Author's Notes: Um. So, this last piece took over three years to write, according to my computer's dating on the files. Peter takes a long time to talk to, I'm sorry. My thanks to Rishi for his able beta job, and my thanks to everyone who will read this.

1.

Peter loves the art of fighting, but he hates war and combat.

On the training grounds, with Oreius or any one of the other dozen or so instructors drilling him, he is fully alive, focusing with all his might upon the next blow, the next move. In his practice bouts with Edmund, the two of them are so attuned to one another that it seems as though they are dancing, stopping only when one of them manages to distract the other from completing a move correctly. Lately, Edmund has taken to shocking Peter with devastatingly accurate imitations of various members of their court. When Edmund perfectly mimic a rambling conversation between Lucy and Susan over the dire state of Lucy's wardrobe, accurately portraying Lucy's blithe obliviousness to how high her hemlines have risen over the past season and Susan's despairing attempts to get Lucy to stand still long enough to receive a proper fitting again Peter loses the bout bent over laughing, unable to block Edmund's killing blow. Oreius often takes them to task for their levity, but they've argued successfully that the point of this humor is to teach each other to ignore distractions upon the battlefield.

He loves the tourneys as well. He thrives upon the energy of the crowds, the thrill of testing himself against new opponents trained in different traditions. Upon the tourney field, he is free to be a knight first, and a king only afterwards. To fight in the tourneys is a joy of competition, a chance to try himself against the best, and a chance to prove again that he can protect the land he has been given.

But he hates war. He hates the sickening loss of life to both sides, the names and faces of his subjects who ride out with him never to return. He hates the pain in the eyes of the survivors of the battlefield, who have seen friends and relatives cut down beside them. He hates the agonized cries that ring in his ears, the sobs of family members after he tells them that their sons, fathers, brothers have fallen.

Each time he rides out, he hates the fact that he has yet again failed to find another way to stop matters before they devolved into open war. And each time, he prays before Aslan that this time, this struggle, will be the last time he must ride out and buy the safety and freedom of his land and his people with the blood of his soldiers.

2.

He often has trouble sleeping. Long after Susan, Edmund, and Lucy have gone off to seek their rest, he will remain awake, pacing his floor as he works out problems he has been unable to solve properly during the daylight hours. Far too often, they are problems he knows are beyond his power to solve, or difficulties that will only be resolved by time. During those rare times when the others are away from Cair Paravel and he remains, he paces long into the night, unable to rest without knowing with utter certainty that they are all well.

His lack of sleep has helped him on some occasions. He would never have known that Lucy had nightmares if he had not remained awake so often. It seems that no less than once per week he would hear his youngest sister's light footsteps treading through the hall that connects all of their rooms. She would pause outside each sibling's room, listening, he thinks, to make sure that they are still there, before she returns to her own room.

Ever since the first time he heard her footsteps in the night, he has kept the door to his room unlocked and unbarred, trying to let her know without words that she will always be free to enter and sit with him until the storms in her dreams have passed. She never does, and he knows he must respect her pride enough to let her solve her dreams in her own way. Aslan knew well that she was by far the strongest of all of them in so many ways. Peter must let her judge her own strength here, as well.

Be that as it may, the next time he thinks she might be up in the night, he not only unlocks the door, but leaves it slightly ajar as an invitation to her.

3.

He has a terrible temper. It takes much to ignite his wrath, but he knows to his sorrow that once his fury sparks, it rages far out of his control. He relies strongly on both Susan and Edmund when it comes to diplomacy, their quiet temperaments are far more suited to the difficult dance of words and the underlying subtleties are clear as water to them, though Peter finds them opaque and impossible to understand. Far too many times, before he learned to judge his strengths and leave certain tasks to those better suited for them, he would let a foreign diplomat stir him into angry words and hasty judgement. It was Susan who stepped in, once, and soothed both him and the representative from Archenland's king into seeing what they both held in common, and made them both forget their wounded pride.

In disgust at the end of the day, Peter had turned the whole diplomatic mission over into Susan's hands, and though she had paled at the responsibility, she had stepped forward and done far more than he ever could have, forging a great friendship between both countries, and a deep personal kinship with Archenland's king and young prince.

With Edmund, it had been an entirely different matter, though Peter still felt his temperament was at the heart of it. It was years on, and he had learned how to hold on, how to let his patience leash his irritation before it sparked into true anger. And aside from his own siblings, nothing drove him to maintain control of his anger more than the presence of his subjects. He would not take out his temper on those who had suffered long years under the White Witch. That applied even to the Dwarves, who often seemed more interested in causing everyone around them grief than in dealing with anything straightforwardly. Edmund had been the one to lose his temper at that meeting, much to Peter's despair, but it seemed that that spark of anger was what the Dwarves had been aiming for. Certainly, they responded better to Edmund than they ever had to Peter. Again, he turned a diplomatic meeting over to one of his younger siblings, and again, he was rewarded with a greater success than he had ever hoped for.

It was a relief to give up diplomatic responsibilities to Susan and Edmund. It was also one of the times when he was very grateful that Aslan had seen fit to make all four of them Kings and Queens of Narnia, for the burden would have been too much for him alone.

4.

He thinks it's unnatural whenever Lucy is dispirited. Lucy was meant to always be glad and free of spirit, jubilant and loving. To see her upset, bogged down by the worries and demands of their reign was unbearable. His faint memories of Before only reinforce this thought, that he would have always done anything to keep her joyful.

It's for her that he channels his already Puckish sense of humor into action, enlisting Edmund's help to plan truly royal pranks upon occasion, as both of them will do anything to see their younger sister laugh. They hold snowball fights in the front courtyard when the snow falls, strafing Lucy and Susan in their morning walks until both sisters abandon dignity and fight back. Somehow it always ends with Lucy on top of him, stuffing large handfuls of snow down his tunic, and laughing like the ring of bells, glad, loud, and merry.

Or in the summer months, when they are all at home, he will sneak into her room and kidnap her, still sleeping, from her bed, and carry her out for a dawn breakfast on the shores of the Eastern Sea. She will wake up, laughing again, as soon as she feels the sand against her skin and smells the salt in the water. Edmund will often wake up early as well and join them for toast and tea on the beach, before retreating to Cair Paravel and the dining hall to fill up the rest of the way on the eggs and sausages that, according to Edmund, are necessary to have before he could ever think of doing anything else. Susan will sleep in instead, saying that these mornings are really meant for Peter and Lucy alone.

It never seems to take more than a few minutes of companionship before Lucy is herself again, bright and golden and full of life. He would do far more, for Lucy, than she ever seems to need from him.

5.

He cannot begin to say how very proud he is of each of his siblings, who have truly grown into the in king and queens they were destined to be.

He looks at Susan, and all he can see is how kind she has become, how gracious and gentle she is to all the beings she encounters. He sees the woman who works a kind of magic when it comes to making even the most difficult of envoys feel welcomed and at home in Cair Paravel, but who will stop in the midst of her duties to soothe a young Squirrel who feels lonely on her visit to their court. He sees the queen who always seems to know when her sister and brothers most need her, who loves without hesitation. Susan embodies the grace and gentle strength of all of Narnia for Peter.

Edmund is constantly by his side, his right hand and his shield. Edmund is his strongest defender, a rock Peter would rely upon if the rest of the world fell away from him. Peter looks at Edmund and sees a grave, quiet man, brilliant beyond measure, utterly unaware of how essential he is to every part of ruling Narnia with justice and compassion. Edmund is the only one capable of pulling Peter out of himself, of re-directing Peter's scattered thoughts with one wry comment or the arch of a sarcastic eyebrow. Edmund daily shows Peter the wisdom and wit of their people.

Lucy is laughter and light, compassion and jubilation. Lucy is, of all of them, the closest and most deeply in tune to both Aslan and the ordinary inhabitants of Narnia. Lucy is his North Star and his dawn, leading him to where he needs to be and reminding him to be a man and a brother, as well as a king. Lucy inspires him, the same way she inspires all of their subjects. Peter can see it in their eyes, whenever the fauns, or the Foxes, or any other group comes to speak with their rulers, they might come initially respecting all of them, but by the end of the first meeting, they will love their younger queen. Lucy holds the love and the joy of all Narnia.