"She was exactly like every girl he'd ever met, yet, somehow, different..." Change is hard. It nibbles away at your heart, piece by piece. It destroys, even as it creates. Silently, change controls almost everything. Edmund Pevensie is known to be the moody boy who doesn't like romance- wrinkles his nose at the thought of it. Ignores the girls in his classes; he's not interested. Every chance of love that comes his way, he throws in the opposite direction, all that mushy stuff just isn't for him. But change steps in, or, more like a girl steps in. Not magazine cover pretty- not farm girl plain. No, just a girl. Rita Alden steps into the picture. She smiles- and his heart soars. Talks- even of things he could care less about, and then he's interested. Laughs- and he hopes to be why she does. Cares- and makes the whole world a better place- or, at least, dreary London, a better place. Rita is everything he ever wanted- and she's in love with his brother. ° Edmund knew from the beginning that the trip to America wasn't going to be easy. He knew their boat would be crowded and cold. He knew it would take a few weeks to reach solid ground. He knew the food would be scarce. And yes, life on the boat is pretty awful. But if the normal, mundane life on the boat isn't bad enough, change is on the prowl and it's building issues even as it seems to squash them. Change lies- and believing the lies is easier than believing the truth. Maybe this, maybe that, everything is uncertain when change comes around. And change isn't just in the atmosphere on the move to America; change is the very air Ed breathes, he hates it, but doing anything about it is pointless, change comes whether he wants it to or not, and that's a lesson he's become bitterly accustomed to. When everything changes for the worse- could it ever change for the better? ° Edmund x female oc This story is set 3 ½ years after The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (1947) Cover made by me °

Book 3. A short story of Narnia: The Golden Age. Do read Narnia: The Golden Age books 1 & 2 to understand what is going on. He took out his spyglass and looked. At first, he thought it was a shark so he kept his eyes on it, but the figure did not move much and wasn't particularly interesting, so he went back to his urgent task. Once he had finished, he searched for the shape again, curious to see if it was still there. He could not spot in in the place from before and so he started looking around. Perhaps it was indeed a shark and it had swum away. He spotted the thing floating close to shore and he looked until the sea spit it out. This peered his interest. Whatever it was, it was too far away for Edmund to make out what it was, so he took out his spyglass once more. "A piece of driftwood," he thought. "Or maybe a bunch of seaweed. Or driftwood with seaweed," And then it moved.