₁.₀ YES TO HEAVEN; peter pevensie ✔

026.

She comes barging into his room without bothering to announce her presence first, somewhat anxious as to not let the emotions fuelling her fade away.

"How could you?"

Peter stops in the middle of taking off his boots, one already resting on the ground and the other still in his hands. From his position on his bed, he stares at her with wide eyes, parts of his vision clouded by strands of hair that have fallen out of place. "What?"

He appears tired, justifiably do. Exhausted, even, with his shoulders slumping forward and his movement somewhat slower than usual. It's evident in the way his eyes take longer and longer to open each time he blinks that he was about to follow Birdie's instructions and finally allow himself to rest a bit; and she would be glad to see it if it wasn't for Susan's words still lingering in her ears.

She intended to stop just in front of him and ask the questions burning at her throat while looking down at him, but the weight of it all forces her down. Despite his best intentions, Peter doesn't reach out nearly fast enough to prevent it from happening, and so her knees hit the cold stone below with a thud that resonates through the entire chamber and brings a scowl onto her lips.

Perhaps that's what makes her voice sound so harsh as she whispers, "You didn't come to my funeral."

Peter's breath hitches in his throat and, for a moment, he stares at her blankly, his lips parted. He bends down to place the remaining boot on the floor before straightening his posture, as though to lean away from her, his gaze fleeing somewhere to the side. "It wasn't a real service."

"It might as well have been."

"I... I couldn't..." It seems like he might actually give her a proper response, but Peter only shakes his head dismissively. "What does it matter now?"

Truth be told, Birdie herself doesn't really know the answer to that. What she remembers is how hollow inside it made her feel to hear Susan say those words, how empty. The family she was forced to leave behind, the family whose faces she can't even recall right now... they must have been there, burying an empty coffin. And what did they know about her sudden disappearance, about her supposed... about her supposed death? The man, the Professor, as Peter had called him - apparently, he has been told the truth, however made up it must have sounded; but he was not the only person close to her, was he? Birdie used to have an aunt, too, and a mother, however distant she apparently was - what possible explanation has been given to them?

The worst part about all of this, probably, is the lack of memories. Birdie can't even begin to guess what reasons for her untimely disappearance would seem plausible to her loved ones. That she had drowned, or choked on something, or ran away and met her demise in some place far away from home, hence the absence of a body to put to rest? That she had fallen from a great height, just like it really was?

It almost makes her physically sick to think about it.

Alas, for some reason she can't really properly describe with words, it truly does matter. If Birdie is to cease being reasonable in regard to one matter her entire life, one matter only, then this is going to be it.

"I'm sorry," she begins now, "that you feel like you've been wronged by being torn out of your life here. But at least you got a chance to return home. King or not, you should be thankful for that."

Peter shakes his head once again, his voice eager as he begins to assure, "It's not only about being a king-"

"Over the last few days, I've looked upon myself countless times, you know? I wiggle my fingers in front of my face," Birdie says, moving her hand in a way mirroring her words, "and I think about how this is my hand, and that - my leg, and how this is my body and it is alive. I am alive. After years of feeling like I existed only in relation to you."