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It's all too familiar in a horrible, dissonant way. The walls of the hall, the well are all in the right places but overgrown with foliage and crumbling and none of them can bear to even suggest what is all too clear. Then, Susan brings back the golden chess-knight with its winking ruby eye and the words that no one will speak hang in the air, thick as treacle and sour like spoiled milk. He knows. They know. He knows they know and they know he knows and still he says, so they don't have to: "have none of you guessed where we are?" The words sit heavy on his tongue, cloying and rotten. Peter thinks it's the worst thing he's ever had to say. Because how do you broach the idea that you're back in the place where you lived for fifteen years, the place where you grew up, where you became the people, the Kings and Queens you were meant to be? How do you even start to comprehend, let alone acknowledge, that your home is empty and lies in ruins when you've only been gone a year and you never wanted to leave at all?

"Just because you were given that sword doesn't mean you need to use it." He sucks in a sharp breath. "Don't say that, Su. Please." "Gifts aren't obligations, Peter." He stares resolutely at that spot on the wall, the chip in the stone that's lighter than the surface around it. "Crowns are," he says. "And if it's not me it'll be them. Half the reason we're staying here is to keep them away from the war back home." "There are others who can fight." He turns a level look on her. "You know it can't be like that." He can't accept sending out soldiers to fight their battles for them. Susan squeezes her eyes shut for a moment. "I know." She lets out a heavy breath. "But I wish it could. I wish you could all stay safe." "So do I."

Once, long ago, she'd seen him stretched out and bound to a Stone Table, she'd seen him muzzled and shaved and she'd held his gaze as a stone knife plunged into his heart and she had loved him because he was on that table instead of her little brother. "I think I hate you sometimes," she says softly. He does not reply.

America is a welcome break; she returns with lips painted Victory Red and wearing a new dress to a sister and brother who are quietly pensive, to a cousin changed entirely.

"I'm supposed to convince you to come with us on Saturday," he tells her, watches her over the rim of his mug as he sips. "She thinks I'll come around eventually?" Peter nods. "I won't." She says it quietly, but so definitely that it echoes, rings in her ears. "I just..." she shakes her head a little, squeezes her eyes shut so she doesn't have to look at her brother as she confesses this. "I can't bear it any longer - being on the fringes for Eustace and Jill, talking about it like a past-time when it's never going to happen again. Not to us." "Once a King or Queen, always a King or Queen," he tries. Susan flinches, looks down at the scarred surface of the table. "I don't really remember being a Queen," she confesses. "All I remember is being a scared little girl."

Up on top of a hill there's a wooden Doorway standing alone. This Doorway is different to the one she once left Narnia by, for a rickety Door hangs from it like the whole thing once belonged to a building. She doesn't recognise this place she stands in but it's dark, and even in her dream she's bitterly cold. Susan is closer to the Doorway now and past the frame lies a different world entirely - she catches a glimpse of blue sky and verdant grass, a congregation of people and animals and creatures and there just on the inside stands Aslan, and "Peter!" Susan finally finds her voice when she sees her brother. He stands tall and crowned, wearing rich garments, and this is the High King Peter, the person he's been trying to return to all these years since they landed back on the floor of the spare room in that house in the country. When he reaches through the Doorway into the frozen wasteland she stands in he sees her and stills, hope and joy clear and plain on his face. They lock eyes and in this moment he is only her big brother and she his little sister and his mouth forms her name into silence as his hand wraps around the knob of the Door. He clutches it, white-knuckled like it's the only thing keeping him on his feet, sways forward a little towards her. She smiles. There's salt in her mouth and her vision blurs just as a gust of wind wips her hair up and across her face. A booming noise echoes out into the nothingness and when she swipes away the hair, the tears, there is only darkness. Peter is gone and the Door is closed.

"Listen, Ed, keep your chin up, alright? I'll see you soon." He hates that this is all he can give right now when his brother and sister are grieving. Edmund clears his throat. "Alright. See you soon. I'll pass you back to Lucy." A few moments later his sister is back on the phone, and he says the same thing to her. "It'll be good to see you," Lucy says. "There's a lot to tell." "I'm sure. Right, then. I'll talk to you both again soon, either way." There's a brief silence, and then: "Peter, about Caspian-" Peter freezes, doesn't move, doesn't breathe. On the other end of the phone he hears what sounds like a muffled half-argument, and then there's a click and the dial tone and just like that, they're gone.

"I think it's sprained," he tells Edmund, who wears the same pursed-lips disapproval he had back at school, bandaging up Peter's knuckles and writing to Susan. It makes him want to laugh. His eyes blur and he blinks hard, tells himself it's the pain. His brother wraps up his wrist tight as he can bear to hold it stiff and firm and he can just about support his shield. He needs to get back out into the lists - on the other side of the field Miraz is getting up. "Ed," he says. "You'll win," Edmund says fiercely, practically an order, and who is Peter to refuse something like that? "Righto, then," he replies. Behind his brother Caspian hovers, catches his eye over Edmund's shoulder. His face is stricken with guilt. Peter gives him a sharp nod, wants to tell him not to worry, that he'll get this done, will beat Miraz or die trying and that either way if Aslan is doing his work it should all turn out alright. Old Narnia will be free again. He's not sure it all makes it into the nod because Caspian doesn't look any less concerned, but across the field the Telmarine army is jeering and calling for him and so Peter turns away, starts walking towards Miraz. If he doesn't look back he can imagine Susan and Lucy are standing there with Edmund, can imagine he was able to wish them all goodbye. Peter doesn't look back.

She's the only one of them in a dress rather than armour, and dirt has sunk into the creases of her forehead, the lines beside her eyes. There's a dimple in her right cheek when she smiles at them (and he knows that dimple, has poked it teasingly more times than he can count). This is Susan but she, like the other two, is far too old.

"Peter." Caspian dares to raise a hand and Peter closes his eyes as it cups his cheek, turns his face into it with the slightest movement. "I'm not made for this sort of thing," he says, stilted. "What sort of thing?" Peter swallows, doesn't open his eyes, doesn't move his face away. "I was given a sword and shield when we came here," he says quietly. "I never really put them down, even when we left." "You're not holding them now," Caspian points out. Peter's eyes blink open and they flick down to the tools still in his hands. "No, I suppose I'm not." His eyes flick back up to Caspian's, then down just a little, back up.

Peter stands and so Caspian does too. Peter walks back toward the celebrations and so Caspian follows. (He's known him all of a day, which is the strangest part of all this, because already he knows he'd follow anywhere he goes.) Peter stops at the edge of the clearing and so Caspian does too. In the firelight, he glows. His hair is pure gold, and he holds his head like the crown atop it is a real one, rather than a simple thing of leaves and flowers. He is truly magnificent, and Caspian is almost taken aback when Peter places a hand on his shoulder. "That feeling back there? Remember that. This is yours to protect now." Caspian is King, though he hasn't been crowned yet, and doesn't really feel like one yet, and Peter is entrusting him with his country. He does his best to stand tall, to not shrink under this weight, meets Peter's steady gaze. "I swear it, High King. With my life." His coronation vows will be to Narnia. This is an oath of fealty meant for Peter alone. "Peter," he tells Caspian again. "Peter, he repeats, keeps looking into those blue eyes until Peter's cheeks turn red and he looks away.