The Golden Years

Year 1000, day seven

"You know," Georgie grumbled, "When we became these big important people of a magical land, I had thought we would be done with this whole school business."

Monday had come quickly, bringing with it the arrival of the tutors. Lily and Georgie's morning training sessions had, for the time being, been moved back to later in the day so that they could prepare themselves for their lessons. The extra sleep was a gift, but the reason behind it was something that didn't excite the young protector. In fact, he was downright grumpy. At breakfast, he had barely said a handful of words and took to pushing his food around on his plate. This behavior was nothing new to Lily. Being his sister, she had become accustomed to his school morning habits.

"Yes, because we know everything about this place and how things are run," Lily said sarcastically, rolling her eyes at her brother.

Turning his head, Georgie looked at his sister who sat at the table next to his. "I'm just saying, you would think they could just tell us as we go."

"Okay, I'll tell Oreius that you just want him to attack you at random times because you learn better as you go."

Georgie just glared at his sister, who sat there smugly.

"I'm kind of looking forward to learning about Narnia's history and customs," Susan stated from her table in the middle, drawing everyone's attention to her.

"You would," Edmund mumbled before chuckling behind his hand.

Susan shot her younger brother an un-amused look and was about to complain when their tutor stepped into the room. He was a faun with snow-white hair on both his face and legs and round spectacles perched on top of his large nose. In his arms he carried heavy leather bound books, dropping them loudly on the front table.

"Morning your highnesses, lord, and lady. I am Mr. Lytle and I have been appointed your tutor of history. It is my responsibility to teach you everything that you are going to need to know about our history and customs."

From the back of the room, Georgie gave a faint groan and rested his head on the tabletop. Edmund spun around in his seat and smirked at the boy before turning back around to face the front. Susan sat poised in her seat; a new quill held between her slim fingers, ready to take what Lily expected would be detailed notes of everything their tutor said.

For the first hour, Lily tried to mimic her raven-haired friend, copying down everything that she thought would be important for them to know later on down the road. It was easy at first as the tutor wrote down the really important stuff on a chalkboard that had been set up in the corner of the room. But soon he began to go into detail and that was where he seemed to lose almost everyone.

Georgie was still with his head in his arms causing Lily to think that he was sleeping. Edmund was busy turning his quill back and forth, his head propped up by his other arm. His eyes stared unseeingly at the tutor, giving the impression that he was paying attention while in reality he was caught up in his own thoughts. Lucy was trying to pay attention as she wrote down a few notes every once and a while, but her focus kept being drawn towards the window to her right. Lily and Peter had also given up on the lecture and instead were passing notes back and forth to one another.

Everyone was thankful when the time came for the lecture to end. Mr. Lytle informed them that their next lesson would be in two days before exiting the room, leaving his heavy books on the table.

"One lesson down, one more to go," Lily muttered as she pushed herself up from the table. "Then I get to go to training!" she added in false excitement as she could already imagine how tired she was going to be at the end of the day.

"I don't know how Georgie is going to make it to training," Peter observed, nodding his head towards the still sleeping boy.

A wicked smile appeared on Edmund's face as he looked down at his friend. "I can wake him up."

"Edmund, what are you going to do?" Susan asked, having put away all of her notes in a neat pile. "We have our etiquette training in the throne room in twenty minutes."

Edmund turned towards his sister, rolling his eyes. "Don't worry, Sue. We'll get to our next lesson on time." Crouching down next to Georgie, he brought his face as close as he could to the boys before yelling as loud as he could, "Everyone look out, it's her, it's the White Witch!"

Quicker than he thought, Georgie's head snapped up and he was pushing the chair away from his as he moved to a standing position. It was so quick that Edmund almost didn't have time to pull away his own head to avoid being hit. Georgie started turning around, this way and that as though trying to locate where the witch was. Because he wasn't carrying his sword, his hands were formed into fists and looked ready to attack.

"Where is she?" he asked, turning to Edmund once he couldn't find her.

"Oh, don't worry, she's already been defeated," Edmund answered simply while the others stood there laughing.

Realizing that it was a joke, Georgie dropped his hand and glared at his friend. "Git."

"Alright, Ed, you've had your fun. Now the lesson," Susan reminded, gathering her notes before heading off towards the door.

Everyone groaned but followed after her. Their next tutor stood waiting for them in the throne room. It was a woman, with long black hair and clothes made out of leaves and other things that you would find in the forest. The way that she moved and had unearthly feeling to it, alerting the six to the face that she wasn't, in fact, human like she appeared.

"I am Antheia and I shall be your etiquette instructor. Today, what I have planned for you in movements to accompany your new titles."

Her lesson was shorter than their history one and true to her word it was all about practicing movements; how to walk and gesture regally and smoothly. She had them balance books on their heads while walking as well as the proper way to stand with their shoulders back, heads high, and chests out.

It was a lot harder than it seemed.

Books were dropped many times, most of the time on the hard marble floor, a couple of times on someone's feet. When the class was finished, the group of six found themselves questioning every step they made, wondering if it was correct. A few, like Edmund, Lucy, and Lily felt as though they were walking weird and found themselves constantly watching their feet. Lily also found herself second thinking her movements during training. It took her getting knocked on her ass twice and yelled at by Oreius before she snapped out of it and was able to finish training.

Authors Note: I've been pretty sick the last couple of days, but I thought that I would post something for you guys since I'm starting to feel better. Not exactly how I wanted it to turn out, but I'll probably go back and add to it some more later. Thanks for the reviews Scout out, Kate07, and PorcelainPuppetLady. I'm hoping that the next one will be another Lily/Peter focused scene but we'll have to see which little one shot/ scene gets finished first.