18

I CAN EXPLAIN

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It was a strange feeling waking up. Alex's eyes fluttered open and she almost expected to find herself in the garden still or to see the world from the perspective of a frozen statue, but she didn't. The familiar walls filled her vision and cotton sheets felt soft under the touch of her fingers.

"When were you going to tell me?" the voice was loud and stern but more importantly that of Peter Pevensie, when Alex turned to see him sitting on the edge of her bed and she almost expected to see him looking softly at her but instead he was staring down at the floor, "I don't even know what is going on but regardless, you didn't tell me."

Beads of sweat dripped down the side of his temple and dampened his hair due to the intensity of the fire burning in her bedroom. She found multiple candles burning around her, he had even draped multiple blankets from his own room over her body as she slept to try and keep her warm. But none of it worked, if anything her lips only got darker in their shade of blue.

"Peter-" she spoke out and hid her wince of pain as she tried to move to see what he was looking at, with every move of her muscle she could feel them tightening, "I can explain."

"That would be nice!" he hissed out angrily and pointed to what he had in front of him, "At first it didn't make sense to me; I had seen your paintings and each were different. I realised that they all matched after a while, but these? These made no sense to me at all. At least not until I arranged them."

Alex peered over his shoulder as she crawled across the bed to see them all laying on the wooden floors. Each and every one of her newer, more frightening, paintings had been put into what could only be described as a puzzle. They lay next to each other in different sizes and rotations to quite literally make a bigger picture.

That of a blizzard.

His voice was much softer this time, dropping a few octaves as his fists were no longer clenched tightly, "Why would you keep something like this from me?"

"I didn't even know what was going on until it was too late," she confessed and pulled her stiffening body to sit next to him, her breath even froze in clouds still despite the heat of the room from the fire, "Aslan told me the day that I left that something was happening, I noticed how my hair was returning back to white, my sleep was filled with nightmares from what I had seen when I died on the battlefield. More importantly, I was becoming what I once was. I was emotionless, cruel, restless but more importantly cold. But then at the Ice Castle, I saw Tatiana in a vision, she told me that it was only a matter of time before I became a literal statue and I was trapped in my mind as the world around me would change."

Peter just dropped his head in both hands as an unknown expression covered his face that was soon to be hidden by his hands. "What can we do to stop it?"

Alex just sighed and adjusted how she sat, "Nothing as far as I am aware. I've spent the whole of my free time over the past year just looking for Aslan in hopes that he had found something to stop this. But I've had no luck."

"I mean, there has to be something that we can do, right?" he asked simply.

"Peter," she took his hands and rubbed a finger over his knuckle calmingly, "Can't we just wait until tomorrow to start worrying about this? I want to spend the night in your arms and watch the sky through the window like old times."

Peter shrugged her hands away and stood up abruptly, "No, Alex! We need to confront this now. We need to work to find a way to fix this before its too late-"

"What?" she asked him as he suddenly stopped responding to her and just stared so intently into her eyes, "Peter, you're scaring me."

"Y-your eyes," he whispered out as she fought her body's urges to stop moving so she could see what he was seeing, and she regretted every choice she had made to look into the mirror.

Her eyes were the only thing that hadn't changed over the whole process of whatever was going on to her, they stayed the emerald green with glints of teal. Sure, they would occasionally burn a bright blue when she was stressed. But now they weren't. They were different. They were grey and lifeless.

"It's too late," she whispered out breathily as she fell back into his waiting arms, "We are too late."

The whole world seemed to crumble around her as her legs collapsed and Alexandra fell into him even more, the only thing that kept her from falling completely was him. "Alex?" the voices around her only mixed together but she could tell that it wasn't just Peter. The whole atmosphere was thick and making it hard to breathe.

"I'm not going to make it long enough," she whispered into his shoulder, "We will never watch the sunrise again. Will we?"

Peter couldn't answer. How could he? He could never lie to the love of his life, even if it was to sweeten the harsh truth that these could be their last moments together.

Gently pulling back, completely aware that each of his sibling's eyes rested on them, he held her face in his calloused hands ever so softly. "Mark my words, Alexandra Dawson, we will sit on that beach and we will watch that sun."

She smiled for the first time in a long while.

Edmund took her arm and placed it over his shoulders and Peter did so with her other arm to help her walk. Behind them, the two daughters of Eve picked up various blankets and pillows in their arms and followed silently; crystal tears filling their eyes.

And they did make it in time. Not to watch the sunrise, but to watch the sunset.

All five humans sat upon the silk blankets with their feet in the sand. Susan and Edmund sat closely together in silence as they watched the waves get closer and closer until they pulled back to the ocean, stuck in a forever repeating cycle. Lucy drew in the sand absentmindedly with her finger to avoid the stiffness of conversation that should be held.

Peter held Alex in his arms, the girl sat between his legs and leaning back into his touch as if it was the last source of warmth in Narnia. His fingers gently drawing circles on her freezing arms to try and soothe her if that was even possible.

"If this is what dying feels like, then I have no idea why I've feared this my entire life. I feel as if I'm floating on this- this cloud and the only way is up," she whispered to him so that he didn't fear how she was feeling, "It isn't painful or lonely. It's calming- soothing almost."

Peter shook his head, the golden curls slipping from behind his ears, "You aren't dying. We still have time. Aslan will be here, he can't just watch this and not help. He isn't like that."

Alex smiled weakly and nodded, not wanting to anger or upset him any further.

Alexandra was sure that there was a noise other than Peter's breathing and the gentle crash of waves; it sounded exactly like... sobbing?

"Lucy?" Alex asked softly as she saw the girl's shoulders shaking uncontrollably, "Lucy, dear, tell me what's wrong."

"You're leaving, aren't you?" she asked without turning, attempting to hide her watery eyes.

Regrettably, the Dawson girl moved from beside Peter and scuffled down onto Lucy's blanket to wrap an arm over her shaking shoulders.

"We all have to leave at some point, don't we?" she asked rhetorically, "I've studied the legends of Aslan's Island, a place we go after our life end. A place where beings of all shapes and sizes can roam the lands in peace and live a second life. To me, it sounds perfect. I'll wait for you you, I'll wait for all of you."

"What if I want to stay here with you instead of this island you talk about? This right here is perfect, it's perfect because of you."

Alex kissed the skin of her forehead gently, "Go have fun, Lucy the Gentle, live your life knowing that I am waiting for you on the other side."

Lucy nodded as to not cause more tension in the already stiff atmosphere. She pulled Susan up with her left hand and Peter up with her right, dragging them to the water with little conversation.

"Is this the part where you give me the 'I'm not scared of dying' talk?" Edmund asked without meeting her eyes.

"You aren't a child, Ed. Neither is Lucy, none of us are after what we've witnessed. I told Lucy and Peter what they needed and I am going to do the same for you and Susan."

Alex patted the empty blanket beside her and watched the three siblings stand within the ocean's waves as she waited for him to take a seat.

"What happened wasn't your fault-" she ignored his protesting and carried on, "If you didn't do what you did then this would have happened sooner.  If anything, without you destroying her weapon I would have died in that battlefield and stayed that way. So, as King of Narnia, it is your duty to carry on. You need to put this all behind you and rule side by side with your siblings to be the rulers that this land needs. Got it?"

Edmund nodded with his eyes fixated on the sand strongly, staring at the patterns Lucy had drawn with her finger. "I'm sorry I failed you."

"Failed me? No. Made me proud? Fuck yeah," she grinned as his cheeks reddened at her words, "It's time you learn that I am anything but the typical Lady, Ed. I am a Knight. And right now, this Knight wants to play in the ocean with the Kings and Queens of Narnia."

Edmund stood up and dusted his knees. and the backs of his legs before offering out his hand to her, "Then I, King Edmund the Just, would like to make your wish come true."

"When are you Pevensies going to stop using these full, formal titles?" she asked with a glint of joy behind her eyes.

"Never."

Alex playfully shook her head and took his hand and let him lead her to where water met sand. Susan, Lucy and Peter had been standing idly in the waves; Peter with his trouser legs rolled up and his sisters letting their skirts hang in the water.

Despite every muscle in her body telling her not to move any more, she let her legs kick water up to Peter. His white shirt now sticking to his body with a smirk on his lips.

"You will regret that."

"Will I?"

And she did in the sense that her trousers and her now stuck to her legs uncomfortably and her white curls became too damp that they started to straighten out. But she didn't because seeing Peter smile made it all okay.

She was under siege from all sides as the siblings all splashed the water at her, over time it became Peter and Alex against the other three Pevenise siblings.

But as the sun slowly descended against the horizon in a haze of gold, she was finally at peace.

Susan had ushered Edmund and Lucy back to the blankets to dry off. Leaving Peter and Alexandra alone. His arms lightly wrapped around her waist as he stood behind her, noticing how the sunset brought out the blue in her lips and the platinum in her hair.

But as she gently leaned back against his body, all his troubles washed away.

For once it was just him and his first love against the world.

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happy new year to my guys, girls and non-binary pals. I love you all!!