Odes of Autumn | A Narnia One-Shot Collection

For What It's Worth

October 6th Prompt: Rainy Days

~

Distant thunder rippled through the sky, it's echo an almost gentle reminder that rain was imminent.

Edmund had curled up with his favorite philosophy book at the earliest hint of sky fall; very much in need of a disconnected afternoon. His moody gray, knit sweater matched the clouds overhead. The neck, frayed from frequent wear, was an object of great interest to the coal-black cat perched in the window beside him.

It didn't take long for him to lose himself in his reading. So lost, between the lines of letters on the page, Edmund didn't hear the approaching footsteps of his older brother.

"Hey." Peter voiced quietly, not wanting to disrupt Edmund's tranquil space.

Edmund looked up as though in a daze, his eye glossed over like a foggy window in the early morning.

"Whatcha readin'?"

There was an unusual awkwardness about the question that seemed to snap Edmund back into the moment.

"One of my philosophy books." Ed answered almost suspiciously.

Peter offered a muted hum in response.

Ed held Peter's gaze as Peter shuffled his feet, which only added to the awkwardness filling the room.

"I uh, I might go fishing."

If Edmund's expression hadn't been confused enough before, it certainly was now.

"Fishing? You're going fishing?"

"Yeah, I thought you could come."

"You thought I could..." Edmund's face was one of pure incredulation.

"Fishing?" Edmund asked again, still needing confirmation that this request wasn't some sort of weird prank.

"I mean...yes?" Peter replied, now entirely unsure what to say.

Edmund's head swung around as though it were perched on a swivel.

"Have you not looked outside, Pete? Or heard the thunder looming in the air?"

Peter's eyes instantly fell.

"Yeah, you're right, it's probably a terrible idea."

Without saying another word, he vacated the room, leaving Edmund in complete and total bewilderment.

Edmund gave the cat a little scratch and picked up his book, shaking his head all the while.

"Fishing?" he asked himself absentmindedly, still unable to process what had just transpired between him and his brother.

Returning to his reading, Ed pushed the encounter out of his mind, not being in the mood for silliness anyway.

But just as he was about to finish the chapter, he heard the shed door close outside.

"He is not..."

Despite Edmund's unbelief, there Peter was, rummaging about the shed for fishing poles.

Edmund mumbled to himself something about confounded absurdity as he watched Peter trek off toward the pond.

Yet there was something about the particular slump to Peter's shoulders that glued Edmund's eyes to his brother's departing form.

Peter's silhouette got smaller and smaller until it was completely enveloped in mist and gone entirely.

A frown settled between Edmund's brows.

Groaning, Ed rose to his feet, leaving the book open to the page he had yet to finish in his vacant seat.

~

"You would drag me out here in my favorite indoor weather." Edmund complained, flopping down on the dock beside his brother.

"I owe you an apology." Peter declared, completely dismissing Edmund's protest. "About what happened with the White Witch."

Edmund froze.

"You don't have to do that, Peter. I know you wouldn't really have brought her back-"

"No, that's the problem, Ed. I thought about it. Maybe I would've, maybe I wouldn't of in the end, but I still considered it. I felt like we were facing a battle we didn't...I didn't have the power to win. I shouldn't even call it thinking really. Cause I wasn't. I was lost."

Silence settled between the brothers as gentle raindrops began to fall, sending tiny ripples through the pond.

Edmund shook the sprinkles from his hair and wiped the rain from the face of his watch.

"Aslan and I had a long talk before we left." Peter finally continued.

"What did he say."

"All the right things...as usual."

Both boys smiled fondly at this remark, a ghost of sadness flitting across their eyes in tandem.

"Narnia deserved better from their king, sure. But you deserved more from your brother. Like it or not, it will always be my responsibility to protect you. And there I stood nearly resurrecting the witch who nearly killed you."

Peter took a shaky breath as Edmund picked at his fingernails, unsure of what to say.

"Forgive me?"

Edmund's cool brown eyes stared up into his brother's bright blue ones.

He swallowed hard as though something in his throat was holding back the words he felt so deeply but struggled to voice.

Nodding instead, Edmund picked up a fishing pole and cast the line.

"For what it's worth," Ed said, his voice somewhere between a laugh and a mumble, "I think fishing in the rain is one of your worst ideas yet."

The sound that followed is called laughter by some, but to them, it was the remnants of magic.