Title: wings with their terrible youth
Fandom: Narnia
Rating: Teen and Up
Length: 226
Summary: It's hard to sleep under the Professors roof.



Peter lies the full length of himself - all of him, too short, and whip thin, unmuscled and unscarred, pale as only the northern wastes - back in his bed - odd, unfamiliar, too big and not big enough, beneath him - and stares up at the ceiling without the slightest glimpse of sleep to make the image soft.

It's too straight. Too regular. It's plainness is no concern to his sensibilities - they had ruled Narnia from palaces and from battlefields, but out among the trees and beasts is where they had lived - and yet its very existence is. He had - they all had, Lucy more than most - half-forgotten the Professor's house, with its empty corridors and silence and the bland, unappealing taste of food made out of wartime rations.

He stills, ready to explode into action, achingly aware of how vulnerable his lack of weapons make then, as the door creaks open, the approaching step too light to be - Lucy. His tense muscle relax. Susan shifts, lifting the edge of her blanket wordlessly, from where she has been lying as still and silently as he, no more at home in this old forgotten room than she could have been in Calormen.

And, there, by the doorway, half-hidden and unobtrusive but the for the quiet shuffle he allows to announce his presence as he shifts a chair. Edmund won't join them in the bedroom, not tonight. Standing guard over their vulnerability is his role, Narnia's silent sword in the night.

Tomorrow, Susan will make her excuses and Lucy will distract Mrs McCreedy, and Peter will take his turn standing guard in the seat by the door.

All are gathered and safe. Peter blinks his burning eyes and slowly slips into a doze.