𝑭𝑨𝑳𝑳𝑬𝑵 𝑺𝑻𝑨𝑹 | 𝑒𝑑𝑚𝑢𝑛𝑑 𝑝𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑛𝑠𝑖𝑒

𝐶𝐻𝐴𝑃𝑇𝐸𝑅 𝐼𝐼𝐼

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　　 𝐄𝐋𝐄𝐀𝐍𝐎𝐑 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐄𝐃𝐌𝐔𝐍𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐋𝐃𝐍'𝐓 stop staring in disbelief of meeting again here in Narnia. Despite the nine-year gap between now and the time Eleanor moved to Manchester, it didn't feel odd to see the other. Back then they weren't the best of friends, but they could get along. Edmund would often become cranky, but that was what Edmund was like when he was ten. Filled with hatred for the war and the fact that his father had left him to fight for their country and his older brother Peter didn't exactly help when he decided to act like his father instead. Now that he was older, he understood the want to fight for what was right and Peter's need to fill in the father-figure.

It took a few minutes before Edmund replied as he still couldn't believe that she was there, right in front of him, all grown up. 'Eleanor?' He'd studied her features a hundred times when he'd finally spoken. Her long, brown hair floating in the wind like snow crystals, her pale skin still resembled the snow that fell down in Finchley every year. He'd not thought about the snow and winter in a fond way for those nine years. It was around the time Eleanor'd left that he'd first met the White Witch—a foul ruler of Narnia that had cast a hundred-year long winter upon Narnia and had manipulated young Edmund with his own hatred and selfishness.

A smile edged Eleanor's face at Edmund's still rather sour expression. 'Don't tell me you're still so moody all the time,' she said in a joking manner and tried to hide just how funny she thought she was at that moment.

'Oh shut it,' Edmund replied with a huff, loosening his tense shoulders for a moment. 'Have you learnt how to walk without tripping yet?'

It made Eleanor delighted to see that he hadn't lost his quick wits or sarcasm over the years yet as neither had she. Talking to him brought up so much nostalgia for her. It was easy to talk to him, as if they'd never been apart. 'Not yet,' she said. 'It's a delicate process which takes years to perfect.'

Edmund cocked his head to the side. 'You've had nineteen years to practise.'

'When did I ask for your opinion?'

It was difficult for Eleanor to look away from him. For years, she'd told herself that she would make new friends and that her old friends didn't matter anymore, but seeing him again made her realise just how much she'd missed the Pevensie family.

Edmund cleared his throat awkwardly and began to scratch the back of his neck, his eyes slightly squeezing together to be able to look at her in the sun that had broken through the mist barrier again. 'We uh—we all thought you were dead actually so it's a real surprise to see you here,' he admitted stiffly.

Eleanor furrowed her brows together, completely bewildered by what he'd just said. 'What do you mean?' she asked.

'It was all the papers could talk about. A bomb had exploded next to the Barlowe estate, three bodies found, two bodies missing, seemingly vanished. They'd pronounced your entire family dead two weeks later,' he said. His eyes glided down to her hands folded in front of her stomach and took them into his. 'I'm so sorry to hear about your family. Your parents and brothers—I cannot even begin to imagine what you had to go through.'