The Fall of the Gentle, Susan, PG-13
Aug. 7th, 2007 04:51 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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femgenficathonTitle: The Fall of The Gentle
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sparkfrost
Fandom: The Chronicles of Narnia
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Some discussion of sexuality, spoilers for all the books
Prompt: #41- One of the lessons of history is that nothing is often a good thing to do and always a clever thing to say. --Ariel Durant.
Summary: Why Queen Susan is no longer a friend to Narnia.
The first time they returned to their world from Narnia (Susan couldn’t say the real world, Narnia was just as real) it was hard. Susan had grown up in Narnia; Susan had become a queen in Narnia, and lived and loved and ruled well. And suddenly, in the middle of a hunt with her siblings, pursuing a hind that would grant wishes if you caught him, she was stumbling out of a wardrobe back in her skirt and knee socks. This was nothing she would have wished for. In one misstep she had gone from a Queen to a child.
Dazed, the children made their way to the Professor’s study. Susan was slightly reassured by what the Professor told them. She clung to “Once a King or Queen in Narnia, always a King or Queen in Narnia” and repeated it to herself over and over as if it were a comforting story her mother had told her. She whispered it into her pillow as she fell asleep, holding it up like armor against the tears.
She woke in the middle of the night due to a sudden weight on her bed. A small, warm body pressed itself against her side, and the quiet snuffling that accompanied it told Susan who it was.
“Shh, Lucy, don’t cry. It will be all right.” A lie, of course, but sometimes it was the only comfort.
“I miss it Susan. I want to go back.”
“Of course you do, Lu. We all do. But you heard the Professor. It will happen someday.”
“But I want to go back now! All our friends will be so worried! What will Mr. Tumnus think? They’ll believe we’ve run off!” Susan quelled her own rising fear of the same thing, and stroked Lucy’s hair.
“They know that we love them. Lucy, they know that we would never leave them on purpose. And Aslan knows that as well. Aslan will tell them what has happened. He would not let them wonder. He wouldn’t want them to worry.”
“But he’s not a tame lion, Susan.” Edmund spoke from the shadows of the hallway. Stepping inside, he continued. “That’s what the Beavers told us. That first day, do you remember? He’s the king of the wood. We don’t know what he will do. He may not tell them anything. He’s not tame.”
“No, Ed, he’s not. But he’s good.” Susan spoke bracingly, reassuring her siblings as well as herself. “I remember that day as well as you do. And Mr. Beaver told us- above all, he’s good. He will have told them.”
“But Susan, I want to go back. I don’t care what he told them- I want to go back. Mr. Tumnus- he’s my friend! I need to go back and tell him!”
Lucy began to cry in earnest, and all Susan could do was hold her. Years ago Edmund had yelled at her, saying she was trying to be like Mum. But truthfully, Susan had never felt so young. She wanted to cry too. Wanted to fall apart and sob for all the friends they had unwillingly left behind. But now- all she could do was run her hand down Lucy’s short hair and murmur false comforting words. The bed settled more as Edmund climbed in on Susan’s other side, and the three of them lay together, each of them mourning in their own ways.
Susan didn’t know how much time had passed before another shadow darkened the doorway. She looked up to see Peter standing there, face pale and drawn like the rest of them. Edmund and Lucy hadn’t noticed him yet, and for a moment she and Peter just gazed at each other. Peter didn’t seem very well, he looked sad and tired. But there was a determination there, a protective expression on his face, the same one as when he had fought the wolf- Peter was readying himself to be the strong one, to be the brave front, to be the big brother that they had always known. King Peter the Magnificent was shining out of her brother’s face, and finally, Susan felt a bit of comfort. Peter came and sat on the bed.
“Don’t cry Lucy. No, really, don’t cry. Remember what the Professor said? We’ve been Kings and Queens in Narnia, and we will always be Kings and Queens of Narnia. No matter that we aren’t there now. One day, we will get back there. We will see Aslan again; we will see the people and places we love. But we can’t go looking for it. We can’t go running back to the wardrobe, hoping to wind up in Lantern’s Waste. It will happen one day when we don’t expect it. That’s what Professor Kirke said. So until then, why cry? We shouldn’t make ourselves sad and sick waiting to get back when it will happen on its own. Dry your eyes, Lucy. There’s no good to be had in crying.”
Peter lay back in the bed with them, and Lucy left Susan’s side to curl up next to Peter. He put an arm around her shoulders and placed a kiss on her head. Edmund sighed a bit, and then relaxed against Susan. And so the Pevensie children lay together through that first endless night.
The second time they were sent back from Narnia it was harder. Aslan had taken them aside the day after Caspian’s coronation. He had looked at her and Peter and said, “Come”, and they followed. Aslan slowly and carefully explained to them that they would not be coming back to Narnia. “You’ve gotten too old. I call you my children, but you aren’t babes anymore. You are both beginning to grow up, and it is time for you to put aside childish things. And I’m sorry to tell you, but that includes Narnia.”
“But Aslan-” Peter protested at once, “we grew up in Narnia! We ruled in Narnia, we were adults here, how is our own country a childish thing?”
“Son of Adam, believe me that I do not want to cause you pain. But it is time for you to grow in your own world, become the person shaped by your own place. As much as you love Narnia, it is not your world. I cannot let you back here. But know this- you have been a king here. And once a king in Narnia-”
“We know, Aslan.” Susan had never dared interrupt him before. Even when she disagreed, she had always let Aslan finish before she voiced her thoughts. But now, she was through with courtesy. “Professor Kirke told us. We’ve heard it before. We will always be kings and queens in Narnia. But what good does that do us, Aslan? You won’t allow us back, how does it help to know that somehow we still rule? It doesn’t, Aslan! You’re sending us away and no matter how often you say that, it doesn’t help!”
“Daughter of Eve, come here.” Susan shook her head mulishly, still angry and upset, and a bit frightened of how she had spoken to him.
“Susan.” She had never heard his voice sound as gentle as it did then. “Come here.” He led her away from Peter, far enough from everyone that no one could hear the words they spoke.
“Susan, daughter, I do not do this to cause you pain. I know how it must hurt, to be denied access to something you love. I know. But my dear, I simply cannot allow you and your brother to come back. If I did- if I allowed you back, if I let you hope that you could, you would never fully live in your own world. As much as you love Narnia, and as much as the people of Narnia love you, you do not belong here. You have a whole world to explore, a life to live, and if I were to let you back into Narnia, or even let you believe you could come back- this is not your world. And you need to grow, and live, and love in your own place.”
“But Aslan, I love Narnia. I don’t want to leave here; I don’t want to leave you! What if Caspian needs us? Last time we left, enemies invaded. What if that happens again? We won’t be here because you sent us away! Aslan- oh Aslan, don’t make us leave. Please. Please don’t make us.”
Aslan slowly walked closer to Susan, bent his head to look her in the eyes. Whatever he saw there, it caused his eyes to soften in compassion. Stepping close, he ran his tongue over the tears that were falling down her cheeks. His tongue felt like sandpaper, trying to scrape away her grief.
“Well did I name you all those years ago. Gentle Susan, do not weep for Narnia, and do not weep for yourself. Things are not always what they seem. And although I deny you Narnia, believe me that a time will come when I shall grant you something better. Be brave, Daughter of Eve, and be strong. Do not grieve for what is in the past. Narnia is your past now, and I send you off, not to exile you, but to give you a better future. Believe in me my dear, and neither I nor Narnia shall forsake you.”
“Aslan, I’m not brave. Lucy was the brave one, she was the valiant queen. I don’t think I can do this, Aslan. I’m not strong like Peter and I’m not wise like Edmund. Aslan please let me stay.” She was crying harder now, sobbing into Aslan’s mane. The mane she had held as he walked to his death, the mane she had buried her face in that awful night before he rose again. Always before it had given her comfort, and she breathed in his wild scent hoping it would give her strength.
“Susan, did you think that by naming you I restricted you? Susan, you were the one who comforted Lucy all the times she needed it. You were Peter’s advisor when he was unsure of his crown, and you were the first to welcome Edmund back to the fold. Susan, I believe in you. And I need you to be the strong girl you are, to grow into the woman you will become. Susan, set aside your childhood. Set aside Narnia and be assured that we will not forget you.”
Susan cried for a while longer, trying to hold on to the words of comfort Aslan was offering. She cried into his mane and slowly, slowly, tried to let go. As she finally released her grip on him, there came the sudden weight of his head on her shoulder, and oh so quietly he whispered in her ear.
“You are my brave one, Susan. Be strong.”
With those words echoing in her ears she was able to walk back to Peter, was able to take Edmund’s hands as they walked toward the doorway. Hands on each others’ shoulders, they stepped forward to their own world. She looked back only once and found Aslan’s eyes, waiting to meet hers. She nodded once, and then resolutely stepped out of Narnia for the last time.
The first two years weren’t so bad. Susan and Peter wrote each other often, sending letters back and forth full of memories of their friends and speculation on what was happening in Narnia now. Those letters kept Susan sane, allowed her to focus on her studies and her friends at school. Lucy helped too. Some nights they would sneak out of their dorms and sit together for hours talking about Narnia.
Even after Lucy and Edmund went back, it wasn’t so bad. Susan was at first resentful that Eustace, Eustace! got to go with them. But according to Edmund and Lucy their cousin had become a much more pleasant person after his experience in Narnia. As Eustace had always been a pest, it was a delightful surprise to see him polite and friendly and well behaved. And it soothed Susan, a bit, to know that Edmund and Lucy wouldn’t be going back either. Now they could all reminisce about the wonders of Narnia and there would be no jealousy anymore.
Except then Eustace went back. And not even with another relative, but with some girl from the progressive school they both attended. This girl, this Pole was able to go to Narnia, and Susan wasn’t? She wanted to rage at the unfairness of it all, wanted to go grab Jill Pole and shake her until she understood that she would never be to Narnia what Susan had been, would never be the beloved Queen, would never be as loved and cherished by Aslan as Susan had been… and then Susan realized. It had been years since she’d been to Narnia, days and weeks and months had sped by and no matter Aslan’s promise to her, Narnia clearly did not miss Queen Susan. Aslan did not need Queen Susan. So much for being the brave one, so much for being gentle. Narnia had moved on and Susan hadn’t. It was time for Susan to grow up. It was time to set aside childish things.
And so Susan joined her friends on their shopping trips, bought nylons to wear with her suddenly shorter dresses, and lipstick to make herself seem older. After all, she was supposed to be a woman now, women wore nylons that covered their legs, and lipstick that tasted like wax, and didn’t at all feel like the skin of the apples from their old orchard. Women stepped out with young men, and if their hands drifted farther up her legs than Susan was comfortable with, well, Susan was an adult now, and adults did these types of things.
The others began to notice Susan’s changes. Lucy kept badgering her to talk about Narnia, and Susan would brush Lucy away, laughing that a girl who was almost grown up would still ask her big sister to play at fairy tales. Edmund came to her over hols, asking what was wrong, why Susan wouldn’t talk about Narnia anymore. Susan scolded him for being too old for games and went to join the adults in the sitting room. Finally Peter confronted her, and that was the hardest of them all. He asked her if she remembered what Aslan had told them when the left Narnia; it took all her strength to look him in the eye.
“Aslan?” Susan laughed, “Peter, I understand that Lu and Ed still want to play, but honestly, aren’t you too old for make-believe? We stopped playing at Narnia years ago, why are you bringing it up now?”
“Playing at Narnia? Make-believe? Susan, what has gotten into you? Why are you doing this?”
“Doing what, Peter? Nothing has gotten into me; I just realized that it was time to grow up. I need to move on and forget childish things.” She tried to move past him in the hallway, but Peter grabbed onto her arm, stopping her.
“Susan, you’re even quoting him! That was exactly what Aslan said when we left. But he didn’t mean to forget Narnia, to pretend it never existed! Why are you doing this?”
“Peter, please let go,” Susan tried to keep the tremble out of her voice. “You’re hurting me. Please, Peter.” He didn’t let go, in fact his grip became harder.
“Susan, please don’t do this. I know you’re angry that we can’t go back, I know it hurts that we won’t see Aslan again, I know! But please, please don’t pretend it never happened. It was real, it happened, and you make it worse for Edmund and Lucy when you deny it!”
“I don’t care, Peter! I don’t care anymore! I can’t keep on talking about it, I can’t keep missing it, it’s killing me! So stop it! You and Ed and Lucy can just leave off, all right? It’s not real, none of it. I’m done with missing a place that isn’t real.” She jerked her arm out of his grasp and pushed him away. “You can live in the past if you like. I’m done with it.” She walked away from him, ignoring his voice as he called after her.
“Susan. Susan! What will you do? Pretend that we don’t exist as well? Are you done with us too?” Susan didn’t answer, and as she turned the corner, Peter stopped yelling.
And so the others stopped trying. They would stick to bland pleasantries about school, and friends, and hols, and every year Susan felt that she knew her family less and less.
And then the train wreck happened. It took Susan a week to discover what had happened to her family. A week of being surrounded by people sobbing for their lost family members, a week of cringing away from the wounded survivors trying not to picture Lucy without an arm, Edmund with broken legs, Peter with a scar across his perfect face, a week of searching faces at hospitals hoping and praying to see a familiar one. A week of despair as day after day went by and she did not recognize anyone, did not find her siblings or her parents. Finally, after hours and days of talking to officials, trying to find the least bit of information, she had her answer. All dead. Parents and siblings, all taken from her in one horrible instant. Susan had thought stumbling out of the wardrobe had been bad, this was infinitely worse.
Susan felt as if the wool had been lifted from her eyes. What good had come from fighting with the others, denying their past? She was alone now, and the brothers and sister she was mourning were practically strangers. All because while trying to be grown up, she had truly just been a jealous child, sulking because she had been denied what she wanted. How could she mourn those that she had lost years ago? With dry eyes she arranged matters, took care of the funeral services and gravestones. Her parents’ were simple affairs, their names, dates of birth and death, and “Beloved Mother” and “Beloved Father” carved below.
All of her siblings had their names and the dates of their births and deaths- but each had something extra written underneath. For Peter, their leader, their courage and faith, was “To command is to serve; nothing more and nothing less.” For Edmund, “Where beauty has no ebb, decay no flood- But joy is wisdom, time an endless song.” And for Lucy, sweet brave Lucy was “The valiant never taste of death but once.” She received strange looks at the funeral, once people had read the stones. She received stranger looks at the bouquets she placed on their graves. Daisies and ivy, innocence and fidelity, for Lucy. Irises and rosemary, wisdom and remembrance, for Ed. And hyacinth and bay leaf, constancy and strength for Peter. Susan ignored all the looks, all the questioning stares, moved past the people who tried to delay her and left the cemetery.
She dreamt that night, for the first time in years, of Narnia. They were riding through Lantern Waste again, chasing the white stag. Susan was laughing with Lucy over Edmund and Peter’s antics, their amusing attempts to impress the sisters. Again they dismounted when the brush became too thick, and again they found the lamppost, the half-remembered relic of their former lives. But this time as they made their way through the woods, the branches didn’t become soft. This time the crunching of deadfall didn’t turn into the feeling of mothballs under their feet. They broke through the thicket and there in front of them was the white stag. It was cornered, the brush too thick past the clearing and the Kings and Queens of Narnia blocking its way back. Seeing this, it bowed its head.
“Very well, majesties, you have caught me. What do you wish?”
Susan looked it in the eye and said, very quietly, “I wish I could go back.”
When they buried her next to her siblings (and such a tragedy, to all die so young) Queen Susan was smiling.
Author:
sparkfrostFandom: The Chronicles of Narnia
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Some discussion of sexuality, spoilers for all the books
Prompt: #41- One of the lessons of history is that nothing is often a good thing to do and always a clever thing to say. --Ariel Durant.
Summary: Why Queen Susan is no longer a friend to Narnia.
The first time they returned to their world from Narnia (Susan couldn’t say the real world, Narnia was just as real) it was hard. Susan had grown up in Narnia; Susan had become a queen in Narnia, and lived and loved and ruled well. And suddenly, in the middle of a hunt with her siblings, pursuing a hind that would grant wishes if you caught him, she was stumbling out of a wardrobe back in her skirt and knee socks. This was nothing she would have wished for. In one misstep she had gone from a Queen to a child.
Dazed, the children made their way to the Professor’s study. Susan was slightly reassured by what the Professor told them. She clung to “Once a King or Queen in Narnia, always a King or Queen in Narnia” and repeated it to herself over and over as if it were a comforting story her mother had told her. She whispered it into her pillow as she fell asleep, holding it up like armor against the tears.
She woke in the middle of the night due to a sudden weight on her bed. A small, warm body pressed itself against her side, and the quiet snuffling that accompanied it told Susan who it was.
“Shh, Lucy, don’t cry. It will be all right.” A lie, of course, but sometimes it was the only comfort.
“I miss it Susan. I want to go back.”
“Of course you do, Lu. We all do. But you heard the Professor. It will happen someday.”
“But I want to go back now! All our friends will be so worried! What will Mr. Tumnus think? They’ll believe we’ve run off!” Susan quelled her own rising fear of the same thing, and stroked Lucy’s hair.
“They know that we love them. Lucy, they know that we would never leave them on purpose. And Aslan knows that as well. Aslan will tell them what has happened. He would not let them wonder. He wouldn’t want them to worry.”
“But he’s not a tame lion, Susan.” Edmund spoke from the shadows of the hallway. Stepping inside, he continued. “That’s what the Beavers told us. That first day, do you remember? He’s the king of the wood. We don’t know what he will do. He may not tell them anything. He’s not tame.”
“No, Ed, he’s not. But he’s good.” Susan spoke bracingly, reassuring her siblings as well as herself. “I remember that day as well as you do. And Mr. Beaver told us- above all, he’s good. He will have told them.”
“But Susan, I want to go back. I don’t care what he told them- I want to go back. Mr. Tumnus- he’s my friend! I need to go back and tell him!”
Lucy began to cry in earnest, and all Susan could do was hold her. Years ago Edmund had yelled at her, saying she was trying to be like Mum. But truthfully, Susan had never felt so young. She wanted to cry too. Wanted to fall apart and sob for all the friends they had unwillingly left behind. But now- all she could do was run her hand down Lucy’s short hair and murmur false comforting words. The bed settled more as Edmund climbed in on Susan’s other side, and the three of them lay together, each of them mourning in their own ways.
Susan didn’t know how much time had passed before another shadow darkened the doorway. She looked up to see Peter standing there, face pale and drawn like the rest of them. Edmund and Lucy hadn’t noticed him yet, and for a moment she and Peter just gazed at each other. Peter didn’t seem very well, he looked sad and tired. But there was a determination there, a protective expression on his face, the same one as when he had fought the wolf- Peter was readying himself to be the strong one, to be the brave front, to be the big brother that they had always known. King Peter the Magnificent was shining out of her brother’s face, and finally, Susan felt a bit of comfort. Peter came and sat on the bed.
“Don’t cry Lucy. No, really, don’t cry. Remember what the Professor said? We’ve been Kings and Queens in Narnia, and we will always be Kings and Queens of Narnia. No matter that we aren’t there now. One day, we will get back there. We will see Aslan again; we will see the people and places we love. But we can’t go looking for it. We can’t go running back to the wardrobe, hoping to wind up in Lantern’s Waste. It will happen one day when we don’t expect it. That’s what Professor Kirke said. So until then, why cry? We shouldn’t make ourselves sad and sick waiting to get back when it will happen on its own. Dry your eyes, Lucy. There’s no good to be had in crying.”
Peter lay back in the bed with them, and Lucy left Susan’s side to curl up next to Peter. He put an arm around her shoulders and placed a kiss on her head. Edmund sighed a bit, and then relaxed against Susan. And so the Pevensie children lay together through that first endless night.
The second time they were sent back from Narnia it was harder. Aslan had taken them aside the day after Caspian’s coronation. He had looked at her and Peter and said, “Come”, and they followed. Aslan slowly and carefully explained to them that they would not be coming back to Narnia. “You’ve gotten too old. I call you my children, but you aren’t babes anymore. You are both beginning to grow up, and it is time for you to put aside childish things. And I’m sorry to tell you, but that includes Narnia.”
“But Aslan-” Peter protested at once, “we grew up in Narnia! We ruled in Narnia, we were adults here, how is our own country a childish thing?”
“Son of Adam, believe me that I do not want to cause you pain. But it is time for you to grow in your own world, become the person shaped by your own place. As much as you love Narnia, it is not your world. I cannot let you back here. But know this- you have been a king here. And once a king in Narnia-”
“We know, Aslan.” Susan had never dared interrupt him before. Even when she disagreed, she had always let Aslan finish before she voiced her thoughts. But now, she was through with courtesy. “Professor Kirke told us. We’ve heard it before. We will always be kings and queens in Narnia. But what good does that do us, Aslan? You won’t allow us back, how does it help to know that somehow we still rule? It doesn’t, Aslan! You’re sending us away and no matter how often you say that, it doesn’t help!”
“Daughter of Eve, come here.” Susan shook her head mulishly, still angry and upset, and a bit frightened of how she had spoken to him.
“Susan.” She had never heard his voice sound as gentle as it did then. “Come here.” He led her away from Peter, far enough from everyone that no one could hear the words they spoke.
“Susan, daughter, I do not do this to cause you pain. I know how it must hurt, to be denied access to something you love. I know. But my dear, I simply cannot allow you and your brother to come back. If I did- if I allowed you back, if I let you hope that you could, you would never fully live in your own world. As much as you love Narnia, and as much as the people of Narnia love you, you do not belong here. You have a whole world to explore, a life to live, and if I were to let you back into Narnia, or even let you believe you could come back- this is not your world. And you need to grow, and live, and love in your own place.”
“But Aslan, I love Narnia. I don’t want to leave here; I don’t want to leave you! What if Caspian needs us? Last time we left, enemies invaded. What if that happens again? We won’t be here because you sent us away! Aslan- oh Aslan, don’t make us leave. Please. Please don’t make us.”
Aslan slowly walked closer to Susan, bent his head to look her in the eyes. Whatever he saw there, it caused his eyes to soften in compassion. Stepping close, he ran his tongue over the tears that were falling down her cheeks. His tongue felt like sandpaper, trying to scrape away her grief.
“Well did I name you all those years ago. Gentle Susan, do not weep for Narnia, and do not weep for yourself. Things are not always what they seem. And although I deny you Narnia, believe me that a time will come when I shall grant you something better. Be brave, Daughter of Eve, and be strong. Do not grieve for what is in the past. Narnia is your past now, and I send you off, not to exile you, but to give you a better future. Believe in me my dear, and neither I nor Narnia shall forsake you.”
“Aslan, I’m not brave. Lucy was the brave one, she was the valiant queen. I don’t think I can do this, Aslan. I’m not strong like Peter and I’m not wise like Edmund. Aslan please let me stay.” She was crying harder now, sobbing into Aslan’s mane. The mane she had held as he walked to his death, the mane she had buried her face in that awful night before he rose again. Always before it had given her comfort, and she breathed in his wild scent hoping it would give her strength.
“Susan, did you think that by naming you I restricted you? Susan, you were the one who comforted Lucy all the times she needed it. You were Peter’s advisor when he was unsure of his crown, and you were the first to welcome Edmund back to the fold. Susan, I believe in you. And I need you to be the strong girl you are, to grow into the woman you will become. Susan, set aside your childhood. Set aside Narnia and be assured that we will not forget you.”
Susan cried for a while longer, trying to hold on to the words of comfort Aslan was offering. She cried into his mane and slowly, slowly, tried to let go. As she finally released her grip on him, there came the sudden weight of his head on her shoulder, and oh so quietly he whispered in her ear.
“You are my brave one, Susan. Be strong.”
With those words echoing in her ears she was able to walk back to Peter, was able to take Edmund’s hands as they walked toward the doorway. Hands on each others’ shoulders, they stepped forward to their own world. She looked back only once and found Aslan’s eyes, waiting to meet hers. She nodded once, and then resolutely stepped out of Narnia for the last time.
The first two years weren’t so bad. Susan and Peter wrote each other often, sending letters back and forth full of memories of their friends and speculation on what was happening in Narnia now. Those letters kept Susan sane, allowed her to focus on her studies and her friends at school. Lucy helped too. Some nights they would sneak out of their dorms and sit together for hours talking about Narnia.
Even after Lucy and Edmund went back, it wasn’t so bad. Susan was at first resentful that Eustace, Eustace! got to go with them. But according to Edmund and Lucy their cousin had become a much more pleasant person after his experience in Narnia. As Eustace had always been a pest, it was a delightful surprise to see him polite and friendly and well behaved. And it soothed Susan, a bit, to know that Edmund and Lucy wouldn’t be going back either. Now they could all reminisce about the wonders of Narnia and there would be no jealousy anymore.
Except then Eustace went back. And not even with another relative, but with some girl from the progressive school they both attended. This girl, this Pole was able to go to Narnia, and Susan wasn’t? She wanted to rage at the unfairness of it all, wanted to go grab Jill Pole and shake her until she understood that she would never be to Narnia what Susan had been, would never be the beloved Queen, would never be as loved and cherished by Aslan as Susan had been… and then Susan realized. It had been years since she’d been to Narnia, days and weeks and months had sped by and no matter Aslan’s promise to her, Narnia clearly did not miss Queen Susan. Aslan did not need Queen Susan. So much for being the brave one, so much for being gentle. Narnia had moved on and Susan hadn’t. It was time for Susan to grow up. It was time to set aside childish things.
And so Susan joined her friends on their shopping trips, bought nylons to wear with her suddenly shorter dresses, and lipstick to make herself seem older. After all, she was supposed to be a woman now, women wore nylons that covered their legs, and lipstick that tasted like wax, and didn’t at all feel like the skin of the apples from their old orchard. Women stepped out with young men, and if their hands drifted farther up her legs than Susan was comfortable with, well, Susan was an adult now, and adults did these types of things.
The others began to notice Susan’s changes. Lucy kept badgering her to talk about Narnia, and Susan would brush Lucy away, laughing that a girl who was almost grown up would still ask her big sister to play at fairy tales. Edmund came to her over hols, asking what was wrong, why Susan wouldn’t talk about Narnia anymore. Susan scolded him for being too old for games and went to join the adults in the sitting room. Finally Peter confronted her, and that was the hardest of them all. He asked her if she remembered what Aslan had told them when the left Narnia; it took all her strength to look him in the eye.
“Aslan?” Susan laughed, “Peter, I understand that Lu and Ed still want to play, but honestly, aren’t you too old for make-believe? We stopped playing at Narnia years ago, why are you bringing it up now?”
“Playing at Narnia? Make-believe? Susan, what has gotten into you? Why are you doing this?”
“Doing what, Peter? Nothing has gotten into me; I just realized that it was time to grow up. I need to move on and forget childish things.” She tried to move past him in the hallway, but Peter grabbed onto her arm, stopping her.
“Susan, you’re even quoting him! That was exactly what Aslan said when we left. But he didn’t mean to forget Narnia, to pretend it never existed! Why are you doing this?”
“Peter, please let go,” Susan tried to keep the tremble out of her voice. “You’re hurting me. Please, Peter.” He didn’t let go, in fact his grip became harder.
“Susan, please don’t do this. I know you’re angry that we can’t go back, I know it hurts that we won’t see Aslan again, I know! But please, please don’t pretend it never happened. It was real, it happened, and you make it worse for Edmund and Lucy when you deny it!”
“I don’t care, Peter! I don’t care anymore! I can’t keep on talking about it, I can’t keep missing it, it’s killing me! So stop it! You and Ed and Lucy can just leave off, all right? It’s not real, none of it. I’m done with missing a place that isn’t real.” She jerked her arm out of his grasp and pushed him away. “You can live in the past if you like. I’m done with it.” She walked away from him, ignoring his voice as he called after her.
“Susan. Susan! What will you do? Pretend that we don’t exist as well? Are you done with us too?” Susan didn’t answer, and as she turned the corner, Peter stopped yelling.
And so the others stopped trying. They would stick to bland pleasantries about school, and friends, and hols, and every year Susan felt that she knew her family less and less.
And then the train wreck happened. It took Susan a week to discover what had happened to her family. A week of being surrounded by people sobbing for their lost family members, a week of cringing away from the wounded survivors trying not to picture Lucy without an arm, Edmund with broken legs, Peter with a scar across his perfect face, a week of searching faces at hospitals hoping and praying to see a familiar one. A week of despair as day after day went by and she did not recognize anyone, did not find her siblings or her parents. Finally, after hours and days of talking to officials, trying to find the least bit of information, she had her answer. All dead. Parents and siblings, all taken from her in one horrible instant. Susan had thought stumbling out of the wardrobe had been bad, this was infinitely worse.
Susan felt as if the wool had been lifted from her eyes. What good had come from fighting with the others, denying their past? She was alone now, and the brothers and sister she was mourning were practically strangers. All because while trying to be grown up, she had truly just been a jealous child, sulking because she had been denied what she wanted. How could she mourn those that she had lost years ago? With dry eyes she arranged matters, took care of the funeral services and gravestones. Her parents’ were simple affairs, their names, dates of birth and death, and “Beloved Mother” and “Beloved Father” carved below.
All of her siblings had their names and the dates of their births and deaths- but each had something extra written underneath. For Peter, their leader, their courage and faith, was “To command is to serve; nothing more and nothing less.” For Edmund, “Where beauty has no ebb, decay no flood- But joy is wisdom, time an endless song.” And for Lucy, sweet brave Lucy was “The valiant never taste of death but once.” She received strange looks at the funeral, once people had read the stones. She received stranger looks at the bouquets she placed on their graves. Daisies and ivy, innocence and fidelity, for Lucy. Irises and rosemary, wisdom and remembrance, for Ed. And hyacinth and bay leaf, constancy and strength for Peter. Susan ignored all the looks, all the questioning stares, moved past the people who tried to delay her and left the cemetery.
She dreamt that night, for the first time in years, of Narnia. They were riding through Lantern Waste again, chasing the white stag. Susan was laughing with Lucy over Edmund and Peter’s antics, their amusing attempts to impress the sisters. Again they dismounted when the brush became too thick, and again they found the lamppost, the half-remembered relic of their former lives. But this time as they made their way through the woods, the branches didn’t become soft. This time the crunching of deadfall didn’t turn into the feeling of mothballs under their feet. They broke through the thicket and there in front of them was the white stag. It was cornered, the brush too thick past the clearing and the Kings and Queens of Narnia blocking its way back. Seeing this, it bowed its head.
“Very well, majesties, you have caught me. What do you wish?”
Susan looked it in the eye and said, very quietly, “I wish I could go back.”
When they buried her next to her siblings (and such a tragedy, to all die so young) Queen Susan was smiling.
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Date: 2007-08-07 09:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-07 10:31 pm (UTC)I grew up with the books, must have read each of them a hundred times. Susan's fate always upset me though, so this is my "Susan reclamation" story.
*Hands over a tissue*
Thank you again!
no subject
Date: 2007-08-07 09:28 pm (UTC)This was wondefully written. I've always wondered about Susan's denial of Narnia and how the loss of her family must have affected her. This was fantastic.
I only hope that she found peace at last, and that she, like Edmund before, her was given forgiveness for turning her back on her family.
Beautiful.
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Date: 2007-08-07 10:30 pm (UTC)I like to think that Susan would have been forgiven- after all, Edmund was.
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Date: 2007-08-07 10:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-07 10:29 pm (UTC)And character voices always worry me, so I'm glad you find mine believable.
Wow
Date: 2007-08-08 02:41 am (UTC)Re: Wow
Date: 2007-08-08 02:45 am (UTC)This is the only Narnia fic so far, although I may write more. The other fics are Supernatural and Harry Potter. (Don't read the HP fic until after you've finished the 3rd book)
Re: Wow
Date: 2007-08-08 02:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-08 02:34 pm (UTC)You've got me wanting to read more Narnia fanfic now!
no subject
Date: 2007-08-08 02:40 pm (UTC)Yeah, I always wondered what the siblings thought of Jill being taken into Narnia. Personally, I like her, but I can see her inclusion causing a lot of bitterness.
no subject
Date: 2009-04-02 10:19 pm (UTC)I only dimly remember the later books, but *feels* right to me. Thank you!