Then, turning to my love, I said,
"The dead are dancing with the dead,
The dust is whirling with the dust."
-

Susan wiped away her tears with the hand that wasn't holding the newspaper.

The article she had been reading wasn't exactly about the train crash- even though there had been many articles about the event that had stolen her whole family. It was a local paper- Finchley Press- and it was about how an entire family save one- her family- had died in the train crash. Some journalist must have noticed it- and decided to write a write-up on the deaths. There were pictures of her siblings there- Lucy in the St. Finbar's uniform, Peter in a lab-coat for some medical exhibition at Cambridge, and a picture of Edmund- and Sanya, even though she was alive- from their wedding portrait. A photograph of her parents on the first Christmas after her father had returned from the war was next to her siblings' photographs.

She couldn't stop looking at them.

"You're still reading the newspaper!" Alberta Scrubb spoke, as she walked into the drawing room, dressed in a black dress and a black hat that was at least two centuries old. "We're going to be late, Susan."

She did not look up from the picture of her family, "No, we aren't, Aunt Alberta."
The funeral was today. It wasn't for two more hours. What did her aunt want to go early for? To stare at the corpses? Had Susan having to identify the dead bodies of her mother, her father, her elder brother, and her younger sister not been enough?
"There're still two hours left."

"Don't talk back." The older woman snapped- but with less dudgeon than there usually would have been. There was no ferocity or haughtiness or anything similar that there usually was- her voice had even become less shrill.
There was no more space for anything but sorrow in her life now.
Her son was dead. Her brother was dead.
But she still had to run the house, and look after her last surviving relative.

At least Harold, her husband, was already at the church- she had sent him over right after breakfast. He was likely having a grand time there, snoozing on one of the back pews.

Good thing she had done it- one less thing to worry about.

"It's an hour and forty-six minutes, not two hours. It'll take you time to get ready, and then twenty minutes to walk there, and it's best for us to be there early. Go get ready, Susan. Now."

Susan didn't sigh or stamp her foot or do a rude hand gesture, all of which she itched to do- she simply put the newspaper down and left the room, not making a single sound.
She felt lifeless. Lifeless beings did not make noise.

Even as she put on the black dress she had bought years ago but had never worn- even as she clasped her mother's pearls around her neck, the ones she had worn on special occasions- even as she accidentally looked over at her sister's side of the room- even as tears started to stream down her face for the twelfth time that day- there was not a peep from her.

The only time she planned on speaking, perhaps ever again, was to deliver the eulogy at the funeral.

That was all.

"Are you ready, then?" Alberta asked, as her niece came down the stairs, her face blank.
The young woman wore bright red lipstick- and her aunt disapproved of that, but at least there was no awful black stuff around her eyes or pink smears on her cheeks. She would take the win- and let Susan have her lipstick, just for the day.

Susan nodded, saying nothing- she walked to the coat-stand and pulled on her coat.

"Do we have to pick up the Indian girl?" Try as she might, Alberta could not remember her name. "She's supposed to reach there on her own, as far as I remember."

Susan nodded again.

"What are you nodding at? Do we have to take her along with us or not?"

She didn't want to talk, but unfortunately, she didn't know sign language and nods couldn't do all the work.
"No, we don't. She's going there by car, with her grandmother and my-" my Bonnie, my girlfriend, the only one who still loved her and still lived, "and her friend."

"Ah, well, probably best. Pregnant women ought not to walk- how far along is she?"
Although she disapproved heartily of early pregnancies- she herself had had Eustace well into her twenties- she was glad, just a bit, that there was still hope for more Pevensies to come.

"No idea." She answered, opening the front door. She hadn't spoken to Sanya at all. She had seen her at the hospital, minutes after her sister-in-law identified Edmund's body, while she herself had been there to identify her parents', Peter's and Lucy's bodies.
She had been crying- they both had. They'd looked at each other for a long moment, as the younger girl had passed her.
But they had not talked.
"Ask her gynaecologist."

"Hm. I may just, if only to know how she is." She would have to pencil that in her calendar. "Will she speak at the funeral?"

"I don't know." She said, suddenly wishing she had worn her red shoes instead. It would match her lipstick, and it was Lucy's- her sweet, wonderful sister- favourite colour. Her siblings may have hated her affinity for make-up- but she could still honour them with it. "She's not much of a public speaker. Or- anywhere speaker."

"Yes, I knew that."
Alberta sighed to herself. Ever since she had come down to Finchley last week, she had tried to get in touch with the girl several times- to speak to her about the funeral, about the headstones, whether she wished to make separate arrangements for her husband- to no avail. She had even asked Susan to contact her- but her niece had become practically a ghost, doing nothing but haunting her parents' and siblings' rooms. Ghosts didn't exist, but humans could certainly imitate them well.

Finally, she had had to go to the girl's grandmother's house, after she had learnt that her niece-in-law had come down to stay there until the funeral.
She had not managed to meet her there, either, but she'd at least received a little note from the girl.
It said that she could do whatever she wanted with the funeral arrangements, it was up to her.
Edmund would be buried with and like the rest of his family by birth, because she knew that that was what he would've wanted.

And in one last almost-illegible scribble on the note, it was written, 'He's dead and gone. Unless picking out gravestones will bring him back, I care nothing for it.'

And so, Alberta had selected the gravestones as well as had approved the inscriptions on it.

For her brother, it was 'Loving father, husband, brother; and brave soldier'- for her sister-in-law, it was 'Loving wife and mother'- for her nephews, it was 'Loving brother and son', and for her niece, it was 'Loving sister and daughter'. She knew her younger nephew had been a husband and a father-to-be- but she wished there to be a sense of symmetry. His widow could always change the headstone, if she wished.

For her Eustace, it was 'Loved and learned son'- it truly summed up her precocious child. He had become rather commonplace and exhausting of late- she blamed it all on the year Edmund and Lucy had come to stay, as well as on that Jill- but he was gone now, bless his soul. Even his tiresome habits were endearing to her- somewhat.

Susan had been there on the day of the inscriptions, and she had added the phrase- 'Forever beloved and forever missed' to her parents' and siblings' headstones. Alberta personally found it tacky- she never did like anything her brother's side decided- but it was her family, too, and true, to boot, so the quote stayed for the five headstones.

"Is there anything else?" Susan asked- she wanted to walk out, but she didn't want to have to return to her aunt's side if she happened to have remembered something to ask again. "Sanya's having twins, but you already knew that. We don't have to pick up anyone else, because we don't have any more family. Anything I missed?"

"Insolence is not a virtue, Susan Eileen."

"Even the most virtuous get killed, Aunt Alberta." She said flatly. If people as good and faithful and pure and churchgoing as her siblings and parents could die- and die so suddenly and horrifically- what was the need for it all? "I don't see the point of having virtues anymore."
She walked outside without another word, not stopping until she reached the mailbox, stuffed full of envelopes. She did not look at them, staring blankly at the street instead.

She wished that a car- no, a truck came crashing towards the house, and consequently, towards her. She would die then, thankfully.
The only person who would grieve was Bonnie- but she had her entire family to fall back on. She'd be alright, soon enough.

But the street outside was clear, as was the sky- and Susan wished this was the twenty-second of December, the coldest day of the year, instead of the placid and calm last day of March it actually was.

But her baby brother had always disliked the cold, for some reason. And her elder brother liked spring, and her baby sister enjoyed calm days- she immediately took back her wish.

The day of their funeral should have the weather that they liked.
--

The caskets were all closed and the children's choir was singing a hymn with a good tune, but all Sanya could think about was Edmund's corpse.

She had stared at him for so long in the morgue- then her face had crumpled and she'd begun to sob.

His corpse had still looked so much like him- because it was him.

They had cleaned him up, washed off the blood, and he had been lying on the medical slab as though under a sleeping spell. They had shown the scar on his stomach- the best identifying mark, to them- as though she had to see that in order to know that it was him.

His mouth had been pursed, and he'd still had his freckles and the dark hair that almost covered his eyes. His lovely chocolate brown eyes had been closed.

His fringe had covered the deep gash on his forehead, and his skin had been deathly pale now- for he was dead.

He was so, so beautiful, even in death.

He had died of a broken neck, the coroner had said. A cervical fracture. It was a quick death.
Lucy and Peter had died quick, too- the former by blunt force trauma, and the latter's spine had snapped. She was glad that she hadn't had to identify them, too.

The mortician had also informed her that Edmund had had a photograph of her in his wallet, and he had given it to her just before she had gone to- just before she had entered the morgue. He had had a family photograph of his parents and siblings, too- which Susan had taken- but in the first pocket of his wallet, it was her picture.

It was a photograph of her during their honeymoon, outside in some park and laughing at something she didn't even remember anymore. Sanya hadn't known that her husband had taken a picture of her in that moment, and neither had she known that he carried it around with him.

Sanya had almost crushed the photograph in her fist, tears starting to her eyes again, but had quickly stuffed it inside the pocket of her coat before she truly destroyed it. Then she'd walked into the morgue.

When she had started crying in the morgue, the mortician and his assistant had quickly excused themselves, saying that they would let her have five minutes to grieve on her own.

Sanya had walked unsteadily towards her husband, and she had brushed her fingers through his hair. She'd bent down, with difficulty, and pressed her forehead against his, whispering that she loved him- one last time.

Then she had kissed him- his cold, dead, unfeeling lips- in case it really was a sleeping curse.
True love's kiss could break any curse, couldn't it? True love conquered all.

"Darling." She whispered, running her fingers gently through his soft hair- she took care to not touch the wound on his forehead. "Edmund, husband."

She shifted her head away, just so her tears did not fall on his lovely, lifeless face. But she shifted it back towards him almost immediately after the tears fell, and she moved her hand to stroke his stiff, bloodless cheek. It wasn't soft anymore- he had been dead too many hours.

This was Edmund's corpse. His corpse. How was she still standing?

Her husband's skin looked almost green in this light- near to otherworldly. Well, she supposed he was in another world- if the afterlife truly existed.

"Will you come back? Will you please come back to me?"

But Edmund was dead and gone, and he did not respond. If there had been the slightest bit of life in him, he would have. If no one else's call- he would have heeded Sanya's.

This time, Sanya wasn't quick enough to move her head away- her hot tears fell down on his cheeks, warming him one last time.

Everything was for the last time.

Her hair was like curtains around his head, shielding his face from any nearby spy- because she did not want anyone else to be here. She didn't want anyone else to even breathe on this moment.
Even if he was dead, this moment was theirs. He was hers, and she was his.
That was how it would forever be.

Even though he was dead, and she was alive.

"I'm so sorry. I can't- Edmund, aami- I miss-"

She began to weep again, tears relentless in their fall down her face- she was not able to say anything. How could she?

Somehow, perhaps with the restraint and repression that was second nature to her, she managed to stop crying, just for the second. Sanya lowered her head, crouching down as much as her pregnancy would allow, and pressed her warm forehead against the top of Edmund's head.
"I love you. I love you, husband." This was probably the very last time she ever would be able to look at him and say these three words. Or any words. "I love you, I love you, I love you."
It seemed that was all she was capable of saying. The three words and eight letters she had been unable to say for so long in her past life.

She knew she only had limited time here- it was only her husband's body she was to identify.
Part of her was glad- this in itself was killing her, destroying her, sucking out whatever life she had left- but then to have had to look at her brave brother and stalwart sister's dead faces and dead bodies, too? She would have borne it, like she had borne all else in her life, but it would have decimated her thoroughly.

Perhaps almost on instinct, she shifted closer to the medical slab, though she knew that she wasn't supposed to be so close to the- to Edmund. But he was the love of her life, her soulmate, and her anchor. There was no possible way she was staying away.

This was goodbye, in almost every way. A thousand years- and it ended like this.

She was the Prince, and Edmund was Snow White- it was just that his poisoned apple was a train, and they were in a morgue instead of a beautiful forest.

And there were no chances of him waking up, magical kiss or not. She would never hear him call her 'Moonshine', loving and accented and warm, ever again.

"We are a fairytale, remember." She said, shifting so her lips were parallel to his. "If true love exists- we have it. Our love is perhaps the truest thing in any world."

Maybe it was the strongest, too. Perhaps- just perhaps- there was the tiniest bit of magic in this world, and it would come to her aid in this moment. In this moment just before true love's kiss.

Again, she murmured, her heart contracting, "I love you."

And then, thinking once more that true love conquered all, she pressed her desperate lips to his dead ones.

All but death, it soon became clear.

He had not moved, not opened his eyes, not even when her warm tears fell onto his snow-white cheeks again. He was dead, and she hated herself for the stupidest bit of hope there had been in her.

On the way out of the green-lit place, as she had knocked into every wall because of her tears and her awful eyesight, she'd remembered a jest in the middle of lovemaking, from their old life.

They'd been in their great bath, naked and wet and pressed up against each other.

"I- I wish I could've used my mouth, I know you prefer that-" Edmund was even more satisfied to see her cheeks and chest blush, a most vibrant red, and he was half-tempted to paint her, paint her as she was right now, exposed and bare and glistening and goddess-like, but he wasn't an artist, "but, sadly, such a thing is impossible when we're in a bath, and especially since I don't fancy drowning while going down on my wife."

"It should be a privilege for you to die doing something which pleases the one you love so-so m-much." Her words turned into a stammer at the end as she felt him press at the folds of her entrance.
Clearly their watery venture wasn't over yet- and oh, her body was absolutely ready again. She had stamina during the strangest situations- and she hoped the stamina would last throughout the battle.

No. No thinking of war and Giants while Edmund's about to fuck you.

Shut up, thoughts.

"And what, pray tell, would be written on my epitaph?" He asked teasingly, feeling her press herself even closer to him, her breasts against his chest and her hands roaming his sides. Damn, he wasn't even inside her yet and he could already feel his hardness begging for release.

"I died for my Queen."

"That would be a privilege."

But he hadn't. He had died for Narnia, after leaving his Queen- yet again.

And she had promised him, at that same time, moments before he'd got into the bath with her, that she would always be with him. That she would be with him until the end.

"No matter what happens, Ed, I love you. And if that someday is this month or in seventy years, that's not going to change. I'll be with you till the very end."

But Sanya hadn't been with him at the very end. Edmund had not died with her. He had died far away from her. They hadn't died together- which she had hoped would be their inevitable end, sometime far in the future.

She had also said that they would one day lose each other, something they both knew, and he had replied that that day best not come for decades yet.

That day had finally come now- they had lost each other, for good. They were forever apart now.
Death had taken him away from her, and life had kept her away from him.

The caskets had been open before the funeral had begun- while she, Susan, Bonnie, her grandmother, and Eustace's parents had been the only ones in the church. She had stared at Lucy's and Peter's dead and still and once-joyful visages for a few long moments- and then she had torn herself away to look at her husband. She had stood at Edmund's coffin until her best friend had come up to her and said that people had begun to arrive.

She hadn't wanted to move away from him, but she had gone and sat down still, somehow.

"Sanya." Bonnie whispered suddenly, pulling her best friend back to the present reality. "Su's about to-"
She stopped abruptly, seeing the deadened look in Sanya's eyes. She hadn't even wanted to come to the funeral- or to Finchley. She had just wanted to stay at Clematis Cottage and- in her own words- barricade herself in grief.

But she had come.

Wearing a black maternity frock that Maude had had the sense to get for her, Sanya sat in the first pew of the church, staring at the floor without seeing. She wasn't crying now, but her red-rimmed eyes made it obvious that that was all she had been doing for the past ten days.

"Nya." Bonnie spoke again, very softly, reaching her hand out to clasp hers gently.
Sanya had said on the car ride here that the babies had been moving too much- what if she was feeling ill? If she was ill, she and Mina- who was suited in the next pew, wearing an enormous black fascinator hat- would have to smuggle her out.
Christ, sneaking out a pregnant Indian woman would be an ordeal.
"Are you feeling alright?"

Really, that was a stupid question, and Bonnie mentally slapped herself for asking it. The only thing in Sanya's life that she wasn't in agony or worry about was her bookshop, because Naomi and Alexander, the primary two of the small group of people she had hired, were surprisingly capable at running it. Their one flaw was being utterly idiotic when it came to seeing how besotted they were with each other, and she was going to lose her patience someday and knock their heads together if they didn't realise!

But that was not a matter of now.

"I'm grieving." Sanya answered blandly. It was the only thing she said lately, in response to questions, no matter what the question was.
Thankfully, though, there weren't many questions- she didn't speak to anyone. People had come to her before the funeral service had begun, to offer their condolences. She had nodded and then looked away, without even a 'thank you'. It wasn't queenly to do that- but she didn't care.
It wasn't like she was a Queen anymore. She hadn't been one for a long time.
"That's all I have left in my life now. Grief."
She was a widow now. Again.
But last time, her husband had disappeared. She hadn't been a true widow, even though that was how she had been treated and how she had felt. Now, though, he was dead. There was no technicality anymore- she was a widow.

What a sepulchral existence she had. It was almost aweing.

"Sanya..."

She shook her head, shutting her eyes and looking at the floor.
Whatever Bonnie had to say, she didn't want to hear.
She didn't even want to hear what Susan was saying up on the dais, with tears streaming down her face and lips as red as blood.

Snippets of her speech came to her ears, though she tried to not let it- about how enduringly brave her little sister was, how much her elder brother protected them, how her younger brother was the wisest person she knew, and how loving her parents had been.

Susan did not speak of her own grief- she didn't talk about the fact that she had lost her entire family, but she spoke about those she had lost.
She did not mention how odd she felt about sitting in a church, and being part of a church service, especially since she had not attended church in so long- no, she mentioned nothing about that.
She talked about her siblings, and her parents, and she spoke about how lucky she was to be born in the Pevensie family- and how unfortunate it was that such wonderful people had been taken so cruelly.
And, at the end, her usually-stellar vision blurred with tears- she said that she would always miss them, until the stars themselves fell from the skies and died.

She didn't know where that had come from- she hadn't prepared that line, but it had come to her in the moment.

Her eulogy was generic, but it was genuine. Her family couldn't hear what she was saying- but the funeral was for them. It was to honour them. She would tell the truth about the five, as much as others deserved to know.

"If there's anyone else who would like to speak." Susan said, after she had wiped her eyes. "I welcome them, please. My family would have loved to hear whatever you have to say."
She glanced at the front pew as she did so, where her sister-in-law was sitting.

But Sanya didn't see Susan.
She had disassociated entirely, and her only tether to reality was Bonnie holding her hand. She needed the disassociation. If she remained rooted in reality, she would weep again- and weep endlessly.

She couldn't let anyone see her cry. That wouldn't change. Edmund was the only one who'd had that privilege- as far as she remembered, and apart from her parents when she'd been a child- and even that had been after a good decade and a half of togetherness.

Edmund was the exception. Edmund was excellent. Edmund deserved all the love and appreciation, and she wished- selfishly, perhaps- that the funerals were individual. She understood that they were a family and had died together- her parents had had their funeral together, too- but each of the three Pevensie siblings deserved their own moment, even in death.

And she was Edmund's wife. Edmund's widow. Of course she wanted him to be honoured individually. Lucy and Peter deserved that honour and care, too- so much.

A few people stepped to say a few words- a man Mr. Pevensie had served with, two women from Mrs. Pevensie's neighbourhood group, Edmund's old piano teacher, Peter's biology teacher from school, the organiser of the photography contest that Lucy had won.

They said little, but Susan- sitting with her aunt and uncle at the other front pew- was crying again by the time the last person said their words. Even the littlest thing set her off- she wasn't even surprised at herself anymore.

She was up on the dais again, soon- her tears were even more apparent this time, but she forced her voice to remain steady and understandable.
"Thank you to everyone who spoke about my family." She said, gripping the lectern too tight. "We- we'll now- we'll head into the graveyard now, for the burial."

The pallbearers stood- a collection of able-bodied friends and acquaintances of those dead- and moved towards the caskets.

"Follow after my sister-in-law Sanya and I, please." She said, before letting go of the lectern and walking to where Sanya sat.
She didn't feel like talking to her, but they were the ones who felt the loss most. It was fitting that they headed the procession that would lead to the final funeral rite.

Sanya was surprised, as Bonnie's grip on her hand loosened and was replaced by another hand- smoother, with longer fingers; an archer's hand, not an artist's.

At the thought of archery, she remembered their son.
He had been an archer, too- and he had been the one to speak at his father's and aunts' and uncle's memorial. She hadn't. She had only spoken the first and last words of the address- the dignified 'welcome' and the solemn 'thank you'. Jem had given the rest of the main speech- he had saved her from speaking about her grief in front of so many. She had had their daughters next to her, too- Seraphina in pink, and Selene in cream, she still remembered.

She did not have them anymore, either. She had no one.

"What-"

"Come on." Susan said quietly, helping her up to her feet. "It's time for the burial."

The once-True wanted to argue- mostly because she didn't feel like standing and walking. Her stomach hurt- the babies had been kicking the entire day, and had yet to stop.

She wondered if they could feel her grief. She wondered if they knew what they had lost.

But for Edmund, and for Lucy and Peter, she stood. She wished she could have been one of the pall-bearers- it was only right for her to be the one to hold and lower her husband's body- but the pregnancy made that impossible.
Sanya and Susan, holding hands loosely and staring steadfastly and emotionlessly ahead, walked out of the church to the adjoining graveyard, where they would let go of their loved ones forever.
--

People were throwing dirt and flowers onto the caskets.

Sanya did not understand it- but she felt left out all the same. She had no flowers, and she couldn't bend down to pick up the dirt.

And so, all she was doing was staring at the graves. Not at anyone else in the procession, not at anything else in the graveyard- only her husband's coffin, and her in-laws' coffins.

Was it coffin or casket?

There had been caskets in Rihaaya- but at funerals, the dead bodies had been covered in shrouds.

She remembered her parents' golden shrouds. She remembered the shrouds of the soldiers who had lost their lives fighting the country's battles. Jem, Selene, and Seraphina must have had shrouds, too.

She had attended so many funerals in her life.
She had never thought she would be attending Edmund's.

Sanya had always thought she would be the one to die first. By something natural or by her own hand, she didn't know- but she had always been sure that she would be the first one to die between them. She had thought it ever since Edmund had told her about what the Sphinx had said to him- 'you will love True, Just, and grieve True, Edmund'.

She had accepted it, and she had not really minded. Death was a constant, it would happen, no matter what- she did not fear it.

And she wanted to die, after all, now more than ever. She had wanted to die for centuries- and she'd tried to die. She had attempted suicide more than once.

She wasn't a healthy person, either- physically, and in most other ways, too- it made sense for her to die! She ought to have died. It was only right for her to be the one to die first.

But cruel, twisted fate. They had taken Edmund first instead.

And now she was alone. She was utterly alone.

Yes, she had Bonnie and her grandmother and Mina- but they did not know who she truly was. They did not know what she had been through, where she was from- she could never talk to them about it. She had been able to talk to Edmund about it- and Lucy and Peter, too- but they were dead and gone.

The Pevensie siblings were now one instead of four- and the one that remained didn't remember their true home.

Sanya was gazing at the bouquet of white roses that lay on top of Lucy's coffin, when she felt a hand on her shoulder.

"My girl." It was her grandmother, using a voice that Sanya had never heard until this last week. "Come along."

She finally looked up from the graves- and was surprised to see the graveyard completely empty.

Rather, she would have been surprised, if she was capable of feeling anything anymore.

She almost wished the babies started kicking again. That pain would likely distract her from the grief.
But would it? Could it? Could anything take her mind off her grief, of her loss? She didn't think so.

Her voice was hoarse as she asked, "Where's everyone?"

"They're gone, dear child. The funeral is over."

She swallowed, looking at the flowers on the trees near the boundary fence. They were too beautiful to be seen by someone with such sorrow.
"No one told me."

It was, ironically enough, a nice day. Though there was some chill in the air, the sun peeked out from behind frothy clouds, making the world look too vibrant and too happy.
Even the most weathered of headstones of the other graves looked bright and downright cheerful as the sunlight dappled over them. There was no sign of rain, either.

She hated it. It should have been cold and dark and dreary. The atmosphere ought to have been something out of Frankenstein and Dracula and Wuthering Heights, not Anne of Green Gables and A Book Of Fairies and Archie Comics!

But what was the point of raging over it? What was the point of anything?

Edmund was dead, and all she wanted was to sink into his grave and be by his side.

Maude hesitated.
They had told her, actually. Bonnie had very sweetly tried to hold Sanya's hand and take her back home- but her granddaughter had been utterly unresponsive. She had been oblivious to all but the graves- and it was she herself who had said to let her stay here for as long as needed.

Maude understood how she was feeling. She had lost the love of her life, too.

But it had been half an hour, and no one pregnant ought to be on her feet that long- and staying here wasn't good for Sanya. She needed to be at home, resting and away from such stark reminders of what she had lost.

"We wanted you to have your time, as much as you needed." She spoke quietly. "But it's time to head back now."

"What's the point?"

She tutted, "You need rest, Sanya. It's been quite a long day, and it's not wise to undergo strenuous activities in your condition."

But there was no point of that, either. What would even happen if she did 'undergo strenuous activities'? The best case scenario to come out of such was that she would die in childbirth, and the worst case was that she would give birth to dead babies.

She didn't even know if she would cry, if they were stillborn.
After all, how much grief could a person feel, until they started to feel utterly nothing, and only that? How many times could she sob and cry herself to sleep, and how many pieces could her heart break into- until all of her became completely and permanently numb?

That had yet to happen. She still felt now, regrettably. She felt so much, still- all of it bad. She wept still. Her heart was still crushed every day that Edmund didn't come back to her.

She knew he was dead. She had seen his body. She had kissed his dead lips. She wanted to be delusional about it, to lose herself in a fancy that he would return, return the way he had said- but a corpse was too much proof of the opposite.

But part of her still waited. She still hoped. She would hope all her life- and she also hoped that life was as short as possible.

She hoped she was buried next to him.

She wasn't Christian, but- one could make exceptions for true love.

Maude was talking again, "I've asked my doctor to send his best gynaecologist to check on you tomorrow, so be up before noon, just for an hour. I know you've a doctor in Great Shelford, but Ella phoned him and he said-"

"When will the headstones come?"

"Pardon, child?"

"The headstones." Her voice was flat, high, sluggish like a sleepy child's. She didn't know why it had turned so, but she didn't care enough to probe into it. "When will they be put on the graves?"
There weren't there at the moment. Only empty space, loose soil, and grass. And too much sunlight.

"In a few months, Sanya. They have to let the ground settle first."

"Oh."
She didn't think she would be able to stand seeing the headstones. How could she? To see the fact of her husband's death in actual stone? It was like his statue in Cair Paravel after the disappearance all over again.
She kept imagining what would be written on it.

Edmund Arthur Pevensie
5th of September, 1927 to 21st of March, 1947

No, it wouldn't be Reza-Pevensie. The paperwork and documents had not been verified when he had died- it had still not gone through, in fact. A dead man couldn't change his name.
She squeezed her eyes shut, "He was only nineteen."

"I know, sweetheart. It's not fair- it's so cruel that God took such wonderful lives so young."

Life's not our titles.
Sanya's heart quaked, and she sniffled. It was breaking into more pieces again.
You were right, darling, she thought. You always are.
But she couldn't even tell him that.
"Do you think it's okay if I organise a memorial for Edmund?"

"Yes- yes, of course." Maude wrapped an arm around her, stealthily turning her away from the grave and towards the gate of the graveyard. "It's your right, and I think it's a lovely idea. When would you want it?"

"After I go back to Clematis Cottage." Sanya said, leaning into her grandmother's hold on her. She didn't even mind that she was being walked by someone like she was a small child- she liked it. She liked being treated like a baby who was doted on and needed only comfort. "Maybe in two weeks. Probably a weekend."
The car was just outside the gate- thank the Heavens. She didn't think she could stay upright longer- she needed to lie down, to be unconscious for as long as possible.

The old lady was silent. She did not want her granddaughter to go back to Cambridge- she feared for her safety, health, and sanity, and that of the unborn babies as well. How would she manage being utterly alone in that farmhouse?

The best case scenario would be for her to move back into the Rainsford house here, and stay there until the children were at least seven or eight. Sanya needed help and support, and this was the best place to get it.

But she had not had that talk with her. She wasn't in any position for serious discussions, and it would only chafe at her nerves and well-being if she was asked to relocate.

"We can decide everything later." She said, deciding that diplomacy was the best way forward. When her granddaughter was in calmer spirits and of a less turbulent mind, she would bring it up. "Let's return now, you need rest. We'll play some cards, if you like. Are the babies kicking?"

"Not right now." She said, as she pulled open the car door, getting into the back-seat with a mild struggle. "Who knows, maybe they're dead, too."
--

The anxiety rose in her with each person walking into the drawing room.

Yes, the memorial had been her idea- but it was still socialisation, something which had always and would always sicken her.

The only thing that kept Sanya going was that this was for Edmund. It was Edmund's memorial- again. These people were here because they cared for Edmund- perhaps they even loved him.
There was no one alive who understood what it was like to love Edmund better than she.

Susan hadn't come- but it wasn't her fault. She had been busy with estate lawyers the entire week- which, Sanya didn't really understand, because the Pevensies only owned the one house in Finchley. But she didn't know anything about estate law, so perhaps even what seemed simple to her was deeply complicated in the legal system.
But she was the only one who hadn't.

The drawing room was fit to bursting with people.
Most she had sent letters to- others she had made Bonnie call- but some had simply heard from others, and had dropped in to pay their respects.

They were all Edmund's acquaintances- his classmates and schoolmates, his teachers, his fellow rugby players, chess enthusiasts he had shared a letter or two with, some of the kids he had tutored last year, and some neighbours from both Finchley and from here.
Really, the only one who wasn't his acquaintance was Oscar Waddingham, because he was his ex-boyfriend.

But Sanya barely even glanced at him, just as she had not really looked at anyone else.

She hadn't even welcomed them in- Sarah, bless her, was opening the door and ushering everyone inside the house.

No one had attempted to talk to her, either. They were chatting among themselves, or staring around at the house.
The nearest anyone had come to interacting with her was when three of Edmund's professors had walked within five feet of her, stared at her extremely rotund baby bump, and then had promptly walked away to a faraway corner.

Finally, a social situation where other people felt as awkward as she always did.

She would talk when she was fairly sure that everyone was here- what a frightening concept, even more people- but she didn't intend to say a word until then.

She was looking at a photograph of them, the one that stood on the mantelpiece. Edmund was holding her glasses and had his arm around her, smiling into the camera and into her hair at the same time- and she had been smiling so brightly, she almost didn't recognise herself.

Edmund looked mischievous and loving, his chocolate eyes so full of mirth- and as she looked at the picture, she could almost feel his arm around her again.

She didn't even remember when it had been taken- or even who had taken it, but it must have been Lucy, her dear dead friend and sister- but she knew she had been happy.

Yes, Edmund had made her rage and cry and feel so much pain- but there had been no one else, dead or alive, in any world, who had made her happier.

And now that he was dead, it was the happiness he had given her that she remembered most.

There was also a larger portrait-photograph of Edmund beside her on an easel, surrounded by white chrysanthemums and blue daisies.

She was trying not to look at that. She had looked at it last night when she had gone to the kitchen to satiate her midnight cravings- thankfully, she had not had to climb down, because she no longer slept in their bedroom, but a spare room on the ground floor- and she had slumped down on the kitchen floor and cried until dawn.

She truly hoped she was all cried out.

Minutes later, Sanya cleared her throat, looking over at the people who had gathered. Heavens, there were a lot of people. Maybe she should have just done it at the Rainsford house, like Maude had said.

Oh, she wasn't thinking of Maude now.

Her conversation with her the day before she had returned to Great Shelford- about moving back to Finchley- she had been so angry. She hadn't wanted to shout at an old woman who had just had a heart attack the last year, but she hadn't been able to control herself!

It had been the only thing she had felt apart from grief in almost a month.

"Th-thank you all for coming." She said, acutely aware of her hands dangling at her side and how awkward it was.
She hadn't made public speeches in a thousand years- she had hated it then, she hated it now. At least she wasn't shaking or throwing up- no, she just felt very nauseated.
"I- I think I sh-should have found a bigger place for this."

Bonnie, Mina, and Clarke laughed immediately, and one by one, others started to chuckle politely, too.

Sanya hadn't intended that to be a joke- but it was a common piece of advice to open with jokes. Her mother had told her to do that, if the content for and reason behind her speech were not solemn.

But her speech today would be the solemnest of them all.

She fixed her gaze on the opposite wall, and she spoke on.
"Edmund would have been- honestly, he would be really embarrassed to see this- um, this many people here." She wanted to giggle, the way he had always made her giggle, but she couldn't. "He always thought- he always thought he never made a d-difference here, that no one really car-cared about him save for his family- but just- just see here. All of you care, and care enough that you came to pay your respects."

The few people who had found apple cider in the kitchen, raised their glasses.

That was all she had written, in the speech she had prepared. Probably. She didn't really remember it anymore.

"He would have given a better speech- one that was a lot more eloquent. And with much less stuttering. But he can't- he can't, because he's not here anymore."
She pressed her lips tightly together, as she felt a sudden spasm in her head. A sure sign of a soon-to-come headache.
"There is still part of him left in this world." Sanya said softly- but everyone could hear her perfectly- and she laid her hand on her baby bump for one moment. "And I am grateful for that. But- but-"
But it's not enough.
"But that part will never get to know him. Our babies will never know their f-father, and that is- that is just another tragedy, because Edmund was- he would have been the best father in this world."

"Sanya." Bonnie said softly, half-rising from her perch on the floor. She had suspected that her best friend wasn't stable enough to give a speech about her dead husband- but Sanya had been obstinate that she would. "Sanya, are-"

"I'm alright." She would forever say that, even if she was breaking down. Even if she was dying, as she felt she was now. "I'm- I'm- I miss him, that's all."

"So do I." A voice in the corner said- Oscar, it seemed- and the rest of the room murmured in agreement.

She sniffled, violently, "We hadn't even been married a year. Two more weeks after today, and it would have been our first anniversary."
In this world.

"He told me once th-that-"

"I'm privileged to call you my wife."

"He told me he was privileged to call me his wife." She spoke quietly, wondering yet again what she could do with her hands. It felt even more ungainly and odd now! As though the speech-making wasn't bad enough.
She wanted to close her eyes and pretend she was talking to Edmund. That they were in bed, cuddling and nestled together, and she was murmuring these things to him to make him smile or blush or kiss her.
But she couldn't. Even she didn't have an imagination potent enough to imagine her dead anchor so very vividly.
Again, her attention went to her awkward hands.
If Edmund was here, he would have held them in his. But he wasn't here- which was the reason all this was even happening.
Remembering she had been speaking, she quickly spoke on, still hushed and subdued as she recalled the memory, "I kissed him after he said that."

There were a few giggles from some of the people in the room, even though Sanya had not meant it to be funny. Of course she hadn't. That moment had been the start of- the start of everything she and Edmund had become after that. Yes, they had begun before that- Ed especially- but then they had paused rather spectacularly, giants and solitude and emotional rejections and silences and all.

"Anyway," She hadn't recounted that moment for nothing, "I know he knew it, b-but- I don't remember if I ever told him the same. That it was an honour to love him. That I was so proud to have him be my husband. I don't- I told him I love him so many times, but I don't know if I told him how thankful I was to have him, to love him, and how-"
Her voice broke, and tears streamed down her face- it seemed like she was not all cried out.
How utmost important he was to me.

It took a good few minutes for Sanya to compose herself again. She wasn't crying, exactly, but this was the most emotional anyone had ever seen her, in either of her lives.

And, by Heavens, her heart ached so badly. She wanted Edmund with her.
And she missed him so much. She had missed him torturously since the news- she had missed him for most of her life- but she didn't think she had ever missed him as much as she missed him in this particular moment.

Finally, she took a deep breath, and said as calmly as she could, "He knew all of me, and he loved me in spite of it. Maybe he loved me even more because of it." Her voice would not break again. She would not cry. Queens did not cry. She would cry later. For now, she would talk about the love of her life. "He was just, and smart, and kind, and- a-and funny. So funny."

Finally, she laughed- a wet sniffing sound, closer to a sob than an actual mirthful noise.

"Ed always made me laugh. He made me feel c-cared for. And h-he was so beautiful, in every way possible."
Her hand went to the crescent moon necklace she wore. She pressed her index and thumb around it, and she half-wished the metallic crescent cut through her skin.
"He was- is the love of my life- and he's why our life was a fairytale. And- and he was so very worthy of- of being a King."

Sanya could speak no longer, her lips turned down and her eyes full of unshed tears again- and so there was silence.

Until Clarke stood up, a glass of cider in one hand and a flask in the other, and he said, his voice hoarse from crying, "Hear, hear."

Two tears fell down Sanya's cheeks, but she managed a small smile.
A Queen's smile, gracious and patient, uncaring of the fact that she personally did not feel like smiling at all.

"Thank you, Clarkey." She said to her friend, before looking around the room again. "Thank you all for coming. I know I said it already, but it- I'm- thank you for caring about Edmund. It means a lot to me. T-to us."
She rested both her hands on her protruding stomach. She really needed to sit down.
"There's food and drinks in the dining room."
They had almost never used it, preferring to eat in the drawing room with the television or the radio on instead. Meals had been fun.
"If- if anyone wants to say anything about Edmund- anything at all- y-you're welcome to. Thank you."

She almost stumbled as she began to walk towards somewhere she could sit- and she was quickly helped by Oscar, who'd sprung into action in a split second.

"Thanks." She said quietly, as she managed to sit down in one of the armchairs that John Patterson had hastily exited. "Thanks, Oscar."

"You're welcome, Sanya." The former rugby captain said, the corners of his mouth turned up in a small smile. But they went down almost immediately- and the sad frown on his lips matched his red eyes and even redder nose. He must have cried a fair bit, too. "I'm sorry for your loss."

"Thank you." She breathed, looking down at the floor. She was tired. "I'm sorry for yours, too."
He may not have had the time to fall in love with him- but she knew he had wanted to love Edmund, and that was what mattered.

"He was a truly wonderful bloke. Really brilliant- in every way." He said, patting her shoulder. "You described Ed perfectly in your speech. And- and he loved you so much."

For a moment, it looked like he wanted to say more- but he just shook his head at himself, before slinking back to where he'd previously been standing.

Sanya slumped back into the seat and shut her eyes, as the babble around her grew. She knew someone or the other would take the stage- so to speak, there wasn't actually a stage in the middle of the cottage- soon enough.

But until then, there would be loud chattering around her- her head began to hurt.
And in less than a minute, it felt like it was about to burst.

She had read that in Norse- she hoped she was right about that- mythology, the God of Thunder and Lightning, Thor, had a hammer as a weapon. The hammer, Mjölnir, both slayed enemies and bestowed divine blessings- and Sanya felt like it was Mjölnir itself that was being thrown around in her head, banging around her skull and squeezing her brain simultaneously.

But she forced her eyes open as one of Edmund's professors began to speak.

Professor Marriott spoke of how Edmund was one of the most dedicated, fair-minded, and stubborn students he had ever taught.
Sanya smiled at him, tear-tracks on her face, whispering an awkward 'thank you' when he passed by her.

Mr. Willoughby, one of her grandmother's friends, the one who had told Edmund that he could get him an internship- said that he was brilliant and that it was a damn shame that he wouldn't be around to forge a new and better tomorrow.
Sanya thanked him politely, and then she'd swerved her head away from the cheek-kiss he had tried to give her.

Mrs. Elspeth, the lady who owned the bookshop he had most frequented during his stay at his cousin Eustace's house, spoke highly of his taste in literature, and that she had never heard sarcasm quite as brilliant as what she had heard while passing by Edmund talking with other customers in the store.
Sanya said, "Edmund's sarcasm is ekdom excellent", and she held back a sob with difficulty.

John Patterson and Parker Thames told the story of a rugby game in which Edmund- then just a reserve- saved both their arses, and practically ensured the championship as well.
Sanya began to cry at that again, because she had been there at that game. She had cheered for her beloved so loudly, and he had held her in his arms and swung her around after the Hendon House team had been given the trophy.

Clarke Jaffray told a very long joke that Edmund had told him in their last year of school, and the crowd gathered in the drawing room laughed uproariously for almost the entire duration of it.
He said that the joke was Edmund's own creation, and Sanya let him bend down and hug her for a long moment- and then he headed back to the chair he'd sat on during the rest of the memorial.

Jessie Denham spoke of how she had always disliked Sanya- she grinned at her as she said that- and how Edmund had always been her saving grace. She ended with saying that someone ought to write a book about the two of them, and that she had better get credit for that idea.
Sanya thanked her, too, and she meant it.

Oscar walked on after Jessie- and he was quiet for so long people had thought he had fallen asleep standing.
But, soon, he said that Edmund had been by his side and had been a support in a way no one had- and that he would always be grateful to him. He'd miss him, too.

It went on for almost an hour.

By the time the last person spoke- Jonathan, who kept trying to complain about Edmund so he didn't start crying, but all the complaints turned into compliments and he was a mess of tears by the end- the pain in Sanya's head had grown exponentially.

She needed to be away, to rest, to sleep.

She needed Edmund's arms to wrap around her, holding her tight.

She was so tired. She had been so tired for so long. Grief was as strenuous as quests, especially when the grief was for someone as beloved as her parents and brother and children and husband were to her.

As the speeches ended, and everyone began to remember that there was food in a nearby room, Sanya slipped out of the drawing room. No one saw her leave, and she was thankful for her invisibility once more.

She was, however, fairly sure that Mina had spotted her- but she was only bothered with getting into her own bed, nothing else.

And she meant her own bed. Their bed, actually. She didn't want to sleep downstairs in the guest room right now. She wanted to sleep somewhere she had been happy.

Her feet hurt by the time she reached the upper floor, and she just somehow managed to drag herself to Edmund and she's bedroom.

She had not entered it except to pack two suitcases full of clothes and necessities, for both Finchley and for moving into the room downstairs.

Nothing had changed. The room did not know that it had lost one of its occupants, the one who had been responsible for so much laughter and pleasure and contentment.

But even if the room did not know, she knew.

She didn't even change out of the black dress- a different one from the one at the funeral- or even take off the necklace, as she staggered towards the bed.
Sanya all but fell into it, and then began to struggle to pull the blankets- they were starting to smell- over herself. Edmund used to help her with that, both when she was pregnant and when she wasn't. For the former situation, she had been unable to sit up again- while in the latter, she had not wanted to.

But, she reminded herself for the hundredth time- each time she did, the pain in her heart grew sharper and hotter, like it was a sword newly forged from fire- that there was no Edmund anymore.

Edmund was dead.

Their bedroom was now only hers, and the other side of the bed would forever be cold and empty. She was cursed to rest without the comfort of her soulmate next to her once again.

And this time, there was no little chance that he would return.

She was not Psyche here- although she was pregnant like the mythical heroine had been- and he wasn't Eros, for the God was alive and breathing. She couldn't make deals or invoke strange magic- and there was no feeling in her bones anymore that he may come back.

She was Orpheus, and he was Eurydice- but she had no power or skill to sway her way into the underworld.
Would anyone care if she begged for his life? Would anyone even listen?

Her heart was about to break again, when it gave a quick spasm of shock as she felt something soft and fluffy along her legs. Because of her stomach, she couldn't quite see what it was for a second- but a quiet, sad meow soon reached her.
In another moment, she could see grey fur and blue-green eyes.

"Hi." She whispered hoarsely, as Edmund's cat nestled himself closer to her. "Hi. Thank you for coming to the memorial, Cobalt."

She had named him not five minutes after she had returned to Clematis from Finchley. He had been sitting before the front door of the house, and she had resolved to give him a name then and there.

She called him Cobalt. It was her husband's favourite colour. He had told her that a thousand years ago.

"Are you looking for Edmund?" She asked, tears starting to her eyes once more. "Are you? So am I."

He only mewled again- once a sound of self-satisfaction, but now it was only of sorrow.

"We won't find him." She murmured, feeling the sick urge to snap the feline's neck.

To end his suffering.

Her suffering was so much greater- while Cobalt was a cat, and might not even know that Edmund was dead- but she couldn't do it to herself. She couldn't kill herself, because that meant killing the only two parts of Edmund that remained in this world. She couldn't end her suffering, but she could end Cobalt's.

"He's dead." She said brokenly, and the vile impulse faded. Cobalt meowed one last time, before she felt him grow heavy with sleep. "He's not coming back. He's dead."

As Sanya turned to gaze at Edmund's side of the bed, she felt her eyelids droop.

Husband, she thought, as she began to cry again, wetting the cloth of both pillow and bedsheet.

She had not cried this much ever in her life. Not in her thousands of years of survival. Not during all the losses of her life.

I miss you. If my love was killing you back then, it is killing me now. Our love. My grief. The memories. It is killing me.
Her last conscious thought, as she reached a hand- the one that wasn't petting the dozing Cobalt- to pull Edmund's pillow closer to her, was, I wish it succeeds. I wish it does kill me.

Her eyes closed, and her sobs became quieter.

And then we'll be together again.

-
-✧･: °*✧*°:･✧-
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Catherine Tate as Alberta Scrubb

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(I know no one particularly cares about them, but I made this when I was young and foolish enough to think I had the energy, focus, work ethic to write the entire article that Susan is reading in the opening scene- in November, so about four and a half months ago- so I will indeed post it so my little bit of effort can be appreciated)
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(The way only one of them is alive now.)
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(The photograph that Edmund keeps- kept in his wallet 🥺💔)
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(It's the way that Sanya looks as dead as Edmund. She died with him, for all intents and purposes 🥲)
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(Their little mantelpiece picture 💔)
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(🎶 all the working, what did it get me 🎶)
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(I think it'll haunt us all, my girl ☹️)
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'Are you in college?'

I am in pain.

Yeah- just- pure pain. That's what the chapter is. And such grief. Susan is lifeless and Sanya is deadened, and there is just so much pain and grief.
For someone who has never really felt actual grief- not even sure if I'm capable of feeling it- I do write a lot of it.

Like I said last chapter- it was always supposed to end like this. Well, not ALWAYS always- I mean, I didn't exactly start writing 'Alliance' with the thought of writing three more books after it. But once it became clear this would be a series- I knew the three Heirs would die in book 2, and that I knew Edmund would die in the train crash, and that Sanya would be utterly alone again.

Yes, unfortunately. This IS how their story ends.

Not all fairytales have a happy ending.

There's a reason fairytales end when they do- if they keep going on long enough, they end tragically.

I think that might have been a Blair Waldorf quote I just paraphrased.

I have written so much of Sanya's grief. It never ends, does it?
Poor girl.
And the fact that she organised and braved a whole social gathering just so she could honour her husband the way he deserved? She loves him so much.
The part where she's kissing him one last time in the morgue kills me every time I reread it. So much for true love's kiss. Their love might be the truest in this world, but it's still powerless against deathh.

Cobalt the cat :") If she doesn't have Edmund to cuddle with anymore, at least she has Cobalt.
But no one will compare to Edmund for Sanya, after all. It's him, forever.

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