A/N: I have absolutely no idea where this side of Susan came from.
Susan's lipstick is red, as red as the blood that coated her face once upon a time in a distant world. Lucy does not want to remember this time, because Susan had not been Susan then; she had been a strange and foreign warrior, her eyes dark as night as she dealt out vengeance.
Susan's powder is white, as white as the chalky skin of the corpses that lay upon the fields of battle. Edmund cannot bear to see this in his mind's eye, because it reminds him of the one and only time his gentle sister had lifted her bow to become the unforgiving goddess of death.
Susan's mascara is black, black as the shadows that hung in the sky like robes of death. Peter will not allow himself to think of this, because there is no way he can reconcile his gentle sister with the memory of this cold and ruthless vanquisher that strode the plains as though she had conquered all.
Her siblings believe she wears makeup as a mask, a way to play the part England has forced upon her. They think it is in denial that she paints her face each morning with careful movements. They suppose it is her way of pushing off the memories that haunt them all.
They could not be more wrong.
There is no way Susan could ever forget the memories of that one battle. The warrior is a scar inside her, one that will never fade with the passage of time. Susan knows that if she let it, the warrior would come out again in a storm of pain and bereavement. So she locks it up tight and paints her face in the colours that remind her each time she looks in a mirror just what will happen if she relaxes her hold. She cannot talk of her once-and-no-longer home, because she fears what will happen if she releases the tightness inside.
-
Only one time in England does Susan forget her promise to herself to never release the demon within. She cannot talk of it, so she says the name of that other-place as though it were nothing more than a scorned dream, and when she sees the tightness on Peter's face and the horror in Lucy's eyes and the pain in Edmund's posture she almost dies because she can feel the anger inside her stir. Leave me alone, she shouts, because she never wants to think of it again, and when once her siblings might have comforted her, now they simply file from the room in silence. Then she reigns in her emotions and stands shuddering in the center of the room, filled with horror over what she had almost done.
The next day Susan learns of the crash, and realizes that she had been right. She released her inner curse upon her family, and now the price has been paid.
There's one week left for voting in the 2009 NFFR Awards! Link is on my profile page.