₁.₀ YES TO HEAVEN; peter pevensie ✔

023.

author's note

Let me tell you, there's no better time for planning out the remaining parts of a fanfiction than going to Prague for a city break with your friends, only to get stuck there as railroads leading back to your country are closed because of the flooding, forcing you to buy an extremely overpriced plane ticket so you can get back home.

de-lia

🍂

She nearly turns on her heels once she spots the lone figure standing in front of Aslan's image.

Then again, it has been a few days since the faces belonging to the Pevensie siblings were first seen inside the How. As much as her heart ached the entire time, Birdie allowed it to pass without holding a single conversation with any of them. She secluded herself to her rooms - a modest yet quaint chamber, far too small to house both herself and her raging thoughts - since she wasn't ready to face Peter just yet. And, as foolish as one may think it, she figured that, if she wasn't speaking to him, it would be unfair to take a different approach towards his siblings.

It's frustrating, when one's emotions (emotions, because, no matter the storm inside her heart, her general feelings remain unchanged) contradict each other. After all, Peter is the one in whose company she wishes to be the most, the only one she longs for. She knew that even before she made an attempt to sort out the rest of the troubles tugging at her insides.

Perhaps a coincidence such as this one is exactly what she needs.

Besides, it's obvious from the way his back straightens and his shoulders tense that Peter is already aware of the other presence in the room. Had she not stopped so abruptly upon entering, he probably might have taken her for anyone, but that one action must have been enough to reveal her identity.

And so, she inhales deeply in a poor attempt to collect herself, before stepping further into the room. "He won't respond," she begins, and it comes out somehow unnatural, because she has no idea what manner of speaking she should adopt in a situation as fragile as this one. "I believe I've tried everything: pleading, demanding… bargaining, even. Still, no answer ever came." And then, after a second or two, "Not to me, at least."

"And yet it feels like I have a better chance of getting one from him than from you."

There was a time when it would have been nothing but a teasing remark; now, it feels nothing like it.

He doesn't move once she stands beside him, so close their arms could brush against one another should one move an inch into the other's direction, but she can't resist stealing a glance at his face. There's a stern look to it, his jaw clenched and lips pressed right as he stares ahead at the sculpture of the Great Lion. She recognises it well enough, the way his entire frame becomes tight as a rope when he feels angry or frustrated, or stubborn. And yet, with fire illuminating his features golden, he looks every inch a king.

"I'm sorry," she says, because she is, in fact, sorry, even though she can't imagine having behaved another way. "I needed to gather my thoughts, and now that I have, I would like for us to talk."

"So that's what you have been busy with, those past few days? While I was hoping to see you each time I crossed a corner in these bloody tunnels-"

Birdie crosses her arms in front of her chest. "You knew what I was doing, I told you that I needed to think."

"Of course," Peter scoffs. "It's always about thinking with you."

It stings a little, like a needle being thrust underneath her fingernail. Birdie has known for a long time - forever, perhaps, for it could have simply been written around her bones like a spell the moment she had been born - that she much prefers thought over action. Not always, but in general it is true. Especially when the thing she faces is something entirely new to her, unfamiliar and strange, and needing to be studied first, in order to adopt the most fitting course of action if necessary; it's part of the reason she finds so much solace in gardening, in working with both the soil and plants, and all the remaining elements likewise. It's a physical activity, after all, which often bears both literal and metaphorical fruit, but only should it be based upon a solid base of knowledge.