Edmund Pevensie was in yet another fight.

   Susan pulled him away and after a long moment of struggling, even Peter had to intervene and help her. Which was saying something, since more than anything it was usually Peter getting into the fights and Edmund only getting involved because he wanted to help. It had always been like that. Peter was the hot head, and Edmund was the one who jumped in when he was needed. If Peter was going to get beat up in a fight, Edmund would do it at his side. It wasn't right that Peter was the one forcing Edmund to be logical. To see reason. But... nothing was right anymore. Not since they'd left Narnia.

   It had been five years. One year since they'd been sent to boarding school, in which things had gotten increasingly bad, but five total since they'd been to Narnia.

Edmund was devastated, and as time passed it was showing more and more. Leaving behind the girl he loved had taken a tole on him, and continued to do so more every day. Not to say that was exactly a rare thing with the Pevensie siblings these days. They'd all left something behind.

Susan had left behind a society she had mastered her hold around. She was not used to the way this world worked, having memorized what it was like to fit into dresses, and the processes of courting, and the patterns of going to balls with princes. Peter had left behind power and influence. He could make a difference in Narnia. His words held weight, and he was an extraordinary leader. These days no one listened to him or his advise and his words meant nothing. Not only was he no longer a King, he was no longer a man. He was almost as angry as Edmund, hating that they treated him like some regular punk kid when he was a full grown king not but five years ago. Lucy had left behind her very heart. Her home was in Narnia, and the way that she could feed her curiosity and excitement and love of adventure and all of the things that made Lucy practically sparkle in the light of the Narnia sun were... stifled here. Duller. She tried to keep her siblings going and she tried to keep her hopes up but five years had passed and she was slowly feeling herself... fade away. She had responsibilities that shut her up and locked her down instead of fueling her and feeding her. People who demanded things of her that left no room for the things her soul needed. She couldn't recover fast enough.

The people around them could tell too. Not just that the siblings were missing something essential, but that they were... different. It was in the way Peter walked and spoke, his eyes sharp and his jaw locked and his shoulders stiff, back straight - all relaxed, as if the rigid posture was completely natural to him. The way he fought was so foreign. Even against several people, his feet moved so fluidly and he seemed to see each of their weaknesses as if they were mapped out. The only way to defeat him was to get him very angry so his head cleared. That and, as time passed, he seemed to lose it a little bit at a time.

Susan had become ethereal. Graceful, gorgeous. Gentle. She had a smile so soft and lovely that it pulled at your gut - both because of its beauty, but also it's danger. She was so tantalizing that it made one nervous. She could make you do anything if she asked nicely enough. Her touches left warmth on any skin she found, and everyone was drawn to her as if they were apart of her. Trying to reunite. Come home again. She spoke differently, inflections off and using words that made her sound ancient. People had mused that she was a Queen in another life... Well, they had five years ago. Susan had started to harden and become cold. She rarely spoke to anyone anymore, let alone touch them. Her magnetism had turned into a repelling force. She was sharp, snappy. She shut everyone out. At one point she had stopped gliding across the floor when she walked, and started to hit the ground harder than everyone else. Like an angel who had lost her wings.

Edmund had bit hit the worst. No one knew why, but when he had first been around starting five years ago, he never teased his siblings anymore or picked fights or been the rude little boy he had been known as, holding onto the past and a father he missed dearly as he shut everyone else out. Edmund had seemed very poised and out together. He made jokes and witty remarks and even if you hated him you couldn't stop yourself from laughing. He had a sharpness to him, a mischievousness in every curve and line of his being. He could climb to any height, and often sat in the rafters or on the roofs of building, grinning while his teachers yelled at him. He sat so poised, so practiced, that he seemed to grow larger and fiercer - like a Lion. He became hard to look at, and made one nervous to be around. He was like swimming: beautiful, thrilling, and wonderful to explore, but dangerous if you stayed under too long. The poise and control had waned though and now... he was only unbridled rage. All danger, no reprieve. Barred teeth and curled fists and narrowed eyes. He was broken. He was missing something.

Lucy... well, hers was the most obvious actually. It was in the way she danced. She danced often, whether it was in place while she listened or waited, or while she walked somewhere, or to actual music, Lucy had a way to simply taking up space that was definitely akin to dancing. No one knew where she had learned to move like that. They didn't know where her feet or hands would go next, and were convinced she wasn't hearing the music actually playing - even if she moved to the best perfectly. She had a smile that was like sunshine on a lake, and had an aura that pulled you into her world of sparkling an shining and glistening. Five years ago, she was joy personified. Youth, living. Now she seemed to have aged a million years. She was exhausted, and couldn't ever seem to hear the music she had once felt in her very blood. She frowned a lot these days, and in her eyes it was most common to see a vast void of nothing. These days Lucy rarely danced, even when music did play. And the only time she smiled was when she got letters from her mother.

   They tried to get along, despite everything. I mean, how bad could it be? They had each other. Even if everything was startling and new and foreign; this world they'd been born to. Even if they lived in a world that they'd had to readjust to, with cars and cell phones. Even if Lucy had almost been run over six times in the last two months and everyone just gotten over jumping and looking about wildly when the phone rang. Even if the train reminded them of a fearsome beast and they felt uncomfortable being near one, let alone riding one. Even if they did not ride horses or wear dresses and crowns or even have their opinion considered. Even if it seemed everything here weighed more on being late to school than actually encouraging growth and life and hope and happiness... They could make it surely. They had before and they would again as they always did. Together.

They would have to get by on that, and the resolution that one day Aslan would call them Narnia once again.

   As of now, the Pevensies sat on a bench, waiting for that metal monster people called a train to bring them to their schools, where they were to learn things they didn't understand in a world they didn't really belong to anymore. There was some argument about the fight from before. Susan was telling Peter about how it was his fault; how Peter was setting a bad example. Peter didn't like that, and tried to argue, but Edmund kept shooting back responses too quickly, replying that he was his own person and that he was smart enough to make his own decision despite what Peter may or may not do.

   Suddenly, Lucy broke the argument and the tension as she shot to her feet. "Ow!" She exclaimed, eyes wide.

   "What's the-" Susan began, then she shot to her feet as well. "What was that?" She demanded, startled.

   "Ow!" Peter yelled as well, joining his sisters.

   "Ah!" Edmund shouted a second later. Now all of them were standing, looking at each other with expressions that slowly turned from bewildered to hopeful. All except Susan, whose expression was stubbornly trying to stay annoyed as she tried to stay logical. Someone would have to consul their siblings and tether then to reality.

   "It felt like magic." Lucy spoke what they were all thinking. What Susan refused to admit.

  Before anyone could say anything else, the train passed. Their clothes whipped around them and they looked ahead to where the train was disappearing into what was turning from a London station tunnel into a... cave tunnel, with a bright light at the end. Their eyes squinted in the sudden natural light. There was flashing between a scene of a beach, an ocean in the background, and that dingy, dirty London tunnel.Then the train was gone, blowing by, and they had to blink the light out of their eyes. When the four siblings' vision adjusted to the new lighting and looked out, they only saw a beach. No tunnel. No London. The waves were crystal blue and absolutely beautiful. The breeze carried salt on it. The chattering of people and machines had disappeared. They stood in a tunnel, no longer in London.

Which could only mean one thing.

   Susan and Lucy looked at each other and took off. Peter and Edmund soon followed, pausing only because they were so busy staring at the beach and the light with relief and joy that outmatched any ever seen before. They all kicked off their shoes as they went, the girls pulling out their hair as shirts were untucked and jackets and shoes were discarded in the sand. With each layer gone and each piece of London shedded, the righted, mature, "almost adults," ready for boarding school and full of irritation and hopelessness were now wild, free children who had every sureness that they had finally, FINALLY returned home again. They laughed and played, running to the water and splashing each other.

Peter relaxed, his tension and anger melting to be replaced by a straight back and the kind of expression that spoke of a kind man who looked after those who looked to him for guidance. Susan's stubbornness fled, making room for her fluid moments and grace and softness that this world allowed her. No longer did she have to be real and hard and prepared for the worst. Edmund relaxed, relief above all else taking over him. Things would be complicated. He was still too young... but so was AnneMarie. He didn't mind this being younger again if it meant they could be young together. And Lucy... well Lucy was more than just home. It was even better than she thought. She was whole.

   Unfortunately, as the Pevensies played, things were happening. In fact they were here for the danger that lurked just under the skin of the land they were now in. They had been summoned. Called. By someone who needed them. By a land that needed them.

   Once again, Narnia was in trouble and this time they weren't just afraid and oppressed and hiding. They were being erased. Scribbled from culture and stories and existence itself. The Pevensies - the Queens and Kings of Old - were more needed than ever before.