AN: Guess who? Yep. I'm back! Anybody miss me? LOL. This is the first multi-chapter fic I've started since finishing "I am temptation, she is legend" and going to work on my novel a few months back. Well, I'm still doing revision work on my novel which keeps me pretty busy, but even though updates might be a little slower than usual because of that, I still wanted to get this up on the 13th because that's the date I joined the site back in 2008! I can't believe it's now 2011, and almost 57 stories later! Anyway, as I always say at the first chapter of my fanfics, if you don't understand something happening in this chapter it will be explained later on, so no worries. This is rated T, some dark/mature themes, etc... Set in AU Narnia, mostly an Edmund/Lucy story (even though Lucy doesn't actually appear in this first chapter, she shows up in the next one).

They awoke stiff and sore, in a berry bush by the Terebinthian harbor.

Edmund sat up and stretched, peering over the top of the bush at the docks.

His cousin Eustace, however, was pretending not to be awake at all, his eyes still closed and his body still curled up in a fetal position on the bed of leaves he'd claimed for himself.

"Eustace, get up." He shook his arm. "We'll miss the boat."

Eustace muttered something that sounded like, "Against boats, contact consul..."

"I know you aren't really asleep," growled Edmund, impatiently.

Eustace made a very irritating smacking noise with his lips and scrunched his eyelids up even more tightly.

Oh, that does it, thought Edmund.

Grinning slyly to himself, knowing he could beat this, he plucked two berries from the bush and held them tightly in his left hand. Then, with his right, he grabbed onto his cousin's ear and dug his fingernails into it as hard as he could; he didn't actually break the skin (not this time), but in a minute, Eustace would think he had, which was good enough.

Squashing the berries, Edmund smeared the bright scarlet-coloured juice all over Eustace's ear.

"Ouch!" Eustace reacted to his cousin's fingernails and put a hand to his now-released ear. Feeling something wet and sticky, he bolted upright and brought his stained fingers to his face. "Oh..." He immediately started hyperventilating. "You're sick, Cousin, you need help."

"Relax, Useless," Edmund said, mispronouncing Eustace's name on purpose; "it's berry juice."

"It's definitely not blood...?" Eustace, a neat-freak and something of a germ-phobic as well, never did tolerate the sight of blood; but, aside from the fact that he hated anything that messed up his clothes or stained his skin, berry juice didn't particularly frighten him.

"No, I don't have time to seriously maim you now," he reminded him. "We've got a ship to get on."

"When this whole mess is over," Eustace said, getting up while trying to wipe berry juice off of his ear and fingers with a leaf but managing only to aggravate the problem and rub it in deeper, "I want to go to Calormen. It seems like the least phony place I ever heard of. I might have quite a decent time there."

Edmund laughed. "The Calormenes would eat you alive."

"They haven't got cannibals in Calormen," said the ever practical Eustace.

"That isn't what I meant."

"Well what do you want to do, when we're through? I mean, this is the last time. She promised."

"Not that her promises stand for much," Edmund pointed out, "but when it's over, I'd like to go to Cair Paravel and train as a knight."

"Cair Paravel wouldn't take you," Eustace said. In spite of himself, he didn't say it meanly, exactly, only as if stating a fact.

Edmund knew his cousin spoke the truth. It wasn't only him they wouldn't take; it was all of them: Tumnus, the faun who worked alongside them in their finest, darkest hours; Ammi, the most cunning girl you ever met, and definitely of noble-blood of some kind, though they were never sure which; and himself and Eustace, the two cruelest con-artists in the world. None of them would ever be accepted in any position even remotely near Cair Paravel.

Edmund's hopes of being a knight were nothing but wishful-thinking; his dream was to change his name, to spend his days praying no one ever recognized him and called him out for his crimes, of which there had been plenty.

In truth, he would be better off in Calormen when this was over, when this one last scheme was completed and they were all granted their long over-due freedom. But he wasn't like Eustace, he didn't want to be in Calormen; it wasn't his cup of tea. He wanted somewhere with the dewy slopes Tumnus was always going on about; somewhere with dense forests or beautiful shores of soft sand that ended at the ocean.

Frankly, he thought the second Eustace, who had never been to Calormen (Edmund himself had been, though only once) got a whiff of the odor of the Tashbaan he'd been longing to visit, smelling the hot bodies of the sweaty horses and slaves and piles of trash, he'd pack his bags and set a course for the north, too; but for right now, it didn't suit him to squash all of his cousin's dreams entirely.

He needed him motivated, so they could get through this and finally let their real lives, whatever was left of them, begin.

"Where is that goaty-chap?" demanded Eustace.

"Eustace, we've known and worked with Tumnus for years, when are you going to stop referring to him as 'that goaty-chap'?" Edmund wanted to know.

He shrugged.

"Come on, stand up straight. We've got to wait for his signal." Edmund screwed up his eyes and strained his ears.

Sure enough, there came the sound of a pipe-like musical instrument playing a few low, very distinctive notes. Followed by a pair of rather hairy hands sticking out from behind a nearby wooden board, formed together to look like the letter T.

It was the sort of signal some children used when taking a break in the middle of hide and seek, but to Edmund, Eustace, and their two compatriots, it did not mean 'time out', it meant something else entirely. It stood for Traitor, which, however much they bickered and disagreed amongst each other regarding just about every possible subject, they all had to admit they were, had been almost their whole lives.

What would it be like, Edmund wondered, when he was allowed to make his own choices? Would he automatically be a changed, reformed person once he was free of the force that currently enslaved himself and the others who were not his friends but the closest thing he'd ever be likely to have to friends (or a family, for that matter)? Or would he still hate himself? Would he be a lout and menace to society? Or a hermit, perhaps?

"Eustace, give me the rings." Edmund held out his hand.

"Why?" he asked sulkily.

"Because I said so. I've led us through this several times and I haven't failed yet."

Begrudgingly, Eustace crouched down and pulled two shinny objects, one green and one yellow, out of his pack and handed them over to Edmund.

The rings tucked securely into the pocket of his breeches, Edmund picked up his own pack, making sure Eustace was carrying everything else, and went to meet Tumnus.

The T had meant the coast was clear, no one would see them sneaking onto the relatively small dragon-shaped ship, The Dawn Treader.

Edmund would have gladly paid for passage for himself, Tumnus, and Eustace-he certainly had enough gold to do so-but there was one little problem. The gold coins he possessed were made of white-gold and had the snowflake crest of Queen Jadis of Charn, the White Witch, on them. And as Terebinthia was Narnian-owned, they tended not to like Charnians.

Edmund wasn't a Charnian by birth; not even Ammi, the only one of them who could possibly have had any actual Charn blood in their veins, really was. But somehow he doubted that would matter to a half-Telmarine half-Narnian like Lord Drinian, the captain of the only ship currently bound for the small, seldom-used trading post at the fridges of the land-mass Narnia's Western Woods were located on, would care about such a technicality.

He'd tried to bribe a crew member called Pittencream, showing him the white-gold coin, thinking he would be taken in easily enough (he sort of reminded Edmund of an older version of Eustace, and his cousin never turned down so much as an easy copper coin in his life); but that hadn't worked out and Tumnus had had to accidentally on purpose get Pittencream drunk in a local tavern the night before so he would have a hangover today and miss the ship, thus not being able to point them out to his captain for what they were.

Stowaways were one thing. They might still get to where they wanted to be as unwanted but inevitable passengers. Whereas, the truth would get them thrown over-board, and the whole truth would get them a one-way ticket to a gallows somewhere in the East.

So sneaking on board and lying low until they were far out at sea and there was no turning back was the easiest method of getting themselves to the Western Woods and the Lantern-Waste, hands down.

Once they were on deck, Edmund looked around for the best possible hiding places. Tumnus, being a faun, was easily hid in plain sight; no one would question a Narnian half-goat wandering the ship so long as he kept his hands full at all times and always looked like he was doing something along with the crew. Eustace, who never could learn the meaning of being inconspicuous, was more problematic.

He wished it was Ammi with them instead, and Eustace back in at the ice castle in Charn. No one would ever question Ammi because she seemed so proper and lady-like and did a flawless mimic of a Narnian accent that could have fooled King Frank himself. Whereas it had taken nearly five years for Eustace to figure out how not to roll his tongue on the letter E when they had business in Narnia.

Maybe there were curtains or stacks of laundry in the main cabin under the poop deck he could hide Eustace in, if only he could get his cousin not to breathe like a talking hippopotamus with allergies. Darn the brat's claustrophobic tendencies!

"I'm going to look in there," Edmund said, glaring at Eustace who was peering nervously over the ship's edge, probably already getting sea-sick, not to mention unwittingly alerting others to their presence on board. "You want to come here and...guard...something?"

"Oh!" Eustace perked up, running over to him. "Yes. Good idea, Cousin. Very...uh...logical."

"Here, guard it with your life." Edmund only owned one sword, and he knew Eustace had no idea how to use it. "I'll be right back."

Of course, Eustace fumbled with the hilt of the sword and dropped it onto the deck, causing a clamor. Picking it up again, he said, "I've got it, I've got it. Don't worry."

He winced. This was probably all just a cruel game to Jadis. And it really didn't help matters, having an incompetent accomplice.

Returning from the cabin, Edmund quietly announced that there was one somewhat wide space under the bunk, covered by a thick velvet blanket (they must have a rich passenger on board, he thought, or else the captain does himself a bit too well) which would conceal them from prying eyes. The only catch was they'd be a bit cramped. They wouldn't have both been able to fit at all if Eustace hadn't been such a puny person.

"I don't like it," Eustace commented, when his cousin showed the space to him. "We'll barely be able to breathe."

"It's this or a barrel on deck." Edmund folded his arms across his chest.

"A barrel?" Eustace sounded insulted, as if it were below his dignity to be stuffed into a common barrel.

"Pretend you're in a traveling circus," Edmund suggested, holding the velvet quilt a little higher up.

"A circus?" That seemed to disgust him even more than the idea of a barrel.

Fed up, Edmund shoved him. "Oh, just get in there!"

Things were going according to plan, even when the Telmarine-Narnian lord (Caspian, Edmund heard his attendants call him) came into the cabin. Eustace for the first time in his life was managing not to snort like a pig while he breathed, and not even the keen-eared Drinian, who was in there talking to Caspian, pouring over some sea-chart, seemed to suspect them.

But, then, when they'd been at sea for about six hours and Eustace was beginning to feel cramped and cross, their cover was blown to smithereens.

Drinian was saying something about uncharted waters being home to sea-serpents when Eustace let out a snort of contempt.

"Eustace!" He covered his cousin's nose and mouth, taking no notice of his desperate squirming to breathe freely again, but it was too late, the velvet was already being lifted.

"What in the world are you doing here?" Caspian laughed. He didn't know who they were, but they couldn't be too much younger than himself, and they didn't look dangerous.

Drinian was not so forgiving. "Stowaways, eh?"

Edmund smiled weakly. Eustuce just scowled and inhaled sharply.

"I hope you don't have any plans in Terebinthia tomorrow," said Caspian, shaking his head. "This ship is headed for the mainland of Narnia; the Western port to be exact."

"I'd wager they already knew that," Drinian said, glaring at them suspiciously.

A splattering of light rain hit the deck window outside. Eustace moaned and muttered something about hating storms.

"What storm?" Caspian glanced out the portal. "I do not see anything."

"You're lucky we're not in the practice of throwing our stowaways to the sharks," Drinian stated. "You could be in the belly of a whale by now."

"Or a sea-serpent," Edmund couldn't resist adding sarcastically.

"Whales can't swallow humans. See, their throats are arranged so-" Eustace began before his cousin's elbow hit him in the gut, making him stop.

"It seems, Drinian," Caspian sighed, reaching for something at the back of the cabin, "as though we've got ourselves two extra crew members."

"You mean three," Eustace blurted.

"Eustace!" Edmund couldn't believe his stupid cousin had just sold Tumnus out like that. No, actually, he could believe it, and that made him even angrier over the matter.

Caspian pressed the object into Edmund's hand. It was a mop. Drinian handed Eustace a bucket of brown water. "Have fun, boys. Welcome a-board."

Even elbow-high in dirty mop water, scrubbing the deck while a couple of real crew members got to take a break, Edmund had to admit he felt a slight twinge of relief.

Sure, they'd been discovered. Drinian was not very friendly; Caspian was too friendly. Tumnus was on his hands and goat-knees scrubbing with the rest of them, his overt Narnian heratige no longer enough to keep his cover now that Eustace had blown it to pieces. But at least, all things considered, they weren't in the brig in chains, or walking the plank, and they weren't back in Terebinthia passed the allotted time where Jadis could accuse them of being disobedient cowards.

No, for better or for worse, lucky as they were going to get, they were Lantern Waste bound.

AN: Reviews? Thoughts? Please? (I'll post more if you like it!)