fic: Onobtrusive Boxes Are My Business
Nov. 27th, 2008 04:48 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
nfe-gremlin.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
narniaexchangeTitle: Onobtrusive Boxes Are My Business
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lovesrogue36
Recipient:caramelsilver
Rating: K+
Possible Spoilers/Warnings: none
Summary: It's Ed's (first) twentieth birthday and he feels neglected by his family – can his friends help Peter, Susan and Lucy make up for it?
Original Prompt that we sent you: Spymaster!Edmund during the Golden Age.
He never woke up with a hangover or a half-naked woman in his bed. There were never any messy scandals to cover up or even any bodies to be taken care of. No, he was far too good for any of that. Edmund Pevensie, and even King Edmund, might have had those problems, but when he stepped inside that mahogany lined office with the fire that always seemed to be dying and the stacks of procrastinated paperwork, he morphed into a different man. He became someone wholly British, someone with a cool air of sophistication that didn't belong in Narnia. Narnia was a place of passions and emotions, yet when Ed was in the field, he was cold and calculating without temper.
He could worm his way into the strongest fortresses with a few well-placed words; Ed always had been the diplomat of the family. It had been without thought that Peter had put him in charge of their new intelligence department. At first he had had a small army of Narnians to help him rat out the remnants of the Witch's followers. As the need had dwindled, so had the size of his force. By the time Ed rang in his twentieth birthday, he had two fauns, a Cat and a leggy Terebithian woman he didn't quite trust.
They didn't go out on Saturday nights and they never, ever asked about each other's families, but they all at least had the honesty to call one another 'friends'. And so it was that instead of enjoying Susan's rambling plans for his birthday celebration in that female inflection he could never quite make out or engaging in stimulating conversation with Peter who hadn't looked up from a controversial trade agreement in nearly three days except to call for more of that disgustingly thick, Narnian coffee or comforting Lucy in her pouting that she would now be the only monarch still in her teens, Ed was sitting in his office doing paperwork on his birthday. It wouldn't do to have a ball in the middle of the week and so the younger king's actual birthday had been missed entirely. He wasn't entirely put out, birthdays had always seemed rather pointless to him, but he couldn't help feel that this was the first time in many years his family had not taken notice of him.
Ed wasn't really doing paperwork, hadn't been for quite some time actually, but considering he was staring intently at an unobtrusive box in the corner while expertly pretending not to notice it, he could convince himself he was still working. After all, he was a spy. Unobtrusive boxes were his business. This box, he was sure, had not been among the other boxes of stuff he had been working on unpacking for almost ten years, until that day. It was small, though certainly large enough for a foreign alchemist's attempt at a homemade bomb. (It wouldn't be the first time, after all, though Ed had learned these people didn't often like to repeat each other's near triumphs.)
Finally unable to contain himself any longer, Ed rose from his chair, abandoning his pen in a regrettable splash of ink across the page. He made a winding path through the mess until he came to a stop in front of the mysterious box. Glancing around, Ed noticed a dining dagger atop a nearby box. He grabbed the dagger, poking at the small, wooden container with it. It didn't explode and there weren't any strange sounds coming from it, so it probably wasn't another of those nasty kilikig snakes, but, still, one could never be too careful.
"Ro-gar!" Ed called, sounding all too much like a mother calling a rowdy son in for dinner. The faun easily tripped into the room, a cigar hanging from his lips.
"You screeched?"
Ed resisted the urge to roll his eyes. This was the only building in the world in which anyone would talk to him like that. It was a comforting thought that there was someplace someone was comfortable with him. "Where did this box come from?" Ed poked at it again with the dagger.
"There's about a dozen boxes in here you don't even know what's in them. How am I supposed to know what that one is?" The faun's monotone voice held the slightest trace of boredom with his king.
"This one is new. Were any of the signs tripped?" The five of them had devised a series of 'traps' to let them know if anyone had been in while they were out. Simple things like thick layers of dust, (designed so they never had to clean), but foolproof.
Rogar shook his head. "Not a one. You're just imagining things."
"Open it, Ed," Trisa called from the doorway. Ed glanced over at the Terebithian woman, her black curls falling somewhere near her thighs. Unlike Peter, Ed's eyes never swept over her before he talked to her.
"The most likely is that you put it in here. Feeling traitorous today, Trisa?"
The stunning woman rolled her eyes in between sips of brandy. "For gods' sake, Ed, just open it. If it explodes, I promise I'll pick up all your pieces."
With a grumble and a deep scowl, Ed cautiously lifted the lid from the small box from as far away as he possibly could. They all cringed, waiting for whatever was coming.
Nothing happened.
Ed and the others relaxed, now only curious. The young king peered inside, eyes widening as he did so. He gaped slightly, speechless. Pulling a small, leatherbound book from the box, he looked up at his assembled team, all now crowded into the office. He pursed his lips in search of something to say but found nothing. Coughing, he glanced away to the book in his hands. 20000 Leagues Under the Sea.
"Where did you find this?" he asked, his voice cracking in disbelief, knowing it was these friends who had left there.
The group was quiet, exchanging unwilling glances. Finally, Trisa stepped forward. "There's a section in the palace library filled with books about your world. Some is speculation, some is prophecy, there are even a few journals and things of King Frank I and Queen Helen I. Your… brother found this one. He said you would appreciate it."
"Peter? But… why didn't he just give it to me himself?"
"Because I had other things on my mind, Ed! Must you always snoop around a surprise?"
Ed's eyes shot up to his brother's face, tucked into the back of the tiny crowd. He raised an eyebrow. "I'm a snoop, remember? Maybe you should have thought before having your little brother take over the intelligence department of your kingdom. And what surprise?"
"You're not so little anymore, though, are you?" Ed abruptly noticed they were the only two left. It seemed his emotionally stunted friends had sensed a sentimental moment a mile away.
"Not so very," Ed agreed, the book still clutched in his hands, "Did you know this was my favorite book or did you pick it with a trade agreement up to your nose and just happen to get lucky?"
Peter sighed, biting his lip. "I know I've been a pain in the ass lately Ed, I just- it's so hard."
"What's hard?"
"My family. You're all growing up. I know it sounds pathetic and ridiculous but you don't need me anymore." Peter reddened at his words.
"So you thought you'd shut yourself up in your study and work yourself to death? We have needed you these last few days, Pete! Lucy's got herself all worked up into a tizzy about being the only one of us not in her twenties and Susan's a blur in a ball gown planning a party she knows I'm going to sneak out of. I know I for one could have used a little help in the female emotion department!"
"Never was your forte," Peter teased with that look Ed recognized as the, as he had labeled it, 'pathetic dreamy Trisa look.'
"You can't have my best spy, Pete. She wouldn't be much good for stealth if she was the High Queen, now would she?"
Peter chuckled at the string of Terebithian curses from the other side of the door. "You better not poke her too hard, Ed, she's liable to stealthily rip your head off."
"I know; I trained her. Now, how about that surprise?"
"Figures you wouldn't forget that. Come on." Peter weaved his way through the messy room with no indication of what he might be talking about, knowing Ed would follow. As they made their way down the hall, Peter piped up with, "You know, you should be one to talk about working yourself to death. If you hadn't locked yourself in that office with two years worth of signatures and not come out until midnight everyday, this never would have worked. Some spy you turned out to be."
He ducked his brother's swat and pushed open the door. The sight that might Ed knocked the words out of him for the second time that day. Lanterns flickered in the trees of the king's beloved forest and music poured from high in them. Upon further inspection, Ed noticed not only were the trees filled with musicians but the forest floor was filled with friends.
"Happy Birthday, Ed," Peter murmured.
"Happy Birthday, Your Majesty!" "Congratulations, Edmund!" "You're all grown up…" Thoughts and wishes assaulted the younger king from every direction. There were nobles and advisors but there were also peasants and townspeople; Ed found himself surrounded by friends.
Finally, when the initial excitement had worn down a bit and Ed had been left to himself, his family found him. Susan, Lucy and Peter plopped down beside him against a large, old cherry tree. Susan lay her head in his lap and Lucy settled herself between her two big brothers.
"Happy Birthday, Ed."
So maybe they didn't forget after all.
Author:
lovesrogue36 Recipient:
caramelsilver Rating: K+
Possible Spoilers/Warnings: none
Summary: It's Ed's (first) twentieth birthday and he feels neglected by his family – can his friends help Peter, Susan and Lucy make up for it?
Original Prompt that we sent you: Spymaster!Edmund during the Golden Age.
He never woke up with a hangover or a half-naked woman in his bed. There were never any messy scandals to cover up or even any bodies to be taken care of. No, he was far too good for any of that. Edmund Pevensie, and even King Edmund, might have had those problems, but when he stepped inside that mahogany lined office with the fire that always seemed to be dying and the stacks of procrastinated paperwork, he morphed into a different man. He became someone wholly British, someone with a cool air of sophistication that didn't belong in Narnia. Narnia was a place of passions and emotions, yet when Ed was in the field, he was cold and calculating without temper.
He could worm his way into the strongest fortresses with a few well-placed words; Ed always had been the diplomat of the family. It had been without thought that Peter had put him in charge of their new intelligence department. At first he had had a small army of Narnians to help him rat out the remnants of the Witch's followers. As the need had dwindled, so had the size of his force. By the time Ed rang in his twentieth birthday, he had two fauns, a Cat and a leggy Terebithian woman he didn't quite trust.
They didn't go out on Saturday nights and they never, ever asked about each other's families, but they all at least had the honesty to call one another 'friends'. And so it was that instead of enjoying Susan's rambling plans for his birthday celebration in that female inflection he could never quite make out or engaging in stimulating conversation with Peter who hadn't looked up from a controversial trade agreement in nearly three days except to call for more of that disgustingly thick, Narnian coffee or comforting Lucy in her pouting that she would now be the only monarch still in her teens, Ed was sitting in his office doing paperwork on his birthday. It wouldn't do to have a ball in the middle of the week and so the younger king's actual birthday had been missed entirely. He wasn't entirely put out, birthdays had always seemed rather pointless to him, but he couldn't help feel that this was the first time in many years his family had not taken notice of him.
Ed wasn't really doing paperwork, hadn't been for quite some time actually, but considering he was staring intently at an unobtrusive box in the corner while expertly pretending not to notice it, he could convince himself he was still working. After all, he was a spy. Unobtrusive boxes were his business. This box, he was sure, had not been among the other boxes of stuff he had been working on unpacking for almost ten years, until that day. It was small, though certainly large enough for a foreign alchemist's attempt at a homemade bomb. (It wouldn't be the first time, after all, though Ed had learned these people didn't often like to repeat each other's near triumphs.)
Finally unable to contain himself any longer, Ed rose from his chair, abandoning his pen in a regrettable splash of ink across the page. He made a winding path through the mess until he came to a stop in front of the mysterious box. Glancing around, Ed noticed a dining dagger atop a nearby box. He grabbed the dagger, poking at the small, wooden container with it. It didn't explode and there weren't any strange sounds coming from it, so it probably wasn't another of those nasty kilikig snakes, but, still, one could never be too careful.
"Ro-gar!" Ed called, sounding all too much like a mother calling a rowdy son in for dinner. The faun easily tripped into the room, a cigar hanging from his lips.
"You screeched?"
Ed resisted the urge to roll his eyes. This was the only building in the world in which anyone would talk to him like that. It was a comforting thought that there was someplace someone was comfortable with him. "Where did this box come from?" Ed poked at it again with the dagger.
"There's about a dozen boxes in here you don't even know what's in them. How am I supposed to know what that one is?" The faun's monotone voice held the slightest trace of boredom with his king.
"This one is new. Were any of the signs tripped?" The five of them had devised a series of 'traps' to let them know if anyone had been in while they were out. Simple things like thick layers of dust, (designed so they never had to clean), but foolproof.
Rogar shook his head. "Not a one. You're just imagining things."
"Open it, Ed," Trisa called from the doorway. Ed glanced over at the Terebithian woman, her black curls falling somewhere near her thighs. Unlike Peter, Ed's eyes never swept over her before he talked to her.
"The most likely is that you put it in here. Feeling traitorous today, Trisa?"
The stunning woman rolled her eyes in between sips of brandy. "For gods' sake, Ed, just open it. If it explodes, I promise I'll pick up all your pieces."
With a grumble and a deep scowl, Ed cautiously lifted the lid from the small box from as far away as he possibly could. They all cringed, waiting for whatever was coming.
Nothing happened.
Ed and the others relaxed, now only curious. The young king peered inside, eyes widening as he did so. He gaped slightly, speechless. Pulling a small, leatherbound book from the box, he looked up at his assembled team, all now crowded into the office. He pursed his lips in search of something to say but found nothing. Coughing, he glanced away to the book in his hands. 20000 Leagues Under the Sea.
"Where did you find this?" he asked, his voice cracking in disbelief, knowing it was these friends who had left there.
The group was quiet, exchanging unwilling glances. Finally, Trisa stepped forward. "There's a section in the palace library filled with books about your world. Some is speculation, some is prophecy, there are even a few journals and things of King Frank I and Queen Helen I. Your… brother found this one. He said you would appreciate it."
"Peter? But… why didn't he just give it to me himself?"
"Because I had other things on my mind, Ed! Must you always snoop around a surprise?"
Ed's eyes shot up to his brother's face, tucked into the back of the tiny crowd. He raised an eyebrow. "I'm a snoop, remember? Maybe you should have thought before having your little brother take over the intelligence department of your kingdom. And what surprise?"
"You're not so little anymore, though, are you?" Ed abruptly noticed they were the only two left. It seemed his emotionally stunted friends had sensed a sentimental moment a mile away.
"Not so very," Ed agreed, the book still clutched in his hands, "Did you know this was my favorite book or did you pick it with a trade agreement up to your nose and just happen to get lucky?"
Peter sighed, biting his lip. "I know I've been a pain in the ass lately Ed, I just- it's so hard."
"What's hard?"
"My family. You're all growing up. I know it sounds pathetic and ridiculous but you don't need me anymore." Peter reddened at his words.
"So you thought you'd shut yourself up in your study and work yourself to death? We have needed you these last few days, Pete! Lucy's got herself all worked up into a tizzy about being the only one of us not in her twenties and Susan's a blur in a ball gown planning a party she knows I'm going to sneak out of. I know I for one could have used a little help in the female emotion department!"
"Never was your forte," Peter teased with that look Ed recognized as the, as he had labeled it, 'pathetic dreamy Trisa look.'
"You can't have my best spy, Pete. She wouldn't be much good for stealth if she was the High Queen, now would she?"
Peter chuckled at the string of Terebithian curses from the other side of the door. "You better not poke her too hard, Ed, she's liable to stealthily rip your head off."
"I know; I trained her. Now, how about that surprise?"
"Figures you wouldn't forget that. Come on." Peter weaved his way through the messy room with no indication of what he might be talking about, knowing Ed would follow. As they made their way down the hall, Peter piped up with, "You know, you should be one to talk about working yourself to death. If you hadn't locked yourself in that office with two years worth of signatures and not come out until midnight everyday, this never would have worked. Some spy you turned out to be."
He ducked his brother's swat and pushed open the door. The sight that might Ed knocked the words out of him for the second time that day. Lanterns flickered in the trees of the king's beloved forest and music poured from high in them. Upon further inspection, Ed noticed not only were the trees filled with musicians but the forest floor was filled with friends.
"Happy Birthday, Ed," Peter murmured.
"Happy Birthday, Your Majesty!" "Congratulations, Edmund!" "You're all grown up…" Thoughts and wishes assaulted the younger king from every direction. There were nobles and advisors but there were also peasants and townspeople; Ed found himself surrounded by friends.
Finally, when the initial excitement had worn down a bit and Ed had been left to himself, his family found him. Susan, Lucy and Peter plopped down beside him against a large, old cherry tree. Susan lay her head in his lap and Lucy settled herself between her two big brothers.
"Happy Birthday, Ed."
So maybe they didn't forget after all.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-28 04:07 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-01 06:31 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-28 11:26 am (UTC)The sight that might Ed knocked the words out of him for the second time that day.
There is a misspelling here. You meant *met*, didn't you?
(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-01 06:31 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-28 04:20 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-01 06:31 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-06 04:13 am (UTC)