Susan lectured him as he took a packet from the stand on their table.

"Yes, I'm sure that'll be it," Edmund replied mildly as he dumped two packets onto his chips.

Green

The mistake had been horrible. She didn't think she'd made such a foolish misjudgment that could end up costing so many lives. She was good at all to do with court, she knew, but she also knew now that she had gotten too sure. Rabadash had proven that she couldn't always win at these twisted court games.

She stood in the capital of Calormen, that nation's great beauty, and all she wanted to see was the shores of Narnia.

All she wanted to see was green.

Apples [3] [4]

The city seemed unnaturally quiet, and it was strong in the air. She could feel it, and it made her apprehensive. On impulse, she had run into a house, but she didn't think that was going to stop it.

It was magic.

A young man ran into the house, and without stopping, said, "I'm so sorry Issy, that I didn't tell you, and I thought I had time, but they didn't tell me and now it's too late-" he turned, and froze as he saw her. "You're not Issy."

"No," she said, feeling a bit embarrassed, "no I – "

"But I'm so sorry anyway. I'm so, so sorry."

His shoulders sunk in defeat and remorse.

She studied his face a moment, and somehow, she seemed to say the one thing that could have made him feel slightly better. "In know. But you couldn't have done anything about it."

"Thank you," he told her, and it was so earnest for a complete stranger that she wondered if he was feeling it too. But then –

"I smell apples," she told him, feeling a strange wonderment. A sense of peace came over her, and she smiled slightly, looking to the east.

There was a moment of happiness and a brief flash of pain…

and then she was no more.

Percussion

"Bloody hell…"

"…Language…." a shocked Peter automatically reprimanded his brother. He stared at the city. They were supposed to have had time!

Unlike usually, there no sarcastic quip came as a response to his reprimanding.

It was Edmund who first regained his composure, though his distress still showed in his face. He started down the wind-swept hill, and Peter followed close behind.

Recently, it had become known to them that a particularly powerful Fell Hag had discovered how to make a magical sort of bomb. This was a powerful device was designed to spread fires throughout the area upon detonation. They could only hope that the creature could be stopped soon, and that it hadn't told anyone else how to make such a thing.

It was too late for Kyrae, though. The blackened city that spread before them was devastated.

Crib [5]

Susan pulled out the children's clothes and put them in the box she had brought up to the attic with her. As she turned, she saw the small child's bed that she and her siblings had used when they were younger. Her family appeared fairly wealthy, but it was only by doing things such as furnishing the unseen parts of the house extremely sparsely that they had managed to maintain that appearance of wealth. When they were younger, she and her siblings had slept two to a bed. There had been two people in the little bed until Edmund was about seven (at which at which point they had actually made him double up with Peter in a bigger bed for another two years), and had been in use for another seven years after that. It was in surprisingly good shape, for all that it had been through, and it had, to Susan, an air of sentimentality to it.

She thought of the big bed that sat in the upstairs room. It could be overwhelming for a child, she mused, especially one who she was sure would feel so frightened and out-of-place, to sleep in such a large bed.

Perhaps, she thought, the bed could be used again. Just one more time.

[1] WillowDryad has made me aware that I never explained this like I meant to, so here's your explanation - I actually never had a reason for Peter's blindness (yes, actual, physical, blindness) in mind. This scene just sort of came to me, though I did vaguely envision it as happening as a result of some sort of fight, or some such thing. Although, if I get enough people asking requesting it...
[2] Yes, I do realize that this is a major problem, so I'm putting a warning here: an obsession with salt will get you nothing except high blood pressure and various other health problems. I don't endorse it.
[3] I'm kind of channeling Steve and Helena from Warehouse 13 in this one. The whoever recognizes the quote first will get to request whatever sort of story they want, and I guarantee I'll do it! (As long as I'm capable of doing so and have no moral objections, that is.)
[4] The idea was that the guy had gotten mixed up in the plot to detonate the bomb, but the conspirators suspected he might turn traitor, so they moved the date they were going to set off the bomb (or maybe didn't even quite tell him what they were doing and when). So basically, in "Apples", he's just found out about the bomb. The young woman knows nothing whatsoever about this, she just has a feeling that something big is about to happen, and that it has to do with magic.
[5] And here's your preview of Ad esse franci! I hope you enjoy it!