The Golden Witch || Peter Pevensie x OC

36. Kerfuffle

Peter had elected to lead the way through the land.

The dwarf accompanying them had informed them of many things before they left the beach.

The first of which was that his name was Trumpkin.

The second being the name of the Telmarine that blew the horn was Caspian.

The third being where he had witnessed the entire event take place. The Shuddering Woods.

What he had yet to inform them was of what happened to Valera.

Something in his favour, as Peter wasn't open to hearing any word of her 'supposed' vanishing.

And considering he was getting more and more worked up by the second over the foreign direction they were walking in, mentioning it now might be a grave mistake.

By foreign direction, Peter was finding himself to not quite know where he was.

He knew the Shuddering Woods, and he knew how to get there from the beach they had wound up on.

In his fifteen years of rule (which to him happened but a year ago), he should be going the right way.

However, everything in his sight was changed. Different. Not what it used to be.

And he wasn't the only one who thought so.

"I don't remember this way", Susan spoke up from behind him where she was walking beside Lucy.

"That's the problem with girls. You can't carry a map in your heads", Peter retorted, his snippy attitude getting the better of him, as well as his inability to admit that he was getting lost.

"That's because our heads have something in them", Lucy immediately replied, earning a chuckle from Susan.

"I wish he'd just listened to the D.L.F in the first place", Susan then muttered to her younger sister as they made their way around the corner of tall boulders.

"D.L.F?" Edmund asked from the back of the group.

"Dear Little Friend", Lucy answered with a smirk.

"Oh, that's not at all patronizing, is it?" Trumpkin commented from beside Edmund.

At this point, Peter had entered into a strange tunnel system of sorts, entirely surrounded by walls made up of stacked rocks.

It was yet another thing he didn't recognise.

Which meant he didn't know which direction to head in, or which tunnel to take.

"I'm not lost", he mumbled out to himself as the rest of the group trailed in behind him.

"No. You're just going the wrong way", Trumpkin said.

"You last saw Caspian at the Shuddering Woods, and the quickest way there is to cross the river Rush", Peter spun around to snap at him.

"But unless I'm mistaken, there's no crossing in these parts."

"That explains it, then. You're mistaken."

Once more had Peter's short temper gotten the better of him.

A temper that had only one cure.

A cure he had been told was gone.

Without allowing for another word, Peter turned on his heel and set off through the tunnel directly ahead of him.

"Excuse him. There's just ... a lot on his mind right now", he eventually heard Lucy say to Trumpkin behind him.

"There's a lot on everyone's minds. Has been for the past few centuries", the dwarf replied in his signature flat tone.

"Just be thankful it isn't raining", Edmund said.