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Rosy Blake and a very sad Peter Pevensie
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When Peter was six years old, he picked his nose, and his fingernail was a little too sharp, and he had a nosebleed. This was hardly unheard of. The nurse told him to pinch his nose, hard, for ten minutes, and it would stop – and if it didn't, pinch it again.

It didn't stop. He pinched it for ten minutes, then another ten, and another. He kept pinching his nose, in ten-minute intervals, checking again each time, until his teacher noticed him doing it two hours later and told him to stop that, and the blood started flowing again. Then he went to the hospital.

There was no history of hemophilia in the Pevensie family. That didn't stop him having it, it just meant it came as more of a shock. Peter wasn't allowed to play football anymore, because he might get a bruise on his brain that could kill him. He certainly wasn't allowed to play rugby, where that was even more likely. He was allowed to swim, which he liked; he was allowed to lift weights and do calisthenics, which he found boring; and his mother told him tearfully that he must absolutely never pick his nose again.

So he swam, but not competitively, because if he had a really bad joint or muscle bleed it might take days to recover and he'd have trouble training around the interruptions. He stopped playing football, and didn't really have anything else to talk about with the boys he'd played with, and so he wasn't really friends with them anymore. (He could have watched football just fine, but it didn't feel right.) He studied diligently, and he played computer games with other boys who didn't like sport, and he never picked his nose again.

The Pevensies moved to America when he was fourteen. (And Susan was thirteen, and Edmund twelve, and Lucy ten.) Lakeview, a little town with a handful of rich old families you didn't want to cross, which his father said was just fine with him because he'd never crossed anyone in his life, whether they were probably gangsters or not. They mixed in decently; Peter made a handful of friends, Su made rather more, Ed made somewhere in between, and Lu didn't give a damn, which attracted its own crowd. He was proud of them all. And some of his new friends could play Dungeons and Dragons, which was really quite fun.

He's settled into a firm equilibrium, by his senior year. He's exempt from phys ed, instead swimming every afternoon at the local YMCA. He has his D&D group, and his family, and mostly everyone else ignores him, which is fine. He's applied to a handful of colleges, and some have expressed interest back at him. No one bothers to bully him, which is welcome. He's got a car.

He is, in fact, driving that car to school, with Susan and Edmund in the back. It started raining a few minutes ago, abruptly and intensely; they'll be lucky to get from the parking lot into the school building without getting soaked.

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"It's really pissing down," Edmund says unhappily. "Don't know what right the sky has to do that, really. Aggressive of it."

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"- hang on," Susan says. "That, um, glittery girl on the sidewalk - I know her, that's Rosy Blake. She looks half drowned, poor thing."

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Peter squints at the englittered person, evaluating her drowning status.

He pulls up to the sidewalk, leans over and pops open the passenger door. "Hey, need a ride? We're headed to school ourselves, and I don't think anyone should be walking in this weather!" he calls over the dull roar of rain.

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Her sparkly holo-silver roller skates do indeed catch the eye rather extravagantly even through the pouring rain, though the once-matching jacket is leaving a trail of sequins behind it like breadcrumbs as the weather takes its toll.

"Are you sure?" she says, peering doubtfully into the car. "I did not have the foresight to pack a towel this morning and I'm concerned for the well-being of your upholstery."

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"That's kind of you but I really don't care, it's all waterproofed, and I'm much more concerned about your traction in those skates than a bit of water in the car."

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"Very well then, I accept."

She gets in, swinging her backpack off her shoulder and into her lap and pulling the door shut behind her.

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"Cheers, Blake," says Susan brightly. "That's Peter, he's my brother, this is Ed, he's also my brother."

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"Charmed," Edmund says.

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"- also charmed. For the record."

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"I will be sure to record it," she says, and in fact gets out a small and only mildly damp notebook from a front pocket of her backpack and jots down, Peter Pevensie, impromptu chauffeur - Charmed.

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Peter laughs, startled. "- is that a notebook specifically for oblique literalisms, then, or is it multipurpose?"

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"Oh, you know, just anything I feel like writing. To be honest with you it's mostly handwriting practice." She flips back a few pages to show him a glimpse of row upon row of tidily inscribed pangrams, each sporting some slight variation on this or that letter, interrupted by the occasional specific word that seem to be mostly experimenting with ligatures.

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He glances at them long enough to get an overview, then returns his eyes to the road. "I've never invested in my handwriting. Maybe it's an area I could improve."

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"If you want. It falls to each of us to decide where we prefer to invest our precious mortal time." After giving that somewhat weighty statement a moment to sink in, she adds brightly, "I put most of mine into being incredibly cute."

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"That feels like a trap. Su, is that statement a trap?"

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"As far as I can tell she's just like this. Which is to say, no."

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"Then I will admit that you are succeeding."

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"I know!" she says, with all the cheer and confidence in the world.

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"Seems like you're being the person you want to be. It sounds nice," Peter says pensively.

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"I'm very gifted in that regard."

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"A good gift to have," Susan comments. "To thine own self, and all that - speaking of, Peter, did you ever get yourself to auditions for the play?"

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"...yeah, I auditioned. They, um, want me playing Prospero."

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"That's fantastic! He's the meatiest role they've got after Ariel!"

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"...yeah... I don't think I'm going to do it."

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"Why not?"

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