Title: As I Believe the Sun has Risen
Disclaimer: I do not own the Chronicles of Narnia, etc.
Author's Note: Response to Weekly Challenge #11 (Unbelievable) at the livejournal community "justkingedmund". It's only a very short one-shot that came to me when I saw the word 'unbelievable', because I thought it related a lot to Susan's situation circa the Last Battle. Basically the fic is Edmund musing over belief. It actually relates a bit to my story Not Ready To Be Found, but isn't a companion piece. Just similar. The title comes from a C.S. Lewis quote: "I believe in Christiniaty as I believe that the sun has risen. Not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else."

The problem, Edmund thought, with believing in something incredible and fantastical and magical, is that it is too easy to stop believing. We stepped through a wardrobe and fulfilled every child's innermost dream: to be royalty, to live surrounded by magic. Narnia's song filled us with such wonder and peace that it sunk into the very marrow of our bones. The magic of that land was in the water we drank, the food we ate, the air we breathed. And because we saw it with our eyes we believed.

Edmund shifted in his seat, staring out the window as the sun set over the city. Then we returned here, to that Spare Oom of legend, only to find that it wasn't the mythical kingdom of our birth, but ordinary old England. There was no magic in this air, only choking smoke and dull life. Fauns, Talking Animals, dryads – here they were just the fairy tales of our childhood, the ones that had come to life for too short a moment in Narnia. We clung, though, to our memories, believing they were true if only because they were too cherished to be false.

And, Edmund thought as his hands tightened around the precious book in his hands, eventually, we did find magic here. Real magic, the kind that exists only becauseit's true, that seems fantastical only because it belongs to the world as it should be, not as it is. Unlike in Narnia, though, we can't see the magic. It exists beyond, just like Narnia itself. We believe in Narnia, believe in Aslan, believe in the True Magic, despite its irrationality; in truth because it is irrational and incredible and so against the logic of the world that it must exist.

At least, most of us believe. Because, the problem with believing the unbelievable is that the belief can fade away, overtaken by what is seen and touched and tasted in the world. The fantastical is no longer seen like you see the sun, but only in the shadow it casts on the world. There is no longer any room to believe in it, because the fantastical can no longer be touched with your hand, but only felt in your soul. Belief truly becomes unbelievable to those who only wish to taste what is in front of them, and not above them and beyond them. Edmund stared sadly at the street below his window, at his beloved sister being whisked away to another party. And then the magic that kept you living – not alive, living – for so long, through so much, is gone.

Yes, the book Edmund has is the Bible.