Disclaimer: I am fully alive, (I think!) and am under thirty, and am female. Therefore, there is no way that I could possibly be CS Lewis! That said, the only parts of this that I own are Lyra of Calormen, Tomys of Archenland, the various orphans, Leona, Jacob, and Marian. Oh, and Mirabelle. All else is just part of the wonderful world of Narnia!
Happy Holidays!
AN: A note - this is from the same world as To Be Forgotten. Tell me what you think! Please, please, review!
Remember
When the youngish man with a nasty scar on his cheek knocks on her door, she is not shaken by his looks. Whether she acknowledges it or not, she has seen worse.
But her unruffled poise was utterly shattered by his words.
"Are you Miss Susan Pevensie, daughter of John and Mary Pevensie? Sister to Peter, Edmund, and Lucy Pevensie? Cousin to Eustace Clarence Scrubb?"
"Yes."
"You are required at King's Cross Railway Station."
It is in a daze that Susan moves – even though the war has been over for years, now, there is still that ingrown terror.
The chaos she sees is enough. With a single glance, she knows what has happened, and the innumerable blanket-covered bodies make her heart thump treacherously.
The first they ask her to identify is Eustace. Shakily, she says that she is not sure. Which is both truth and a lie.
She is certain that it is Eustace. She can feel it in her bones. But from the crushed mess of bones and blood and cartilage that leaves her feeling numb, there is no physical resemblance to her persistent and annoying cousin.
She moans when she identifies her parents – practically untouched but for the neat slice that took off both of their heads.
"Shrapnel can be as dangerous as the explosion itself," a voice echoes in her head, but she cannot remember when or where it was said – not to mention who said it.
Peter and Edmund are next, and they shake her out of the shock. Susan can only shake and cry for the next few minutes, their bodies engraved on her eyelids forever.
Both of them impaled, directly through the heart, by a long iron rod. Half of Edmund's face is missing as well, while Peter could almost be sleeping.
She barely notices as the young policeman hands a handkerchief to her to clean her face from retching.
The last makes her heart break, if only because of the lack of gore.
They had neglected to close Lucy's eyes, which made her look all the more eerie. Blue eyes wide with delight, a thrilled smile lit Lucy's frozen features. It was as if someone had frozen Lucy in a moment of pure bliss.
Even Lucy's fingernails were unscratched, Susan noted dazedly, as her knees finally gave out. She felt a keening wail fly to her lips, and the words that spilled out were entirely uncensored, directly from her heart.
"Oh – oh, no, no, no, Aslan, no! Lucy, why, why? You were always the strong one, not me! I cannot, cannot! Aslan, why? I am not strong enough, I cannot do this bring them BACK!"
Her sobs became hysterical, and the world swirled away into nothingness.
She had a dream, that night, that Lucy was sitting beside her smiling. All Lucy would say was "It was a gift," over and over again, until Susan woke up.
"It was a gift."
It took Susan weeks of the dream to understand, but a conversation with a young Mrs. Pole gave her the path to realisation.
"Honestly, Miss Pevensie," the young woman said, "She was so sweet, with my Jill." She wiped resolutely at the rebellious tears spilling down her face. "Everyone who knew her spoke of her as a saint. Sweet Lucy, she fair shone with goodness, didn't she?"
"She did," Susan had whispered, as a thought struck her. Lucy could have, should have simply vanished away. She was too good to die. But her body remained behind, as a gift.
The realisation built a strength in Susan's heart. She would carry out the goodness that Lucy had begun, as a memory of her sister. No longer would shallow things rule her world.
And they didn't. Susan worked continuously at what others would call 'good works,' pushing through with a determination that she recognized as similar to what had always been Lucy's trait.
Years passed, and people told her that she needed to let the past be the past. Her family was long gone, it was past time for Susan to build her own family.
And yet she found that she couldn't. Perfectly honourable, perfectly handsome men, her age, younger, and older, all somehow wrong.
Even when things finally seem to be going right, and she meets a fine man with blond hair and long limbs, she embarrasses herself thoroughly by accidentally calling him Thomas. When had she ever known a Thomas?
Susan ends up a matron in an orphanage, where she names the first of her nameless children Lucy. The place is now called Lucy's Home, and is filled with children of all ages. Two golden-haired children, one named Peter and one named Lucy, have been given Susan's own name – Pevensie. Later, a pair of wide-eyed boys, both with dark hair and eyes, becomes Edmund and Caspian. (Although, honestly, Susan cannot remember the name Caspian from anything but foggy dreams, arguments with siblings, and a sea in the Middle East.)
Lucy grows up, and becomes an artist. Susan proudly hangs the large painting of a glorious lion in the gathering hall of the Home. Its title is "The Lord Over All," but Susan and the children call it Aslan.
Faded memories slowly become clearer, and Susan tells the children tale after tale of mythical Narnia, home of the Queen Lucy the Valiant and her brothers, Peter the Magnificent and Edmund the Just. Susan the Gentle only is vaguely mentioned, and rarely by name.
Somehow, the children connect the stories to the name of the Home, and Susan is startled to discover that, by the late 1950s, the children have begun calling Lucy's Home by another name. Narnia.
Young Lucy, who has grown quite famous, sends a woman named Leona to the Home, because Leona likes working with children, and Susan is not growing younger.
Susan finds herself horrified to discover that it takes five years to stop calling Leona by the name Lyra.
Dreams awaken her at night, as she watches 'her' children grow older. Dreams of Lucy, calling out to her, claiming that someone named Lyra mourns for her. That someone named Thomas is waiting for her.
These dreams always make her stories clearer, more vivid and easy to remember. Almost as if they really had occurred.
By 1969, Susan is relatively certain that at least some of the stories had, in fact, happened. Which made no sense, because Narnia was just a fairy-tale she had played games with her long-gone siblings about, but it rang true.
Leona gets married to a man named Jacob, and they have a little girl with blue eyes and black hair. Susan is named godmother, and the girl is named Marian.
Susan calls her Mirabelle.
The year is 1980, when Mirabelle – no, Marian – turns five. Susan feels an ache in her heart, and buys her goddaughter an intricate gold necklace.
"Because I missed your fourth birthday."
Leona shakes her head – Susan never missed any of Marian's birthdays.
The turn of the year from 1980 to 1981 wakes Susan with a start, crying out for a dream now forgotten.
January second, 1981, Susan Pevensie pulls out her typewriter, and sets the first words to page. "There were once four children..."
The first book was called, in the tradition of Tolkien, (Lucy's favourite writer,) The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, Or, A Journey From Here to There. It was dedicated to Lucy Pevensie, and published on the same day that the first Lucy had died.
It is because of Marian's coaxing that Susan blows away the dust on her typewriter in 1992, and writes a second book. Prince Caspian, Or, A Second Journey to the Land of the Lion. She dedicates the books to Peter and Edmund, long deceased.
On Marian's twentieth birthday, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Or, Journey to the Ends of the Eastern Sea, is printed. She dedicates it to three people, this time. Marian, Jill Pole, and Eustace Scrubb.
Susan's dreams have grown ever more vivid – she dreams of Lucy nightly, Lucy telling tales of Narnia. It is from these dreams that Susan pulls together a third tale.
The Silver Chair, Or, A Quest With a Marsh-Wiggle, it is called, and it is published on the first day of the school-year in 1998.
Many memories begin to swirl in her mind, until Susan's notes grow ridiculously incoherent. Oddly, she does manage a final book, but refuses to publish it. She leaves it with a note, that requests it be published on August 9th, the day her siblings died.
Should she die, Marian will publish it – how she knows, she cannot tell. But Susan knows.
Christmas of 1999, she wakes with a cry of horror.
"Lyra!"
It is with a rush, that hundreds of memories fill her mind. Susan spends little time eating or sleeping, as she focuses entirely on placing every memory onto paper.
The sixth day arrives, and Susan collapses into an exhausted sleep, where Leona, Jacob, Marian, and her many 'children' find her.
Susan is far, though, far from the paper-stacked bedroom. In a world of green and gold, where love runs wild, Susan is free.
A teary-eyed woman with dark hair and eyes throws her arms around Susan in a desperate hug, while a taller man with blonde hair lopes quickly to their side. A merry girl with golden curls shouts, "Susan!" and many others swarm to the spot where parted love is reunited.
"I knew you'd come back," the golden girl says, blue eyes bright with love. She kisses her sister's cheek, and pats her beloved's back. Three become one, as gasps of "Lyra!" and "Tomys!" and "Oh, Susan!" fill the air.
Happiness colours the air gold, and in England, 1999 becomes 2000.
Christmas of 2000, three books are published. One is by Susan Pevensie, the revealed name behind the mysterious Lu-Anne Granger. It is called in the same style as the other Narnia books; The Last Battle, Or, A Final Journey of Narnia.
The other two are more simply titled; one is called The Magician's Nephew, and one is called A Horse and His Boy. Both are written by Marian Jones and Lucille-Suzanne Pevensie, as compiled from the notes of Susan Pevensie.
'Lucy's Home' is legally changed to 'Susan's Narnia," with a large plaque describing and depicting the Pevensie siblings.
Perhaps most mysterious, however, is the painting donated by Lucy Pevensie the Second herself, (Lucille-Suzanne,) which she claimed came to her in a dream.
On the far left, was a tall man with golden-bronze hair, hazel eyes, and a large gold-and-ruby sword. Beside him was a slightly smaller man, with the same hazel eyes, but dark hair and two daggers. To the right of the darker man was a taller young man with light brown hair and an easy grin, who held the elbow of an older lady with a gentle smile.
On the far right was a golden-haired woman, her eyes bright blue and merry, and her arm slung around the shoulders of a girl only a bit shorter than she. This girl had brown hair, and an uncertain smile on her face. She was beside an aging man with laughing eyes and two little girls holding his leg. The first little girl looked similar to the golden woman, only with hair as black as night, while the other might have been a brighter, sunnier version of the golden woman.
Centred in the painting was a group of three. In the direct centre was a woman who was clearly Susan Pevensie, though younger than any photograph depicted her. To her left, leaning on her shoulder, was a dark young woman who looked faintly Spanish. To her right was a blond man taller than any others in the picture.
Scrolled across the top was an elaborate strip of red, with words painted in gold. They read:
Petrus Magnificus Rex, Edmundus Iustus Rex, Eustachii Non-Draco, Maria Constans, Lyra Regina Uxor, Susanna Mitis Regina, Tomys Virum Regum, Degar Curiosus, Mirabelle Princeps, Leona Princeps, Iuliana Fidelis, Lucia Fortis Lux Leonis.
It was signed differently from all of Lucy Pevensie (the Second)'s works. It was signed:
Lucia Susanna ab Narnia
Susan is buried beside her siblings, with her requested phrases engraved on her stone.
"Strength and dignity are her clothing; she laughs at the times to come" (Psalms, 31/25)
"Gentleness allays great offenses" (Ecclesiastes, 10/4)
"The Lord is my strength and song, and He is become my salvation" (Psalms, 118/14)
AN: I am also going to post this story on my DeviantArt account. Furthermore, I am going to post the graves of the Friends of Narnia, and the plaque mentioned. If there is anyone out there who is capable of making a painting like the one described above, please do so and message me.
The names written above are in Latin, and translate as follows:
King Peter the Magnificent, King Edmund the Just, Eustace the Un-Dragoned, Polly the Constant, Lyra the Queen-Wife, Queen Susan the Gentle, Tomys the Husband-King, Digory the Curious, Princess Mirabelle, Princess Leona, Jill the Faithful, and Lucy the Lion's Valiant Light.
Ta, and Happy Holidays all!