Work Text:
I tried to be good, am I no good?
Am I no good?
Am I no good?
- Ethel Cain, Strangers
Once he opens the gate to the treasure house, everyone runs over to rummage through their own chests but Peter hangs back. He can’t tell if the sting is coming from the stones beneath their bare feet or from being here. The statue waits for him, his statue, but it is nothing like him now. Maybe the chest won’t open to him until it recognises him again, like Narnia used to. It will have a hard time now. But he walks towards the chest and the statue all the same, slowly, as if not to frighten them. Only Lucy’s voice stops him.
“What is it?” she asks Susan, who is looking down at her chest in confusion.
“My horn. I must have left it on my saddle, the day we went back,” Susan replies, though she does not sound particularly upset by this.
It doesn’t matter. It had been no help to them that day, attached to Susan’s saddle. Peter still feels eyes upon him, eyes that he must answer first. He bends his head to open his own chest, and it feels like he is bowing to himself. Rhindon sits at the very top, placed with care in his sheath, and Peter reaches for it. Susan and Edmund are watching him as he grabs it by the shoulder. But Lucy isn’t, and he stops, hand half gripped, to glance up at her. The look on her face, one of devastation and sorrow, is not one he has seen for fifteen years. Susan and Edmund look to her to, Susan walking up to Lucy gently.
“What is it, Lu?” Peter hears himself ask, voice strangely hoarse.
“My cordial,” she whispers, dropping down to a crouch, eyes staring at nothing.
“But it wasn’t with us that day?” Susan asks, pulling Lucy’s hair away from her face. “Let me have a look.”
They take everything out: her weapons including her precious dagger, her dresses and armour, her instruments. There is nothing at the bottom, only the shiny gold reflecting their own terrified faces back at them.
“We’ll find it, Lucy.” Edmund says eventually, and Peter’s surprised. Ed is not one for false promises, not even for Lucy. Peter wants to believe him, he really does. But it just feels like another sickening twist in the nightmare they’ve returned to. An omen from the start.
⚔
Peter covers a hand over Lucy’s mouth and drags her down to hide in the undergrowth. The minotaur, with great weapons slung on his back, has not noticed them yet. Peter won’t let them make the same mistake as they had with the wild bear. He gestures to Lu to keep quiet and unsheathes Rhindon with as much silence as he can, stepping quietly.
Just as he’s sure the Minotaur hasn’t heard him, someone comes jumping from the side, shouting and swinging steel. Between blows, Peter catches a glimpse of his clothes, the same blurring shape as the Telmarines with Trumpkin wore. The soldier’s not bad with a sword, but Peter’s angry, barely awake and filled with the fire of protectiveness. Of his siblings, of Trumpkin, of Narnia.
He can hear himself, grunting and panting with each swing, the way he’d taught himself out of. Soon the boys sword is thrown to the side, and Peter, weaker and yet winning, swings his sword wildly in his direction. The soldier doesn’t duck back in time. Rhindon slices through his neck with practiced precision, like a knife through butter.
They both stop. The boy, to look at Peter’s sword now hanging limp in his grip and then to Peter himself. Peter, as he realises what he has done. A year since his grip has held her, and already he has drawn blood where he meant to only subdue. This boy is only a boy after all. He looks the same age as Peter looks now.
Lucy’s scream pierces the forest.
The boy’s eyes roll, and he crumbles to the ground ungainly. Blood pours out of him like a stream into a river. Lucy runs over, patting at her side where the cordial should be and she’s saying something, though he can’t hear it. Susan and Edmund are frantically talking too, but not to him nor Lucy, to an army of Narnians now revealed. There are minotaurs, yes, but there is a badger also, a faun.
“Peter, help me!” Lucy begs; her small hands covered in blood as she tries to hold the boy upright. The sight jars him back to action.
“Apply pressure to the wound.” He mumbles, getting down to help her. Moss and twigs and bracken soaked in blood are all sticking to his hands, and they aren’t sterile anymore.
“It’s Caspian, Peter.” Susan gasps out, a hand on his shoulder, steadying him.
But he’s not. Not anymore, because the boy is dead. A shadow has fallen over his unblinking eyes.
Peter doesn’t need to ask to be left alone with the body, his siblings know instinctively. They guide away the uneasy Narnians, leaving only Lucy. She stays at a distance, trying again to talk to the trees, giving him space. She won’t leave him, though.
What kind of High King must he look like to them all, one who has murdered an orphan who was only trying to help. But he must sit with it, he must. And so he does. On the wet ground, with no care for his clothes, he kneels beside the boy and traces his face. His face is beautiful as a flower is, open and pure and with hands open. Near the ends, his hair is dampened by blood, but the rest is curling, shaggy as a wolfs fur and the colour of rich mud dragged from the bottom of a river. Peter makes himself note them all, though there are thoughts he is trying to bury too. That this boy is handsome, that he might bend down and kiss his briar rose lips even if he knows he won’t wake. The thoughts remain, whether he tries to bury them or no.
He looks Telmarine, that is certain, or at the very least Calormen. What made him turn on his own and flee to the Narnians? The uniform, from what he can make out with the blood, is that of a foot soldier, not of a Prince. Peter cannot ask him now, either way. On his knees, he scrambles about in the undergrowth to find the boys sword. It is well forged, though no Prince’s sword either. Everything about him is cobbled together from odds and ends, the only thing reflective of royal rearing the embroidered shirt pressed against his skin. Prying open his already stiffening hands, Peter places his sword between them, on his chest as a knight should.
How can he stay here, after this? How can he leave?
In a strangled voice, he calls for Lucy.
𓉸
For the way back to the How, they fashion a kind of stretcher out of branches and Peter and Edmund’s shirts and tie his body to it with a belt. Hardly the most dignified but it is better than anything else. If it is cold with only his short tunic, Peter does not feel it. He insists on carrying him, and then of course Ed insists too. So they walk ahead of the other Narnians, the body between them like an outstretched sword.
Peter carries the front, so there is no one to look at, alive or dead. Susan and Lucy are still wandering between the Narnians, soothing over his dreadful mistake. By all rights, it should be him, High King Peter, reassuring them all but he doesn’t think the words would come even if he tried. He was never the one who did diplomacy, after all.
Caspian’s body is not heavy. It is not half the weight of what he has done.
𓉸
By the time they call a meeting, more than half the Narnians have approached him to offer their condolences, to bow their heads and reassure that it was not his fault. Scream at me, he wants to yell back, spit at me, kick me out of here, please don’t forgive me. Just like at home, he’s itching for a fight, for the relief of a punch, but the last person who had given him one is dead. Instead, with eyes everywhere, he must settle for biting his cheeks to bloody ribbons, to picking at his hands as if they are made of paper.
“Why are they telling me sorry?” He asks Edmund, while they wait for everyone to arrive in the stone table room. “I killed him. It’s my fault.”
He cannot push away the fact that these Narnians do not know him. They have no reason to trust him, in this young, frail body of a boy. They had offered Caspian their swords and now he was dead and they weren’t even angry, but forgiving. Wasn’t Narnia wilder now? And really, who else can he ask but Edmund. Ed, who understands the depths of people, who understands what it is to live with something terrible.
“Nobody wanted him to die. They accepted him, even that Nikabrik says as much and by the sounds of it, he didn’t like him. But there is no denying that this has made everything in a way… easier, as horrible as that sounds.” Ed says, matter of fact, but his tone is not unkind. “It is done now, no matter how much we wish we could turn back time. What good would it any of them to turn on their King, who they called back to save them, over a terrible accident? What good would it serve anyone? We have an enemy out there, and he wants our people dead and he’s not going to just go away now that Caspian is dead. You owe it to Caspian, to continue what he started. You owe it to yourself.”
Sick as he feels, Ed is right. He’s always right, and it is always annoying. Here, Peter has been making Caspian’s death all about himself and what right has he to grief? To guilt? He can drown himself in it afterwards. Maybe, all hoping, they can beat these invaders and he’ll be allowed to die in the attempt. Leave Ed and Su and Lucy to make something better out of the ashes.
𓉸
Sword on Caspian’s uncle’s neck, he knows they’ve won. And if he presses it harder into Miraz’s skin than needed, Susan does not stop him. Peter sinks all his shame and regret into his biting, hissing question: “What did Caspian do to deserve this?”
Miraz, seeing his defeat, says nothing. When his wife turns to move, Susan is by her side, gripping her wrists still. He will be avenged, on Aslan’s name, Peter swears. Miraz is only the beginning. There may be no joy in this victory, but there is satisfaction.
𓉸
“Peter,” Susan says, as they direct surrendered Telmarine soldiers along the castle walls. “Look.”
At the drawbridge stands Aslan, Lucy on his back. Peter doesn’t know how he will be able to face Aslan, but he has no choice in the matter, for Susan is dragging him along with her. Edmund meets them there, and all three sink to their knees in reverence.
“Rise, Kings and Queens of Narnia.”
Susan and Edmund stand, but Peter remains rooted to the spot.
“Are you not a King, Son of Adam?” Aslan asks, and he cannot parse what his tone is other than commanding.
“I am no longer worthy to be one.” Peter replies, staring down at the courtyard floor. The hard stone beneath his knee aches, but it is welcome.
“That is not for you to decide.” Aslan says, and Peter bristles with shame. He feels like the same crying, bloodied boy who Aslan knighted all those years ago. “You made a grave mistake. You are not the first, nor will you be the last to. Do you really think that you, of all people, are unworthy of forgiveness?”
“I should have been better,” he says, and there are tears dripping down his nose. What a pitiful excuse for a King. “I was meant to be better.”
“Then be better, my son. Now, stand, High King of Narnia.”
Peter staggers to his feet and Lucy slips off Aslan’s back to embrace him. Though she is so small once again, he is sure she is holding him up.
𓉸
Dr Cornelius, who had once been Caspian’s tutor he is told, finds him in Caspian’s old rooms. When he has a moment, between his duties, he comes here. It is good for thinking, and it remains undisturbed beside the destruction from the day Caspian fled.
“My king,” he says, gently. Peter is laying on Caspian’s bed, staring at the tattered curtains. It is a practice in recognition, or perhaps in regret. There is no way of knowing anymore. With his eyes open, he sees Caspian’s blood pouring out, only it keeps coming, waves and waves of red. Susan’s words, “It’s Caspian’, stuck like a tape, echoing in the wrecked room. Lucy’s ringing scream like a kettle that keeps boiling.
“My king,” Cornelius tries again, “You asked to see me.”
Peter lifts himself up into a seated position, and the professor, without prompt, sits down beside him. “You are a professor, are you not? Can you answer a question. How do I live with myself after this? The more I learn about him, the more I am sure that he has not yet been avenged. His killer still walks this earth.”
Peter can hear it in his voice, the way Kingship has once again slipped itself like a coating on his tongue. All of these fanciful, dressed up ways to say I killed him, didn’t I? I deserve to die, don’t I?
“I knew Caspian since he was only a young child. I loved that boy, as if he were my own.” Cornelius says, hands tracing the edge of the ragged curtains. “I taught him about Narnia in secret, told him stories in the whispered dark. None compared to the tales of High King Peter. I am not Aslan but this I know; you were not his killer. That will forever be his uncle. And if it were not his uncle, then it was the Telmarine invaders. There are many others who swung that sword, but it was not you.”
Peter rubs his thumb along the pommel of Rhindon, hung at his waist. Pauses.
“Thank you, Cornelius, truly.” He replies, striking his tone as understanding, as appreciative but sombre. Peter has grown so good at acting since they won. When the professor leaves, he lies back down and reaches out a hand, to catch the bolts that had once been shot there and drag them down into himself.
𓉸
There are no churches in Narnia. Or perhaps all of Narnia is a kind of church, as everything is worship and all song a hymn. There is only one place that Peter can shape into one as if he never left England, however. Before dawn has awoken, he saddles Destrier, another thing of Caspian’s now become his, and rides until he reaches the ruins of Cair Paravel.
Efforts to rebuild the jewel on the Eastern Sea have been planned but not yet begun, so it remains near the same as they had found it. Apples, heavy and overripe, have fallen onto the overgrown stone and made a layer of sticky, sickly sweet pulp but he takes no notice. Peter ties Destrier to one such orchard tree, where Caspian’s horse finds reward among the unpicked harvest, and walks down what once was the great hall. At the dais, where his throne would once have stood, he seats himself. On the floor, he is lower than he would once have been but not low enough.
Shifting, he gets to his knees instead, hard on the floor as he had always done in church, ignorant of the knee rest. If he is praying to Aslan, or the God of his mother, he does not know. Perhaps neither.
“Forgive me, for I have sinned,” he says. Nothing happens. There is no response, from God or Aslan. Wind only dances through the orchard, a tittering. “I am a murderer and a thief. I want to die. I am sorry but it isn’t enough.”
At home, in confession, they might say Son, you have done well. This is how you must live in the light of Christ again. Through the slats he might hear, Say a hundred Hail Mary’s, and a hundred Our Father’s. Say the act of contrition, my child. He doesn’t remember the act of contrition exactly, but he does his best.
“I am sorry for my sins with all my heart. In failing, I have sinned against you whom I should love above everything. I will do my penance, and sin no more. Our Saviour suffered and died for us. In his name, have mercy.”
Peter’s knees are aching now, but it is a good ache, a good pain. Next should be the prayer of absolution, but he does not know that at all. There is no one to tell him his sins are forgiven. To go in peace. Aslan had, but Aslan is no longer here. In the bright light of the midday sun, he begins his penance.
“Hail Mary,” he starts, and goes until his voice is hoarse and the sun is tired of listening.
𓉸
Peter is too warm now, sweating and most likely burned from the summer heat. He picks his way down the cliff face toward the beach. Here, it had all began. The water is cold as holy water, and he staggers further in. Knee deep, he cups salt water and pours it over his head. I have sinned, he thinks or maybe says. I have sinned.
“Peter!” he hears, and that is a voice and a tone that will always send him reaching for his sword. That is Lucy, distressed and in need, and he will always answer. Turning around, he sees her carelessly running down the sand, trousers whipping. “What are you doing?”
“Going to Aslan’s country,” he replies, and only as he says it, realises that is what he is trying to do.
“Not today. Don’t you dare.” Lucy says, in a voice that is all Susan. At the water now, she is wading over towards him and he looks nervously between her and the horizon.
“Please,” he says, hoarse voice making it sound like he is crying. But maybe he is. “Lucy, how can I go on? How can Aslan forgive me when I can’t forgive myself?”
“Because you never needed forgiveness. Because it was an accident. Because what good what it actually do anyone to punish you. You do that well enough yourself.”
She’s met him in the water now, though she hangs back from closing the gap. The water is closer to her waist than her knees, so small she has been reduced to.
“I never cleaned my sword. Aslan always told me to clean my sword.”
“Then we’ll clean it. We’ll clean it,” she repeats and then, hesitating, adds. “I forgive you. If that counts for anything. Do you forgive me, for not having the cordial?”
Something about those words, those specifically and from Lucy most important, dislodge something in his brain. That she might blame herself, that deep down there might be a resentment that has hung in his belly about the cordial, about her lack of it. That she, closest to Aslan of them all, his littlest sister, forgives him.
“Come on,” she says, and he closes the gap between them and embraces her in a hug. Tears shake out of him like waves. He will make the journey to Aslan’s country, but not today. Back at the ruins, they roast apples they can scrounge over a fire and dry their wet clothes. Before the light fades too fast, they make their way home to Edmund and Susan. When Peter falls into his bed that night, he dreams but not the kind he has had for the last month, of Caspian’s final moments. Instead, he sees Caspian, with neck healed as if there were never any injury there, smiling at him.
“I forgive you, Peter.” He says, and it falls upon Peter warm as summer rain.
𓂃⋆.˚
Years later, he voyages the length of the Narnian sea, and walks up to the wave of Aslan’s country, and does not scale it. Not today, he thinks, as he watches Lucy sail over the billow and disappear. When he and Ed and Su return west, after seeing Lucy and then Eustace away, the daughter of a star sails back with them instead.
Narnia needs an heir, and Liliandil needs the world and together they become something. More than a friendship, more than a marriage, they forge something out of their great loneliness. They are both strange and something between human. Besides his siblings, she walks life beside him, best friend in all things. Liliandil gives them a son bright as Rhindon’s shining blade, and they name him Rilian. His middle name, known only to those dearest, is Caspian.
𓂃⋆.˚
When Peter, with Edmund and Susan entangled on each arm, crests the wave into Aslan’s country, he thinks today. He goes in peace.
There is Lucy to embrace, Tumnus and the beavers and a million more, but once that is done, he steps aside of the reunions. There is one person he needs to greet. And hovering back from the group, under the shadow of an apple tree, there he stands. He is young as he was when he died, but of course they all are young again here. In the golden light, he lifts his dark head and raises his eyes to Peter’s.
“Caspian?”
And Caspian smiles.