*DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN THE CON ONLY MY ORIGINAL CHARACTERS AND IDEAS. And here comes chap chap 21! Hooray! I'm getting closer to the parts of the story where my heart lies and can't wait to show them to you! :D

And although I know I don't reply to as many as I really should and mean to, I really do appreciate every single one of my reviews :) They mean so very much to me.

Happy reading!

Edmund Pevensie was whom one might call a nervous pacer. However he rarely paced for hope of new ideas, but rather out of worry and the panic-induced need for inspiration.

He must have passed his bedroom door at least one hundred times, each stride distancing about two feet from the handle before pivoting and continuing in the opposite direction. Peter had run off to wake Lucy, Susan and Caspian, and left Edmund to watch for any other messages surrounding the Telmar intruders. Mon Dieu, the Telmarines were coming and Edmund felt achingly unprepared.

"If this floor were made of wood, I would be less worried. But alas, it is made of stone, and I fear your feet will soon erode down to the bone, your majesty."

Edmund paused, ignoring the twitch in his legs to continue, and took in Louis' form beside him. The tall man stood coolly against the wall, light hair tied as always, an irritatingly calm expression on his face. Edmund inhaled quietly,

"I have thick shoes, I'm sure I'll be fine."

"But you are not wearing them."

Edmund glanced down at his feet, more out of habit than actual belief, and there were his toes, bare against the gray floor. Had he actually forgotten to put on slippers? He shoved his fingers through his dark hair. "I'm sorry Louis, but this is not a very good time."

"Actually, this is a perfectly good time. The Telmarines are close, best thing to do is keep your mind clear, my king."

"How did you-?"

"Your brother is a heavy runner, and a loud whisperer." Louis chuckled, eyes glimmering. "I wouldn't be surprised if he has woken half the How."

"Hmm, perhaps that is best." Edmund replied, his eyes peering beyond Louis, "best not to have anyone vulnerable. Serena?"

A clattering of straw-made flat shoes filled the small hallway, connecting quickly to Serena's disheveled form."Louis, Edmund," she spoke, her words slurred, "will someone please tell me what is going on!" There was a red indented line pattern gently puckering her right cheek and her curls laid savagely untamed against her head. "There was a female centaur sobbing by my room."

"Did Lily wake up as well?"

Serena did a double take at the randomness of Edmund's question, but replied, "no, when she's really tired the world could ending and she'd sleep through it. Is everything okay?"

Edmund opened his mouth to respond, but was interrupted by Louis' overly fluid voice. "We have received a concerning alarm that the Telmarines have perpetrated the great forest surrounding us."

Serena's eyes widened. She turned to the young king. "Wait, what?"

Edmund sighed. The soft, carefree touch of a feather pillow had never before sung so beautifully from within his bed chamber. "Yes, yes it's all true. Peter and I received news from a nymph that there are Telmarines in the forest." His voice rose a bit, "why would she be really tired?"

"Who?"

"Lily."

Serena was still a bit groggy from sleep. "Oh, we were just up late talking and she was having trouble getting to sleep. So what's going to happen then?"

"What were you talking about?" Edmund's voice had the bizarre shrill of a child's.

"Nothing concerning you!" She snapped. A response which almost definitely confirmed Edmund's fears.

Serena asked again, a bit more frantic this time, "What do you think is going to happen now?"

"There's no need to panic. Peter and everyone else are coming up with a plan as we speak."

Serena ignored his comment. "You don't think there will be a battle this soon, do you?" A hand unconsciously grazed over her sore biceps.

"Don't fret my dear, as our king said, everything is under control." Louis placed a hand on Serena's shoulder, his eyes delicately consuming Edmund's worn out expression. A muffled eruption of worried noises began to simmer below them, slowly growing in amplitude. "It appears that Peter has awoken more than just I."

Edmund groaned. "Can anything else go wrong!"

Serena rubbed the boy's shoulder with a newfound clumsy tenderness. "Can we do anything to help, Ed?"

Edmund glanced at her hand, furrowed his eyebrows, and nodded. "Would you two mind keeping the How panic free?"

"We would love to do nothing else. Come!" Louis beckoned Serena towards the stairwell to the lower residential chambers. Once they were out of sight, Edmund let his legs take over, but not before slipping into his bed chamber and protecting his soles from erosion. He promised to bury his guilt in his feet until everything was taken care of.

"There is no need to panic, everything is under control!"

"But what are we going to do Peter?" Susan's voice seethed with worry, "we are not yet prepared for battle!"

Peter exhaled loudly and struck the meeting room table with the palms of his hands, hard. "How did this happen so fast?"

"It is not your fault, your majesty." said Glenstorm, who even in times of trouble stood with an unbreakable confidence. "It is nobody's fault but the Telmarines."

"Glenstorm is right, we must focus on dealing with the problem instead of fretting about how and why it was allowed to happen."

Peter agreed with his brother, a boy who's utter exhaustion slurred his just words. His nymph watch had been taken over by Biyor, but his legs still unconsciously itched for movement.

The High King ignored a quiet comment of Trumpkin's relating to the earliness of the hour, as Caspian garnered his attention."Should I get the troops ready?"

Peter shook his head. It was still difficult for him to believe that it had not yet been a week since the raid. Since many of his good men were lost. No, a battle should be the absolute last resort. He sat numbly down into his chair, folding his fingers together as he thought. His mind was still dwindling on Edmund's proposal of using the woods. Perhaps there was a way he could use it to his advantage...but who would he send? There was no way he could leave the How, not with such an attack on the radar. No, he would have to use someone else...

"I have an idea, but Lucy, Susan?"

The two girls met their brother's eyes as he said their names. "Yes?"

"I need your assistance.

"That's it, go back to bed. I promise by the time morning arrives the Kings and Queens of Old will have this problem sorted out."

A collection of red eyed fawns and tomato faced dwarves went silently back into their respective rooms. Serena waved them a relieving hand and waited until each wooden door was shut and every last sob and grunt was muffled by the blankets of sleep.

She sighed. "You'd think everyone would be more prepared for something like this."

"They have probably not yet gotten over their losses from the raid," Louis replied, hands busy retying the ponytail that had fallen out during the chaos, "and this is horribly unexpected."

"Do you, do you really think we're going to have to fight? Now?" Serena whispered after a long silence.

Louis pursed his lips in thought. "Everything of this nature tends ends in a fight. Although, in this case a battle may be a more appropriate term. However," he paused and motioned for Serena to follow him away from the residential area, fearing he heard a frightened "oh" sound from within.

"However," he continued as they travelled down a long connective staircase that led to their self proclaimed Ledge and the bottom floor, "I believe that Peter will do everything in his power to delay it."

Serena nodded. A pallid complexion had taken over her face. She looked older and unnaturally weary. Louis put a hand on her shoulder blade that forced her to stop walking as they reached the opening to the Ledge.

"No one ever asked you to fight, my dear. You should know that it is not required of you."

"But it is. How can Lily ever think her species a strong one if she doesn't have someone to prove it to her?"

Louis pondered this for a moment, felt around himself for a moment, and said,

"I want to show you something."

Serena felt no comfort in dangling her legs over the Ledge, yet they hung there anyways. It kept her from crumpling in on herself.

Louis sat next to her, rummaging through his tattered messenger bag. Serena watched the drowsy moon kiss the blue of dawn until she noticed Louis clutching a familiar brown book in his hand.

"I'm not taking that potion again, Louis. I hope that's not what you had in mind."

The man smiled, and only did so. He unclasped the thick buckle that secured the wrinkled contents with an aged thunk. "Books are marvelous for many reasons. They contain knowledge, wisdom, inspiration, motivation, entertainment. But, I have found over my years, that they are also great hiding spots."

He opened to a bookmarked page labeled "Amorska lametha" and peeled off a tiny membrane of cloudy fabric from the spine. He placed the book onto the rock before proceeding to unravel the coiling material.

Serena watched with avid curiosity as Louis touched the fabric with nimble fingers. She figured it was of faerie origin, for it unfolded into a large blanket that could never have fit within his small potion manual undetected.

"What is it?" Serena asked finally, her fingers itching to touch the foreign material.

Louis chuckled. "It's called an oralwa sentuea. It's a good luck charm of sorts."

Once Louis had nodded in approval, Serena ran a hand over the cloudy, shimmery fabric. It felt like the roof of a clear pond and the edge of a feather mixed into one heart aching material. "Where did you get it?"

Louis dropped his gaze, no longer looking upon the girl with a bright pair of eyes. He sighed internally. "You're mother gave it to me. Said it would give me luck. And let me tell you my dear, it, it has."

Serena released the thin blanket and looked at Louis, who appeared to have been suddenly enveloped in a dreary sort of light. Serena straightened up a bit. "Did she make it?"

Louis remained silent for a moment, and then replied, "yes, yes she did."

"Do you, do you think she would have taught me?"

Serena felt almost ashamed. The fabric was so foreign to her, she had no idea what materials her mother had even used to create it. She probably wouldn't have even recognized their names. And it's name, oralwa sentuea, why she hardly believed that the ancient faerie words would be able to form on her tongue. What kind of faerie could she be, really, without that kind of basic knowledge? She felt a bubble of loss grow in her stomach, one she hadn't felt in what seemed like years. She was suddenly consumed by the overwhelming desire to bury herself in a parental embrace. And weep.

Whenever Serena hugged Louis she had to fight the instinctive urge to stay within his cinnamon scented arms. But in the light of the fading moon, and the dingy stars, she let herself give in. She fell into Louis chest- the cloth gently comforting her body - and emptied her eyes.

Louis reciprocated the gesture with hesitation, but warmth.

"I don't know who I'm supposed to be Louis," she said as her tears grew lighter, "I have no idea."

Louis rubbed a hand through her hair, his fingers getting gently caught in her split ends. "You don't have to be anyone. Life gives us these unnecessary categories in which we are expected to fill, but, if you really think on it, the best are those who do not fit at all. Think of our kings and queens. They were simple school children who became royalty."

Serena breathed in staccato, "but I'm not a human, I'm not a faerie. I-I'm not a fighter, not supposed to be one. But I can't just stand by and do nothing, Louis. I just can't!"

She pulled harder on Louis' tan vest and he was reminded of the oralwa sentuea on his lap. He tapped Serena and politely motioned her to move slightly so he could retrieve it.

Louis folded the euphoria encased fabric into a crude square and placed it in her free palm. "You're mother was a dear friend of mine, although sometimes I feel an inadequate choice of guardian for her children." He said the latter to himself, not wishing to upset the girl further. "But all that aside, she was an encyclopedia of wisdom. And she once told me," he paused to check the choke that threatened to degrade his voice, "she once told me, at a time when I was feeling a lot like you are now, that you are supposed to be nothing except who you are." He folded Serena's fingers over the soft fabric. "You are a very humanized faerie, but a faerie nonetheless. And that may be you're greatest endowment. I believe it's already put a number on the High King, that's for sure." He smiled as Serena's eyes hardened and her cheeks reddened ever so slightly. "And if you do choose to fight, whether that battle be near or far, I want you to know that you're doing so because you want to, not because you have to. And that a little good luck charm never hurts."

Serena clutched the fabric as Louis chuckled softly. She always knew that he was a friend of her parents, but it was a knowledge she had never before sought to pursue. "How did you meet my mother?"

Louis' body stiffened and he loosened his arms around Serena's shoulders. For a moment she thought it was a reaction to her question, but the gray eyed man's pertinent stare over her head stated otherwise. She turned her gaze 90 degrees and knew instantly why.

The meadow, whose grass was always so luminously green in the twinkle of dawn, was now blanketed in the ugly brown and black of Telmarine uniform. The quiet one two, one two step of their march now drowned her eardrums with fright. She rolled up the fabric, which shrunk to the perfect size for its intended usage, and tied it into her hair.

She turned to see Louis heading for the stairs, no doubt heading down to inform the Pevensies and Caspian.

He met her eyes before he left. They were almost blue in the growing light. She felt a strange sense of relief, like she had unclenched a fist that had been held for so long she'd forgotten it had ever been free. For the first time in her vivid memory, she felt the caress of fatherly love course through her veins. And even in the light of horrors to come, she couldn't help the smile that was growing on her face.

Perhaps Louis could be her father yet.

Lily was a heavy sleeper, a blessing and a curse in her personal opinion. But she was slowly coming out of her deep sleep when the quick patter of running feet sped past her door. She jolted awake, frightened by the runners apparent urgency, and bolted out into the hallway (although not before quickly checking her appearance in the mirror). The footsteps led to the royal's meeting room door. She listened intently and felt the blood rush from her face as Louis' breathy voice, and his words, registered in her mind.

"You're majesties," he blurted, horribly out of breath, "The Telmarines have arrived."

A/N Happy Holidays everyone! Thanks to everyone who has put up with my late updates as of late (haha,oh). Anyways, as always reviews are always appreciated (give a girl some holiday love :)) And I hope everyone has a fantastic New Year!