Welcome Home, Susan.
By: Princess Lalaith
Disclaimer: I don't own The Chronicles of Narnia, nor its characters. This is what, according to me, might have happened after the end of the seventh book. Hope you like it.
Chapter 1.- A Call of Help.
A young woman was seated in a table, having dinner in a fancy and expensive restaurant, full of important and rich people. She was really beautiful, a tall young woman, in her early twenties, with dark long locks and deep eyes, dressed in a dark blue dress. Her companion was also stunning: a lawyer, just graduated; a Handsome young man with his jet-black hair and azure eyes; no doubt a great match, if she had been at least half interested in him. But she wasn't, and she would never be.
He was talking about many different things, and she nodded once in a while, although she didn't seem to be truly in the conversation. Her expression was unreadable, there was no emotion showing in it, almost as if she had no heart at all, or as if her heart had long ago turned into ice or stone.
And as she continued nodding once in a while, so her companion wouldn't notice her lack of attention she seemed to notice something: It was a sound, almost like music, but much more simple. It was just a note, plain and keen, and even then she knew she had heard it before.
"That sound…" She murmured puzzled.
And she was so concentrated in what she was hearing that she didn't seem to notice she had spoken aloud.
"What?" George was suddenly confused.
He had been talking about how his work had been, and how it would do good for her to accompany him on a trip to France, he had to get some work done, but afterwards he would have a weekend free; they would be able to visit different places and she would get a chance to get her mind off things and relax. What had a sound to do with any of that?
And just then the woman's face showed emotion for the first time: it was a mix of confusion, nervousness and…hope?
"I've heard it before…" She murmured to herself. "It is…"
"What are you talking about Su?" George asked. "I hear nothing except the cars outside of the restaurant."
"The horn…" Susan finally murmured.
And then another voice could be heard, even if just her ears picked it up.
"Help. Your help is needed." The voice sounded strangely familiar to her too.
"My help?" She asked, although this time she didn't know if she had said it aloud or not, not that she cared anyway.
"Two kids need your help. They need you, Daughter of Eve…"
This time Susan had no doubt whose voice it was. Just in one place humans were addressed as Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve. And just one person from that place could be talking to her in that moment.
"Oh Aslan…" she whispered. "I once ignored a call of help from Narnia, the greatest mistake I've ever made. I don't know if I can be of any help this time, for too long I've been apart."
"As long as you haven't forgotten, you're never too apart, my dear."
"For a while I thought I had; but not anymore. If I am needed tell me what I must do. As I said I don't know if I will be of any help, but I'll try."
"You know it is not your duty to do it, but your decision?"
"I know. And I will answer to this call as I should have answered when Lucy was the one who came to me. I will never again ignore Narnia or you Aslan, never again."
"Those are brave, yet dangerous words."
"I know, and yet I hold to them."
"Then let all gates open, so you may find your way into another world. But I warn you, Narnia is not what it used to be when you last came, a very long time has gone by, and many things have changed. Two kids found some magic rings by mistake, and ventured farther than they should have, now you are the only one who can help them."
"I will do everything I can Aslan. For you, for my siblings, and for myself."
"Then go there already, and be careful, Queen Susan."
.-.
Queen Susan…
Yes, that's how he had called her.
Susan Pevensie, once known as Queen Susan, the Gentle, one of four Governors in the Golden Age of Narnia.
That had been a long time ago. When she had sat in one of the thrones in the castle of Cair Paravel with her elder brother Peter, the Magnificent as the High Monarch, and her younger siblings: Edmund the Just and Lucy the Valiant, as King and Queen of Narnia too. The four of them had arrived to Narnia through a magic wardrobe, met magical beings, animals that talked, fought against a white witch and defeated her; bringing peace and splendor to that world called Narnia.
But that had been too long ago. That had been when she was young and believed in magic, and in happy endings…not any longer.
She also remembered she had gone to Narnia a second time, a year later. That time she hadn't done much; just problems her mind would add. That time it was noticeable that she had already begun backing away from the magic there, and from Aslan when she refused to believe he was there and wished to lead them by a safe road to the one who needed their help. And even when Aslan said she had just listened to the fear, and helped her, his help didn't last, as soon as she returned to her world it all came back to her. And knowing she would never be going back to Narnia she had no reason to continue believing. And so she pushed the memory back and tried to go on with his life.
She had once told her sister she no longer thought about Narnia, that those were just games and she had grown up. What an awful lie that had been!
She had never truly forgotten about Narnia, not at all. In fact, there was not a day she didn't think about that beautiful world she got to visit and fight for. But as she had been known for her gentleness back there, she soon discovered that in her own world people with that gentleness where bothered most of the time. And she didn't believe herself to be strong enough to stand to them. Even when she noticed all of her siblings: Peter, Edmund, and specially Lucy, where able to go on with their lives, and never forgetting about Narnia, she didn't believe herself capable of doing the same. She just wasn't strong enough.
And still known she had to have the strength to just go on, day by day, completely alone.
Well no, not alone, never alone. She was always surrounded by many different people, sometimes people whose names she didn't even know. She had many 'friends', friends she had learned didn't truly care about her; they weren't there when she needed them the most, when her family was gone, when she felt completely lost.
She knew the men seek her just because she was beautiful, it had been the same back in Narnia; they had gotten in so many troubles when men would want to marry her and wouldn't accept no for an answer (Rabadash of Calormen for example). And at the same time other women envied her wishing for the attention Susan got, and when they didn't get it they would talk awful things behind her back.
And if she thought enough about it, she had always been a burden both in Narnia and on Earth. Never as brave as Susan, nor as just as Edmund, or as wise as Peter; she had been 'Gentle', only that, and for what did that serve her now? For nothing.
Her siblings had taken the fact of not being able to return to Narnia fairly well. In fact they never stopped talking about that world; less of all when they discovered the old Professor Diggory Kirke and his friend Polly Plummer had once been in Narnia. But even when they invited Susan in, she refused. She thought she could go on with her life.
If she had just known what would happen later on, maybe she would have thought it twice. But there was no way she could have known, was there? No, no one could have prevented it, that tragedy that took place so long ago and made a disaster out of her life.
Five years. It had been five years since that horrible accident, five years since she received a policeman at her door telling her all her family and old friends had died in that awful train wreck, five years since she had to begin wearing that mask of happiness when she was broken inside, five years since she lost all sense of life.
For so long she tried to blame the conductor of the train, but she knew the man had had no way of controlling the train, things like that happened; then she tried blaming her own siblings for being there, but she knew they had been there because they wanted to help Narnia; and finally she tried throwing the blame to Aslan, believing that had he loved them more he would have saved them.
And then she felt guilty, guilty because she knew it was no one's fault that her family and friends had died. In any case it was her fault if she wasn't with them, she had refused to accompany them. And she knew Aslan loved them all, and was almost sure they were with him in that very moment.
She now just wished she would one day be worthy of joining them, wherever they were now.
But to even be able to hope for something like, she first would have to help whoever had gotten in problems now. After all, that's why she had been called.
Well, this is it, I've finally begun my first Narnian fic. It will be about Susan mainly, I hope you like it. It won't be a long fic, less than five chapters maybe, and updated with regularity.
Please leave many reviews and I will update soon.
