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[youngestqueen]

Mornings were getting better again, Lucy had found. There was a while after Rickon had been born that she'd found them difficult. It was no one's fault, a baby could not help crying at night, no more than she could help that it had woken her. But as time passed, Rickon slept for longer, and Lucy became better at sleeping through his waking at

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[onceaqueen]

Having got herself dressed and Rickon fed, Susan decided to give Rickon a bath. He didn't need a bath every day, and in fact if she did it too often his skin seemed to dry out, but he seemed to like splashing about in the warm water. So she drew up some water from the well and lit a fire outside to heat it. She was on the way back into the house, with Rickon in his little sling, when she saw Lucy in the doorway. "'Morning, Lu," she said.

[youngestqueen]

"Good morning," Lucy rubbed an eye with the back of her hand, smiling at her sister and her little nephew. "Have I slept in?" She'd meant to get up earlier today, to try and help about the house before heading to classes. That way if she stayed at the Treader until late, there would be nothing to worry of.

[onceaqueen]

"Oh, no," said Susan, as Rickon blinked and yawned, and she carefully eased him out of the sling. "We were just up a little earlier than usual. I thought I'd give Rickon a bath. Are you off to school?"

[youngestqueen]

"May I?" Lucy looked to Rickon and then her sister. She was still somewhat nervous about asking to held him; worried she might do something wrong. "I was going to see if anything needed picking in the garden first. We'll be going off on the Treader soon, I thought to go by there after class."

[giftless]

The rotten thing about going home to England was that swords in the hands of kids were generally frowned upon by adults. But here, even though he wasn't a king, Edmund could still wield a sword. No one had so much as batted an eye at him, so he was out in front of the house, practicing.

There hadn't been a lot of fighting on the Treader, but the moves came back to him easily. He got lost in it, even to the point that he didn't notice Lucy -- or anyone for that matter -- watching him.

[youngestqueen]

Watching Edmund was not something she would tire of soon, Lucy was sure of it. His being here was still too new to her. She treasured every moment, even if it did make him look at her oddly sometimes.

"I've been taking weaponry classes," she said from the door when he paused in his practice. "We could practice together."

[giftless]

Edmund laughed at the suggestion. He didn't intend it to be a mean sort of thing, though often times Lucy took the brunt of his teasing. He'd grown out of that mostly.

"I'm considering it a gift from Aslan that I arrived here just after term had started," Edmund explained. "I'm not going to do homework of any sort, even if it is with swords and you."

[youngestqueen]

"It wouldn't be homework," He nose pulled up, crinkling in dismay. After nearly a year of the classes, she thought she was becoming rather skilled. "It might be fun. I might be better than you imagine."

[giftless]

By the end of the day, Edmund felt exhausted. He had hiked through as much wilderness as he could manage, and spent a few good hours throwing things into a spot of quicksand and watching it sink. But mostly he felt weary in his head and heart.

Nothing was as simple here as it was before, he could tell. And the last thing he needed was to have an ongoing row with Lucy, like it had been years before. They were past that -- mostly, at least -- and Edmund liked it better that way.

He went over the conversation in his mind as he hiked back to the house, picking flowers on the way. They weren't wildflowers like in England or Narnia, but big, bright, beautiful things. Before long he had a rather nice bouqet of flowers collected. Edmund only hoped Lucy wouldn't take the gift as an insult or something like, as that wasn't his intention.

Edmund sat on the porch, waiting for Lucy to come home, and tearing apart a fallen leaf as he did with something like precision.

[youngestqueen]

Her day had been busy as well, filled with classes, and time at the Treader. Her mind had not been on things, and for all that Lucy hated being distracted, she found herself so. What if Edmund was correct in what he'd said? What if she had changed, and in ways that Aslan would never approve of. She disliked fighting with him so, but she hadn't done anything wrong. That wasn't precisely true. She could have held her temper, that Lucy knew, but her words about things being different, those were in the right, she was sure of it.

She'd made her excuses to Caspian, and headed home long before she'd intended to. Feet dragging with each step, she found she didn't want to go home. Seeing Edmund on the front step made her pause, her fingers curling into Shadow's fur as she considered what she would say.

[giftless]

Edmund had more or less accepted the veritable pack of wolves that seemed to follow Jon's family (and by extension now his family) around. But it's not very nice to see a rather large wolf when you're trying to apologize, no matter how friendly you know they are.

He gulped down a deep breath, hoping to get all this done rather quickly and be mates again, and held out the flowers in offering. "I brought you these," he said. "To say I'm sorry. Well, I also mean to say I'm sorry with words, but I thought you might like them."

[youngestqueen]

It wasn't what she'd expected from him. She wasn't sure what she had expected, but flowers and straightforward if nervous words were not it. Lucy stood still for a moment before she reached the flowers. Once her fingers brushed his, though, she couldn't hold still any longer, throwing her arms about him. "Oh Ed, let's not fight. It's so silly and awful, and now that you're here, we shouldn't."