Tales of the Golden Age ~ Narnia one shots

Gingerbread Houses

Edmund Pevensie sniffed softly as he reached over the counter for the bag of red icing for his candy-cane shaped cookie.

"Are you sure you should be helping with the cookies, Ed?" Helen asked, eyeing her son with a raised brow.

"Yeah, Mum, I'm sure. I'm feeling much better now, I've had this cold for way too long. Plus I washed my hands very well, and I'll try not to breathe as much," he muttered in concentration, actually trying to hold his breath for short amounts of time.

"No, I want you breathing, just not on the cookies," his mum laughed.

"Ed, hurry up I need the icing," Susan said, looking across the room at her younger brother.

"There's another bag of the red over there, Susan," John told her, pointing over to the stove.

"Oh, thank you."

"Can someone hand me a snowflake cookie?" Lucy asked, white icing on her fingers, and Peter gently picked one of the snowflake shaped cookies up from the rack and gave it to his sister.

"Ooo, I think I made this one!" she beamed.

"How can you tell? They all look the same." Edmund frowned.

"Uh, no, mine are neater. Some of you really don't know the right places to put the cookie cutter," Susan put in.

"Yeah, well, mine'll taste better," Peter commented, who was probably using a little too many sprinkles, but if you told him this he'd probably just reply, "you can never have too many sprinkles."

"I think they all look nice and tasty," their father said, and Helen nodded in agreement, although Susan was silently judging her younger siblings' icing capabilities a little.

Just then their little golden retriever puppy, who was technically Lucy's, got up from her spot on the kitchen floor and walked over to sniff the table beside her owner.

"Hello, Holly," Lucy smiled. "I'm sorry you can't have one of these, they're not for dogs. I can give you a treat later, though, if you're a good girl."

"Don't touch the dog," Helen told her quickly. "Not unless you wanna go wash your hands again."

Lucy stuck out her bottom lip in a little pout, then looked down at the golden puppy apologetically. "She can't just lick the icing off?" she asked, then sighed when her mother shook her head.

After a while of silence, Susan spoke. "Remember that time a few years ago when we went to that petting zoo and it was super cold outside?"

"Yes, I remember. What made you think of that?" her mum asked.

"Holly. But I remember being so cold I was convinced I'd never be warm again," she laughed. "It was worth it to see the animals, though, I think we should've picked a warmer day."

"I don't remember this," Lucy said, eyebrows knitting together in her attempt to reach back into her archive of memories.

"You were quite young then," John replied. "You loved the rabbits."

"I swear that reindeer had something against me," Peter shook his head.

Edmund snorted.

"I don't know what I ever did to it."

"What do you mean?" his little sister asked.

"It kept sticking its tongue out at him whenever he came close and tried to pet it." Edmund laughed, and the others did too.

Once the cookies were all iced and the table had been somewhat cleaned off, a gasp came from Peter. They all looked over at him curiously, wondering what treasure he had found in one of the cabinets that had caused him to make the sound. Peter walked back over to the table, carrying a box with him.