"Ettinsmoor? Is that what we're calling it now?" Imira asked.
"Better than 'the northern lands the Ettins inhabit' don't you think?" Peter asked in return.
"I suppose it's catchy," she agreed. "So what do we do now?"
Peter looked around the room...
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"Peter, are you awake?" Imira whispered, unable to sleep.
"It depends," Peter grunted.
She shifted to face him in the darkness of their tent.
"Can we talk?"
"We can. But wouldn't you rather sleep?" he replied. He had spent all day on a dragon's back, clinging to wherever he could so as not to plummet to his death. Needless to say, he was exhausted.
"I would, but I can't. There's this thought in the back of my mind that keeps nagging,"
"So now I have to be nagged?" he asked, eyes still closed, barely awake.
"Peter," she said, exaggerating her accent.
He chuckled. "If that will get you to sleep," he opened his eyes and sighed. "What is it you want to discuss?"
"The line of succession,"
Peter grunted. "Imira—"
"It's important," she insisted, reaching in the dark to touch his arm.
"It's late," he complained.
"We could die this week, we need to discuss it now," she pleaded.
"We are not going to die. We're going to be fine," he patted her hand. "Now go to sleep, we can discuss this all you want tomorrow,"
He hoped that was it, but Imira wasn't having it. She was worried and she wouldn't sleep until the issue was resolved.
"But what if it's not fine? What if I die? Or worse, what if, Aslan forbid, you die? You know I have no pull over your siblings without you. What should happen then?" she asked.
The concern was evident in her voice. Peter knew he wouldn't be getting any sleep unless he answered her queries. He rubbed this eyes with his right hand.
"William's my heir, you know what will happen. If I die, when he comes of age, William will take my place as King,"
"But what about your siblings? What about Edmund? Will our son be King or High King? And what about Edward?"
He shifted to face her. "Me dying won't change my siblings' titles. He'll be King of Narnia, Emperor of the Lone Islands and Lord of Cair Paravel when he turns eighteen."
"And what about Edward?" she insisted.
At this point, Peter was sufficiently awake.
"What about him?" he asked rhetorically. "He's second in line, he'll remain a Prince. Who becomes Duke of Ardenton is up to you to sort out with your brother,"
Imira nodded. "I'm thinking it should be Edward,"
"Then Edward it is," Peter said somewhat grumpily.
"So that's it?" Imira asked.
"That's it. What more do you want me to tell you? It's fairly uncomplicated,"
Imira scoffed. "Successions are anything but uncomplicated,"
"Well, it seems fairly obvious to me,"
Peter thought that was it, that he could now go back to sleep, but then another thought popped into Imira's mind.
"But what if your siblings marry and have heirs of their own?"
Peter sighed once more, only this time in exasperation. "Imira, we've discussed this," he sat up. "Unless they marry a foreigner with a throne of their own, their eldest inherits their throne," She could hear he was growing bothered by her questions, but now she had a new one.
"When did we discuss this?" she asked, confused, sitting up as well.
"What do you mean when? When Susan threw that hypothetical at breakfast,"
Silence.
"A few months before Rabadash showed at our gate," Peter explained. "Don't you remember?"
Imira tried to think back to this, but she couldn't remember said conversation. "This is the first I'm hearing of it,"
"We were having breakfast, discussing Susan's suitors, Edmund looked like he had indigestion..." Imira stared at him and blinked.
And then they both remembered.
"I was in Datram,"
"You were in Datram,"
"before Rabadash came," they said at the same time and shared a laugh.
"That explains it,"
"Must have slipped my mind with all we had going on," Peter said. He made a mental note, he had to start writing these things down somewhere. What else had she missed he had not told her about? He thought, but nothing came to mind, it was too late and he was far too tired.
"You need to tell me about these things," she said as she reached over to play with the hair on the nape of his neck.
"I meant to. But then Rabadash showed up and all this business with the Ettins..."
"I know, it's alright," she said as he intertwined his fingers with hers.
"Don't worry yourself with it," he said, moving his free hand to rest on her back. "We are going to defeat the Ettins," he said confidently, "go back to Cair," She smiled at him. "and we are going to grow old together, and die boring deaths many decades from now,"
She laughed. "You promise?"
He smiled at her. "I promise," he said and then leaned down to meet her lips.
