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Edan had never questioned his mother. The Queen was anything but open with him. Of course, she wasn’t really like that with anyone- a real Ice Queen.
All people who tried to cross her ended up as another garden statue amidst the overflowing row of traitors. Of course he never dared to step out of line again when he saw it for the first time. But he also had no reason to.
He never missed anything, her love was a thing he wanted but it was not like he was unloved. As Prince of Narnia people tended to him so it was easy to imagine that their attentivnes was because of their love for him and not out of fear of their Queen.
He was taught sword fighting and politics just like any other royal kid. The palace was a suffocating home but a warm one compared to the eternal winter outside so he wanted to prove that he deserved to stay there. He started mastering other weapons and gathering as much knowledge as he could- a small part of him still hoped to impress his mother.
He usually walked alone the guards were always standing a few feet behind him but with the upcoming war people still fully loyal to the Queen were rare. Most of them wouldn’t think for a second before stabbing her child and leaving his body on her doorstep. It was just safer if he walked alone, without a person with a weapon behind him.
His mother said he could defend himself from other. But he couldn’t defend himself from her, most of the time she hurt him more than any others. Her palm was something he became familiar with since a young age. She always wanted only what was best for him-that's what she always told him, and he believed her. And he had no reason not to she was his mother so why would she wish him any harm? Her servants said the same thing when they cleaned his bloodstained clothes.
After another encounter with the Queen he was sent outside to wander the ground until she calmed down enough to not strike him on sight.
It was cold and lonely but all he had. He once believed in a better world but each step into the deep snow reminded him just what his situation was.
Alone at last he found his little bench. A special gift from a servant he helped, built by his own two hands. The first time Edan felt a little less alone. The servant's statue stood a few feet left of the bench.
Sitting down in the cold snow wasn’t something he liked to do but in moments of weakness he couldn’t gather up the strength to care. His warm tears heated his face a bit and washed the blood off his cheek.
He still wished deep inside himself that someone would come to save him. Take his somewhere where the sun would melt away the frost inside his heart.
His mother never gave him warmth- but the sun might.
--
The Pevensie siblings sat huddled beside the fireplace, a gentle warmth wrapping around each of them
The castle’s fireplaces were so large, you didn’t need to sit right beside them to feel their warmth.
Their friend Caspian was peacfully sleeping in the arm chair next to the sofas. His family was close to the Pevensies. When baby Edmund was taken, the royal family had been relentless. Not a single leaf left unturned.
It was hopeless. Their brother was gone. Caspian fit nicely with them. They grew up together. Sometimes he was enough to fill the gap.
But on nights like this, when silent tears slipped from Susan’s cheeks onto Peter’s shirt... as he tried to console his sister's pained whispers while trying to hide his own the gap seemed to swallow them both.
---
Lucy never meet her brother, but she was told stories of him. She thinks they would have been close. Sometimes her brother and sister look at her with a longing look she never understood. Her sister's silent cries were enough for her to shed a few tears of her own. She had no right to, she never got the chance to get to know her brother like Peter and Susan did, but she still quietly grieved the loss of something she never had- a funeral she never got to attend. Her brother’s grave was always beautifully decorated. A year ago Caspian’s parents joined him. That’s when they moved into the castle to help the new king who got sat in a throne to big for him. Caspian was always enough for her, like the brother she could have. Sometimes she thinks Edmund would be just like him but she would have to ask her siblings what they tought, she didn’t know him so she had no right to assume what he would have been like.
---
Peter still held onto Susan when he saw Lucy’s silent tears. Aslan, how he wished Edmund was here to help him. His arms never seemed big enough to reach everyone. He couldn’t reach Edmund before he disappeared into the snow and he couldn’t reach his parents before leaving them, to buried into their own grief to care about their living kids. His parents left a while ago trusting the King and Queen to care for their kids. He resented them just a little for leaving him to hold it all together but he resented himself more for letting them. Maybe if Edmund were with them his arms would be big enough to reach everyone, they always were. Little Edmund had been bright and mischievous — but Peter loved him. Oh, how he loved him.. Ed was his little brother his partener in everything. Caspian stood in his place now, but even he couldn’t fill the space Edmund left behind. So Peter did what he could. He held both his sisters close and comforted them wishing his brother was here to stop his heart from burning up the with the pain.
---
Susan felt a subtle shift and watched as Peter enveloped Lucy in his arm. She reached out and took her sister's hand. Aslan, her glossy eyes looked just like Edmund’s, when he cried over the littlest things. She always found it annoying but now she would give anything to hear those cries again. He was the only one of her siblings who would read with her, he always cared for her silly dreams of being a strong Lady and helping Peter with his future Lord duties. He never treated her as if she was weak just because she was a girl, never spoke to her any differently then how he did with Peter of their Father. He had been her little brother and the only one who truly saw her. Peter, Lucy and even Caspian slowly began to see her too- but Edmund was the first. He promised he would never force her to go and marry a stranger, he vowed he would protect her from other men and keep her here with him so she could read and rule as she wished. How she wished he was still here next to her.
---
Caspian heard the siblings cry but he didn’t want to intrude. He was never one of them. The memories of Edmund always were painful for the siblings and him standing next to them instead of Edmund only seemed to hurt them more. So he pretended to be asleep and hoped they would find solace in eachother. He helped as much as he could be he was of no use. The pain of losing his parents was still raw. The siblings stood next to him while his parents were buried next to their brother. He understood their pain now. He wish he could bring Edmund back even he didn’t know him he heard enough from stories to piece together that he would have grown to be a magnificent person. He only wished to measure up to him to slowly fill the gap he left.
All of them wanted Edmund back each for their own reason. For now they only wished he found comfort and warmth like them.
The warmth of the fire wrapped them all up. It didn’t compare to having him next to them but it was enough for a time. They never said his name but looking into eachother's eyes they knew they were all mourning something lost, but at least they weren't alone.