Disclaimer: I still need to do these? Fine. I don't own Narnia. Obviously, C.S. Lewis does. I am, however, in love with Prince Caspian and Peter. And Jim Halpert, who has nothing to do with Narnia but I thought I should mention him anyway.

A/n: I was inspired to write something from the Narnia-verse (my first!) upon seeing Prince Caspian, especially something attempting to capture the way Peter was feeling at the very beginning of the movie. The Writer's Anonymous Challenge this time was to use two "failed login" words to create a story, and I received "logical" and "joy". Luckily I had an idea to use the words with my idea for a Narnia fic and here we go! So this is my WA Random Words Challenge entry. :D After the Challenge has been judged, I will likely be adding a second and third part to this story (not as part of the WA Challenge).

Warning: Part One contains slight spoilers for the first bit of Prince Caspian, as well as heavy spoilers for Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe.

I, Peter - Part One

It is impossible for me to move on.

As I settle into a creaking wooden desk at an old school in England, I know this to be true. The teacher begins droning on about normal things like arithmetic and grammar, her hair in a tight knot atop her head. Her voice is lifeless, her eyes dull because she has done this thousands of times and will it do it thousands more. Around me, the other students busily scratch away, taking notes listening to every word, trying to absorb it, take it all in. I can't bring myself to care and have long since given up trying. How can I care about such things after all that I been through?

I was normal once too, just like the other students in the room. I cared about grades, fitting in, working hard. I had a family and was blissfully unaware of anything outside my own little world. Then the War hit and my family was torn apart. My siblings and I were sent to live far away from here - someplace safe. And one rainy afternoon, our lives changed forever.

Lucy found the wardrobe and the wondrous world of Narnia beyond it. Eventually we followed and it wasn't long before we became completely caught up in the world, before we cared about Narnia and those in it. England was so far away and unimportant; I hardly gave a thought to it. I didn't want to. Like a wonderful dream, I didn't want this world to end. Even though it was never easy, though we fought full-scale battles the likes of which we could have never imagined, though we experienced things far beyond our years, I never wanted it to end.

I was crowned High King when the battle for Narnia was over. Edmund also became a King while Susan and Lucy were Queens. We ruled for years to come. We grew up, we grew so much older and wiser. We led a nation! Then one day we accidentally fell back through the wardrobe, we stumbled back into England, back to our old world, our old time. We were young again – children, again. We had no way of knowing if we ever would or could go back to Narnia.

For months and months I dreamed of returning to Narnia. There was nothing I wanted more and it consumed me. Life in England seemed so utterly pointless to me, a complete and total waste of time. I had decades of memories that couldn't be banished to the back of my mind, I had muscles from wielding heavy swords and armor that ached to hold one again. I had scars from battles that I had to explain away as scars from a car or bicycle accident. I couldn't stop hoping and praying desperately that one day soon I would wake up and find myself in Narnia, the place where I belonged.

Susan, ever logical and pragmatic, did her best to put Narnia behind her. It was a chapter in her life that had closed, she'd say, and it was time to move on. I cursed her will-power to do so because I had none. She knew if it was ever right to return to Narnia it would happen, though she didn't believe it ever would. It had been an incredible adventure, a once-in-a-lifetime experience, but that was all: once in a lifetime.

"How can you just move on?" I'd snap hotly on nights when she would see the sadness and anger in my eyes at being stuck in England and tell me I needed to stop thinking about it.

"Because the more you dwell on it, the more it's going to eat you alive, Peter." She'd answer sensibly. "You can't use every minute of every day wishing for something that very well could never happen again. It was magical, it was miraculous and maybe it'll come back again. But maybe it won't. You have to accept that, and accept that you're here, in England and you're still just a boy."

I hated her logic and practicality because I knew she was right. I refused to let it go, however, and I refused to give up.

Edmund too seemed to adopt Susan's point of view of things. He carried on in school almost as if nothing had happened, as if he weren't carrying around years and years more memories and experiences than any of his peers. One night I demanded to know how he could do that, after everything we've been through.

"There's nothing I can do to change our situation." He told me simply. "I'm not going to fight it. If Aslan needs us back in Narnia, he will find a way to bring us back, and that's good enough for me."

It wasn't good enough for me, however.

I couldn't hang out with my old friends any longer because I could only see them as immature boys who had never, and never would, see any of the things I had seen. They would never know about Narnia, about my role in Narnia, they would never understand. I grew tired of being in their presence extremely quickly and often wondered how in the world I had become friends with them in the first place. As I grew more distant and dark, so my friends too appreciated my company less and less. They drifted away and I let them. I knew I would have the same problems if I tried to make new friends, so I didn't bother.

Neither did Susan. For all her talk of moving on and accepting things, she moved away from her former friends and seemed to have difficulty following her own advice. She ate lunches alone, often with a book in her hand as if trying to escape into them and be anywhere but here.

Lucy alone seemed to be getting on alright. Though she rarely spoke about Narnia, it was clear she thought it about it as often as I did and she truly believed we might return at any moment. She kept her friends, she kept her sunny disposition, she kept her joy for being alive and having ever seen Narnia. She kept living.

"How do you do it, Lu?" I'd ask.

She'd shrug. "I just believe. I know Aslan wouldn't forget about us and I believe he'll call on us again someday. We haven't seen the last of Narnia."

"How do you know?"

"I just do."

"But it's been almost a whole year. Why hasn't he come to get us yet?"

"He has his reasons, I'm sure. And it could be three years or ten years or five days from now. You just can never give up. Never stop believing."

"It's so hard, though, Lu."

"I know."

I had given up. Despite Lucy's faith about Aslan, I didn't believe he was going to retrieve us. We were never going to see Narnia again and I was going to be stuck in a useless existence in England when I used to be a High King in a magical world. Somehow I had to get through life in a body that was dozens of years younger than I was on the inside and I hated the very idea of it. Somehow I had to live with the mistake I'd made when I'd walked back through the wardrobe. I withdrew into myself, speaking less and less to other people. I spent hours brooding about what I'd had lost. Why did we ever go near the wardrobe? Why hadn't we stayed in Narnia forever?

Sitting in this stifling classroom with these thoughts circling my brain, watching the others students, I just feel like shouting until I am hoarse. I want to scream and throw desks. I was a King! Don't you understand? No one would believe me, no one possibly could understand and that very fact only makes me angrier that I am stuck here, so far from my destiny. How could you leave me here, Aslan? Did all my work, all my life, all my blood, sweat and tears in Narnia count for nothing?

Now, I have become so edge that the smallest thing sets me off. I get into a fight at school nearly every week, nearly every other day. I can't seem to help it. I've lost the muscles I had from all the sword training and somehow punching other school boys makes me feel better, if only for the slightest, most fleeting of moments. The only people who could possibly understand how I feel – Lucy, Edmund and Susan – seem disgusted that I have sunk to this level. They offer me the same words, which bring me no comfort.

"Get over it, Peter. It's not going to happen again. The tighter you hold on to the past, the more miserable and pathetic you're going to become." Susan angrily says as she exits the room.

Edmund sighs and shakes his head. "You've got to stop this, Peter. It's not helping anything. And I can't always intervene for you." He hands me an ice pack and then with a last look back that says I am a lost cause, he follows Susan out. I often glare at his back and bite down the words that I always say to him after he helps break up another one of my fights: I had it sorted.

Sadness replaces the usual, ever-present joy in Lucy's eyes as she washes the blood off my hands and helps me with the ice pack. "You just need to trust Aslan will come. You can't keep hitting everyone who doesn't know about Narnia, Peter, or you'll be fighting the whole world."

I can never reply to any of them, because the next day I get into a new fight, gather new bruises and my feelings of being lost and forgotten only grow. I think about the White Witch and her frightening army, about the way she tried to take Edmund from us, about Aslan letting us go back to England and leaving us here after we helped him save Narnia. The other school boys think I am fighting them because they bumped into me, called me a name, chose not to be my partner on a group project, or made fun of the fact that I spend more time in the Principal's office than the classroom. I am hitting them because I feel angry with myself.

I was King…

If I ever see Narnia again, I'm not going to leave. I'm going to stay forever, continue my reign as High King and die the happiest man there ever was. I'll be back, I'll be fulfilling my destiny, I will be where I truly belong. If I ever see Narnia again, I know the anger will be replaced by joy.

Until that day, I know it will be impossible to move on.

-end-

A/n: My repetition here of Peter thinking about how he was King is not meant to come off as a vain or arrogant sort of "I was awesome and powerful and King!" type thing, but a "I looked after a entire world, grew up and now am stuck in a place that no longer has any meaning to me with a bunch of people who could never grasp the concept of what my life has been like" type thing. Anyways, thanks for reading! And reviews are like oxygen.