Action post;

[wandbreaker]

For when there's no entry up, or for random house adventures. Third-person, present tense preferred.

Crew anytime, anyone else with prior notification.

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Leave it all to me I will do the right thing;

[wandbreaker]

It's not that Edmund isn't used to not having Peter around; after all, years of ruling together meant that some days Peter would be fighting wars and Edmund would be handling matters with Susan at Cair Paravel; there were always reasons for the family to be separate.

But usually they knew where the other was, at least in theory.

So Edmund's worried. Not deeply worried, not yet, but worried enough that he's pacing through the kitchen in the wing of the house that his sisters rarely come into, an apple in one hand but not in his mouth. He knows what he has to do: keep everything smooth, keep his sisters calm, stay calm. But that isn't enough from keeping him from a slight downward tug on his lips. Damn it, Peter, he thinks. He's not even aware of footsteps approaching, or doors opening or closing.

Leave it all to me I will do the right thing;

[treadingdawn.livejournal.com]

When Caspian returns it's after yet another fruitless day of searching for any trace of Peter on horseback. What he has to show for it is a frustrated--angry--expression on his face upon entering this wing through a side doorway. Could anyone blame the Telmarine? Would Edmund? Up till this point the youngest king here has been trying his best to maintain calmness and order too. Whether he's been successful or not remains to be seen. That he has not been so successful for himself is evident. Caspian passes by the kitchen and leans in, voicing his main concern without even a greeting.

"Nothing today?"

Leave it all to me I will do the right thing;

[wandbreaker]

Edmund turns when he hears Caspian's voice, and after a terse moment, he shakes his head. He can tell that Caspian is worried - not panicked, not yet anyway, but it's a curious thing. In the time they were in Narnia, Caspian and Peter had managed something resembling an alliance, and at the end of their time, perhaps something like friendship. But they all share the bond of royalty, all share the bonds of Narnia, and anyway, they have been living together for over a year. Naturally the friendship would have deepened to the point where Caspian worries like the rest of the family.

Edmund rubs the back of his head with his hand. "He's not that bad with directions," he mutters. It's more of a joke, really, that Peter is bad with finding his way, because of how he led them back in Narnia, when they returned. "I can't believe he's still missing." He doesn't bother to ask if Caspian's had any news. He knows the Telmarine king would tell him, if that was the case.

Leave it all to me I will do the right thing;

[treadingdawn.livejournal.com]

Had Edmund been paying attention to more than just being older and not wanting to understand why his sister kissed him, he might have seen the look on Caspian's face when they walked through the door in the air. Maybe Edmund did see it but has chosen not to speak anything of it. Fair enough, because the Telmarine has difficulty speaking of that day in the Town Square on his own.

"He's missing because he was being a fool," Caspian snaps, far quicker than he means to, palm coming up to slap the surface of a counter. Immediately he averts his gaze from Edmund.

Leave it all to me I will do the right thing;

[wandbreaker]

Edmund's eyebrows raise up. He knows that Caspian and Peter don't always see eye to eye, but he's never heard Caspian say something that directly insulted the High King. But there's more said in the action; Edmund can tell that Caspian is frustrated, and worried, and Ed has more than enough experience to not feed that frustration.

No matter how much he agrees with Caspian at the moment.

"What was he even doing?" Ed asks, genuinely curious. Why would Peter visit a graveyard anyway? It wasn't exactly a cheerful subject, and while his older brother is serious he's most certainly not morbid.

Leave it all to me I will do the right thing;

[treadingdawn.livejournal.com]

He keeps his gaze averted, his face turned just this way instead of that way so his expression is partial obscure. Of course hiding how he feels from the Just is a losing battle; Caspian X is a transparent person to those whoa re close to him, Edmund Pevensie is a tactical observer.

"I cannot say for sure, but I think..."

The Telmarine pauses. It's not his story to tell but he doesn't know the full extent of it anyway. Edmund, his friend's brother, deserves to know at least what Caspian thinks Peter was doing there. What he says perhaps absolves the blond from being a complete fool.

"I think he was visiting a friend," Caspian nods slightly. There's no need for words to imply said friend was not exactly present in person.

Leave it all to me I will do the right thing;

[wandbreaker]

Edmund was not a patient boy, but he grew into a patient man, and now he exercises that by calmly waiting for Caspian to lose whatever feeling he has that is making him look away. But that doesn't stop him from continuing the conversation.

"I thought people here only died for a day." That was what the manual said, anyway, the guide that he had found after spending a day in the City, the one that explained matters such as curses. "Although that would raise the question of the need for a graveyard in the first place."

Leave it all to me I will do the right thing;

[treadingdawn.livejournal.com]

"That is what most people say but it isn't anything anyone has tried to prove or disprove," he shakes his head. And therein lies the problem; Peter has disappeared without a trace, leaving no indication if he is even dead. Caspian still keeps his gaze averted, raises this another level of distance when he turns his back to the apple eating Edmund. "It doesn't matter. We have to find him," utters the Telmarine.

Leave it all to me I will do the right thing;

[wandbreaker]

The fact that Peter might be dead never crosses the Just's mind. It's just not something that can happen: Peter can't be dead if the rest of them are alive, which isn't logical but it's just how things are. He doesn't know why.

Edmund nods, however, at the suggestion. "Well," he says, pushing the apple away a little. "Could it be that he just...went home?" He doesn't know how going home works, but he does know it's not altogether voluntary. Peter would never leave his family. It's just not something the High King does. But the suggestion can't be overlooked.

Leave it all to me I will do the right thing;

[treadingdawn.livejournal.com]

That makes two of them for now. Caspian can't fathom Peter being dead or Peter allowing himself to be killed in some ridiculous fashion. He has seen this man fight, he has seen him talk of death only to fight harder and win. After 'encouraging' words from the Just, of course. Oh but what the Just says now, that is not encouraging at all. It actually gives Caspian cause to turn and glare at Edmund. The other man doesn't know about their friendship or about how he has had to see Peter depart before, all of them if one counts that day in the square. Edmund has departed the most so there's irony in what he says too, except Caspian is in no mood to recognize it.

"I checked the Hall, he is not there," Caspian says as steadily as possible.

Leave it all to me I will do the right thing;

[wandbreaker]

Edmund raises his hands as if in supplication, to say, just covering my bases. The fact that Caspian is so displeased by the suggestion doesn't escape the Just's attentions, but he sets that fact away for now. He rolls the apple on the counter, thinking. If they cannot find him...

"Perhaps Lucy..." he tilts his head. It's always a last resort, what Edmund is about to suggest, at least in his opinion. "...perhaps she can ask Aslan." The lion always did like the youngest ruler of Narnia best, or at least it seemed that way. Aslan would certainly know, but if it was stupid, if Peter was simply...

There was no 'Peter was simply', except perhaps lost. Peter would not shirk his duties as a king lightly, or as a brother ever, even if it was to be bossy and irritating. "Or is that overreacting?"

Leave it all to me I will do the right thing;

[treadingdawn.livejournal.com]

He is far from supplicated but under a few slow deep breaths he's calmer. So it seems.

"If Aslan has an answer, if Aslan is able to tell us." The way Caspian speaks bears a trace of despair creeping into his tone. He tries not to let it get the best of him, tries so hard to remain faithful through everything they go through, through everything they have been through, will be through. He has no way of knowing this is another presentation of a theme set for the rest of his life. Caspian shakes his head again. "It isn't overreacting, it is the right thing to do," he says, knowing the great lion cares for Peter as much as they do. Right?

But back to overreacting. This is overreacting. Without warning the Telmarine lashes out at the nearest object. Objects really as he knocks over a stack of drying pots and pans, creating a shamelessly noisy clatter. It is the same a angrily asking: why is this happening.

Leave it all to me I will do the right thing;

[wandbreaker]

Edmund is glad for the distance between the kitchen and his youngest sister's room right now. While Susan would look at this and see Caspian's temper as overreaction, and worry for Caspian's sake, Lucy would see this as pure concern on Caspian's part for Peter, and she would worry for the both of them. Edmund, on the other hand, recognizes an overreaction when he sees it.

Would Caspian act this way if the Just disappeared? Or Lucy? Or Susan? Edmund doesn't know.

"I'm sure you've taught those pots a lesson. They'll know better than to ever dare dry themselves there again," Ed says dryly, not a hint of sarcasm or humor in his voice. He knows that it's serious. He knows that Caspian is worried. "Perhaps you should tell Lucy to go see Aslan tomorrow."

Someone certainly has to, and while Ed would be happy to do it, he wonders if perhaps Caspian feels like if he has some measure of control, his temper will cool.

Leave it all to me I will do the right thing;

[treadingdawn.livejournal.com]

Once he went to visit a certain witch over the disappearances of the Just followed by the Magnificent. That overreaction turned out nearly fatal. He hasn't told Edmund about this incident, yet. Have the girls? He can only hope not lest the dark haired brother learn how irresponsible he was then. But every Son of Adam has made a mistake before. Is it forgivable? Perhaps all that matters for that past incident is that Susan and Lucy forgive him. Forgave him

"I can do that," he nods, not even bothering to address Edmund's dry remark because he knows it was never meant to be humorous or sarcastic. Caspian recognizes displeasure. He moves to pick up the fallen objects, just another small measure of control he can handle.

Leave it all to me I will do the right thing;

[wandbreaker]

Edmund doesn't know, but he would certainly disapprove, and understand. There are temptations that Edmund knows better than anyone, temptations that he knows better than to scold people over.

He sighs and leans over, picking up strewn pots, helping. "We'll sort this out, Caspian," he says to the Telmarine, more reassuring than anything. "Peter wouldn't be so irresponsible. Whatever this is, it's something we can fix, I'm certain of it." That won't save Peter from getting a private scolding from his younger brother for worrying all of them, and it won't save Peter from dealing with his other sibling's tempers.

"I'm sure whatever is happening, Peter will be fine." He usually is.

Leave it all to me I will do the right thing;

[treadingdawn.livejournal.com]

He says nothing as they pick up the pots and pans together. It may be rude of him too to not respond to those words of reassurance, but Caspian believes Edmund truly understands. They don't have the same kind of friendship as the High King and Telmarine King do, however that doesn't exactly change how well one person can know the other, especially when they are family. He doesn't think Edmund will mind his silence. Then just like that, Caspian notes how Peter's disappearance had followed Edmund's timely arrival. Was it meant to be that way? Is it why the Just remains, calm and controlled, when he cannot be? It makes sense but at the same time makes the situation sound premeditate. He won't stoop to that level of skepticism.

"I hope so, Edmund," finally he speaks, "I really do."

Leave it all to me I will do the right thing;

[wandbreaker]

Edmund does understand. His relationship with Peter had been difficult, once, but after fifteen years of ruling together, of being the High King's right hand, Edmund's relationship has long since been patched. He remains calm because the Just rarely panics, even when there's nothing to be done about a situation.

"Stay here tonight," he suggests, and it's very different from a command. "I'll take Destrier and go out, and keep searching for him." You need rest, are the words Edmund doesn't say. "The girls need one of us to be here." That's not precisely a lie, but it isn't the strict truth: Susan and Lucy are both more than capable of holding it together, but Peter would have liked one of them to stay with the girls; not because they're girls but because they're his little sisters.

Because now we say goodnight from our own separate sides;

[oshutup.livejournal.com]

He finds his brother sorting through a room one level below ground floor. It is one of the few remaining rooms left unsorted, or it was until now. What Edmund looks for, Peter doesn't know, but he hovers like someone who is there in full form instead of someone invisible and breathless. Peter has found the Just before, but never with an opportunity to speak such as the one that the younger Pevensie uncovers now. Not a record player, but the device is familiar, and as all of Peter's efforts toward communication through the device have gone absolutely nowhere, he has for some time now surmised that he has to understand the mechanics of the thing he speaks through, at least loosely. Before this he never thought he would have reason to need to further understand the workings of the network speakers, but then, he didn't think he would need to know how to move air without being there to move, or to say something to anyone long after death itself.

Why this place holds him in this stagnating unknown is beyond him, but the pressure seems to build by the day. Peter is tired of reaching for the people he loves and not being able to do more than that. He is tired of being a nothingness whose own existence is contradictory, a non-living paradox that only serves to frustrate him more as time goes on, seemingly with and without him all at once. Hardly forgotten, but that too bothers him. If he had been let go, he could at least be with them, albeit with the fearful difference of summer warmth and winter's cold, but a presence is a presence. Even if he had been taken from this place, there would be some closure for them.

As it is, there is neither the first nor the second and he doesn't know what to think anymore, directing all of his attentions into the gramophone, eliciting at first only a crackle of air, but it's clear that Edmund hasn't caused it himself and he knows that his brother has worked on even less indication than that and come to accurate conclusions before. He'll understand.

The crackling break in the silence would only mean one thing, after all.

Pay attention.

He seems to be asking people that a lot lately, but it simplifies things when he's certain they are attentive and not in a state when they think they might have imagined it or dreamed it. For Peter is not an imagined being, not a dream, not a dream of a dream; he's real, for all that life has left him, and the divide between here and not here is as wide as ever.

Maybe more so now.

Because now we say goodnight from our own separate sides;

[wandbreaker]

The Just is going through this room precisely because it was unsorted: it holds the kind of things that Edmund imagines an old house should, things that he would expect to find in a house belonging to their grandmother. Old appliances, pieces of furniture lying about waiting to be reclaimed, trinkets and baubles, moldering lace. Nothing that Edmund would want to keep, except maybe a lamp that's relatively handsome and looks like with some tinkering might look nice on his bedstand, which he is holding now and examining closely.

The question of why the second youngest ruler of Narnia (in a way, at least) is going through an old room of junk instead of being above and looking for Peter is a far less simple question to answer. The truth, he supposes, is that he's tired. He's tired of looking and finding nothing, of questioning people and discovering nothing, of examining places and finding nothing. He doesn't want to imagine that his older brother is dead - once, maybe, but he was younger and far more stupid back then - but now he's trying to avoid coming face to face with that possibility.

So this is his distraction.

Sadly the lamp does not survive the drop when the crackling interrupts Edmund's look. He swears mildly and looks around, quickly saying, "Who's there? Shadow?" It might be the cat, the cat follows Edmund around everywhere, probably conscious of the fact that Edmund doesn't like too many cats...of the non-leonine variety, anyway. His eyes peer out into the dimness.

Because now we say goodnight from our own separate sides;

[oshutup.livejournal.com]

There is the memory of a wince as the lamp shatters, but it is short, an impulse thought of a reaction, taking second seat with all immediacy to what he came here to do. The first word that leaves him is a word he has probably uttered more of late than he has in his entire life...or had, which would be funny he supposes, under different circumstances, but given different circumstances, he knows even more likely it would be a moot point.

"Sorry," his voice sounds like an old recording, threaded with the popping noise of waves that crackle against consonants that require the listener to really attend in order to discern. "Ed, it's me."

There is no subtlety here save for the automatic, that being his lack of a form, but that is in its own way all the more startling, abrupt and unkind but Edmund for all that he is younger is also a King of Old, is Peter's second and not just for duels or kingship (once, once) but in everything. This, it will never change. For that, he both entrusts and requires a certain strength from him even as he wishes to be a bit kinder and finds it--as often it can be--a little less obvious in handling as opposed to how he spoke to Susan. Susan and he share a different connection, that of the eldest, that of those never going home.

Well, not to one home, at least.

Sadness is a thin foundation, and there is something stronger before it, under it, but it was easier to slip into the role of someone who comforted rather than what he tries to sort out now; how to transfer into the set of someone ready to instruct. It isn't that he has never given orders before, obviously, but this isn't an order. It's a lot more than that and Peter's beginning to think there isn't a word to do it justice, so he forgoes trying to think of it any further.

"Ed?"

Listen. I'm not good at this. There's something that keeps me leaving.

I'm sorry.

Because now we say goodnight from our own separate sides;

[wandbreaker]

Edmund is not superstitious - something about meeting actual witches and minotaurs sort of makes one abandon superstition - but the first thought that comes to mind is ghost. He doesn't know why, and he pushes the thought away, his eyes quickly narrowing in on the gramophone. He's pretty sure that his mother still has one in their home in London.

"Peter, where are you?" the Just isn't going to waste time ascertaining that it is in fact the High King. There's no one else, and Edmund is too logical to let the shock make him ask stupid questions or scold. Whatever is going on might be temporary.

There is a great deal that the Just hears in his brother's voice, but he's not going to waste time asking questions about that right now, even though he's angry and wants to punch his older brother in the face for making Lucy cry and Susan worry and Caspian have his mysterious emotional reaction.

Because now we say goodnight from our own separate sides;

[oshutup.livejournal.com]

"I'm here," he knows how thin that sounds, weak, and he hurries so quickly to follow it that there is only, briefly, a series of crackles, like the air popping and the gramophone itself threatening to stop working. He closes the sound, tries to cut off what he was initially trying to feed into it, and when there is only the almost listless, background snap of the machine, he tries again, his voice soft in a way it would have been during a duel's respite if he hadn't been approaching desperate. He had been though, and that's more water under the bridge even if he tries to ignore its origins. Fear is not a look or feeling Peter will ever be comfortable with or allow himself to be resigned to, but he feels it sharply now, more, heavier even though there is nothing left of him for anything to weigh upon.

"I haven't a lot of time," he warns, his voice much stronger now, stronger than the gramophone can take credit for. This, this is all Peter, all the brother who finds himself both relieved and appreciative that Edmund believes it is him from the start, that he doesn't waste time, that in a sense, he just knows. For a moment, his brother looks his true age too, and Peter wonders if it's only death that lets him see flashes of years they haven't had reason to think of in ages--metaphorical for them, and devastatingly literal for others they never meant to leave behind.

Because now we say goodnight from our own separate sides;

[wandbreaker]

Here. Edmund doesn't swear, even though he wants to. That means that Peter is incorporeal (Edmund hesitates to use the word dead) and Edmund doesn't know how to fix that, if there's even a way to fix it. "What do you need me to do?" Edmund is nothing if not a competent lieutenant, even if he judges for himself the validity of any order given him. "Do you expect me to tell Lucy?"

Despite the fact that the youngest Pevensie is more equipped to deal with this than any of the other siblings, Edmund thinks, just after the fact. But he knows Peter will try and protect the Valiant over anything else he does.

He vows, in his own way, to kick Peter hard in the head for all of this, when he gets back, because even if Edmund has to go to the deities to get him back, he will.

Because now we say goodnight from our own separate sides;

[oshutup.livejournal.com]

There is no point in explaining how he didn't mean to die but did mean very much to save Rosella, so he doesn't, but maybe Edmund feels the room suddenly threaded with a breeze that by all rights cannot be there at all. They are below ground level and there are no windows.

"No," he leaves it at that as far as Lucy is concerned. He has not been able to come up with a single way to approach the Valiant, or to have someone else do it, and he's near to concluding that there is no way to do so, but it leaves him hollow, a bone bare idea of how to right a wrong and the failure at the end of the line. "...just, stop looking, don't spend more time on," me, "this." He pauses, but there is no breath here, not even through the grain of the machine's hum and echo. "...if there's a way to fix this, I will. Until then you're none of you to do anything for the situation...no deals." He flat out says it because he knows Edmund, knows the practicality of the Just and the unconquerable fight in him to make things as he believes--as he knows--they should be. His title is there for a reason, but it's more about the heart under the crown than the crown alone.

"...understand?" It's not that he thinks Edmund doesn't, but he has to make it entirely clear, has to be a little harder with him, not because the Just wouldn't get his meaning otherwise, but because the truth isn't soft. It's sharp. Sometimes it leaves marks. They all know this.

Don't make me turn it into an order.

Not like this.

Because now we say goodnight from our own separate sides;

[wandbreaker]

Edmund scowls, now: he doesn't like the sound of any of this. He doesn't like the sound of this becoming a fight, because he knows that's exactly what it will be if he argues, and they might not have time for a fight, not one with a resolution. He doesn't like leaving Lucy in the dark about it, not when she's been so miserable about the whole affair. He doesn't like the fact that he can't do anything, and he doesn't like the idea of giving up. The order fights every bit of bone-deep practicality in the Just.

"You owe her," Edmund says, and they both know that he means Lucy. "You have until the end of the month to sort this, or I'm going to do it myself." That's as much of an agreement as Edmund can come up with for the moment. It's as much of a compromise as he can agree on. This is harsh, but it's what Edmund has. "After that, I can't even promise I can stop Caspian anyway." The Telmarine King has certainly taken this much harder than Edmund would have anticipated.

Because now we say goodnight from our own separate sides;

[oshutup.livejournal.com]

Edmund's words are not untrue and they aren't unfair, but the fact that Peter already knows he owes Lucy at least the truth makes it hurt no less. Ghosts can experience every emotion a living man can, apparently, but all he's had of late are the shadows to contend with. This does not help but it does not hinder what he came here to do either, and at this point he will take what he can get. A deal, a compromise, but it isn't so simple.

Still, he doesn't have time to tell his brother how that's so.

"I know," he agrees and acknowledges, silence slipping in and they're wasting time. He can feel it. In response to the matter of Caspian, however, his response is stark with difference. "You can. Pull rank if you have to. I don't care." It's not entirely the truth; Peter cares, Peter cares too much, but again they don't have time, not here where he can all but feel the approaching presence of the other ghost who still will not reveal itself to him even as it ousts him from this place, time and again. But if Peter knows one thing, it's that Caspian understands his responsibility, his crown, his kingdom earned not given.

When that is brought into sharpest focus, he knows; Caspian won't risk it, and it won't be the command itself if the Just must issue it that holds the Telmarine back. It will simply be knowing what is implied is right.

'Right' isn't often easy, but no one said that it would be, and that is true for all of them.

"I can't tell her now though," he goes back to Lucy, and it's thinking on this more that etches a break in his voice, the first he's shown to anyone, and maybe his brother can pick up on that without needing to be told. If anyone could, it would be him. "Ed, how do I tell her I'm--"

But it's the same push from before, the same wholly surrounding force that interrupts not only his concentration but the translation of his channeling into the gramophone which rocks on the table, but it doesn't fall like the record player did weeks ago. What the remaining Pevensie brother feels is not a breeze this time likely but a gust, as if a trail of storm has funneled its way in, sending papers and other loose knicknacks flying, then clattering to the ground. It's a more violent refusal of his presence and not for the first time, when Peter has his sense about him again, he wonders what it is about him that the other ghost hates so much.

It doesn't occur to him that they have all been long uninvited, but if he was to know what became of said other ghost he would understand only too well; how painful to see someone like you talk to those he loves when you've waited all this time for that self-same thing.

Outside, beneath the tree in the courtyard, he doesn't move. Maybe for hours. Rather, it must be, because the next thing he knows, the sun is rising, but that is the only change here. Scenery.

Peter remains a ghost, here but not here, as he leaves at last to seek out one last being.

He does owe Lucy, but it's not to Lucy that he needs to speak about it with.

Let me find you, he thinks.

And if the being that knows him better than he knows himself is still here, Peter wills himself to believe--because he needs to, because if he doesn't then he has nothing left to try--that his request has been heard.

♪ christmas delivery

[7thborn.livejournal.com]

[On Christmas day, an owl delivers a gold box done up with a red ribbon addressed to Edmund Pevensie. Inside is a batch of homemade cauldron cakes (http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6131/5952634609_69b6aa9e07_z.jpg), not unlike the ones brought along to the Christmas beach party last year. (Perhaps the recipe improved a little.) Attached is a note penned in quill and ink that simply reads, Happy Christmas, Edmund! I hope these find you well and that Sir Weatherby hasn't given you any trouble. Let me know if From, Ginny.]