Publish Date: 2008
Disclaimer: Does NOT own the painfully-beautiful Prince Caspian or the rest of the crew. Takes place at the end of the movie.
He was colorblind.
The world of Narnia had lost the magic behind its wizardly colors. His world, which was now a landscape of coffee black and egg white, was thirsty for some other shade. At the same time, he recalled this. He recalled sitting on top of the hillside to gaze down on the fairytale land below him just like this; he recalled feeling misplaced, unwanted, hopeless—just like this. This time, he was staring emptily over his very own kingdom instead of Narnia's ruins, but his chafed heart felt the same sting.
"It would've never worked, anyway..."
Caspian lifted a hand of dirty fingers to his lips. He mapped out the pucker of them with his fingertip, trying to memorize the tenderness of another's. The cool whip of wind played tag with the bangs that fell into his eyes as morning broke free from night. The new king didn't know what frustrated him more; the fact that he still longed for her presence or the fact that his modesty kept him from ever approaching it...
Aslan had returned, the war was over, peace was restored, and all on the priority list had been checked off—except one. Caspian jogged down the steps of the courtyard, scanning the perimeter as eagerness crawled under his flesh like ticks. His heart was feverish with every casual step he took.
He would find her.
Talk to her.
Get to know her.
Even if it would be about why the sky was blue, he would take this chance to speak to her without losing the feeling in his legs. Nevertheless, his chivalry wasn't dead, and if she wasn't interested in getting to know him, then he'd respect her space. Caspian finally caught a glimpse of what he had been looking for, but the glimpse made him freeze. There the queen was—strolling through the halls in a gown that was layered in clashes of blue and white to bring out her fair complexion. Her hair curled down to her chest in soft, silky rings of brown that he suddenly wanted to touch.
Just when the hints of a smile came breaking out on his cheeks, he realized Her Majesty was very much not alone. She was talking to Aslan and High King Peter.
This wasn't the right time.
…Once again.
Caspian bit back the bitter taste of disappointment in his mouth before edging away to leave. Unfortunately, Aslan had picked up on his scent.
"Your Majesty?" the majestic voice of the great lion seemed to summon a binding spell over Caspian's feet.
Caspian jerked his head their way as if caught for trespassing, and stared jaw-slacked at Aslan, High King Peter and…Queen Susan. They all turned to him expectantly, silently. Queen Susan's expression stood out the most. As Caspian fully turned around to face Aslan, his interests only fell on Queen Susan. For a moment of silence, he took her in, barely closing his mouth.
Caspian had seen her in the garments of an amazonness with dirt on her rosy cheeks and dried blood in her nail beds, but now, she looked like the queen he had read about in his books. Susan, the Gentle. As of right now, there was something that was tainting her. The face that was usually sculpted with fearlessness was now crumbling with sadness. Caspian found himself staring longer, wanting to understand, wanting to know...'Why? What saddens you?'
Caspian realized that Aslan was casting suspicious glances between the two of them, and blinked dumbly. He nodded at Aslan with a smile made out of oak wood, "We are ready; everyone has assembled."
Aslan and Queen Susan exchanged disappointed looks. Caspian looked between the two while stepping back, forgetting his bow and only remembering his foolishness as he walked away.
King Caspian gripped the grass under his palm, glancing at the patch beside him. His professor would not be here to educate him on his own heart. What was the feeling he had for Queen Susan? It couldn't have been love at first sight; he'd never seen what that actually looked like, after all. How do you recognize something like that?
He wooed many maidens in his lad years—some who were far more beautiful than she, but Queen Susan was the only woman he'd ever met straight off the page of his professor's novels. It was not her looks that ensnared him, but rather the idea of her. She was the only woman to have stepped right out of magic, out of fantasy, out of myth. She would have a chapter in his own life's story for all of eternity no matter whom he loved next. Even if love had nothing to do with it, that deep spark of admiration and adoration would never fade away.
"The Gentle…" Caspian rubbed the bridge of his nose under his muffled Telmar accent, continuing to reminisce...
"You're just…not exactly what I expected." Prince Caspian sized up the youthful band of kings and queens, trying to hold back a laugh. His eyes skimmed over a rare pair of turquoise. Caspian's crooked smile stayed intact as he took the chance to do a double-take on Queen Susan the Gentle. A swell of overwhelming fascination erased his train of thought.
Queen Susan was standing before him, at first a mere figment of a Narnian fairytale, now staring back at him under long lashes and shy eyes. Caspian's chest dropped with an exhale, his own eyes half-lidded. So this was she…? This was that famous queen he longed to childishly meet? What a noble sight to behold — a living, breathing fairy tale!
Was she as loyal as the narrator said?
Was she as strong as the purple prose boasted?
Was she as intelligent as her dialogue quoted?
Queen Susan glanced at High King Peter with a faint smile playing on her lips. She looked down for a moment to avoid Caspian's gaze, but when her eyes came back up to meet his, he forgot the army around him before King Edmund's voice pulled him back in. That was the one and only time Queen Susan had ever invited him into her eyes.
King Caspian looked down on the marble horn in his hands. He had secretly fancied the Narnian Queen before he met her, smirking at the idea of perhaps wooing her like he did the other girls. He never thought his childhood fancies would turn into reality, for he found it nearly impossible to woo Her Majesty. He was scared to even brush shoulders with her, to initiate any contact that would make her distant from him. After all, he was nothing compared to her.
Absolutely nothing.
Caspian tried to smile to split through his moping. He never knew how scared, under-ranked and out of place a girl—woman, could make him feel, and yet so relieved and breathless when that woman's lips met his. In the end, he didn't woo her. She wooed him.
"You might need to call me again."
Susan was colorblind. Her world, which was now a landscape of coffee black and egg-white, was thirsty for some other shade. She wondered if she was just depressed, or if the train had always looked this ugly.
"Phyllis? Phyllis!"
Susan blinked off the thoughts in her eyes. She looked up at the freckle-cheeked boy that was grinning his bucktooth grin at her.
"What's wrong? You look upset."
Susan arched her dark eyebrows with a sarcastic insult that she kept to herself before looking back down at her pale knees. "Yes, I was...thinking about something…" She pretended to a smile as an empty hole crept back into her system, one she had before they returned to Narnia.
"You're thinking about a boy, aren't you?" The nosy student adjusted his glasses.
By now, Lucy and Edmund were giving one another pitying glances.
Susan frowned as she finally turned a direct stare to the boy. Her mouth opened to argue against the nonsense, but her eyes were dashing from right to left, as if unsure. "What makes you say that?" She answered, looking ahead with an even stiffer smile.
"Because girls only get that look when they're thinking about a guy."
"And what would HE know about GIRLS?" Edmund muttered to a giggling Lucy, earning an elbow in his side from Susan.
Susan replied to nothing else after that. It hadn't even been sixty seconds since they had left Narnia and already she was battling with herself to move on. Narnia always felt more like home than England. Always. Now she had even more to regret – Caspian.
She regretted ever smiling at him.
She regretted the first flutter of bumble bees in her stomach when she saw the way he looked at her.
She regretted ever kissing him.
Most of all, she regretted ever wanting him.
Susan had tried her best to keep her heart at a safe distance from his – to not be drawn to him and his foreign beauty, because she knew how much it would hurt in the end. She knew she would leave. She wished she had done a better job of governing her feelings. That kiss, a spur in the moment, put more remorse in her soul than ever before. She never knew how many sensations she could discover just by being under the lips of another.
Sensations she could never witness again, for nothing could conquer a first kiss. Even though they had hardly communicated, she wanted to get to know him from the very beginning.
Prince Caspian was now unforgettable…
Because he was her first.
Her first interest.
Her first kiss.
There was absolutely no forgetting him now.
No forgetting the taste of spice on his rough, yet silken lips.
No forgetting the sprouting whiskers on his chin that rubbed hers when their lips had seeded such passionate farewells.
Susan slicked a lock of brown behind her ear, continuing to reminisce…
"So that's it, then..." Susan said as her arms swung limply at her sides while she walked with Aslan and Peter. "Edmund and Lucy can come back, but we can't."
"We always knew this would happen," Peter admitted, walking on the other side of Aslan.
Aslan glanced at Susan. "Is there something else that troubles you other than leaving Narnia behind?" He was smirking behind the velvet of his voice.
Susan looked at his sharp, beady eyes before smiling in resistance. "Aslan…"
"Your Majesty?"
Susan blinked back at Aslan, but noticed that he wasn't addressing her this time. His curiosity was on Caspian. He was feet away, looking slim and masculine in his silky attire, jaw dropped just by a little. Susan felt like she was swallowing coal when she returned the look he was giving her. She couldn't bring herself to smile.
If only this naïve prince knew. A shudder of sadness radiated off of her as thoughts of leaving this place and this soon-to-be heartbroken prince finally buried its embryo in her head. What irritated her more was that after he addressed Aslan in that heavy accent of his, he turned to leave without saying a word to her. It was more than obvious that he had wished to say something else!
Boys…
Always so hopeless, no matter what century they were from!
"Sue?" Lucy nudged her.
Susan took in a breath of life and looked at her youngest sibling. "What's wrong?"
Lucy's innocent, smiling eyes teased her. "I know you miss him. We all know you miss him. Even that boy with the GLASSES knows you miss him. But don't forget..." She poked her older sister playfully. "He might need to call you again, remember?"
Susan's plump lips curled into a smile that she tried to hold back. When she finally dropped the corners of her lips into a casual line, Lucy rolled her eyes knowingly. Susan was never the actress type, but boy did she try to shoot for that role. Susan's eyes trailed up the seats, walls, and ceiling of the train. The colors of red flushed over the dull black, green splashed over the white seats, and yellow poured down the gray walls, painting the world she was living in.
Suddenly, she wasn't as colorblind as before...
Not when hope came in the shade of beige with a lion's marble face.
A smile brightened Caspian's face as he rubbed an admiring thumb over the mouth of Aslan's horn. "I just might one day," his tongue rolled over his words as he raised his squinting eyes to the sky. "Queen Susan, the Gentle..."
He pushed off his knees and walked away with a new feeling as magic melted back into the world of Narina for him.
His world.
...Their world.
The world that had brought them all together, and always would.
*~*"It started out as a feeling
Which then grew into a hope
Which then turned into a quiet thought
Which then turned into a quiet word
Now we're back to the beginning
It's just a feeling and no one knows yet
But just because they can't feel it too
Doesn't mean that you have to forget
Let your memories grow stronger and stronger
'Til they're before your eyes
Pick a star on the dark horizon
And follow the light
I'll come back
When you call~ me
No need to say goodbye...
You'll come back
When it's over~
No need to say good bye..."*~*
"The Call [Ending Credits] by Regina Spektor"
Author's Note: Now this may be considered crap compared to the rest of CaSue one-shots, but I'm in love with the pairing and I needed to write something of my own to express my opinions about how they feel about each other. I've seen far too many unrealistic fanfictions about their "initial romance."