#they're just little mementos that were special to them that they left there in case the wardrobe ever opened again

[always-a-king-or-queen]

The ache will go away, eventually. 

That was what the Professor told them, the day they got back. When they tumbled from the wardrobe in a heap of tangled limbs, and found that the world had been torn from under their feet with all the kindness of a serpent. 

They picked themselves off of the floorboards with smiles plastered on child faces, and sat with the Professor in his study drinking cup after cup of tea. 

But the smiles were fake. The tea was like ash on their tongues. And when they went to bed that night, none of them could sleep in beds that were too foreign, in bodies that had not been their own for years. Instead they grouped into one room and sat on the floor and whispered, late into the night. 

When morning came, Mrs. Macready discovered the four of them asleep in Peter and Edmund’s bedroom, tangled in a heap of pillows and blankets with their arms looped across one another. They woke a few moments after her entry and seemed confused, lost even, staring around the room with pale faces, eyes raking over each framed painting on the wall and across every bit of furniture as if it was foreign to them. “Come to breakfast,” Mrs. Macready said as she turned to go, but inside she wondered. 

For the children’s faces had held the same sadness that she saw sometimes in the Professor’s. A yearning, a shock, a numbness, as if their very hearts had been ripped from their chests.

At breakfast Lucy sat huddled between her brothers, wrapped in a shawl that was much too big for her as she warmed her hands around a mug of hot chocolate. Edmund fidgeted in his seat and kept reaching up to his hair as if to feel for something that was no longer there. Susan pushed her food idly around on her plate with her fork and hummed a strange melody under her breath. And Peter folded his hands beneath his chin and stared at the wall with eyes that seemed much too old for his face. 

It chilled Mrs. Macready to see their silence, their strangeness, when only yesterday they had been running all over the house, pounding through the halls, shouting and laughing in the bedrooms. It was as if something, something terrible and mysterious and lengthy, had occurred yesterday, but surely that could not be. 

She remarked upon it to the Professor, but he only smiled sadly at her and shook his head. “They’ll be all right,” he said, but she wasn’t so sure. 

They seemed so lost. 

Lucy disappeared into one of the rooms later that day, a room that Mrs. Macready knew was bare save for an old wardrobe of the professor’s. She couldn’t imagine what the child would want to go in there for, but children were strange and perhaps she was just playing some game. When Lucy came out again a few minutes later, sobbing and stumbling back down the hall with her hair askew, Mrs. Macready tried to console her, but Lucy found no comfort in her arms. “It wasn’t there,” she kept saying, inconsolable, and wouldn’t stop crying until her siblings came and gathered her in their arms and said in soothing voices, “Perhaps we’ll go back someday, Lu.” 

Go back where, Mrs. Macready wondered? She stepped into the room Lucy had been in later on in the evening and looked around, but there was nothing but dust and an empty space where coats used to hang in the wardrobe. The children must have taken them recently and forgotten to return them, not that it really mattered. They were so old and musty and the Professor had probably forgotten them long ago. But what could have made the child cry so? Try as she might, Mrs. Macready could find no answer, and she left the room dissatisfied and covered in dust. 

Lucy and Edmund and Peter and Susan took tea in the Professor’s room again that night, and the next, and the next, and the next. They slept in Peter and Edmund’s room, then Susan and Lucy’s, then Peter and Edmund’s again and so on, swapping every night till Mrs. Macready wondered how they could possibly get any sleep. The floor couldn’t be comfortable, but it was where she found them, morning after morning. 

Each morning they looked sadder than before, and breakfast was silent. Each afternoon Lucy went into the room with the wardrobe, carrying a little lion figurine Edmund had carved her, and came out crying a little while later. And then one day she didn’t, and went wandering in the woods and fields around the Professor’s house instead. She came back with grassy fingers and a scratch on one cheek and a crown of flowers on her head, but she seemed content. Happy, even. Mrs. Macready heard her singing to herself in a language she’d never heard before as Lucy skipped past her in the hall, leaving flower petals on the floor in her wake. Mrs. Macready couldn’t bring herself to tell the child to pick them up, and instead just left them where they were. 

More days and nights went by. One day it was Peter who went into the room with the wardrobe, bringing with him an old cloak of the Professor’s, and he was gone for quite a while. Thirty or forty minutes, Mrs. Macready would guess. When he came out, his shoulders were straighter and his chin lifted higher, but tears were dried upon his cheeks and his eyes were frightening. Noble and fierce, like the eyes of a king. The cloak still hung about his shoulders and made him seem almost like an adult. 

Peter never went into the wardrobe room again, but Susan did, a few weeks later. She took a dried flower crown inside with her and sat in there at least an hour, and when she came out her hair was so elaborately braided that Mrs. Macready wondered where on earth she had learned it. The flower crown was perched atop her head as she went back down the hall, and she walked so gracefully that she seemed to be floating on the air itself. In spite of her red eyes, she smiled, and seemed content to wander the mansion afterwards, reading or sketching or making delicate jewelry out of little pebbles and dried flowers Lucy brought her from the woods. 

More weeks went by. The children still took tea in the Professor’s study on occasion, but not as often as before. Lucy now went on her daily walks outdoors, and sometimes Peter or Susan, or both of them at once, accompanied her. Edmund stayed upstairs for the most part, reading or writing, keeping quiet and looking paler and sadder by the day. 

Finally he, too, went into the wardrobe room. 

He stayed for hours, hours upon hours. He took nothing in save for a wooden sword he had carved from a stick Lucy brought him from outside, and he didn’t come out again. The shadows lengthened across the hall and the sun sank lower in the sky and finally Mrs. Macready made herself speak quietly to Peter as the boy came out of the Professor’s study. “Your brother has been gone for hours,” she told him crisply, but she was privately alarmed, because Peter’s face shifted into panic and he disappeared upstairs without a word. 

Mrs. Macready followed him silently after around thirty minutes and pressed an ear to the door of the wardrobe room. Voices drifted from beyond. Edmund’s and Peter’s, yes, but she could also hear the soft tones of Lucy and Susan. 

“Why did he send us back?” Edmund was saying. It sounded as if he had been crying.  

Mrs. Macready couldn’t catch the answer, but when the siblings trickled out of the room an hour later, Edmund’s wooden sword was missing, and the flower crown Susan had been wearing lately was gone, and Peter no longer had his old cloak, and Lucy wasn’t carrying her lion figurine, and the four of them had clasped hands and sad, but smiling, faces. 

Mrs. Macready slipped into the room once they were gone and opened the wardrobe, and there at the bottom were the sword and the crown and the cloak and the lion. An offering of sorts, almost, or perhaps just items left there for future use, for whenever they next went into the wardrobe room.  

But they never did, and one day they were gone for good, off home, and the mansion was silent again. And it had been a long time since that morning that Mrs. Macready had found them all piled together in one bedroom, but ever since then they hadn’t quite been children, and she wanted to know why.

She climbed the steps again to the floor of the house where the old wardrobe was, and then went into the room and crossed the floor to the opposite wall. 

When she pulled the wardrobe door open, the four items the Pevensie children had left inside of it were missing. 

And just for a moment, it seemed to her that a cool gust of air brushed her face, coming from the darkness beyond where the missing coats used to hang.

[inkwell-passion]

No Child Left Behind

Agent Maelstrom's eyes shoot open with his breath hitching before going ragged, only after a few moments would his mind clear enough for him to sit up and take a drink of water. Taking a look around his room, Maelstrom notes that it's gotten a little bit messy, dust having collected on the bookshelf, and the desk space not being cleared before he went to bed; that's what probably caused his nightmare.

Maelstrom would stand up, fixing his hair with his hands, before he moves over to his desk and starts to clean it off. Once the desk was clean, he grabbed the duster he keeps in his closet to clean the bookshelf; he notes that he may as well sweep the floor while he's at it, Cleanliness is next to Godliness after all.

After 45 minutes of finding different things to fix or clean, he would walk out into the training grounds of Military Base Iota; there already was Fireteam Memento running through their basic hand-to-hand drills. Maelstrom walks up the stairs of the observation deck, and he has to hide his surprise to see Mote-124 already up there.

"Seraphim 124." Maelstrom prompts bluntly, leaning over the bannister to watch Mote-012 and Mote-076 duel; the Seraphim soldiers strike with blindingly fast movements, and surgical precision. Maelstrom can see that Mote-076 has the upper hand in Close Quarters, but referencing the logs from F.E.N.A. he also knows that Mote-012 is the best shot out of all of them.

"Agent Maelstrom." Seraphim 124 responds in kind.

"Telemachus." The Agent offers.

"Agent." The Seraphim reassures, with the Agent shifting and deciding to drop it.

"So, you Homunculi are supposed to be perfect in all forms of combat, are you not?"

The Seraphim shifts, with its plasmatic wings 'puffing up', before it responds. "Yes. Why do you ask?" The voice that resonates out of the AEGIS Armor is masculine, but Agent Maelstrom remembered his sensitivity training; The Seraphim are only tools, don't treat them like people.

"Well it's just," Maelstrom would begin before motioning to the two Seraphim sparring, and continuing, "Wouldn't they be perfectly matched up if that were the case?" he prods, trying to find the crack in these Divine Being's armor.

"You're missing a few variables Agent." Seraphim 124 answers, before the wings relax and disappear into the back of the armor.

"For starters, We are all two parts of a whole, a Homunculi without its Angel is just an artificial Human. A Guardian Angel without it's Homunculus is just a power source. The Homunculi may be perfectly matched, but they're not the only variable." Seraphim 124 continues, pointing out the licks of Plasma that can be spotted as they spar.

With the added explanation Maelstrom can begin to see it, the Homunculi are locked blade to blade, but the Guardian Angel allows for Seraphim 076 to lock its Strong to Seraphim 012's Weak.

"I see…so your specialization comes from your bond?" Maelstrom prompts, looking to the Fireteam Leader.

"It's more that our bond heightens our latent skills. Allows us to…." The Seraphim shifts and taps his foot trying to find a way to explain it. "Have you played any RPGs recently Agent?"

Maelstrom thinks that's an odd question for a weapon of war to ask, but decides to humor it. "Of course, Christo and I used to play an MMO before our respective promotions."

The Super Soldier nods, with a small hiss of coolant mimicking a sigh. "We all have our unique Class Bonus, but our Angel allows us to Prestige those skills."

It clicks for Maelstrom.

"They raise a skill that you already had to super human levels, based on what you already had a propensity for!" The Agent exclaims.

"Exactly. Us Homunculi are the peak of Artificial and Natural Humanity, our Guardian Angel helps elevate us to Divinity." The Soldier confirms.

The Agent lets out a humorless laugh. "If only the scientific team thought to ask you all. Of course you could explain it. One of you is smarter than all of us combined." He'd pat the man on the back, the giant doesn't seem to register it.

"Keep up the Good work Soldier." Maelstrom would straighten up; preparing to head back before the Seraphim's voice speaks up.

"Would you like to continue watching Agent? It's still an hour and a half before you start your shift."

Telemachus pauses, mulling it over before nodding. "Sure. Just let me get a cup of coffee."

The Seraphim would just hold up a thermos, Telemachus swears he can see a smirk underneath that helmet.

"Gods you really are super human" He'd grumble as he takes the thermos and continues to lean over the banister.

Telemachus watches the Soldiers spar in different forms of combat for a good thirty minutes before speaking up.

"Y'know when I was younger I was always envious of you." He begins, and already he notices the Seraphim's shift in body language, to portray his shock; Telemachus continues,

"My father would spend all of his time, all of his attention, his everything on you guys. He was always so tired when he came home, always too carried away with his precious super soldiers to give his son the time of day. I tried everything to get his attention, from extracurricular, to skipping grades. I just wanted to prove to him that I was worthy of his attention, his pride too."

The Agent would shift his gaze to look at the Seraphim fully, only to be surprised when he saw the Seraphim was looking at him straight on.

"Now I know how stupid that was." the Agent finishes with a small chuckle; with a self conscious smile he takes a small swig from the thermos.

The Seraphim undoes his helmet's seal and removes the face covering; placing the priceless piece of armor on the banister in-between the two men. The man had straw colored hair, a tanned face that would fit a farmer more than a soldier, and the start of a magnificent beard that was lovingly maintained by the man himself.

"We never asked for this Telemachus." the man's voice is softer, but still holds the familiar ruggedness that would make the Agent blush if he were a less disciplined man.

124 continues what he was saying after a few seconds to collect his words. "Being the son of one of the 600 original project coordinators, I'm sure you know the stakes at play here." Telemachus nods, starting to respond.

"I d-d-didn't mean to imply that my f-feelings were mo--" He's silenced by the subtle hand movement of the soldier.

"I never implied that Telemachus." 124 reassures. "We all understand your plight. We all had to do whatever we could to justify our existences. We all know what it's like to do our absolute best, only for that enigma of a man to nod and tell us 'Satisfactory work.' before moving on. I only wish that his own flesh and blood had a more loving upbringing."

Telemachus isn't sure what to make of this revelation, with his words escaping before his mouth can stop them. "Really? I thought he showered you with accolades and praise! You're the Mighty Seraphim of Project Paradiso!" Telemachus hands move on their own, trying to accentuate his words.

The man chuckles and shakes his head. "Nope. We were expected to keep pushing and pushing until we were molded anew." As he speaks the other soldiers that were in the sparring field start to make their way over, and 124 puts his helmet back on, that unshakable visage of divinity returning. "It's about time for you to start your shift Agent, Lets make today a good one shall we?"

Maelstrom would regain himself and nod. "Of course Mote-124." Maelstrom salutes to the Seraphim before starting to walk away to write the report, but the soldier stops him with a hand on the shoulder.

"You can call me Seamus, Agent."

Maelstrom is beside himself once again, before giving a solid nod. "Of course Seamus. Have a good day."

"You too, Telemachus." Seamus offers a handshake that Telemachus accepts, before he finally heads off to start the day. Seamus returning to his fireteam to brief them on what they need to improve on.