So, this is my first ever Narnia fanfic. i started it a year-or-so ago, and I found it a few days ago, and only had time and inspiration to finish it today. So, here is, hot from the presses, "To have a Gentle Heart". Enjoy!
Oh, and a little background. This is mostly based on the words High Kind Peter speaks in The Last Battle; "My sister is no longer a friend of Narnia."
I always felt like there was more to Susan Pevensie than lipsticks and fun times, as Queen Lucy and LAdy Polly implies.
The other base is from the movie The Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe, and this line, spoken by Aslan as he crowns Susan Queen: "To the radiant southern sun, Queen Susan the Gentle."
From these quotes, this story was born.
Now, enjoy.
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When Aslan tells her that she can no longer return to Narnia once she leaves, Susan is still high on the recent adventure, and so, she does not truly hear the lion. Later, when the words hit her fully, she steals away from her siblings, the new King, and the festivities. The majestic lion finds her as she sits in the shade under an old oak.
"Susan, gentle heart, do not despair. Goodbye is not forever," says Aslan, and his voice is a wild and gentle rumble as he lies down in the grass beside her.
"How can it not be? You... you said I'm too... too old," Susan whispers and wipes away tears that streaks her cheeks with salt.
"And I stand by my words, gentle heart. Now, you are your older brother are indeed too old to walk Narnian shores," says the lion kindly, and Susan sniffles because truth hurts even if it is meant to help. Still, she considers Aslan's words. One word echoes in her mind.
"Now. You mean we can come back someday... when we are not too old anymore?" Susan dares ask, and Aslan's chuckle is a loud purr.
"Gentle heart, once a Queen of Narnia, always a Queen. Remember this, gentle heart, until the time for us to meet once more comes."
Even later, when Aslan has sent then back to their world, back to England and London, Susan turns his words around in her mind. She is not sure, at least not fully, of their true meaning, but in the midst of confusion and sadness, the words Aslan spoke long ago when he first crowned her Queen, comes alive in her mind once more.
"To the radiant southern sun, Queen Susan the Gentle."
Gentle. Radiant. Caring. Those words had once been a part of the pillar upon which she built her Narnian life. And now, in her room in her parents' London home, Susan writes these three words in her dark blue journal, traces flowers around them with the silver coloured ink she used for special things, and wonders, questions them, ponders.
As they are bound to do, the years passes and Susan grows with them, and changes, and sees her siblings turn accusing eyes on her when she turns a gentle hand onto the London life. They think her vain, and Susan tries to explain; she is gentle and radiant, and their world needs her this way, just like Narnia once needed her. They do not see the truth in her words, not yet.
And so, even though she is by herself, Susan goes on, spreading gentleness and caring in soft waves around her, as Aslan's words, the ones he told her in private one day when she was a grown Queen and woman, reaches her anew.
"You are the gentle heart, Susan. You are the healing, radiant rays of the sun in the south. Remember this always, Queen of Narnia."
Back then, she knew what the great lion meant, and now as she grows up in her own world, she starts to know once more, and her heart warms.
When she moves away into a small place of her own, Susan paints the walls of her new home in shimmering yellow and sparkling gold.
Her sister comes for tea, and one day Lucy asks her if she does not miss Narnia, and Susan's throat closes up because she does not miss Narnia; she is half without Narnia, and this is her only way of bringing what little gentleness and happiness she can into the everyday life of London and her world. Lucy takes her silence as a no, and leaves with a cry that Susan is mean and Aslan would be ashamed!
Peter comes to talk to her, voice harsh and eyes judging. Susan replies with gentle smiles, small words of reassurance. Her brother is not satisfied.
When Edmund comes along, a tired look in his eyes, Susan offers him chamomile tea and they talk for hours in her yellow and golden apartment, and Edmund has grown in more ways than Peter and Lucy, and Susan sees a shadow of the just king he once was, and so she tries once more. She tells him gentle, radiant, caring, repeats Aslan's words for her younger brother. When he leaves, Susan notices a spark of understanding in his eyes. It does not last long, but it is something.
The telegram reaches her one sunny evening. Susan has just gotten back from the orphanage she visits every Friday, and the telegram lies on the floor just inside the doorway.
The world is shaking, tumbling to pieces, and the telegram lies in a crumpled ball by her feet as Susan sits in her bedroom surrounded by gleaming yellow and gold. She is truly alone.
"Aslan. Please, please help them," she begs and her voice echoes in the room, echoes between worlds, and the golden wall in front of her ripples, and on the wooden surface the oh so familiar face of Aslan appears before Susan.
"Goodbye is not forever, gentle heart," says the lion, and when the warm breath of a lion's kiss reaches her, Susan sees in her minds eye – oh the joy! – her dearly loved family and friends in a place that is so alarmingly Narnia, and yet it is better, and she cries of happiness and relief. Aslan shimmers away, and his parting words are broken, as if the veil between the worlds crushes them.
"You are... gentle heart... always remember... Queen... Narnia."
That night, Susan dreams. Dreams of New Narnia and her siblings and parents and friends, and she wakes in the morning with a tear stained face and pillow, and it hurts, it hurts so much and she balances on a knife's edge for months, no longer certain, no longer safe in her beliefs.
And even so, throughout the darkest time, when she is in the deepest pit of despair, she sometimes feels warm breath on her face, her nose picks up the scent of a lion, she sees amongst the London life – as ripples in the fabric between the worlds – glimpses of New Narnia, and she is filled with the radiance of the southern sun once more.
Life gets easier, little by little. Susan embroiders a golden lion atop of a green hill under a blue sky, and writes have a gentle heart in yellow in the blue sky, and she hangs it in her bedroom so that it is the first thing she sees when she wakes, the last as she falls asleep.
She ages, changes with the years. She lets her black hair grow so long that, when lose, it almost falls to her feet.
She romances here and there with many a fair and gentle minded souls, but she never marries, and she always lives by herself.
When she is an old woman, and the tides of the time have turned her hair silver, she buys Professor Digory Kirke's house and walks through dark corridors and up winding stairs, following a pull which she has not felt since she was a girl.
The wardrobe still stands in the rooms, untouched by the sand of time and looking just as Susan remembers it. But this time, when Susan opens the doors, there are not coats and boots filling the wooden space. Susan caresses the back of the wardrobe, and the wood tingles under her fingertips. Soon, it seems to whisper. Soon, but not yet, not now.
A few more years passes. Susan spends them in a whirlwind of calm days and days with so much activity that she almost passes out.
In the late evening of one such day, when the children next door have gone home with giggles and smiles and their hearts in their eye from the thrill of the tales from Narnia, Susan drinks a calming cup of chamomile tea in the living room to stop her racing heart. It always races as she speaks of Narnia, and afterwards it does not calm down until she has had her tea. But this night, not even the sweetness of the chamomile can calm her heart Susan's heart, and from upstairs in the room with the wardrobe, she hears faint whispers.
Susan goes to bed, but sleep is a fickle thing, and her heart thumps-thump-thumps in her chest and she feels the pull from the Narnian magic raise up high after years of calm, and Susan smiles as he heart breaks.
She blinks, and the radiance from the southern sun blinds her eyes for a moment. Grass, damp under her bare feet. A lightness in her limbs and heart that she has not truly felt in years.
Susan runs down the steep hill with pure joy in her heart and a smile on her lips. Her hair swirls around her in a black luscious mess, the skirt of the ivory gown twirls around her legs and she stumbles mid-step, falls and rolls down the hill, laughing to her hearts content.
"Gentle heart. Welcome, Queen Susan."
Susan sits up, her heart in her throat, and slips into a bow with one knee bent and the other placed on the grass, lowers her head and sees golden lion paws on the green grass.
"Aslan, my lord and liege." The words of old rushes past her lips and her heart sings.
"Arise, Queen Susan, and walk further in and higher up to find your place," says Aslan, and Susan feels the whisper of a lion's breath on her brow, the hint of a kiss. And so, Queen Susan stands on joyful feet and walks, and all around her New Narnian's cry out in joy for the long last returned Queen, and she feels their hearts brim with gentleness as she passes.
And further in and high up Queen Susan journeys, and Aslan journeys with her, and she feels every gentle act she has done in the Other World – in London, England – reach through the worlds and split in half to share the gentleness with New Narnia, and her heart is moved.
At long last, when the pull in her heart is burning, Queen Susan stands before a castle that is and isn't Cair Paravel, and she trembles. Will they let her in, her siblings who believe her a deserter – even Edmund sadly went down this step- and no longer a friend of Narnia? Susan lets her heart speak, and walks through the doors and walks the familiar and yet so more halls of Cair Paravel.
The Great Hall. She sees friends of old and new mingle inside. And she sees her sister, her brothers speaking with – joy ruches through her again – Digory Kirke and Polly Plummer.
"Go on, gentle heart," says Aslan, and so Queen Susan goes on, past the doorway, winds her way through the crowd until she reaches the siblings she has missed for so any years. At first, they don't notice her, but then Queen Lucy turns to speak to a small faun, and Susan watches her sister's eyes widen, and there is disbelief on her face, and then tremendous joy.
"Susan!" cries the golden-haired Queen and reaches for her, and Susan falls into Lucy's arms as tears run down her cheeks.
"Lucy, darling sister," she whispers into her sister's hair.
"Susan. Sister," says Edmund softly, and they embrace and Susan cries more, and she is almost fully home. And now Peter stands before her, and Susan sees shame in his eyes as well as joy, and he says nothing, simply bows his head and looks at him feet, suddenly a small boy in a man's body. Susan is gentle and kind as she takes his hand and kisses the ring of the High King on his finger.
"King Peter. Brother," says Susan with all the love and warmth she carries in heart, and the men before her crumbles and falls into her arms, and his tears stain her neck.
"Forgive me, sister dear. I was blind."
"All is well, brother dear," says Susan gently and dries his tears away, and High King Peter's smile is dazzling. He calls for a herald who blows a horn, and there is silence throughout the Great Hall, and Susan's throat is suddenly dry.
"Narnian's present, my friends! Behold this most precious gift! At last our long lost Queen returns. I give you, Queen Susan the Gentle at long last!" cries Peter, and a small faun comes forth with – oh the sweet memories – her crown, and Susan kneels on the floor on bare feet as Peter nestled the crown in place upon her head and, at long indeed, she is home.
Queen Susan the Gentle smiles with the radiance of the southern sun.