Where wilt thou fly, how shun the blow?
What work, what palisade behind?
Night of the mind!
-

"Do you want some saltines-"

"Ugh, for the last time, no!"

Susan tried again, "But it helped you-"

"When I was pregnant!" Sanya burst out- she wished she could sit up to showcase her annoyance further, but her stomach was churning so much. It was as though someone was perpetually knotting and unknotting her insides.
Ugh, she'd rather be stabbed again.
"I'm not pregnant now, am I? I'm just- I'm-"
Sea-sick.
She, descendant of Poseidon, the God of the Seas, was sea-sick. Sea-sick!
"Just- stop talking, and give me one of those bags."

The older girl could hardly hide the disgust on her face as she picked up a paper bag, and handed it to her sister-in-law.
If she wasn't already aware of her distaste towards doctors, then Susan would have recommended Sanya go to the on-ship medical care.
"Have you ever been on ships before?" She asked, her eyes on the two bunks on the other side of the room- it was a shared quarter, Sanya and she on one side and two other girls on the other.
Her parents were close-by, but she was privately grateful that they weren't in the same room. She liked privacy.
"Back in- in India?"

Sanya was too nauseated to tell her that there was no need to keep up the false backstory.
"Yes. Not often- and just to visit my aunt, but yes, I have. I was never seasick then-"
Maybe because she'd had her powers then, unrealised or not. They'd kept her from being ill on the water.
"I hate this! A week and a half it's been, and I've barely left this stupid room."
And she'd been so deliciously imagining standing by the deck at all hours of the day, and looking at the waves, or sitting there and reading by the light of the sun or the Moon.
At least she wasn't feeling claustrophobic- yet.
She felt so sick and weak, she wasn't even able to cover her chest-scar with concealing powder yet, like she usually did while out of her room, dorm, or the Rainsford house. She didn't really care about people seeing it- she just did not want to be bombarded with questions, likely paired with ostentatious concern, about it all the time.
It was definitely a good thing her pyjamas had high enough necklines to cover the faint, but clear, scar below her collarbone.

"Well," Susan started, still keeping her eyes averted, "at least because of your seasickness, the other two girls are avoiding being here as much as possible. It's nice to be left alone, is it not?"

Yes, it was. Sanya very much loved to be alone.
"True." She admitted, making Susan smile in triumph. "Are there any whales out there?"

She blinked, "Where did whales come from?"

"Moby Dick."
Edmund had been reading the book a few days before school had ended- he'd summarised it as 'obsessive sailor chasing a very wicked whale across the high seas for revenge'. She had thought Moby Dick was the sailor- but it had turned out to be the whale.
What a stupid thing to name a whale. She hoped the whale ate all the sailors at the end.

"You've read Moby Dick?" Susan asked, surprised again. Sanya had not even been in this world three full years yet, but she was almost certain she had read more books than any of them.

"No, but I know it has a whale."

"Yes, it does." She'd seen the illustration of the whale on top of the library. "I think it's rather a long book, isn't it?"

"Yes," Sanya nodded- Edmund had said it had a hundred and thirty-five chapters, "but after Anna Karenina, nothing can intimidate me anymore."
Except for War and Peace. The length of that book was terrifying.

"I liked Anna Karenina." Susan said, thinking back to when she had read that when she was fifteen. She quite liked the name 'Anna', too. "But I kept getting all the characters muddled up- with their nicknames, or the same names, and I thought Anna married her brother at some point-"

"Yes, the names are very confusing. The author doesn't even try to help the reader." She rolled her eyes. "Did you know there are parties here?"

Her sister-in-law looked confused, "Parties? On the ship?"

Sanya nodded, "I heard one of the girls say there were parties happening in the lower decks when they thought I was asleep."
She hadn't been to the lower decks, or to a party, ever- she assumed Balls didn't count, since they were in another world- and she did not ever intend to, but Susan would like it. She'd always enjoyed dolling up and attending events.
"The parties are there almost every night, apparently. You should go."

"And what, dance with a nice girl who'll start screaming if I try to hold her hand?" Susan snorted. She would have enjoyed the parties, though- she could dance with men, if she had to. "No, thank you. I'd rather sit here and nurse my sick sister-in-law back to health."
She reminded herself that there would be dances and parties in Boston- far more respectable affairs than dancing and drinking in the underbelly of a ship.

"I won't be back to health until I stand on solid ground."
At least she hadn't vomited in an entire hour- it was a record. And because she was so sick, she didn't have to attend breakfast- at the ungodly hour of seven-thirty, it was like being back in school- and Susan would bring up some dry toast for her.

She had Milkshake, her puppy plushie, in her suitcase- her best comfort now- but if she brought it out, she would be laughed at. As much as she did not give a single fuck about others' opinions- being laughed at was as sickening as being on a boat.

She had a photograph of Edmund in her suitcase, too- but that brought her more sorrow than comfort, so she was trying to not look at it.

She was usually failing.

"How far are we from America?"

"At least two and a half weeks, Dad said."

"Maybe I should throw myself off the deck, and I can swim there." Sanya mused. Her stomach had been somewhat calm that day- but it was wont to change at any moment. Like her heart. Perhaps entrails felt heartbreak. "Either I die or I reach there without vomiting, both of which are good-"

"Your death is not good." She said sharply. "Don't say things like that."

"Susan, darling." With the hand that wasn't holding the paper bag, she took her sister-in-law's hand. "Death is very good. You know what death is? Death is rest. Death is eternal respite from life."

"It's not good for the people who outlive you." She said, still in that sharp tone, but couldn't bear to pull her hand away.
She was so warm, Susan thought. Was that fever, or was she just naturally like that?

"They'll die someday, too." Just like she would- and she'd see her family again. "We'll all be together, in heaven or in hell."

"You're definitely delirious." Susan decided. It was thankful that the other two occupants of the room were yet again out- no one needed to hear Sanya's blabbering. She was afraid they might try to perform an exorcism on her. "Go to sleep. I'll wake you up when I bring supper."

"I'm not delirious." Sanya rolled her eyes once again. "I am depressed."

"And depression comes with waxing philosophically about death, does it?"

"Would you rather I wax poetic? About what?" She pretended to ponder. "The vomit-bags in the rubbish-bin they haven't cleared up yet? Or about your pretty, pretty eyes?"

She gave her a severely unimpressed look, "One of those things is not like the other."

"Don't care." Sanya said, and lay back down. She sighed deeply, and tried to remember if she'd had the vitamins Dr. Wright had prescribed.
Technically, she'd been supposed to stop having them in December- but she'd asked him if having them would be detrimental to her health at all, and he'd said no. In fact, he'd quite encouraged her to keep having them.
"Sorry. I'm being difficult, am I not?"

"If I can handle Peter, I can take you."

"I'm a better fighter."

Susan laughed, "I see no sword here, do you?"

"I can fight without weapons." She replied with a small grin, and squeezed Susan's hand. "You're already in a vulnerable position, Susie."

"Don't call me that, it's bad enough that Ed does-"

In an instant, her grin vanished. The one good thing the nausea had done, was take her mind off Edmund- off the heartbreak. When you spent your days throwing up and swallowing down bile, there wasn't much time left to ruminate upon broken hearts.
"Please don't say his name."

"Sanya-"

"I don't want to talk about it." She snatched her hand away, crossing her arms over her chest- like in Snow White, but with a paper bag instead of a bouquet of flowers.

The year before, she and Susan had been to see Dear Octopus- for, even though it was true they didn't spend time together in school, Sanya had wanted to get out of school and Susan liked Margaret Lockwood. She liked Vivian Leigh, too.
Sanya personally preferred Ingrid Bergman- and the actress who played Martha in that movie last year- what was her name?
Oh- Gene Tierney. Yes, she was very stunning. And then there was Lauren Bacall- she and Susan both liked her- and-

She was getting off topic.

The cinema, however, had lost the film, and they had played Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs instead, even though that had come out six years prior.
It had annoyed Susan greatly, because she'd been looking forward to gazing at the actress's face for an hour and a half- but Sanya hadn't minded one bit.
She'd loved Snow White. She really enjoyed Disney films- she'd seen Bambi, The Reluctant Dragon, and Dumbo.
She had been told they were children's films- but that just made her love them more.
If she had children in this world- and she didn't lose them in the womb again- she'd take them to see Disney films.
"Good night, Susan."

Susan knew when to quit- with Sanya's current temperament, there was simply no point to coaxing her to open up. She doubted she would open up- though she had seen her scribbling furiously in her diary a few times.
"It's only six in the evening." She said lightly. "Do you want to play cards? I think the girls in the quarter next door have go fish- have you ever-"

Fish.
That made her stomach turn again, as she remembered how smelly fish could be, and how fish came from water, and the boat was currently treading water, which was making her seasick- and Sanya emptied out the contents of her stomach into the paper bag.
Again!
--

Edmund wondered whether- through the duration of the next few months that he'd be staying in Cambridge- if there would ever come a day he did not want to beat up his cousin.

He'd hoped he and Lucy were to share a room- that would have made things just a teensy bit better- but no, apparently it was 'improper' for a girl and boy past the age of thirteen to share a room. He did not understand his aunt's logic at all- he and Lucy were siblings!

And so she had her own room tucked away, and he had to sleep on a coat set up in the room of the dreaded cousin.

He'd also hoped that the Scrubb home had books to read. They did- on the dangers of alcoholism, and the dangers of smoking, and the dangers of eating meat, and about republicans. The last one wasn't about the dangers, the books on the topic were wholeheartedly in support.

While Edmund did agree on alcohol and smoking being dangerous, and while he definitely saw the advantages of a republic replacing the monarchy- these were not books he wanted to read. And he'd never been overly fond of meat- unlike Sanya, who adored meat dishes- but calling non-vegetarians murderers in the opening paragraph was a bit much.

The house was strange, too. Neat- too neat- and so sparse, he and Lucy had wondered if the Scrubbs were in the process of moving. There was hardly any furniture- and none of the clutter that always took up space in a home. There wasn't even a working telephone! His aunt said that they were going to get it fixed the next day- but that day never came.

His aunt and uncle were even stranger. His uncle was more of a vegetable than the vegetables mentioned in the books- the only times Edmund had seen him move in the past three weeks, had been to reach for butter or marmalade during breakfast- and his aunt was more a day-planner than a human or mother or wife. And Eustace called his parents by name, something they encouraged- ridiculous!

But Eustace was the real problem. Oh, the fourteen-year-old- or thirteen, maybe, Edmund did not care to remember when his birthday was- was a nuisance, and he would need at least eighty thumps on the head to have some common sense and goodness knocked in.
The former Just King felt it just might be his duty to administer those eighty bumps.

"Keep your dead bugs off my bed." He seethed, taking the cardboard- with the aforementioned dead insects pinned on it meticulously- and throwing it across the room to where Eustace had just entered. "Or I'll make you eat them, Eyebrows."

"Oh, as if you could!" Eustace shot back shrilly. "You haven't the nerve, cousin."

Edmund advanced threateningly, "You'd be surprised what I have the nerve for."
He had been ready to risk death at the age of twelve to defeat the White Witch. Eustace was speaking nonsense.

"You can't hit me!" And he pointed tremulously towards the doorway. Despite his surety that his cousin wouldn't attack him- well, it was intelligent to be cautious! "The door's open! Alberta! Harold! Alberta!"

"Your mother goes out to check her vegetable garden at this time." Edmund had memorised his aunt and uncle's routine by the end of half a week. It wasn't as though he had any plans to sneak out or sneak something in- but it was good to be prepared. "And your father isn't getting out of his armchair unless there's a fire. If even then."
It was a Saturday, and so he was not at work. He wondered if his uncle sat all the time at work as well.
"There's no one to save you, little Eustace."

"I am not little! I'm perfectly above average height and size for my age, might I say-"

"No, you may not." He cut him off. What a nuisance. The only boundary Eustace hadn't crossed was that he hadn't yet rifled through Edmund's and Lucy's luggage. "Did you see Lucy on your way up?"

"She went out to get the mail. Guests help out, you know." He said pointedly.

Despite Eustace's presence- for a moment, Edmund was elated. Mail- letters- from Peter, from Susan- and, most importantly, from Sanya-

Then reality dawned on him. It took a month, give or take, to sail from England to the United States. They would still be on the ship, somewhere on the Atlantic Ocean.

But that wasn't the worst part of the reality that dawned upon him. The worst part was that, even if Sanya was somewhere where she could send letters from- she wouldn't. She would write to Lucy, perhaps- probably?- but not to him.

And if he wrote to her- as he itched to do, even though he didn't know what to write- she would not reply. Edmund wasn't even sure if she would read his letters. She'd most likely tear them into tiny pieces- or throw them in the fire- or something similarly destructive.

He could not blame her.

The most he could hope for was mentions of her in Susan's letters.

"Mail means letters and parcels sent by the post." Eustace said, after several seconds of silence from his rude cousin. He quite literally counted the days until he and his other cousin left him alone. "In case you didn't know."

"Shut up, Eustace, or I'll thump you."
Once he had been the greatest swordsman in Narnia- and now he was reduced to issuing threats to his nasty cousin whilst moping about his wife. Ugh. And he had thought his first adolescence had been horrible.
At least there were no chances of getting stabbed by an ice-wand in this world.
He spared a glance at Eustace's desk, littered with more boards with insects pinned on them, "What's your fascination with entomology?"

"They're very interesting, and they don't take up half your room."

"I can take up your entire room, if that's better." Edmund offered easily. "Perhaps you can sleep in the wardrobe. There might be a world full of bugs in there, waiting just for you."

"A world in a wardrobe? Don't make me laugh." Eustace spoke, snorting rather derisively. He bent down and picked up the cardboard his cousin had tossed at him. "Don't touch my specimens."

"Don't keep them on my cot."

"It's still my room. I can keep my things wherever I please. Of course, I could always keep my bugs in Lucy's room-"

"Don't you dare." Edmund's hands curled into fists, and he took a step towards his horrible cousin.
If he tried that, he'd throw him down the stairs- Lucy was terrified of insects.

How long would they have to endure this?
Goodness, if they'd had enough money, he and Lucy could have gone to America as well- or if they had more than enough money, they could have put up at an inn, or something!
Anything was better than here.

It did not come to Edmund's mind often, how much poorer his family was in this world than in Narnia- but when it did, it irked him greatly.

"Why?" Eustace had no idea of Lucy's phobia. "There's enough space- she doesn't need that picture of Susan and Peter on the table, does she-"

"Edmund!"

That was Lucy, calling from downstairs- which was a thankful thing, for Edmund had been contemplating throwing his cousin out of the window. It wasn't a very high window- he'd break a limb or two, at most.
Obviously, he was joking. Contemplating violence was not committing it.

Edmund stuck his tongue out at Eustace, who sneered at him- and the older boy shoved the younger as he traipsed out of the room, to the only person in this household he liked.

"Hey, Lu." Edmund greeted, finding Lucy standing next to the staircase. She was frowning into the drawing room- either it was at the armchair, or it was their uncle on said armchair. "How's the mail look?"

She turned and shook her head, looking sad.
"No letter from Peter today." She had expected that- they'd just had one from him two days ago. He was no doubt busy with his apprenticeship and studies, and all else- but it disappointed her. "Nor from Susan."

"Well, Su's on the Atlantic, sweet sister, I doubt she can send letters from the middle of the ocean."

"I know- part of me was just hoping that they'd finish the journey early, by way of some miracle." Lucy sighed. "How did you know I was getting the mail, by the way?"

On instinct, Edmund made a face.
"Eustace."

"You need to learn to get along better with him." Lucy said, taking his arm and ushering him to the foyer- it was better than standing around near the staircase, with their vegetable of an uncle right there. "We're stuck here for Aslan knows how long, we need to- to-"

"Adapt?" Edmund suggested, finding no other word that fit. He highly doubted she would say 'commit arson'. "I know we do, but everything is just- it's awful. I wish school wasn't shut down, it'd be preferable to this."

"You like school, Edmund, so I don't think that's much of a bold statement." She sighed again. This whole situation was built for sighing, which she disliked. She'd always preferred cooing, or giggling. "Do you miss Sanya?"

"How in the world do you always find the most unexpected moments to sneak in talking about her-"
And he was caught off-guard each time! Sherlock Holmes would be very disappointed.

Lucy shrugged, offering up no other explanation- she did continue to peer at him, though, obviously waiting for him to say something.

"Of course I miss her. It's like I'm in a desert, and she's water." That was such a stupid and sappy analogy, but he was never very literarily creative.

I mish-missed you so much, it feh- felt like someone had kh-carved away half of my heart.

That was how Sanya had put it, missing him for a millennia.

Edmund had hoped to never feel such pain.
But now he was feeling it, and it was his fault.

At least she was simply in another continent, not another world. She wasn't lost to him, like he had been to her.

He would see her again- unless, of course, she decided America was better for her, and she settled down there, or she decided to go to India and live her life in the country most akin to her home country, both of which would result in her not returning to England, and his never seeing her again.

He had to stop thinking about those two scenarios, because they did nothing but make him freak out.

He had a photograph of her in his suitcase, one that Lucy had taken, as well as her moon necklace- perhaps that was all he would see of her ever again.

"Yes, I do, to answer your question. Very much."

She wanted to sigh again, but a dreamier, rapturous one this time.
"What's it like being in love?"

He was even more flabbergasted, "Excuse me?"

"What's-"

"No, I heard you." Good golly, he should stayed in Eustace's bedroom and threatened him some more. "And I don't know how to answer the question."
Why did she even want to know!? She wasn't interested in falling in love, she never had been!

"But you are in love-"

"Doesn't mean I know how to describe it."
When Edmund thought of being in love, he thought of Sanya. That was it, the be-all and end-all of the matter.
But that would not make any sense to Lucy.
"Read a sonnet, it'll explain far better than I ever could."

"I don't have a book of sonnets." And she had yet to find a library or bookshop near this house. She would ask Edmund to go with her to have a hunt- he wanted to buy books as much as she did. "But I do have a book of fairytales up in my room."

We are a fairytale.
"That works." He nodded, his voice suddenly gruff. "It works, yeah. Fairytales have love in them."
And they had happy endings, full of togetherness and joy and pomp.

He wondered if he and Sanya would have that- or if they would be stuck in this unhappy middle for the rest of their lives.
--

The Macready had mellowed out a great deal.

However, not enough that she didn't say, "Turned up like a bad penny again, I see."

She had said that the moment she'd opened the door for Peter, who had walked from the station to Professor Kirke's house on his own.
It was a cottage, actually, not a house. It was a quarter the size of his mansion had been- and it was desperately cluttered, full of whatever objects and treasures Professor Kirke had managed to save.
The Professor had apologised that he no longer had a mansion to let him live in. He didn't mind that it was a cottage, though- because, though he had been a High King, Peter had not regal tastes in this world.

He hadn't known what to reply to Mrs. Macready- he had never understood quite how to talk to the stern lady- but he'd simply scowled at her, and she'd scowled back even more fearsomely.
Peter was rather irritable, on account of the long walk and long train journey, and he couldn't help but give in to the impulse of touching the historical artefact his sister had been yelled at for touching all those years ago.
The Professor must have saved it when he had had to relocate- it had been right by the door, sandwiched between the coat-stand and a table with two umbrellas on it.

It had been four years. Four years ago.
It felt so much longer, somehow. Probably because it had been much longer for him, on account of the fifteen years in Narnia.

But apart from that, the Macready was less prone to poking sharply when her victim was loitering, as well as to fewer shrieks of appalment, and according to the Professor, she hadn't had a breakdown that she could no longer look after her beloved roses.

"But everything else is mostly the same." Peter spoke to himself, as he bent over copying some of the Professor's notes into something that could be sent to another Professor. Professor Digory Kirke used too much shorthand, and it fell upon him to elaborate the bits that made no sense to anyone but the Professor.

Paperwork. It was paperwork. Another realm, and he was still dogged with paperwork!
Truly, paperwork was his arch-nemesis.

After finishing a paragraph- the first paragraph, said a snide voice that sounded both like Susan and Edmund- he leaned back in his chair, and stared at the opposite wall.

He wasn't in the Professor's room- honestly, he didn't think he was grown up enough to work in there- but his own room, the spare room he had been given, sitting at a desk that creaked every time he leaned his elbows on it.

With every creak, Peter missed the mansion.

Over the past three weeks, Peter had wandered close to the mansion several times. The cottage the Professor lived in now was not very far from it- it was a very easy walk, in fact. And the mansion was entirely intact, looking as it had when he had first seen it- except lonelier, somehow, which made sense.
The very first day he had come here, he had strolled along to the front gate, his heart beating out of his chest as he stood outside it. The wardrobe was inside, his heart whispered to him. He could so easily sneak in, and go find it.

But he hadn't gone in- he hadn't even tried to.

It wasn't about not being brave enough- he knew he was, because he was no longer the scared fifteen-year-old who had been afraid of killing a wolf to protect his sisters.

He wasn't sure if he wanted to go in.

That wasn't because he didn't want to explore it. It wasn't because he didn't want to go back to Narnia. There was nothing else he wanted more than that.
But he didn't want his hopes dashed- which they might be, if he found he wasn't allowed entry- and if he was allowed entry, and he managed to get inside the spare room with the wardrobe, that he would find fur coats inside it, instead of his home.

Things never happened the same way- that was what Lucy had told him that Aslan has said to her- which would mean the way back to Narnia would not be through the wardrobe again.

Even worse than that, though- he had the worry that, even if the wardrobe led to Narnia, he wouldn't be allowed in. Aslan had said it had been his and Susan's last time there- what if the world simply didn't allow him to enter?

It would crush him, and hadn't he already had enough pain?

To be so close to his home, to his magical land, to Caspian- if another thousand years hadn't passed again- to the air of Narnia, and not be able to go in? He would never recover.

And even if he was let in- it would be without his siblings. It was bad enough that he was with the Professor without them- to go into Narnia as one, instead of four?
Absolutely not.

"It'd be worse than paperwork." Peter muttered to himself.

He hadn't ever really felt lonely. Either he hadn't had the time to- or he simply had never had to feel it. Except for the first year of his life, which he didn't remember, he had always had his siblings. No matter how dejected and rageful and overwhelmed he had felt- he'd known his siblings would forever be there, consciously or otherwise.
But being here, in this tiny house and cramped room, with Susan and Sanya and his parents in America and Lucy and Edmund in Cambridge- he did feel lonely.

I feel so lonely all the time.

If this was how Sanya felt all the time, Peter felt even worse for her than he already had.

Infuriating and pigheaded as she could be- he wanted her to be happy. And he wanted his brother to be happy, too, he always had.

If he could turn back the clock, he would never have suggested going after the mythical White Stag.

To be fair, though, he hadn't truly suggested it- Orieus had mentioned it, in a meeting. Which in turn had prompted Peter and Lucy to look at each other, already excited at the prospect- and soon, the four siblings, then the Kings and Queens of Narnia, had soon decided to go on the hunt.

"Aren't you finished yet?" The Professor asked, walking inside the room. "I thought you wrote fast, Peter-"

"I do, I do-" Peter didn't, "but I'm having to edit things as I go along, which is taking some time. I didn't know the notes were mostly in shorthand."

"Oh, yes-" Professor Kirke looked suddenly sheepish, "I completely forgot. I wrote them when the war was beginning- this one, not the first-"

Sometimes, Peter forgot how old the Professor was, how much he had lived through.
He didn't know why he kept forgetting it, the Professor didn't exactly look young, with his white beard, the rounded glasses old people wore, and the dressing gowns that increasingly became his regular outfit.

"And I was paranoid that some German spy might break in and steal the notes."

He snorted, "I don't think notes about village economics will be of interest to German spies, Professor."

"You never know how they might attack. For all we know, they're out conquering villages as we speak." The Professor replied, apparently serious.
Then he laughed at Peter's expression, helping himself down onto the bed.
"I haven't turned into a conspiracy nut yet, young man. Fret not, there's a long time till I have to be walked to an old age home."

"I doubt you'll ever lose your senses enough for that." Peter shrugged- the old man was very sharp, and more intuitive than he had ever thought.
He had never got a straight answer, exactly- none of his siblings had- but he was rather sure that he had gone to Narnia, too. There was something Narnian about him- he had certainly breathed the air of Narnia once.

When or how or under what circumstances, though- he didn't know. And the Professor was not likely to tell him anytime soon.

But perhaps someday.

"One can never be sure of what the future holds." The Professor said, sounding philosophical and like a kook at the same time. But he also sounded sad- perhaps he was thinking that he had never expected to lose the mansion, his home. "When you were fifteen, did you think you'd be sitting here copying notes?"

"No, paperwork was never in my future." He said, rolling his eyes. He would say it forever- he hated paperwork. "I thought I'd be fighting, actually. The war started the year I turned fifteen, and everyone said it would last longer than the last one."

"Forgive me if I'm overstepping- but why aren't you fighting?" Professor Kirke asked, looking concerned and curious at the same time. "I don't advocate fighting in such an ugly war-"

Battles are ugly affairs.
He wondered where Santa had been during their second visit. He was pretty sure he hadn't died- on account of probable immortality- so it was a mystery where he'd been. Was there a North Pole with elves in Narnia as well?

"But you've always struck me as a warrior. So, why not?"

Because he had been a warrior. For so long, and since he'd practically been a child.
"I don't want to fight anymore." Peter answered quietly.
He had ruminated on this for ages, but he hadn't told anyone.
"If they call up and ask me to enlist," it had happened to more than a few of his classmates, and all those aged over eighteen- every day since turning eighteen two years ago, he was sure his call-up notice would come, but it hadn't yet, "then I will. Of course I will. But otherwise, no. There are other ways to help, and becoming a doctor is one of them. And going into war would mean leaving my family, and I can't do that, they need me."

"But your family isn't here."

"Being in different cities isn't the same as being in the trenches of a battlefield."
He did miss it, though. Battle. The clarity of thought, the adrenaline of fighting and slashing, the purpose and the glory. And if Narnia needed him to fight another war-

He'd answer the call. Of course he would. Narnia was home.

"What about you, though, Professor?" He asked, and the Professor blinked at him. "A fine young man as yourself, you should be out fighting, isn't it?"

"I stopped being young before you were even thought of, boy." He chortled. "Alright, I think it's time you take a break, young man- go have a walk-"

"Oh, but I just started-"
A break sounded really good, though.

The Professor fixed his piercing stare at him, "Do you wish to keep on doing the paperwork?"

Peter capped his pen immediately, getting to his feet after he'd put back the notes in the folder the Professor had handed them in.
"Never." He said very firmly. "A break sounds smashing."
It wasn't just because of the work- though that was a large part of it- but he wanted to call his siblings.

He missed them.

And perhaps Edmund could give him some tips on how to get paperwork over with as quickly as possible.

-
-✧･: °*✧*°:･✧-
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(here, have a meme I forgot to post after Ch19 ☠️)

(Watch Sky High. WATCH IT.)
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The photographs Edmund and Sanya a̶l̶w̶a̶y̶s̶ very rarely glance at during their time apart:

(me using actual pictures of Skandar and Naomi instead of making shitty manips to use?

*le Gasp* what has happened to me⁉️

Also, Sanya does still have her scar, it's just been covered by concealer)
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We see the Professor again! Now wearing his dressing gowns as regular wear, we stan. I wish we all could wear pjs everywhere. That would bring about world- nay, INTERGALACTIC peace, I say. Multiversal, too, maybe.

Honestly, don't have much to say for this chapter. I love author's notes, but there's nothing much to comment on?
It's kind of a transition chapter- as is the next one- for the few chapters after that. Just to ease you into new status quos and new locations.

Okay, but how funny is it that Sanya, descendant of the Sea God, gets seasick, though? Lmao. She just cannot catch a break.

And paperwork will never stop being a pest to Peter. I do feel kinda bad for him, being away from his siblings and basically exiled from his home- even though one doorway to his home is so near.
Maybe I will make him get into Cambridge, someday or the other- he deserves it, I think.

Y'know, Eustace is barely there in the story (sorry to disappoint, my friends), but writing him is so fucking funny. I think it's the eyebrows. Their effect is very profound.

Edmund hoping from letters from Sanya- how sweet, and how never-gonna-happen. She adores you still, but you broke her heart, bro- she is way too stubborn and slightly prideful to write to you, even if it's a casual catching-up letter.
At least he has threatening Eustace to make up for the absence of Sanya that he is responsible for. 🤷‍♀️

And Sanya has throwing up to do, which would just take anyone's mind off heartbreak, no matter how deep. Maybe the seasickness is a gift.
(Poseidon, that you?)

Also- both of them keeping photographs of each other? 🥺💔

And, as always- I humbly and unashamedly ask you to vote on the chapters, and perhaps comment, too :)