Title: He Is Narnia
Fandom: During Prince Caspian
Rating: G
Character(s): Caspian and the four Pevensies
Disclaimer: Clive Staples Lewis' world, not mine.
Notes: I'm… not sure about the composition of this one. It did a tense switch on me halfway through, but the parts felt distinctly separate, even if there wasn't a line between them, so I let it do what it wanted. So we'll see. Not particularly satisfied, though.

Peter was young. That was Caspian's first stunned reaction, and he blurted it out without meaning to. His second thought was that the former High King held bitterness and anger close to him, the way his brother Edmund held judgement like a hammer and Lucy held joy as if it were a weapon.

He noticed other things over the next few days. The way Peter had confidence written on every line of his face, the way this felt so strange on a boy of maybe-fifteen. He noticed the way Peter handled his sword, with a calm knowledge of it. He noticed how over the next few days Peter seemed to shrink in on himself, how his stride tightened and every move that he made had a purpose, how the High King felt like a string about to snap.

Peter was king. Inexplicably and undeniably, he knew things, knew being a king like Susan knew men and Edmund knew people and Lucy knew Narnia. Caspian sometimes wondered, when Peter was snapping orders that are obeyed without a question, if it is something you just know when you are king, or if he'd ever be the leader that Peter was.

Peter shrinks even more after the raid on the castle, and then when the White Witch stands before him, he wavers, and this more than anything stuns Caspian because Peter is strong, stronger than anyone Caspian has ever met. They both look to Edmund then, and Caspian can't help wondering if it's Edmund's strength Peter's been borrowing all this time, because for a moment he sees Peter break and shatter before him. And then High King Peter is back, but for the first time Caspian feels sympathy for the boy who was once the King of Summer.

Peter is old. Caspian watches Peter as he tells them all that he will challenge Miraz and flinches from Peter's eyes, because they are the eyes of an old man, and so are the others, and in that moment they are Kings and Queens.

"And what about your future?" he asks, feeling unsure of himself around Peter once again, like somehow he's lost his footing because Peter isn't really Peter anymore, not the Peter he thought he knew. But though the boy-man sounds wistful when he speaks, the anger and bitterness is gone. As Caspian watches, Peter picks up the helmet and holds power all around him, filled to the brim. He goes to find Susan, and she's filled up too. She's preparing for battle, her lovely dark face bent over her bow and her eyes holding steely resolve, and as he watches her, he thinks that she is after all more like Edmund than Peter (it's in how they hold nobility about them like a cloak, how it's only when they move that you glimpse the power they hold, while Peter holds his power in every move he makes, in the way he is hammered steel and dark resolve and Aslan's will, and how he doesn't need a sword to be a weapon). Silence settles, and then Caspian asks as Susan gets up to go to Peter, "What is Peter?" suddenly curious, and she looks at him like he is mad.

"Peter is Narnia," she says, and leaves him behind, her eyes already fixed on a point ahead.

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Peter is whole again now, and every time Caspian looks at him he feels he should be kneeling before the awful majesty of the King of Summer, unfolded now before them all.