This world and its inhabitants belong to C.S. Lewis. I am borrowing them for my own amusement and will return them unharmed.
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He stood in the treasury, surrounded with the riches of Narnia, with eyes only for the sword he held before him. He turned it over in his hands, the blade catching the light from the torches and breaking it into thousands of shards, each a memory…
The first time he'd drawn it, marveling at the feel of it in his hands, so right, trying to listen to Father Christmas' words, but so excited and not realizing the deadliness of the steel he held.
The first time he'd ever used it, fighting in a haze of fury and panic and the desperate need to save his sisters and the revulsion he'd felt at seeing Maugrim's red-black blood coating his blade…
The way his hand had cramped about the blade at the battle of Beruna as he stood back-to-back with Edmund, fighting and fighting until he could not let go of the hilt and the sword seemed to be nothing but a deadly extension of his arm.
The warm weight of it hanging by his side at his coronation, matching the weight of the crown Aslan placed upon his head and the weight of responsibility he felt squarely upon his shoulders.
Endless practicing with his Centaur weapons-master, learning the tricks of sword-play and how to use his agile Human body against his ogre or Giant opponents, duelling his brother, or just building up his strength by running with sword and armor.
Knighting Tumnus, seeing the glow in his eyes as Peter carefully tapped each shoulder and proclaimed him Sir Tumnus of the Order of the Table, Beloved Friend of the Crown.
The first tournament he'd ever fought in, only a year or two after the coronation, a friendly thing between Narnia and Archenland, and the heady rush of truimph he'd felt as the victory was proclaimed his.
The first battle he'd led as High King, quenching an uprising of Dwarfs far in the north, and the notch he'd mended himself from a Dwarf's axe.
The tears that had fallen onto the blade the first time he'd lost a Narnian under his command, and the agony he'd suffered over whether he could have prevented the death.
The sheer fury he'd felt when he came upon Susan cornered by a too-amorous suitor in a tower room of the Cair, and the single drop of blood he'd drawn, his muscles clenched with the need to kill as he told the suitor to be gone by daybreak or answer to his sword.
The first time Edmund had looked at him at the end of their daily practice together and said, "Peter- you need a bigger sword."
The horror he'd felt at the very idea—and the shock at realizing his brother was right, he had topped six feet now and could wield the great two-handed swords the Centaur sometimes used.
A smile tugged at the High King's lips as he sheathed Rhindion and hung it on the wall of the treasury.
"Farewell, old friend," he murmured. "You have served me well… and you shall not be forgotten."
Peter, High King of Narnia, had become a man
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