Basically, this was a little self-challenge. I gave myself one thousand, five hundred words to do a character-take on one of my favourite characters, and this is what I came up with. It's no great work of fiction, but it's sort of bitter sweet; kind of an indulgence in Edmund-melancholia. I hope you like it - and I'd really, really like it if you'd tell me whether you did or didn't.
Thank you - and enjoy, if you can!
In the end, it was only Edmund who kept a full remembrance of the whole of their first childhood. Lucy kept faith in Narnia, and her queenship of it, and in Aslan – Peter kept strong and regal faith in his siblings and Aslan, and Susan… well, with Susan, it was sometimes doubtful that she kept faith in anything very much, or for very long. Susan had crazes. Susan flitted from fad to fad, and she had no time for Narnia.
But it was Edmund who kept faith completely by remembering everything, and, in turn, this perfect clarity strengthened his faith. Edmund couldn't deal with perfection – he had had his own imperfection too clearly shown to him, and remembering the rough with the smooth was his way of coping. If Narnia had been as perfect as Lucy, or even Peter, seemed to think, Edmund would have left it for England long ago. He wouldn't have been able to live with himself there.
But Narnia, as Edmund remembered it, was blessedly real and imperfect, where people made mistakes, and things went wrong. The thing which made Narnia so much nicer to live in than England was that although people made mistakes, and things went wrong was that the pace of life seemed to be slower. Things could be put right again; people could rectify their mistakes. And then they could laugh at them. Laughter, Edmund remembered, smiling, had played a very large part of his life in Narnia, even in all the dangerous adventures he and Peter had had, or all the wars all four of them had been involved in.
Sometimes he thought that it was stupid to think of himself as the one who kept everything, but he was. It was part of what made him Edmund the Just. He never worked out whether it was a strength or a weakness, but he did it nevertheless.
He remembered the wonders and the drawbacks of a Narnian childhood, and the amazement he felt on realising that there were people who didn't look to King Peter, the High King and supreme judge, or to Lucy, the valiant and loving queen, the apple of her kingdoms eye, or to Susan, beautiful and kind, but to him. The Just. He knew that he had bought himself justice at a terrible price, that he had nearly sold his own soul to see justice everywhere. He knew that he would never see someone given up on if there was a chance they could be saved, but he knew that it was purely because he had needed saving himself.
He had lived his entire life in Narnia in such vivid colour that he could sometimes hardly bear to breath in the grey air of England. He had ridden the highs in joy, and the lows with hope, so everything had been bearable, and nothing had to be forgotten for the sake of his sanity. Sometimes he would look back at the colour of his Narnian life, and wonder why it was he couldn't have that in England. Even the deep, livid black of the real low-points couldn't be achieved in England; nothing seemed so desperate, or so personal.
And of course, the high points, which painted the spectrum of his life in bright blues and greens, and sunny oranges and yellows, they were completely out of reach here.
He remembered periods when Aslan would visit them; he remembered the humorous scoldings of one or other of their attendants, or servants. He remembered their first, pleasant meeting with the King of Archenland, a jolly, fatherly man who taught Peter how to rule and Edmund how to respect a grown up who wasn't his father. He remembered their first, unpleasant meeting with the foreign dignitary from Calormen, who saw them as children and treated them as such. The war that grew from that meeting. Being healed by healers who had never treated a human before, after refusing Lucy's cordial – "I'm not that bad" he had protested – and the phantom ache from it that troubled him now, in England, and the very real one which he suffered from in Narnia. He remembered overexerting himself for his siblings, in particular the time he had nearly ridden himself to death to be at Lucy's birthday celebration as he had promised. He had ridden down across the Archenlandic coast line from the very northern tip of the Calormenian empire, and then down on into Narnia. It had been a three day trip he had made in one and a half. Though he changed horses, he couldn't rest himself, and though he made it to the celebration, he collapsed shortly after it, and had to rest for a few days. Peter had visited him, and affectionately called him and "over conscientious idiot".
But Edmund had been like that. He had lived everything, rather than just existing through them.
Edmund remembered the pain in Narnia, the terrible things as well as the wonderful ones. He had Narnia completely alive in his mind, whereas Lucy had her unshakeable faith in Aslan and Narnia, but none of the drawbacks of such a country. Peter remembered being a King in Narnia, but didn't seem to remember being a person there. And as for Susan, sometimes Edmund wasn't sure whether she remembered anything very much. She could be so silly, sometimes he was surprised that she remembered her own name.
One of the nicest things about Narnia was that it had restored their relationships. For example, Edmund, in particular, had been drifting away from the family – his school, and his father's absence, and Peter's high handedness, had all combined to make life unbearable for him. But going to Narnia had put everything into perspective. Their father had come home; Edmund had saved Peter's life in a tight spot far too many times for Peter to treat him with anything less than complete respect (though the same was true vice versa), and too much had changed about Edmund's demeanour (his pride, willingness to work, and people skills, to name but a few) to allow school ever to be a problem for him ever again.
Narnia had consolidated a lot of things. Edmund's relationship with Peter was one such thing. There were no two brothers as close as them that they knew of, and Edmund was glad of it. Their manners, as well. Having been quite literally brought up with the strict etiquette of royalty to learn, they all had perfect manners – even Susan, for all that she was so bent on being a "modern girl".
Edmund had always been quick to judge, but never so quick to condemn, and it was a subtle difference which all the Narnians had learnt to respect. If there was good in a person, one could count on King Edmund to see it almost immediately. The only thing which would put King Edmund against you, some had found to their cost, was insulting his brother and sisters. Insult him, and he would take no offence; but insult Peter or Susan or Lucy, and you were liable to find a sword point at your throat. Edmund remembered several painful duels he had fought on the strength of that, before he had either the stature or the skill to win. He supposed his advisors had thought that if they let him fight and lose, he would learn his lesson. They were wrong. He never had.
Narnia would always be, for Edmund, a place of mixed memories. He would never, ever be sorry to find himself back there – but it was its impact on his life now that he was so grateful for. He was an old fifteen-year-old now; Peter was nearly eighteen, and they were just as close as they ever had been – since returning from Narnia. Lucy, too, was a close confidante, blithe and kind and happy, a side of her he had never seen when he was teasing her so ruthlessly, as he had done in the pre-Narnia years. As for Susan – Susan was a law unto herself in the Pevensie family, and Edmund was sad for his family, but couldn't help but be happy for her. She looked like she was enjoying herself, and if that was the way she picked to do it, Edmund would support her. He was not, after all, Valiant or Magnificent. He was Just, and the primary purpose of justice was to support people. Valour and Magnificence were all very well, and very brave and wonderful too, but justice was everybody's right. Edmund would always be looking out to help everyone he could – even his tick of a cousin, Eustace Scrubb.
Edmund would always love Narnia, and what it had been to him, and what it had shown him. But it was what it had made him, and shown him about himself that made it so very precious to him.
He couldn't bear to forget any of it.
Good or bad?
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