sorry i kind of took my sweet time with this. but here it finally is!:
lucy's youth protects her from certain things and it's not a protection she needs, but it's one she appreciates. she takes advantage of the fact that no matter how old she is, she will always be, in many ways, their little girl. she prefers to see it not as protection but as freedom, and lets wildness moves her heart as she runs ahead of peter to the shore, laughing, leaving a trail of shed clothes behind her. maybe peter would've scolded her for it once upon a time, but one doesn't worry about such things in narnia. what he does instead is take off his clothes, too.
the war in the north is over, the giants are bested, but the ice of the mountains has yet to melt from his bones. he has long dreamed of this, the softness of the sand, the glimmer of the eastern sea, the sun shining over it all. when he saw blood turn snow red in ettinsmoor he thought of the white walls of cair paravel, the aegis of aslan, and the love of his brother and sisters, for these are the things he has come to believe would last forever.
"let us go swimming, you and i," lucy had said to him, and he didn't even have to think about it. he said yes, he said let's go, he said right now.
the sea salt stings his eyes and, through the blue of the water, lucy in the distance appears to him as a blur of nubile limbs and golden hair. he swims to her. she's afloat on her back, eyes closed, water lapping at her sun-browned body and -- because when one is with lucy, her freedom frees us too -- peter pounces on her, not even enough time for a shriek, and down into the blue they go, tangled in each other all arms and legs and flailing, exuberantly disoriented.
"you beast!" lucy sputters when they surface. "i could've drowned!"
"i wouldn't have let you," peter grins. she just splashes him, and he splashes her back, and they laugh.
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lucy's youth protects her from certain things and it's not a protection she needs, but it's one she appreciates. she takes advantage of the fact that no matter how old she is, she will always be, in many ways, their little girl. she prefers to see it not as protection but as freedom, and lets wildness moves her heart as she runs ahead of peter to the shore, laughing, leaving a trail of shed clothes behind her. maybe peter would've scolded her for it once upon a time, but one doesn't worry about such things in narnia. what he does instead is take off his clothes, too.
the war in the north is over, the giants are bested, but the ice of the mountains has yet to melt from his bones. he has long dreamed of this, the softness of the sand, the glimmer of the eastern sea, the sun shining over it all. when he saw blood turn snow red in ettinsmoor he thought of the white walls of cair paravel, the aegis of aslan, and the love of his brother and sisters, for these are the things he has come to believe would last forever.
"let us go swimming, you and i," lucy had said to him, and he didn't even have to think about it. he said yes, he said let's go, he said right now.
the sea salt stings his eyes and, through the blue of the water, lucy in the distance appears to him as a blur of nubile limbs and golden hair. he swims to her. she's afloat on her back, eyes closed, water lapping at her sun-browned body and -- because when one is with lucy, her freedom frees us too -- peter pounces on her, not even enough time for a shriek, and down into the blue they go, tangled in each other all arms and legs and flailing, exuberantly disoriented.
"you beast!" lucy sputters when they surface. "i could've drowned!"
"i wouldn't have let you," peter grins. she just splashes him, and he splashes her back, and they laugh.