FicWad

“Wait your Castle?” I asked.
“Well it’s the Narnians castle but we…” Edmund trailed off looking to Peter for support.
“Oh!” Keri said suddenly. “Remember? The faun said ‘their majesties,’ they are… them.”
“I suppose we didn’t properly introduce ourselves. I am High King Peter and this is King Edmund,” Peter explained.
“Kings?” I asked. Awesome, am I supposed to bow or something?
“Yeah but you don’t need to call us that,” Edmund said quickly. Good, that would get annoying.
“So… are there queens?” Keri asked. Subtle, lady.
“Yes, our sisters. We’re not married if that’s what you’re asking,” Peter said. “Other than our sisters, and now you two, there aren’t any other humans in Narnia.”
“That must suck,” I said without thinking. I felt bad right away as their faces fell, obviously they thought so too. There was a moment of awkward silence before Keri stepped in.
“So do you want to show us around the castle?” she asked the two boys. They both nodded and perked up a little. We followed them around the castle looking at it all. Well I was looking at the castle; Keri was watching Peter…walk. God that girl can be a pervert sometimes. I rolled my eyes as I saw that her stare was defiantly below his back.
“Well it’s getting dark now so we can show you the stables tomorrow,” Edmund said.
“Stables?” Keri asked. “Oh my god, can I ride a horse?”
“Sure! We can ride to the beach tomorrow,” Peter said cheerfully. Keri blushed like no other and became silent under his smile. Great, I liked horses but I didn’t really like to ride too much. I’ll try to get out of it, and then maybe Keri could have a chance to go alone with Peter. On the other hand while Peter did seem like a nice guy, looks can be deceiving. I wouldn’t be a good friend if I just let her go off with some stranger, would I? Something told me she wouldn’t mind. They led us back up some stairs and to our room.
“Are you ok?” Peter asked sounding concerned. I looked around just in time to see him worriedly touch Keri’s cheek, causing her to blush even more. I didn’t think that was even possible at this point. “You feel warm are you sick?”
“She’s fine, her face is usually red. Plus we’ve been through a lot today…” I trailed off. She threw me a look that said thank you and started fumbling with the doorknob. She threw open the door after a second and disappeared inside instantly.
“Strange girl,” Peter muttered looking at where she disappeared through the doorway confused.
“You have no idea,” I mumbled maybe too loud, it was clear that they both heard me. Oops. “Well I’ll see you…” I trailed off awkwardly.
“Goodnight,” Edmund said, sounding bored. “See you in the morning.” He took off down the hallway without waiting for a response.
“Yes, sleep well,” Peter said kindly. “Tell Keri that, and that I’ll be happy to take her out riding when she’s ready to go. Am I right in thinking that you weren’t that excited about going?” Wow, he’s good, or maybe I was just easy to read.
“I’d like to see them but… I don’t like riding them much,” I admitted.
“That’s ok. Not everyone does,” he said with a smile. He gave a little wave and headed in the direction of his brother. I turned and walked into the room to find Keri pressing her face against the window in an attempt to cool it down.
“Wow, smooth,” I said sarcastically.
“Shut up,” she snapped but smiled.
“So Peter said he’d be happy to take you riding tomorrow when you’re ready,” I said, she pulled her face quickly from the window to look at me. “And he also said sleep well.” I watched as she fought a grin and lost. But then it slipped from her face and she groaned, putting her face in her hands.
“Crap,” she mumbled.
“You’re not happy about that?” I asked.
“In case you haven’t noticed I’m not exactly a smooth talker when it comes to that guy,” she said. I could see her point; the beginning of that outing is bound to be awkward.
“But, if you two are alone for a while then it will get easier to talk to him,” I said sitting on the couch that was in a corner.
“That’s a good point… but the beginning will suck. I guess I’ll just have to act my way through then pretty soon it won’t be an act anymore. Right?”
“Exactly. I have faith in you,” I said with a smile.
“At least one of us does,” she muttered and walked over to the bed to plop down on it. As she was declaring her undying love for the bed I heard a quiet knock on the door. I wasn’t even sure that I had heard it but I decided I could at least check, I opened the door to find a different faun from the one we had met earlier.
“Oh forgive me; I wasn’t sure if you would be asleep yet. I came to get your measurements,” he said with a bow. I saw that he had some rope and cloth hanging over his arm.
“Hey Keri, ‘mere,” I called over my shoulder.
“No, you ‘mere,” she said and laughed hysterically.
“There’s someone here to measure us,” I said and she shut up.
“What the fuck?” I heard her mutter as she walked over. She looked over my shoulder at the faun and he bowed to her as well.
“His majesty thought that you might want a change of clothes at some point,” he explained.
“Which majesty?” Keri said jokingly.
“King Peter,” he said, obviously it was a usual question here. Keri blushed at the mention of his name.
“God, get a grip lady,” I whispered to her. We let him in and he quickly took our measurements, then he let us choose a color from the cloth he had brought. I chose green and Keri chose red. He quickly bowed out of the room and left us alone.
“I can’t believe I feel like sleeping,” she muttered. She walked back over to the bed and flopped back down on it. I was with her on that, it was already pretty late when we left…our world then we spent a few hours here as well. I flopped down next to her and started drifting off to sleep right away.
**
When I woke up the next morning I could tell from the light in the room that it was late morning. As I rolled over I saw that what had woken me up was Keri getting out of bed. She was stumbling over to the couch where I could see two packages; she looked at them for a moment then looked at me.
“One of these has your name on it,” she mumbled. She looked, acted and sounded like a zombie in the mornings. I forced myself out of the bed to walk over to the couch while she ripped hers open. She held up a pretty red dress for me to see, so I was unsurprised when I found a green dress.
“Does it seem weird that someone snuck into our room while we were sleeping?” I asked.
“Yes. Does it seem unfair that they would automatically give us dresses to wear?” she asked.
“Yes. But that’s just us, they have different customs obviously,” I muttered looking at the dress while she did the same. After a second she shrugged and took off her clothes and slipped the dress on.
“Could you button me?” she asked turning her back to me. I quickly did the buttons and changed into my dress as well while she looked in the mirror.
“Hey,” I said turning so she could button me up. “You look great in that.”
“Thanks so do you,” she muttered twitching the hem of her skirts a little. “We should go be friendly don’t you think?”
“You just wanna see Peter,” I said with an evil smile.
“Oh whatever. It’s not like anything would ever happen between us,” she said moving to the door.
“Why’s that?” I asked causing her to pause.
“He’s a king and I’m me,” she said and opened the door and walked out. I rolled my eyes and followed her, she was always so down on herself. She led the way confidently to the throne room that they had shown us yesterday and stopped just outside the door.
“Do you think this is where they are?” she asked. I shrugged at her and pushed open the door to find Peter and Edmund talking to two girls. One was quite a bit younger than us and looked like a fun loving girl. The other was about our age and had her hands on her hips and her nose slightly in the air; I could tell I wasn’t going to get along with that one. Peter grinned and jogged over to us when he saw us, he had too much energy.
“Hey, you found us! I want to introduce you to my sisters,” he said and brought us over to them. He put his hand on the younger ones shoulder, “This is Lucy and that is Susan,” he said nodding to the older one. Keri and I waved awkwardly; Lucy came up to shake our hands while Susan just nodded at us.
“Nice to meet you,” Keri said to Lucy while ignoring Susan’s presents altogether. Peter wandered over while she wasn’t looking and nudged her shoulder; she visibly jumped causing him and me to laugh.
“I didn’t mean to scare you,” he said still chuckling a little. “It’s almost noon do you think we should head out? I thought we’d take some food to eat there.”
“Oh, yeah that sounds great,” she said, I was surprised to hear that her voice was steady. They both turned to leave but Susan decided to speak up.
“Peter, where are you going?” she said.
“I’m taking Keri riding. Why, did you want to go?” he asked. Wait, he hadn’t asked anyone else to go? Lucy saved the day.
“Susan remember? We were supposed to go to the beavers today,” she said grabbing Susan’s hand and pulling her out of the hall.
“Ok, Ed?” Peter asked looking at his brother.
“No, you go. I’ll do something with Kristi if she doesn’t want to go,” Edmund said looking at me.
“I don’t like riding horses too much,” I said for what felt like the fifteenth time.
“Ok so we’ll see you two later then,” Peter said cheerfully and walked to the door that the girls went through while talking to Keri, who seemed to be doing ok with her end of the conversation. Before she followed him out she gave me a fleeting glance, she looked nervous.
“So Kristi, is there anything you would like to do?” Edmund asked politely.
“You don’t have to keep me company,” I said.
“I don’t mind. You see, I’ve been here for almost three years. I’d like to know about where you’re from,” he explained.
“Ok, well we could walk around and talk I guess,” I said. We went through a different door from the others and walked slowly down the hallways.
“So first of all what year is it, time flows differently here,” he said. I didn’t know what he meant by that but I answered anyway.
“2011,” I said. He stopped in his tracts.
“What?”
“Um, 2011. Why, what year did you leave?”
“1943,” he whispered.
“Whoa,” I whispered back. We stood like that for a minute before he started walking again and we continued in silence for a while.
“So how old are you?” he asked quietly, obviously trying to change the subject.
“20. You?”
“17, pretty close to 18.”
“Wow, pretty young to be a king aren’t you?” I asked.
“No,” he said shortly.
“I’m just saying it’s a lot of responsibility for someone your age,” I said trying to explain.
“Are you saying I can’t handle it?” he asked, stopping again.
“That’s not what I said. I was just saying-”
“That I’m too young and naive to lead people.” He supplied for me. That just pissed me off.
“Don’t put words in my mouth,” I snapped. “I didn’t think that you were too young before. Now…” I trailed off shrugging.
“What do you know? I’ve been through more than you could ever imagine.”
“You don’t know that. And just because something bad happened to you it doesn’t mean that you can suddenly lead people.”
“Aslan appointed me himself,” he said like that settled things.
“Ok, I have no idea who that is. But you’re telling me that one person appointed you and know a whole country has to follow you? Tell me, do you just sit in that throne room and tell people what to do or do you at least ask your peoples opinion before telling them?”
“My people trust me to make the right decisions,” he said raising his voice a little, which of course made me angrier.
“Oh right. Because if they dared to speak out against you nothing bad would happen to them,” I said, my voice dripping with sarcasm.
“I would never hurt anyone unless I or any of my family was threatened,” he said in a dangerous voice. I could see the King in him at this moment, but I wasn’t about to let him win.
“Feeling threatened is relative,” I said and turned to storm off. I somehow found my way back to the room we were staying in and plopped down on the couch. I chuckled a little when I thought about my last statement, I wonder if he even got it. Anyway I just hope Keri is having a better time than me.