Accidentally Falling | Narnia

29 | yielding

For a millisecond, Peter lay unmoving on the grass, shocked and confused at what Susan was doing. Taking advantage of this, the Daughter of Eve straddled his waist and tickled him hard.

Peter lay beneath her, breathless from laughter. He tried to move his hand to stop the Daughter of Eve from what she was doing, but he felt powerless. He could only laugh uncontrollably while her fingers poke at his sides.

Laughing very hard, Susan tried to hold her position above Peter as he squirmed underneath her. But then, a lock of her raven hair fell in front of her face. When she reached up to tuck it behind her ear, Peter surged up and flipped her to her back. She now lay beneath him, panting but laughing.

"I win, Su," Peter smiled widely, his dimples showing. "Do you yield?"

Mentally cursing why she didn't think of tying her hair back, Susan looked up at him, eyebrows raised defiantly. "Oh, really?" she asked mockingly. Then, with all her strength, she pushed back at him.

They rolled on the field, laughing very loudly. A horn could have sounded from Cair Paravel to announce an invasion and neither of them would have heard it. The both of them seemed to have forgotten everything else as they played like children on the ground, the wild grasses parting for them as they rolled around.

Susan, breathing heavily with all the exertion of strength and laughing, was now on top of Peter again. She held her position firm so as not to let him roll her again.

"Look at that!" she said in a mockingly soothing tone. "King Peter the Magnificent, the best swordfighter Narnia has ever seen, beaten by a girl."

"Oh, really?" Peter mimicked her, smirking. Then he started to tickle her hard. Susan squirmed above him, giggling uncontrollably, as he poked at her sides mercilessly.

"Peter!" she exclaimed, breathless from laughter. "Stop!"

"I will," he countered. "If you yield."

"I said, stop it!" she reached out and grab both of his wrist, pinning them down on either side of his head.

Susan's face froze as it hovered inches away from Peter's.

Their gazes locked, blue on blue. They both panted from their activity, faces so close that they were washing each other's faces with their warm breaths.

Peter's heart pounded rapidly in his chest that he knew Susan could feel it through their layers of clothes. Although, he was sure that his racing pulse had already given him away. Her pale, beautiful face was so close that his brain was short-circuiting in his head, unable to think straight. And her lips...

Peter found it useless to deny it to himself anymore. Ever since that dance when he first found himself drowning and lost in her blue eyes, he had been trying hard to keep away the feelings that were slowly taking hold of him. And the night after, that night in his bedchambers when she tended his wounds and he discovered the vulnerability beneath her tough demeanor, he had convinced himself hard that it was the horrid smell of the ointments which muddled his brain that he almost kissed her. Because it was impossible for him to fall for her. He shouldn't fall for her. He tried not to fall for her.

He should have tried hard enough.

Because now, looking up into her blue eyes, Peter knew he was already helpless. He realized she would do anything for her. He'd travel to the very end of the world to save her. He'd give up his crown if it meant keeping her safe.

If the foreign sensation that was now blooming strongly in his chest as he was sucked into a hurricane that was her eyes was love... then so be it. He loved her. He loved Susan Pevensie.