(no subject)
Title: The Unknown Adventure (1/?)
Disclaimer: The Pevensies and any familiar names belong to CS Lewis, they are not mine and I’m not saying they are. The situations and plot are mine.
Rating: PG
Note- At this point the story is PG; I fully intend to make this PG13/R by the end of it though. You have been warned.
Summary: The Pevensies have been in Narnia for a few months at this point. Left alone to run a Country was not how they planned on living their lives. But they must deal with it as it comes.
Authors Note: The most important note is that I am following CS Lewis’ timeframe and LWW plot. At this point according to Lewis, Peter is 13, Susan is 12, Edmund is 10 and Lucy is 8. I just felt like pointing that out for anyone who was wondering.
I will follow Peter, Susan, Lucy and Edmund throughout my entire story. This chapter is Peter centric, but that is just to get the ball rolling. So don’t worry if you miss the other characters, you’ll get them later. Special thanks to shirehobbit2002 for being a wonderful and helpful Beta.
Chapter 1
The rain had continued to fall for the last six days and the High King was beginning to wonder if it was ever going to end. Though it had only been a few months since he had taken the throne, he was beginning slowly, but surely, realize why Narnia was always so green even late into the summer months. Turning his attention back to the many stained and ancient manuscripts spread out on the desk before him, he glanced up to his younger brother. Who being so absorbed into his papers, hadn’t noticed that the dark blue ink that he had been furiously scribbling notes with was dripping onto and staining the edge of his light blue tunic, possibly ruining it forever.
“My Lord,” said a gruff voice from the door as Peter glanced up at the speaker, “something has come to my attention. If you could tear yourself away from your studies, it is something of importance that must be dealt with swiftly”
“Of course Nuncio, I think that these can wait till I’m finished.” Peter answered, barely containing the glee that welled up inside him, as he pushed back from the table and away from the historical documents that he was suppose to be learning. Edmund didn’t even look up when his brother left the room.
History had always been Edmund forte, and he had dove into his new Kingly studies with much more enthusiasm than Peter could even pretend to muster. Edmund could sit for hours poring over old papers that described how the last King of Narnia had organized the country before the time of the Witch. There were stacks of papers describing the courts, laws, regulations and social programs that had been in place in Narnia’s past, and it seemed to be Edmund’s goal to implement as many as possible, as fast as he could.
Thought Peter thought that it was quite a challenge for a 10 year old boy, he didn’t argue because he personally felt that a boy of 13, like himself, couldn’t be expected to run his own country, yet that was what he was expected to do. Peter followed Nuncio out of the room and into the dark, damp passageway that lead to the outer wall of Cair Paravel.
“What seems to be the problem, Nuncio” Peter asked the servant after he had been following the Centaur in silence for a full minute.
“You have noticed that there has been a great deal of rain these past few months My Lord,”
“Yes, I have noticed that” How could I have not? Peter had almost added.
“Well there seems to be a problem with the Eastern Wall-”
Peter cut him off, “What kind of problem? Is it dire?”
Nuncio continued to walk in silence for a few moments, the slow beat of his hooves echoing off the stone walls of the castle.
“I think that you need to see it for yourself Sire”
Peter began to worry, what was happening to his Castle? He had only been in Narnia a few months and at this point the biggest decision that he had had to make was how to respond to the coronation gifts that he and his family had received from the Lone Islands.
He took the cloak that was offered to him by a Dwarf as he approached the outer walls of his home. Draping the rough green wool around his shoulders, he wistfully wished that being King would have allowed him to command the rain to stop. He chuckled at this thought and throe the hood up over his head and walked out the door into the pouring rain.
The rain beat down on him as it was trying to chill him to the skin, but he mostly stayed dry underneath the cloak that had been a gift from a Dwarf artisan who lived a few miles south of Cair Paraval. Peter pulled it tighter around him as he saw another figure out at the edge of the castle ledge, peering down over it and to the ground below. When he was a few feet away, he recognized the groundskeeper who he had only met once before when he had first been introduced to the chief servants of each branch of castle management.
“What seems to be the issue?” Peter yelled out over the sound of the rain beating on the colored flagstones. “Is there a reason why this must be dealt with now? Couldn’t we have waited till the rain stopped?”
“I’m sorry Sire to call you away from your studies, but we did wait a few days, and the rain doesn’t seem to be lessening. I’m afraid that this must be dealt with now!”
Peter sighed under the protection of his cloak, and walked toward the ledge that the faun was standing on.
When he reached the faun he asked “What seems to be the problem . . .” he paused as he realized that he had no inkling what the faun’s name happened to be, so he ended the statement there like it had been intentional all along.
“My Lord, it seems that the rain that we have received that past few months has affected the foundation.”
Peter quickly leaned out over the outcrop and looked down, soaking the front of his finely embroidered tunic as he removed his hand from his cloak and set them on the stones before him. He looked down on the barrows far below him where all the royalty of the past had been buried, and someday, he thought, where his children would lay him to rest as well. As he looked out over the many dirt mounds he noticed something strange closer to the wall. Leaning even farer out over the ledge, exposing himself to the beating rain he saw something that greatly worried and confounded him. The erosion from the rainfall was pulling away the earth and clay that clearly supported the wall that he was leaning on.
Fear and panic raced through his body as he looked out at the ground that was slowly and surely pulling away from his castle, startled, he had completely forgotten to keep his cloak closed. Peter had no idea even where to begin, but in what little he knew, he realized that simply putting new dirt in the eroded area would not solve the problem at hand. That dirt would simply wash away, and it would happen much sooner because it wouldn’t have become as compact as the existing dirt happened to be. He continued to stare over the rail, not caring that the cloak was now not keeping him dry.
He could feel the material clinging to his cold, drenched chest, as the water ran in streams down the side of his neck and went down the collar of his undershirt. Peter felt the water pooling at his hipbones, for his clothes couldn't absorb more water, already being drenched through, that was the only place the water could go. He tried to brush his hair out of his eyes that had become plastered against the sides of his soft, boyish features, which he privately hoped would soon become the more angular features of a man. Yet it did no good. Peter didn’t feel like he could possibly get any wetter, even if he had jumped into a lake fully clothed.
Peter glanced back at the faun who seemed to have the talent that he was missing of keeping oneself dry in a storm.
“Well . . .” Peter started, getting water in his mouth as he spoke, “what is the course of action then.”
“First and foremost we need to support the Eastern Wall” the Faun started, “We can do that by going out to the woods out a few miles from here, My Lord. There we can cut down some pines and try to brace the wall for a short amount of time. Then, Sire, we can send some men to the Owlwood Forest to bring back Live Oak logs. Once the land has dried out, we can go and retrieve clay from the shores of the Rush River and use that to strengthen the foundation.”
Peter nodded as he listened, yet it was hard to concentrate as he stood there shaking. It might be the middle of the summer, he thought, but I’m still freezing! Then he realized that he was standing out in the rain, and he had yet to know why he had been brought out there. Couldn’t they have told me this inside? He thought with anger.
The anger must have shown on his face for the faun cautiously asked “My Lord, do you wish for us to approach this problem in a different manner, because I can assure you that this is the best way possi-“
Peter didn’t let him finish as he slowly answered through his gritted, chattering teeth. “I just don’t understand why this hasn’t been dealt with.”
“But Sire,” the faun began “You are the lord of this house; all decisions are to be made by you.”
“Yes,” Peter hissed through his teeth, “I know, I am the Lord of this Land as well as this house, and why,” he said with quiet barely controlled anger, “could I not have been informed of the situation inside?”
The faun did not seem to realize that this question was not meant to be answered, for he immediately went into a long discourse about how it is proper to inform the Lord of the Manor, and that the Lord in turn would want to know about the dealings happening in his own home.
Peter did not hear the rest, as he turned promptly and walked swiftly back into the castle as he pulled the cloak tightly around him. Which then he realized that trying to keep oneself dry at this point of time was moot, for he couldn’t be wetter than he already was.
As he stormed back into the dark hallway, lit by torches, he nearly ran over the Courtiers that had been waiting for him to return. As they saw him, they gathered around him and all began to speak at once.
“My Lord, your clothes, those were gifts from the Lord Trennet . .”
“The ambassador from Telamar will be arriving tomorrow an-”
“The cook wishes to know if the quail caugh-”
Peter had no time for these pompous aids; he snarled a comment back that Susan would answer their questions, and that they could find her in her sitting room. He shoved his way through them roughly, trying to block out their voices as much as he could.
He hastily turned around the far left hand corner, out of view from the aids, and nearly ran to the Grand Staircase that Lucy had been so pleased to see when they had moved in.
He chuckled as he realized that the rail was slick with polish for the maids were always having to clean it due to Lucy’s determination to slide down it. So far she had only make it a third of the way down, and that had resulted in a broken wrist, but a happy heart.
He took the stairs two at a time as he sloshed in his wet clothes. Suddenly, his foot caught the edge of a step a little over half-way up and Peter fell into the stairs with a loud, painful crash. An angry and startled exclamation escaped his mouth as he realized that he was falling.
It took all his skill to keep himself from continuing his fall down the entire staircase which easily could have resulted broken bones, or even worse, a broken neck. His wet, now black-green, cloak twisted around his arm and almost stopped his hand as he reached out to the banister to prevent his fall.
Peter’s arm twisted backwards as his body continued to fall, he felt a razor-sharp pop in his shoulder, yet he held on knowing that he had to regain control over his descent, as he finally came to a stop a few stairs down from where he had started.
Peter could barely contain the gasp of pain that escaped his lips as he gritted down on his teeth to keep him from yelling out as he cradled his possibly dislocated arm. He continued to lie on the ground with his head resting on a marble step, whose edge jarred painfully into the back of his neck. Perfect, he thought I’ve gone and killed myself. He stayed there in throbbing pain, for he knew that if he stood, that it would be even worse. But Peter also knew that the last thing he wanted was a wandering Maid, or worse a Courtier to find him lying on the ground. Not only would they overreact and treat him like a child, rumors would probably spread throughout the kingdom that High King Peter and fallen and broken his body and was laying near death at Cair Paraval. That was the thought that made him slowly try to pick himself off the ground and start back to his chambers.
Pain shot through his lower back and thighs from where he had hit the marble stairway. Peter tried to stand up strait, but that only sent a searing pain through his body. He realized as he stood that nothing seemed to be broken, and his shoulder was only going to be sore for easily the next few weeks. He was bruised, wet and cold; which he decided that one was bearable, he could even deal with two, but all three together . . . that was another story. He slowly and surely made it up the rest of the staircase gripping the banister the full way; praying to Aslan that he wouldn’t catch another bad step.
He hobbled back to his outer-chambers, where he locked the door behind him, and gradually limped back into his private bedroom, holding on to furnishings the entire way. When he reached his bedroom he let out a sigh of ease. This was his private sanctum; his favorite room in the castle, for it was the only one that was truly his. No one could enter it, unless they had his express permission, and he had yet to give it. At this point the only one who had been in it other than him and the maids was his youngest sister Lucy, who had snuck in one night after hearing strange noises from her room(Which turned out to be nothing but the wind.)
With trembling hands he undid the clasp that held his heavy cloak under his neck and pulled it off, glad to be rid of its weight. As soon as it was off he dropped it to the ground where he stood and simply left it there with the thought that a maid would get it later that night when he was at dinner. He went a little farther into the room, to where his four-poster bed with scarlet curtains sat. He looked wistfully toward his bed, for he’d of liked nothing better than to lay down, but even as tired as he was, he knew he had to get out of his wet clothes or he would become sick.
He moved closer to the fireplace (for which, he mentally thanked the maids again, a fire was cheerfully glowing) where he leaned against the back his vast velvet reading chair. Peter began to strip off each piece of clothing one piece at a time, and he could see from the light of the fire the dark-purplish bruises that had already begun to appear of his sun bronzed skin. He winced when he pealed off the undershirt as it brushed against his already injured body. I’ve never been weak, but I’ve also never been wet and bruised at the same time, he thought with a chuckle. Edmund would still be lying on the stairs; I at least got up, Peter thought with a slightly bitter laugh.
He paused for a second, as he stood absorbing the warm heat that radiated off the fire in only his low sitting trousers with his bare torso exposed to the flame. He then turned and shuffled back into his washroom to take a warm soak.
Peter didn’t care that Edmund was still sitting in the document room a few floors below, that he was so involved in a document on the Judicial System, and that he hadn’t even noticed that his older brother had never returned.
*****
Ok guys, I wrote this for y'all, now tell me what you think! I love feedback, I need feedback to make this the best it can be!
Disclaimer: The Pevensies and any familiar names belong to CS Lewis, they are not mine and I’m not saying they are. The situations and plot are mine.
Rating: PG
Note- At this point the story is PG; I fully intend to make this PG13/R by the end of it though. You have been warned.
Summary: The Pevensies have been in Narnia for a few months at this point. Left alone to run a Country was not how they planned on living their lives. But they must deal with it as it comes.
Authors Note: The most important note is that I am following CS Lewis’ timeframe and LWW plot. At this point according to Lewis, Peter is 13, Susan is 12, Edmund is 10 and Lucy is 8. I just felt like pointing that out for anyone who was wondering.
I will follow Peter, Susan, Lucy and Edmund throughout my entire story. This chapter is Peter centric, but that is just to get the ball rolling. So don’t worry if you miss the other characters, you’ll get them later. Special thanks to shirehobbit2002 for being a wonderful and helpful Beta.
Chapter 1
The rain had continued to fall for the last six days and the High King was beginning to wonder if it was ever going to end. Though it had only been a few months since he had taken the throne, he was beginning slowly, but surely, realize why Narnia was always so green even late into the summer months. Turning his attention back to the many stained and ancient manuscripts spread out on the desk before him, he glanced up to his younger brother. Who being so absorbed into his papers, hadn’t noticed that the dark blue ink that he had been furiously scribbling notes with was dripping onto and staining the edge of his light blue tunic, possibly ruining it forever.
“My Lord,” said a gruff voice from the door as Peter glanced up at the speaker, “something has come to my attention. If you could tear yourself away from your studies, it is something of importance that must be dealt with swiftly”
“Of course Nuncio, I think that these can wait till I’m finished.” Peter answered, barely containing the glee that welled up inside him, as he pushed back from the table and away from the historical documents that he was suppose to be learning. Edmund didn’t even look up when his brother left the room.
History had always been Edmund forte, and he had dove into his new Kingly studies with much more enthusiasm than Peter could even pretend to muster. Edmund could sit for hours poring over old papers that described how the last King of Narnia had organized the country before the time of the Witch. There were stacks of papers describing the courts, laws, regulations and social programs that had been in place in Narnia’s past, and it seemed to be Edmund’s goal to implement as many as possible, as fast as he could.
Thought Peter thought that it was quite a challenge for a 10 year old boy, he didn’t argue because he personally felt that a boy of 13, like himself, couldn’t be expected to run his own country, yet that was what he was expected to do. Peter followed Nuncio out of the room and into the dark, damp passageway that lead to the outer wall of Cair Paravel.
“What seems to be the problem, Nuncio” Peter asked the servant after he had been following the Centaur in silence for a full minute.
“You have noticed that there has been a great deal of rain these past few months My Lord,”
“Yes, I have noticed that” How could I have not? Peter had almost added.
“Well there seems to be a problem with the Eastern Wall-”
Peter cut him off, “What kind of problem? Is it dire?”
Nuncio continued to walk in silence for a few moments, the slow beat of his hooves echoing off the stone walls of the castle.
“I think that you need to see it for yourself Sire”
Peter began to worry, what was happening to his Castle? He had only been in Narnia a few months and at this point the biggest decision that he had had to make was how to respond to the coronation gifts that he and his family had received from the Lone Islands.
He took the cloak that was offered to him by a Dwarf as he approached the outer walls of his home. Draping the rough green wool around his shoulders, he wistfully wished that being King would have allowed him to command the rain to stop. He chuckled at this thought and throe the hood up over his head and walked out the door into the pouring rain.
The rain beat down on him as it was trying to chill him to the skin, but he mostly stayed dry underneath the cloak that had been a gift from a Dwarf artisan who lived a few miles south of Cair Paraval. Peter pulled it tighter around him as he saw another figure out at the edge of the castle ledge, peering down over it and to the ground below. When he was a few feet away, he recognized the groundskeeper who he had only met once before when he had first been introduced to the chief servants of each branch of castle management.
“What seems to be the issue?” Peter yelled out over the sound of the rain beating on the colored flagstones. “Is there a reason why this must be dealt with now? Couldn’t we have waited till the rain stopped?”
“I’m sorry Sire to call you away from your studies, but we did wait a few days, and the rain doesn’t seem to be lessening. I’m afraid that this must be dealt with now!”
Peter sighed under the protection of his cloak, and walked toward the ledge that the faun was standing on.
When he reached the faun he asked “What seems to be the problem . . .” he paused as he realized that he had no inkling what the faun’s name happened to be, so he ended the statement there like it had been intentional all along.
“My Lord, it seems that the rain that we have received that past few months has affected the foundation.”
Peter quickly leaned out over the outcrop and looked down, soaking the front of his finely embroidered tunic as he removed his hand from his cloak and set them on the stones before him. He looked down on the barrows far below him where all the royalty of the past had been buried, and someday, he thought, where his children would lay him to rest as well. As he looked out over the many dirt mounds he noticed something strange closer to the wall. Leaning even farer out over the ledge, exposing himself to the beating rain he saw something that greatly worried and confounded him. The erosion from the rainfall was pulling away the earth and clay that clearly supported the wall that he was leaning on.
Fear and panic raced through his body as he looked out at the ground that was slowly and surely pulling away from his castle, startled, he had completely forgotten to keep his cloak closed. Peter had no idea even where to begin, but in what little he knew, he realized that simply putting new dirt in the eroded area would not solve the problem at hand. That dirt would simply wash away, and it would happen much sooner because it wouldn’t have become as compact as the existing dirt happened to be. He continued to stare over the rail, not caring that the cloak was now not keeping him dry.
He could feel the material clinging to his cold, drenched chest, as the water ran in streams down the side of his neck and went down the collar of his undershirt. Peter felt the water pooling at his hipbones, for his clothes couldn't absorb more water, already being drenched through, that was the only place the water could go. He tried to brush his hair out of his eyes that had become plastered against the sides of his soft, boyish features, which he privately hoped would soon become the more angular features of a man. Yet it did no good. Peter didn’t feel like he could possibly get any wetter, even if he had jumped into a lake fully clothed.
Peter glanced back at the faun who seemed to have the talent that he was missing of keeping oneself dry in a storm.
“Well . . .” Peter started, getting water in his mouth as he spoke, “what is the course of action then.”
“First and foremost we need to support the Eastern Wall” the Faun started, “We can do that by going out to the woods out a few miles from here, My Lord. There we can cut down some pines and try to brace the wall for a short amount of time. Then, Sire, we can send some men to the Owlwood Forest to bring back Live Oak logs. Once the land has dried out, we can go and retrieve clay from the shores of the Rush River and use that to strengthen the foundation.”
Peter nodded as he listened, yet it was hard to concentrate as he stood there shaking. It might be the middle of the summer, he thought, but I’m still freezing! Then he realized that he was standing out in the rain, and he had yet to know why he had been brought out there. Couldn’t they have told me this inside? He thought with anger.
The anger must have shown on his face for the faun cautiously asked “My Lord, do you wish for us to approach this problem in a different manner, because I can assure you that this is the best way possi-“
Peter didn’t let him finish as he slowly answered through his gritted, chattering teeth. “I just don’t understand why this hasn’t been dealt with.”
“But Sire,” the faun began “You are the lord of this house; all decisions are to be made by you.”
“Yes,” Peter hissed through his teeth, “I know, I am the Lord of this Land as well as this house, and why,” he said with quiet barely controlled anger, “could I not have been informed of the situation inside?”
The faun did not seem to realize that this question was not meant to be answered, for he immediately went into a long discourse about how it is proper to inform the Lord of the Manor, and that the Lord in turn would want to know about the dealings happening in his own home.
Peter did not hear the rest, as he turned promptly and walked swiftly back into the castle as he pulled the cloak tightly around him. Which then he realized that trying to keep oneself dry at this point of time was moot, for he couldn’t be wetter than he already was.
As he stormed back into the dark hallway, lit by torches, he nearly ran over the Courtiers that had been waiting for him to return. As they saw him, they gathered around him and all began to speak at once.
“My Lord, your clothes, those were gifts from the Lord Trennet . .”
“The ambassador from Telamar will be arriving tomorrow an-”
“The cook wishes to know if the quail caugh-”
Peter had no time for these pompous aids; he snarled a comment back that Susan would answer their questions, and that they could find her in her sitting room. He shoved his way through them roughly, trying to block out their voices as much as he could.
He hastily turned around the far left hand corner, out of view from the aids, and nearly ran to the Grand Staircase that Lucy had been so pleased to see when they had moved in.
He chuckled as he realized that the rail was slick with polish for the maids were always having to clean it due to Lucy’s determination to slide down it. So far she had only make it a third of the way down, and that had resulted in a broken wrist, but a happy heart.
He took the stairs two at a time as he sloshed in his wet clothes. Suddenly, his foot caught the edge of a step a little over half-way up and Peter fell into the stairs with a loud, painful crash. An angry and startled exclamation escaped his mouth as he realized that he was falling.
It took all his skill to keep himself from continuing his fall down the entire staircase which easily could have resulted broken bones, or even worse, a broken neck. His wet, now black-green, cloak twisted around his arm and almost stopped his hand as he reached out to the banister to prevent his fall.
Peter’s arm twisted backwards as his body continued to fall, he felt a razor-sharp pop in his shoulder, yet he held on knowing that he had to regain control over his descent, as he finally came to a stop a few stairs down from where he had started.
Peter could barely contain the gasp of pain that escaped his lips as he gritted down on his teeth to keep him from yelling out as he cradled his possibly dislocated arm. He continued to lie on the ground with his head resting on a marble step, whose edge jarred painfully into the back of his neck. Perfect, he thought I’ve gone and killed myself. He stayed there in throbbing pain, for he knew that if he stood, that it would be even worse. But Peter also knew that the last thing he wanted was a wandering Maid, or worse a Courtier to find him lying on the ground. Not only would they overreact and treat him like a child, rumors would probably spread throughout the kingdom that High King Peter and fallen and broken his body and was laying near death at Cair Paraval. That was the thought that made him slowly try to pick himself off the ground and start back to his chambers.
Pain shot through his lower back and thighs from where he had hit the marble stairway. Peter tried to stand up strait, but that only sent a searing pain through his body. He realized as he stood that nothing seemed to be broken, and his shoulder was only going to be sore for easily the next few weeks. He was bruised, wet and cold; which he decided that one was bearable, he could even deal with two, but all three together . . . that was another story. He slowly and surely made it up the rest of the staircase gripping the banister the full way; praying to Aslan that he wouldn’t catch another bad step.
He hobbled back to his outer-chambers, where he locked the door behind him, and gradually limped back into his private bedroom, holding on to furnishings the entire way. When he reached his bedroom he let out a sigh of ease. This was his private sanctum; his favorite room in the castle, for it was the only one that was truly his. No one could enter it, unless they had his express permission, and he had yet to give it. At this point the only one who had been in it other than him and the maids was his youngest sister Lucy, who had snuck in one night after hearing strange noises from her room(Which turned out to be nothing but the wind.)
With trembling hands he undid the clasp that held his heavy cloak under his neck and pulled it off, glad to be rid of its weight. As soon as it was off he dropped it to the ground where he stood and simply left it there with the thought that a maid would get it later that night when he was at dinner. He went a little farther into the room, to where his four-poster bed with scarlet curtains sat. He looked wistfully toward his bed, for he’d of liked nothing better than to lay down, but even as tired as he was, he knew he had to get out of his wet clothes or he would become sick.
He moved closer to the fireplace (for which, he mentally thanked the maids again, a fire was cheerfully glowing) where he leaned against the back his vast velvet reading chair. Peter began to strip off each piece of clothing one piece at a time, and he could see from the light of the fire the dark-purplish bruises that had already begun to appear of his sun bronzed skin. He winced when he pealed off the undershirt as it brushed against his already injured body. I’ve never been weak, but I’ve also never been wet and bruised at the same time, he thought with a chuckle. Edmund would still be lying on the stairs; I at least got up, Peter thought with a slightly bitter laugh.
He paused for a second, as he stood absorbing the warm heat that radiated off the fire in only his low sitting trousers with his bare torso exposed to the flame. He then turned and shuffled back into his washroom to take a warm soak.
Peter didn’t care that Edmund was still sitting in the document room a few floors below, that he was so involved in a document on the Judicial System, and that he hadn’t even noticed that his older brother had never returned.
*****
Ok guys, I wrote this for y'all, now tell me what you think! I love feedback, I need feedback to make this the best it can be!