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"What was the greatest battle you fought in Narnia?" he asks Eustace, fresh from his first freedom, his eyes singing with the glint of sunlight off the waves that has remained, despite returning to England.
"Do you remember when I said I became a dragon?" he muses. Peter nods.
"It was a fight to return to myself - the right self - on the inside, I mean. After I became human again I was a better person, as if when Aslan peeled off the layers of dragon skin he took all the arrogance and condescension with them. And I kept thinking that perhaps I'd always been able to be that person, but had just never looked for him in the mirror. I became human again on the outside, but I had to remake myself inside, you see. I had to keep reminding myself - still have to keep reminding myself - to respect and appreciate the rest of the world, whichever world I'm in."
He turns to Peter with a slight frown. "Does that answer your question?"
Peter chews his lip thoughtfully, and nods once more.
"What was the greatest battle you fought in Narnia?" he asks Lucy while the kettle boils. She plucks mugs from the cupboard with a playful grace he knows she grew into when they grew up the first time, and has managed to retain, despite England's heaviness.
"Do you remember how the battlefields were purple and red?" she says softly. Peter nods.
"I fought death herself, back home with my cordial, but for every hundred people I saved, there was always one I failed. The flowers bloomed red where blood had spilled and purple where death had touched the ground. There was always too much purple. I had to remind myself again and again that there was nothing I could have done, and then I had to believe it."
She turns to Peter with something dark in her eyes. "Does that answer your question?"
Peter studies her carefully, and nods once more.
"What was the greatest battle you fought in Narnia?" he asks Edmund, sitting on his bed and scanning an essay with the same focused gaze he knows he'd used on palace documents and has held onto with a white-knuckled grip, despite disapproving looks.
"Do you remember the oaths we swore to our people?" he says lowly. Peter nods.
"We swore to place our land and its people above and before all else. Those promises didn't vanish as we did, and we would still be bound to them, should we return to Narnia even now. Caspian wanted to sail with us - with me - to the end of the world. I had to tell him that he couldn't, had to remind us both of the oaths we made. I had to remind him that his duty to our people had to come before all else, even adventure. Even love."
He turns to Peter with a bitter twist on his mouth. "Does that answer your question?"
Peter clenches his jaw tightly, and nods once more.
"What was the greatest battle you fought in Narnia?" he asks Susan, painting her nails on the sofa in the living room with the regal poise he knows she'd stepped into back home and that has clung to her like a shadow, despite holding reign in a child's form.
"Do you remember those games still, Peter?" she laughs. Peter nods.
"Fine, I'll humour you. If it was all real - as you three like to pretend - then I suppose it was the belief, especially the second time. I couldn't let myself believe that we were back - playing it again, I mean - because if we were there again, that meant we'd have to leave it again too, sooner or later. I had to remind myself it was worth it to have it and lose it again than to not have it again at all."
She turns to Peter with a fading smile. "Does that answer your question?"
Peter blinks hard, and nods once more.
In his dreams Peter is thirteen, a just-turned teenager swinging his sword despite cramping muscles and blistered hands. When he wakes Peter is fifteen (he is thirty) and his too-short legs are trapped beneath a wooden desk and his hands are black from spilled ink and the paper is full of holes gouged by his pen. (He's already wrecked two nibs - he has to be careful with this one.)
The Professor says he understands. He can't.
Peter's hands are littered with scars, (they're not the same scars and there aren't enough of them) and over time Peter's rage slips beneath his skin - a tumultuous, ravening thing - just as it had back in Narnia. (A High King should never appear angry before his people. Neither, for that matter, should an older brother before his siblings.)
As a child, skinned knees had given way to bruised knuckles (and only once - the first time - a broken thumb) as time after time he'd stepped in front of Susan, Edmund, Lucy, but now his siblings can fight their battles. Peter can always find more. Now he steps in front of the younger boys, the weaker boys, the innocent, and for a few short moments he's the High King again. (He has to ignore that his arms are shorter, that it takes more effort to throw the punch, that his reflexes are slower. The blood he bleeds in England is never as bright red as all the blood he gave to Narnian soil. It drips onto concrete floors where flowers don't, can't bloom.)
The battles keep coming. They're never enough.