archenland / 1027

prompt: "pumpkin patch"

word count: 1,460

xXx

"Look, Mama!" cried Ram, pulling free of his mother's grasp to charge ahead through the crunchy bed of fallen leaves, nearly tumbling over a root on stubby four-year-old legs. "Pumpkins!"

"Careful," laughed Aravis behind him, slowed by the expectant roundness of her stomach that even the gathers of her cherry-red dress couldn't quite hide.

Cor shot her a grin, the Crown Prince of Archenland bouncing their daughter on one arm as the tiny girl clung to his shoulder, wispy yellow curls brushing his cheek as she twisted around to watch her big brother's energetic detour through the noisy brush.

"Well, that's a find," barked Corin, jogging to keep up with his nephew. "Big 'uns, aren't they?"

"Really big!" Ram slapped both hands down enthusiastically onto a bright orange pumpkin that stood nearly as tall as he did, poking up out of the muddy brown undergrowth like a splash of brilliant color on a dull canvas.

Several more lay dotted around it, just off the path they'd been following, white and orange and big and small, vines curling and tangling through a mess of leaves and roots and brush, half buried like colorful spots of hidden treasure, and Ram grasped the stem of his particularly large find, scrambling up to the top and straddling the giant fruit as if it were his great and mighty steed.

"Say, these remind me of a story," said Corin, dropping down to crouch in front of the boy and leaning with both elbows on the edge of the pumpkin. "You wouldn't like to hear it, would you?"

"Yes, story!" cried the boy, nodding until his wild brown curls bounced. "Tell a story!"

"You're sure you're brave enough? It's a really scary story."

Ram only nodded all the more violently, and Cor scoffed a grin as he and his wife caught up to the two of them.

"Here we go again," he murmured.

Aravis took her husband's arm, smirking up at him as his brother put on his expertly practiced storytelling voice.

"Long ago, when I was no older than you are now, the four Kings and Queens fought a great battle at Beruna."

"I know that story," whined Ram, leaning forward on his pumpkin.

"Oh," said Corin, wagging a finger and poking his nephew in the stomach to a squeal and a sharp giggle. "You know the beginning of it. But you see, after all the great brutes in the Witch's army were killed, the Narnians heaped their bodies into the forest in a mass grave and hardly buried them at all, abandoning them to rot away where nobody cared to look. That was, until we passed through a great many years later—myself and the Kings and Queens."

Ram gave a little gasp as recognition lit up his eyes, that same little burst of awe that escaped him whenever Corin mentioned his own friendship with the old Narnian monarchs.

"We were on our way to Beaversdam, on a day not so very unlike this one, all the trees turning red and gold and shedding their leaves, a nip of autumn chill in the air, when we came to that very same place where the great ancient monsters were buried. And do you know what we found?"

Ram watched with wide eyes.

"Pumpkins?" guessed Cor before Corin could get the word out, earning himself a dry glare from his twin.

"I'm sorry, I thought I was telling the story."

"Well, you asked." Cor smiled innocently, and his brother rolled his eyes, wild golden hair falling into his face despite its usual high knot that never seemed to hold.

"Was it really pumpkins?" asked Ram, leaning precariously forward to get his uncle's attention.

Corin caught him before he could fall and turned his full attention back to the small boy, plopping him atop his perch with both hands around his little torso, speaking gravely again as if sharing the most sacred of secrets. "Yes, it really was pumpkins. And not just any pumpkins, you know, but pumpkins growing right up out of an open grave. Through all those monsters' huge white bones, uncovered by the rain or dug up by scavengers and picked clean. And all the vines were curling around ghoulish skulls and poking out through the eyes, and bright orange pumpkins sat like hearts in giant ribcages poking up from the earth."

"Oh," tutted Aravis, but Ram's brown eyes went huge, soaking the words in with every inch of his little being.

Cor laughed. "Are you really sure he needs to hear this story?"

"Of course! He can hear about dead bodies, he's going to become a great warrior one day and kill all kinds of gruesome monsters himself, isn't that right?"

"Yeah!" Ram hopped up to his feet atop his giant pumpkin and jumped, tackling Corin with something between a squeak and a battle cry as his uncle caught him and sprawled dramatically backward into the leaves.

"Oh, you got me," he groaned, clutching his nephew tight to his chest.

Ram's muffled giggles flooded the quiet forest until he wiggled free of Corin's grasp and tumbled down into the underbrush.

"More!" he chirped from the ground. "Tell more about the bones!"

Corin sat up and shook the leaves from his hopelessly loose hair, crossing his legs across from his nephew in a manner that might have suggested an age closer to ten than thirty.

"Well," he said cryptically. "I'll tell you one more thing." He glanced around as if to make sure their conversation was very private indeed, lowering his voice to complete the effect. "Legend has it that any pumpkin grown over a grave has strange properties, and if ever you were to pick one and carve it, the spirits of the dead inside will glow with a light of their own at the strike of midnight, just like little candles."

"Mama!" cried Ram, scrambling to his feet. "Can we take the pumpkins home and see if they glow?"

Aravis laughed, her hand resting absent-mindedly on the hiding place of her third child. "Are you sure you want to?"

"Yes! Yes!"

"Well," laughed Corin, "I'm not sure if these are ghoul pumpkins."

"I hope they are!" declared the boy, bouncing as he skipped around to the other side of the patch, crawling over smaller pumpkins to get to the largest.

"You never know," said Cor. "Any number of people could have died out here in the woods. We could be walking on their bones right now and never even know it."

Aravis shot him a dry look. "You're as bad as your brother."

Corin grinned up from the ground and winked, and Ram watched them all intently from atop another very large gourd.

Aravis sighed. "I suppose you can pick one."

"You have to pick too!" cried Ram, and she laughed, letting go of Cor's arm to make her way carefully to her son, stepping around wild pumpkins as the boy slipped down among them again with a squeal to continue his hunt.

Corin picked himself up and haphazardly brushed his tunic and trousers off, watching with a self-satisfied grin.

The little girl in Cor's arms squirmed, kicking her tiny feet as she twisted back and forth to watch her brother, and he bent down to set her onto her own two wobbly legs, her curly yellow hair bouncing as she toddled eagerly away toward Aravis and Ram, slapping pumpkins along her winding path.

Cor smiled as he watched her, Ram's eager chatter echoed by her babyish babble, two brave little pioneers in a world of orange and white.

Then he glanced at his brother. "That's not true, is it? The pumpkins glowing on their own?"

"Oh, no," laughed Corin, though he kept his voice low enough not to carry to the enthusiastic boy currently tugging the biggest pumpkin he could so much as budge. "Edmund made that part up to scare Susan."

Cor nodded to himself, a faint smile tugging at his lips at the evident fondness in his brother's memory. A moment later, he furrowed his brow and squinted suspiciously. "You better not be planning to sneak in and light any candles at midnight."

"Well, what kind of uncle would I be if I didn't?"

Cor scoffed, shaking his head in an effort to seem stern, but he couldn't quite suppress a smirk of amusement.

Corin grinned back.

"Come here, darling," cooed Aravis from the other side of the pumpkin patch, holding her arms out to her golden-headed daughter. "Do you want to pick out a pumpkin?"

The tiny girl wobbled in place for a moment before crowing "Punki!"

And Cor nearly choked on his own bark of abrupt laughter, all three adults chuckling as the girl glanced around and grinned.