edmund pevensie. (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
thirtycoins) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
sagittariusly2013-01-02 08:43 am
thirtycoins) wrote in sagittariusly2013-01-02 08:43 am
( burn it backwards, kill this history )
[ A gooseberry bush grows outside of Edmund's window. Its vines have crept about the wooden frame, like a great green set of parenthesis heavy with a multitude of gooseberries.
The radio, perched atop the bookshelf in the corner, is playing a jaunty little American jazz tune, and Edmund finds himself whistling along.
(He has never been particularly fond of gooseberries, admittedly. He has had a terrible sweet tooth ever since the sugar ration during the war, and the tartness of the berries only reawakens that hunger.)
Now, it's just past ten o'clock in the morning, and Edmund sits in the wide frame of his window, idly plucking gooseberries and flicking them out into the garden. He's reading an almanac written by the founder of the village in which their tiny cottage sits, and amusing himself by picking out all the ridiculous quasi-scientific notions that even the most learned of village people seem to have cultivated.
He's not thinking about Lucy sitting under a thatched roof on the southern border of Narnia, eating gooseberry pie prepared by a flaxen-haired minor lady under King Lune's dominion. He's not thinking about how he'd stolen half the pie and offended poor Lady Kettleburg with his inability to swallow the damnably tart pie. He's not thinking how Lucy and Peter and even Susan had laughed at him and forced him to reacquaint himself with the etiquette lessons under the grand old lady partridge that had been in charge of such things.
He's not thinking about how Peter's body had shielded him from the worst of the impact, nor how Lucy had looked strewn upon the floor of their compartment, blood staining her lips.
(One year ago, now.)
No, Edmund is simply laughing to himself about how the village elders seem to think that myrrh and frankincense were brought by the Three Kings to the Holy Family to ward off Satan, and how the village townspeople should do the same. ]
—Su!
[ he calls, when his vision has grown so blurry with tears that he cannot read the next words. He wipes an arm carelessly across his face.
He just wants to read her this passage so she can laugh about it, too. That's all. ]
Where in God's name have you gone?
The radio, perched atop the bookshelf in the corner, is playing a jaunty little American jazz tune, and Edmund finds himself whistling along.
(He has never been particularly fond of gooseberries, admittedly. He has had a terrible sweet tooth ever since the sugar ration during the war, and the tartness of the berries only reawakens that hunger.)
Now, it's just past ten o'clock in the morning, and Edmund sits in the wide frame of his window, idly plucking gooseberries and flicking them out into the garden. He's reading an almanac written by the founder of the village in which their tiny cottage sits, and amusing himself by picking out all the ridiculous quasi-scientific notions that even the most learned of village people seem to have cultivated.
He's not thinking about Lucy sitting under a thatched roof on the southern border of Narnia, eating gooseberry pie prepared by a flaxen-haired minor lady under King Lune's dominion. He's not thinking about how he'd stolen half the pie and offended poor Lady Kettleburg with his inability to swallow the damnably tart pie. He's not thinking how Lucy and Peter and even Susan had laughed at him and forced him to reacquaint himself with the etiquette lessons under the grand old lady partridge that had been in charge of such things.
He's not thinking about how Peter's body had shielded him from the worst of the impact, nor how Lucy had looked strewn upon the floor of their compartment, blood staining her lips.
(One year ago, now.)
No, Edmund is simply laughing to himself about how the village elders seem to think that myrrh and frankincense were brought by the Three Kings to the Holy Family to ward off Satan, and how the village townspeople should do the same. ]
—Su!
[ he calls, when his vision has grown so blurry with tears that he cannot read the next words. He wipes an arm carelessly across his face.
He just wants to read her this passage so she can laugh about it, too. That's all. ]
Where in God's name have you gone?
no subject
today, her brother can do as he pleased, and she would only let him. because today's the anniversary of when life decided to swallow the four of them whole, then chew two of them out.
susan sighs. ] Just-- around. [ a neighbor has called on her earlier, invited her out for tea. turns out that she has a son susan's age that she wants her to meet. a pleasant enough meeting, sure, but susan tastes bile in her mouth every time she looks at the boy because at certain angles he looks like peter if peter had grown one more year. it's easy to imagine it was her brother looking and smiling at her and not some unnamed boy her age. ] Mrs. Portman sent you some crisps. Said she wanted you to meet her daughter, who'll be visiting her next week. [ who knows, maybe she'll look like lucy and susan will laugh because why should life stop being so cruel anyway?
she casts an idle look at his book. ] What have you been up to?
hi hello hi remember me ....
Edmund has never seen Peter in her son, but he's seen something worse — thousands of lonely morning spent poring over books he's only half-interested in, waiting for Susan to call him down to break their fast, and knowing that his wait will not have an end. A lifetime ago, he would have teased the woman whom has loved and cared for him like a sister and a mother and a companion all neatly braided together, but now desperation is threaded through what was once an uncomplicated bond.
That's why it's not carelessness that lightens his tone, but an ashen shade of what might have been the first stirrings of anger. Never mind what he's been up to, it's her affairs that are more important right now. ]
—ah. Parading around her poncy little moppet for your benefit, is she? Did you like what you saw?
[ And it's not like him to act this way, but Edmund has been changed more than he knows. He casts the almanac back to the bed. ]
no who are you
He's pleasant enough. [ never mind that he's "accidentally" bumped her knee with his for so many times that susan pulled her chair farther from him and claims to his mother that she simply must not be exposed to air because she catches colds far too easily. ] But if he's smart, he'd realize I'm not interested. [ because slapping his hand away when he tries to catch hers when mrs. portman isn't looking is probably something one does when one isn't at all taken with the other, right?
she reaches in and takes out the crisps and pops it open. ] You know Mrs. Portman means well. [ because really, for a woman her age who's happily married and with grown-up children everyone who doesn't have what she has is a poor, poor fool who must be helped. it's sweet and stupid and sickening, really. ] Even if her ways of showing it isn't at all... proper. Or necessary.
abloobloo
Funny. Neither Peter nor Lucy had been gifted with that particular skill. Maybe that's why he'd been given the dubious honor of life-after-death.
He's not thinking about that. ]
You ought to stop accepting her invitations. [ he murmurs, his voice edged sharp. He's shifted forward in his scrutiny of his sister, his elbows resting on his knees (the left one aches even now, the cold seeping past fabric and flesh to curl about the ill-healed bone within). ] You know she takes it as encouragement. Or is that you — enjoy — the attention?
/slides in
She's a dear lady. [ and by dear she means old and by old she means ancient and isn't it clear that she's just humoring the woman? edmund, don't you see? ] Have you forgotten how kind she is to us during our first months here? Without her help we wouldn't have settled here quite nicely.
[ their accommodations are far from nice, but it's easy to pretend it's true. ] I was just returning the favor.