They don't set out to become the kings of St. Maurice’s School for Boys, it just sort of happens.
Peter's not trying to be a king so much as be King Peter, not trying to lead so much as care for others, but it feels so natural to speak up, to step forward, to give orders and receive respect. He doesn't ask to be called ‘sir’, as the younger boys do when he scolds them, and he feels embarrassed when he hears other boys say, “Here comes His Majesty.” He's not the king of this school, he's not even Head Boy. He's just… Peter Pevensie. And yet, somehow, he knows he's High King Peter too, he remembers being that, and it lingers in his body and mind, sinew and soul altered in ways he cannot take back. He wouldn't take it back even if he could.
It's easier for Peter to see the little things in Edmund than himself: the way he laughs freer and brighter, even as he studies harder and deeper; the calmness with which he takes insults; the concern with which he addresses people in the wrong.
Peter finds himself instinctively turning toward the sounds of shouts and fists, finds himself leaping to either halt or join the altercations, depending on their nature. He's quick to see who's at a disadvantage, quick to pick a side if there's a clear one. Ed has similar tendencies, though he's sharper with his tongue, prefers to break up fights with some pointed words, and only the threat of fists, unless his brother is already embroiled.
Peter's ear seems specially tuned to his brother's voice, easily picking it out of any row, no matter how many boys may be shouting, and he is never surprised to discover Edmund at his side in the thick of it. They look after each other, guard each other's backs as much as possible, fight for each other when they must.
By the end of the winter term, they are both widely accepted leaders across the school, Peter on a level with Head Boy Wollers, and Ed as something similar among the lower forms, who consider him more accessible than Peter.
He picks out a pattern in the whispers: If you want protection, go to Peter; if you want clever ideas, go to Edmund. And it makes him smile, another echo of their kingship and the roles they'd taken while ruling from the Cair.
They stop bullies, and lift spirits, and it's all good, it's right, it's what Aslan would want, Peter's certain.
And then they go home.
Home for the Easter hols, home to Finchley for the first time since they left it in the autumn, when the bombing had only begun, and they sit silent on the train drawing them into London, dragging them out of the near-dream they suddenly know school to have been.
They have to change trains twice, because the lines are knocked out, and slow-rising tension crawls up Peter's spine, works knots into his shoulders.
It comes in flashes between the stretches of unspoiled land: the edge of a city bombed into jagged walls against pale sky, someone's kitchen gaping open to the air like a wound, a funeral procession down a country lane.
Closing in on London in the evening, the ragged grey look of everything increases, and silence settles in their compartment. They come into Tottenham Station minutes before blackout descends, and disembark into the brokenness of patched up walls, and boarded up windows. Their train is late, no one is waiting, they'll have to walk all the way up Tottenham Road to take the Tube from Euston. Even in the station their breath makes clouds before their faces.
Outside, the cab stand is empty, and they say nothing, hoisting trunks up to their shoulders, Edmund his shadow as he turns down the street. The edge of the heavy trunk digs into Peter's shoulder, it is deucedly hard to balance with his suitcase dangling from one hand, but he breathes, walks, one foot in front of the other.
It's hard to breathe, hard to see, they are walking through wounds, great gaping wounds bleeding fire and stone, city skin torn open to vital parts, and Peter does not know this London. He walks as if in a dream, slow and stunned, only the occasional knock of Edmund's arm against his reminding Peter he is in fact awake.
Halfway there, Edmund is forced to rest; he's smaller, not as strong as Peter, but his trunk weighs nearly the same.
Ed sits on his trunk, panting, and Peter says nothing, because there is nothing to say, just stretches his back, trying to stand tall, peering up into the blackout murk, searching for the sky.
Chilly, twilight air hangs heavy with smoke and dust, sharp, angry smells that send memories flickering through Peter's head like a faulty film reel at a picture—smoke above trees, smashed stone walls, reek of blood, red streaked down Rhindon's silver blade, giant's club smashing down on Edmund, shout burning in his throat, Erah's face coated in scarlet dried to rust, stern sorrow for destruction, Ed's pale but smiling face…
“Peter? Pete!” Tugging at his sleeve, and he starts, looks over into his little brother's worried eyes. “Are you alright?”
“It's wrong.” Peter waves a hand around them, ember broke to flame in his chest. An old woman limps past, head down, torch pointed at the ground to see her way. She doesn't even glance at them. “All wrong.”
And he reaches for Rhindon, but finds nothing, his hands are empty, he's in his school uniform not armour, he's a boy alone in the streets of London–
The air-raid sirens blare.
Fear gives them strength, and the world blurs until they tumble down the steps to the underground station, trunks and all.
Packed in with the hundreds of others sheltering there, they surrender the preferred positions on top of their trunks to older folk with bad knees, and huddle beside them on the cold concrete platform, Edmund pressed close enough for Peter to hear his whisper: “I wish we'd never come back.”
A little boy with a sticking plaster on his chin is squirming in an older girl’s arms, querulous with his need for the toilet, and an old milk bottle gets passed over.
Peter is trying not to breathe too deeply, the reek of the sweaty, fearful crowd nearly enough to make him gag. He doesn't know if Ed means back from school or back from Narnia, but he agrees with either.
“I hate bombs.” He rests his head against Ed's, sticks his nose into his brother's hair that still carries a hint of Yorkshire moor mist, closes his eyes. “Rather catapults, or even a dragon.”
The fire in Peter’s heart burns there, gnaws at his breastbone, his lungs. His hands keep clenching into fists, before the ache of his muscles catches his attention and he forces himself to relax.
The ground beneath them shivers, the lights flicker.
A baby cries, a dog whines, someone begins to sing, and Peter feels as if the concrete roof has already caved in on him, he is trapped, squeezed, he can't move, he can't do anything.
Oh, for a sword, an army, for Aslan! But Peter can't imagine the great Lion in all His beauty here, in this dingy foul smelling crowd. He closes his eyes again, wraps an arm tight around Ed.
Ed sings softly with the others: Abide with me, fast falls the eventide…
It's after 11 by the time they drag up the steps of their home, and no light escapes at any window, they cannot tell if anyone is even there. The girls have been delayed letting out thanks to a suspected case of the measles, and sometimes Mother works very late…
A light is on in the kitchen.
Ed drops down on his trunk in the front hall, wordless, but Peter halts one step into the living room.
The fire in the hearth has burned down low, but there is enough light for him to see the woman lying across the sofa, still in her factory overall, so heavily asleep two boys blundering in with their luggage could not wake her.
Behind him Edmund starts to speak, but Peter turns, grabs Ed’s arm to tow him in his wake as he fumbles blindly into the kitchen.
He thinks his heart is breaking.
He sees the table set for three, supper gone cool, everything waiting for them, she must have fallen asleep waiting, and Peter… he thinks he's going to cry.
He doesn't.
His voice sounds odd and crackly as he tells Edmund, “Go and wake her gently. I'll reheat the soup.”
Peter comes awake in his own bed, sometime early morning, perhaps when he usually rises to go out to the stables, but he lies in complete darkness, listening to mother quietly moving about the kitchen, the door shutting behind her as she leaves to catch her bus to the factory…
And then he hears the air raid sirens very faint and far away, somewhere to the west, and he doesn't know why exactly but he is crying.
He rolls over to bury his face in his pillow, muffle the sobs, but they break out hard and fast, like the wild fire in his chest has become a bird beating its wings against his ribcage, and there is no escape, there is nothing he can do. He is nobody here, nothing, he doesn't count. He is small and trapped, and wild for open sky and the woods and the great moor rolling away and a fresh horse under him.
He thinks of the boy with the sticking plaster, the girl with the glasses, the great jagged wall that had once been a bakery! he suddenly remembered, with the most delicious cinnamon stickies one could imagine. And Mother, oh, Mum, it's not fair, you shouldn't have to work like this, it's all wrong, wrong!
He is weeping, broken open with a kind of hopeless fury for the pain around him, sobbing in the dark.
A patting hand finds his head, his shoulder, and Peter catches his breath, feels Edmund's weight dipping the mattress, a fumbling offer of comfort the way he knows Peter receives it best, and Peter… Peter cannot bear it, he flinches. Sob strangling in his throat, and he jerks back from the touch, curls away from the loving warmth of his brother, covers his mouth with a hand.
He does not want to be seen or heard, not like this, so wrecked and vulnerable, so weak and useless.
Hasty, fierce, he swallows the heaving, stamps out the fire, chokes down the tears, wrestling his body into a trembling, sniffling quietude.
“The only place you're useless is in the kitchen making tea.”
He stiffens at Edmund's hard-edged words, unbalanced by the wondering of how much he may have said aloud, or how much Ed might have guessed.
Edmund stands, moves away. “Come on, it's nearly six, and I'm starving—let's get breakfast.”
And then he's gone, creaking down the stairs, and Peter lies still, a few more tears making their way down the side of his face to the pillow. There is a cold space at his back, he is empty inside, hungry and weary in equal measure.
He does not understand. Any of this. Or so he tells the shadows.
He only understands that it hurts.
