Forged in the Fire, Lost to the Flame

Part 1

He knew. When he fell to the oak floors from a life long forgotten, he knew. Spare Oom, The Wardrobe. It wasn't a dream; they were back. Narnia, their people, Cair Paravel, and she were all a world away. Edmund heard the Professor approaching and addressing them, but his hands went immediately to this pockets. Lucy placed a hand on his shoulder and he jumped. One look at her cherub face was almost as if he was seeing a ghost. "It's gone, isn't it?"

Peter and Susan turned their attention to their brother. "Oh, Ed..." Susan whispered.

"What were you all doing in the Wardrobe?" Professor Kirke asked. Edmund could barely hear Peter's reply through the ringing in his ears. If he hadn't been so nervous, he would've never insisted on hunting down that White Stag.

"Edmund," Peter nudged him. "He's gone. We can figure out how to get back." The eldest, a good foot shorter than he was just a few moments ago, scrambled to his feet. "There has to be a way. They need us. She needs you, Ed."

Edmund's stomach dropped and his mind went straight to her face. "Peter, stop," he muttered rushing to stop his brother from busting the back of the wardrobe. "You heard him. It's no use. It's over, it's all over."

From the other side of the room, Lucy clutched her hand to her mouth and Edmund made sure to avoid her sad gaze as he hastened from the room. "This is all my fault." The youngest Pevensie's mind was whirling. She knew that Edmund wanted this day to be perfect. She never should've let the familiarity of the Lamp Post distract her.

Susan had followed Edmund, but Peter remained. His steady arm slung across her shoulders and drew her into his side as she began to cry. "No, Lu, it isn't."

"Ed... Edmund! Talk to me!" Susan chased her brother down the hall. Each fuzzy memory of this place she thought she dreamt was coming back to her making her sway on her feet, but she pushed through anxious to get to Edmund.

Each glance at his hands, that were two times bigger a mere five minutes before, was surreal. His gait was clumsy, having long outgrown the gangly limbs he found himself with once again, but he couldn't stay in that room. The child faces of his brother and sisters, the ghosts of who they no longer were yet became again, made him ill. There was no denying the obvious truth. There was no use. Iris- the girl who stumbled into Narnia from their birth land in his fifth year as the Just King, the girl he protected and grew to love, the girl he planned to propose to that very night was an entire world and lifetime away. Edmund was devastated.

He collapsed onto the bed clutching a pillow tightly over his head. The slight dip of the mattress and the subtle pressure of his sister's hand on his shoulder meant that she had found him. "I'm so sorry, Edmund."

Although he did crave a moment alone, he was glad Susan had followed him. If Lucy or Peter were at his bedside, they would fill his head with false hope of finding some way back home. He didn't need valiant bravery and unwavering blind faith in happy endings. What he needed was Susan and her gentle truth. She would let him grieve with dignity- acknowledging the immensity of what he had lost.

"What will become of her?" he muttered, not able to even speak her name.

"Narnia will care for her. Mr. Tumnus, the Beavers....Aslan. She'll be named Queen no doubt. Our people love Iris, because you did."

"Aslan... He brought her to us. How could He let this happen, Su?" Susan sighed, tugging at a loose thread in the duvet and choking back the sudden onset of her own homesickness.