Alliance

Chapter 14- Apsens

Apsens

Latin

Absence

-

and like the hour,

the moon and the

Pleiades have gone

and i,

i sleep alone.

-

Sanya was having an even worse morning than usual.

First of all, she'd woken up. And that too not because of why she usually woke up- Jem- but because the curtains hadn't been closed the previous night and the sunlight had hit her straight in the face.

Second of all, it wasn't even nine in the morning yet- an ungodly hour and a solid few hours before she usually woke up. Not to mention, they had reached Cair quite late the previous night and she had drifted off to sleep even later than usual.

Third, Jem was still sleeping and so she was utterly alone right then.

Which brings us to the last reason.

Edmund wasn't there.

And Edmund was always there when she woke up- she didn't know if he had a sixth sense about it but whether it was morning or afternoon when she woke up at Cair Paravel, she had always blearily opened her eyes to see him dreaming beside her or simply staring at the canopy of the bed or bustling about the room. If he was at Cair, he was there in their chambers whenever she woke up.
Point is, he hadn't ever been absent, unless he had gone to some other place.
And he hadn't told her about going anywhere, not this time.

It worried her, and after a couple of hours' worth of her efforts to sleep going down the drain, her anxiety skyrocketed as well and she quickly but softly woke Jem up, dressed and freshened him before rushing out of the room before he had the chance to ask where his father was.

But he did ask, and when he did, ("Where is Daddy?", with proper verbs and grammar, Sanya thought and thanked her husband mentally- wherever he was) she answered, "That's what I'm going to find out."

"When's the train?"

Sanya decided not to groan- instead, she looked up confusedly, as her brother-in-law's tone was teasing. "Excuse me?"

"You seem in a hurry." Peter explained, having quite forgotten about their 'who's the bigger and better High Monarch' argument. "About to miss a train?"

"What's a train?" She asked, now bewildered.

"I- never mind." He shook his head, only just remembering she would have no clue about trains or anything else of their world. "Where're you and my nephew tearing off to?"

"Oh- we were looking for Edmund-" She neglected to mention how frantic she was, and how she felt like she was falling into a deep, dark well.

"Ed's not here." He shrugged, casually starting to walk.

"What!?" Jem asked, climbing down from his shocked mother's arms. "Where's Daddy?"

"He's- didn't he tell you?"

She stopped anxiously tearing away at the skin of her lips, and said, "Tell me what?"

"Ed left at dawn, on a reconnaissance mission to Ettinsmoor." Peter spoke quietly, not wanting anyone else to hear and find out. "He won't be back till April, at the very least- no fool proof ways of communication, though, so I can't be sure."