Playing Quoits With Crowns

[xxlucyferxx]

Title: Playing Quoits With Crowns
Rating: PG-13 for sexual situations, drunkenness and a healthy dose of angst-riden nihilism.
Pairing: Caspian/Edmund
Notes: Written for prompt #6 - crowns over at 100foraslan 

Summary: He often wondered if there were other people like him. Dirty people, people who were not as pure and spotless and good as they seemed on the surface.

Edmund wasn’t like his siblings. He wasn’t valiant, or magnificent, or gentle. Sometimes he suspected he was the least virtuous of them all. Other times he thought virtue was nothing more than uncommon skill in acting.

 

Beneath his veil of noble compassion, Edmund knew he was contaminated. Contaminated, because he had long ago stopped even trying to be perfect. Why should he? It never worked, anyway.

 

He often wondered if there were other people like him. Dirty people, people who were not as pure and spotless and good as they seemed on the surface.

 

When he met Caspian, Edmund didn’t need to wonder anymore.

 

For all his pretensions to virtue, Caspian was tainted. Edmund knew it from the way his eyes blazed when he thought of his uncle; knew that, however much he hated Miraz for living, he hated him all the more for dying and leaving him to pick up the pieces of the kingdom.

 

Edmund knew – and he relished the knowledge.

 

Sometimes, when everything became too much, they stole away from the castle with a bottle of wine from the cellars. Out in the woods, hopelessly drunk and rebellious, they played quoits with their crowns as an act of secret defiance and degradation. They made violent love amid the decomposing leaves and dirt until they could no longer remember what they were doing, or why they were angry. Bodies spent and rebellion thwarted, they would return to the castle and curl up in their separate beds to sleep off the alcohol in their blood.

 

When he woke the next morning, Edmund wondered how it was that Caspian, with all his imperfections, had come to mean more to him than any of his morally superior peers, and whether it was right or wrong.

He didn't really care.

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/_profiterole_/]

Wow! I love how dark-ish this is. ^_^

[xxlucyferxx.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much. :)

[angela-weber.livejournal.com]

Ooooh, Edmund, who knew? :D Seriously, though, I love this. I think it's a brilliant expression of the darkness in Edmund's character, and the best part is that I absolutely see this as possible. Good work!

[xxlucyferxx.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much! I've always had this fascination with digging up the darker sides of characters. At the same time, I was trying to balance it so he didn't become out of character...I'm so glad you enjoyed it. <33

[ineptshieldmaid.livejournal.com]

oh WOW. You're good...

*relishes*

[xxlucyferxx.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

I finished this at like, 11pm, so in retrospect it's a miracle it's even legible.

[minerva7.livejournal.com]

Very interesting study of Edmund's character!
Even though, while growing up, he doesn't seem as tainted as he was about to be in his youth, I strongly believe there is still a dark side to him that makes him often feel like the odd one out. Your fic perfectly captured that. Thanks :-)

[xxlucyferxx.livejournal.com]

I like to think there's still a side of him like that - he hates it and tries hard to pretend it's not there, but every so often it gets the better of him.

Glad you liked it!

[cocomouse123.livejournal.com]

*looks up "quoits"*

v. cool story! i love how edmund finds caspian as tainted as he is. i can def. see caspian as having a dark side. love it! ^_^

[xxlucyferxx.livejournal.com]

Heh, quoits is that game where you throw metal or plastic rings onto a peg in the ground...glad you liked it!

Ack, I'm behind in your story. I just realised you updated. I have to go to class, so I can't read it til I get home...*sob sob*

[gogothgirl.livejournal.com]

aih. we all know that Edmund is the dark one despite what happened to Su. that's why we adore him so much, no? =)
i love the atmosphere in this one. it tells us so much about the hidden frustration in human beings and yeah, it kinda reminds us of ourself at one point.

i wonder.. what would happen if something tipped the balance of dark and light in Edmund? i mean, REALLY tipped the balance? will he be lost to us? or can Peter and the others save him the second time around?

[xxlucyferxx.livejournal.com]

Ahhh, you evil thing! You SHOULDN'T put ideas like that in my head. I'm already battling with the temptation to write Dark!Caspian...now I'm going to be endlessly fantasising about Dark!Ed as well!

Glad you enjoyed it, though. And maybe I'll even give answering that question a shot...if I ever get through my mounds of real-life duties and all my other fanfics. XD

[panthrsoul.livejournal.com]

I love how in such a brief period you can say volumes! :)

[xxlucyferxx.livejournal.com]

Thank you muchly! <33

[babydracky.livejournal.com]

Really touching.

[xxlucyferxx.livejournal.com]

Thank you m'dear!!

[agenttrojie.livejournal.com]

Now that's a take I haven't seen before... I rather like it.

[ineptshieldmaid.livejournal.com]

Lucy- I'm thinking I'm going to try putting together a bunch of minority 'ship icons, and to use quotes instead of movie stills. Permission to quote your E/C stuff?

[xxlucyferxx.livejournal.com]

But of course!

BTW love the icon you're using right now. :D

[ineptshieldmaid.livejournal.com]

Why thank you!

It's really bloody hard to get a good cap of that Look. Although that could have to do with my DVD program- it refuses to take full-resolution screencaps.