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.
Because now we say goodnight from our own separate sides;
"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.