Title: To Know (And Wish Not To)

Author: Lenari Soto

Rating: PG-13

Author's Notes: Short, angsty little piece... sadly, there is leaving.

Disclaimer: I don't own them; if I did their love would totally be canon. Oh, wait, it already kind of is, at least in movie-verse. Anyway, if I owned them, that awkward Caspian/Susan kiss would've never happened. True story.

To Know (And Wish Not To)

Edmund doesn't quite know when it was he first knew. Perhaps it was when Peter became obsessed with challenging Caspian and proving himself… or when the reverse proved to be true. Maybe it was when Peter gave him his sword, or when Caspian stared at Peter after Susan kissed him. It was probably when he saw Peter looking back at Caspian with the same hopeless, desperate kind of longing that gave their gaze a haunted cast.

If he hadn't known before, however, he certainly knew once Peter brought his girlfriend home after months of shifting between quick anger and numb existence. Iris, her name was, which was ironic considering that her eyes seemed to have none. Except that she pronounced it "eeris," and Edmund agreed. There was something eerily familiar about her. It might've been the fact that her eyes were darker even than her wavy black hair. Or that her gaze was so smoldering, so intense, that Edmund himself found his body shivering traitorously. Maybe it was those high cheekbones, evenly matched by an equally sharp jaw line. Or perhaps it was the ever-present dimple in her chin. No, Edmund decided, it was none of those things that turned his suspicions into a certainty: it was the accent.

"Peter, amor, ven aquí," she said softly, motioning him over with a regal wave of her arm, and Edmund's stomach lurched.

Peter approached her with a strained, yet cordial, smile, and she pointed outside. "The view, it's magnificent!" she exclaimed, and Edmund saw Peter look away with a pained expression, doubling over as if struck by that one, simple word. She remained oblivious, as did Susan and Lucy, but Edmund knew. Just like the very next morning, when her shawl slipped off and he spied the bite on the back of her shoulder, he knew very well which name his brother had cried out into that shoulder: it was the very sea that drowned him.

Fin.