They were the Sun and the Moon, so the bards claimed. One shed upon Narnia the glorious light of day, warming and cheering all upon whom her smile alighted. The other was the serene, calm glow of moonlight, less exuberant than her sister, more apt to hide behind clouds when praised.
I regret to say that Lucy giggled when she first heard the comparison. If anything, she thought both her brothers, and her sister, were the sun and the moon and all good things rolled into one.
Queen Lucy, you see, rarely thought of herself as anything special. In fact, she rarely thought of herself at all, and so was blessedly free from both vanity and abasement.
"Lucy," Susan scolded gently as they left the Great Hall for the privacy of their bedchambers, "you really mustn't laugh when the poets praise you. It is an insult to their skill."
Lucy tried to compose her face into appropriate seriousness, but a dimple still lurked around the left corner of her mouth. "I know, Susan, really I do, and I do try, but …" and here she giggled again, "but really, to compare me to the Sun? Certainly I can understand the comparison of you to moonlight, as dark and fair as you are …"
Here Susan blushed, for though she could accept a compliment from a passionate suitor without wavering, she still faltered before Lucy's whole-hearted adoration.
"But me! The sun! Really, it's too ridiculous."
Susan opened her mouth to tell Lucy just how accurate such a comparison was—far more accurate than most bardic claims, in fact—when she stopped.
Lucy was, indeed, the sun of their little world, scattering light and joy wherever she went by her mere presence, but she would never believe that she was anything more than just plain Lucy, no matter how many or how often people tried to convince her.
And since such whole-hearted innocence was part of her very charm, Susan closed her mouth and put her arms around Lucy's silk-clad shoulders in a sisterly hug, and changed the subject.
"You note they don't ever mention where Peter and Edmund fit into the cosmos. I wonder why that is?" Her dark eyes twinkled down at Lucy, who yawned and stretched like a kitten.
"P'rhaps they don't think it's fitting to compare kings to stars—and they didn't leave room for much else in the heavens. You could compare them to trees, I s'pose—Peter is like an Oak, the heart of the kingdom. Ed—Ed is … what is Edmund, Su?"
"Edmund is very tired," boomed his deep voice behind them. Lucy jumped, but Susan smiled at him.
"Edmund," she said gently, "is an Ash: strong yet resilient, useful for so many different things."
Edmund smiled back at her, for this brother and sister understood each other very well. "And Susan is a Beech, Queen of us all."
"What's this, competing with the bards, are you?" Peter asked, joining them in the corridor. It happened rarely that all Four were able to be alone together; sometimes Lucy thought it only ever happened at the end of the day when they were heading for bed, and she considered it most unfair, as she was always half-asleep by that point.
"Not content to be heavenly hosts, girls, now you must rule the Woods as well?"
"Don't be silly," Lucy said, blinking at him like a little owl. "We were trying to think of something all Four of us could be."
"Why?" Peter asked blankly. Edmund swatted him and told him not to be a spoilsport.
"So, Peter is an Oak, and Susan is a Beech, and Edmund is an Ash," Lucy murmured. "I think that sums it up very well."
"You left yourself out, Lu," Peter mentioned.
"Oh! Why, so I did." Lucy frowned. "What am I, then?"
"A Birch," Susan answered immediately. "Slender and wind-blown and full of joy."
And Lucy mustered up out of her sleepiness her brightest smile for the moonlit queen and said that sounded lovely.
Squinting her eyes against the brightness of the sun of the sea, Lucy was unaware that her brother had joined her at Dawn Treader's starboard rail until he spoke.
"What are you dreaming of, Lucy?"
"Oh Edmund, how you startled me!" the little girl said with a jump.
"Sorry," he said.
"That's quite all right," Lucy replied, smiling brightly. "It wasn't your fault at all; it was mine, because I wasn't paying any attention, which was rude, really. Su always said that a queen must always be aware of the people around her all the time, because she never knows when one might need her, besides which she is an example …"
"Lucy," Edmund interrupted this flow with the ease of experience. "Su's not here to scold you. Nobody minds if you dream the day away here."
"Susan was such a good queen," Lucy said wistfully.
"So were—I mean are—you,' Edmund said promptly. Lucy only gave him a sad little knowing smile.
Edmund frowned. "What's this all about, then, Lu?"
Lucy bit her lip. "Ed—d'you remember how the bards used to call me the Sun? And Su the Moon?"
"How could I forget?" Edmund said dryly, recalling all the eager suitors he and Peter used to, ah, dissuade.
"I never cared about it then; it all just seemed like nonsense," Lucy said, turning back to gaze at the water. Somehow it was easier to confess to foolishness when she couldn't see her brother's face. "But then, after we got Back—to our world, you know—I started to mind. Susan started to grow different, you know, like she didn't always want to be seen with her awkward little sister."
Edmund started to indignantly deny this, but wisely held his tongue until Lucy finished.
"She's still loving and all, of course, but sometimes I see her look at me and blush when I say or do something that's not considered proper. And everyone always calls her the pretty one—and she is, she's just as beautiful There as she was Here, only it's not the same kind of beauty, somehow—and sometimes I wish, just a little, that people would say the sort of thing about me that they used to.
"And then, when we were at Coriakin's island, I almost said a spell that would make me beautiful—only I didn't want to be just beautiful, I wanted to be prettier than Susan. And I hate being jealous of her, but sometimes I can't help it." She screwed up her face as though she was holding back tears. "I just want people to like me, too."
Edmund put his arm around her and silently cursed a world where people equated beauty with worth.
"Everyone who knows you loves you, Lu," he finally said carefully.
Lucy sniffed, unable to keep a tear or two from falling. "Not like they do Susan."
Edmund considered. "No," he conceded. "Because you and Susan are two different people. But anyone who compares you two is just an idiot."
"What do you mean?"
"Well—" he struggled to find the right words, words that would heal his little sister and not make things worse. Even at the height of his kingship Edmund had never spoken fluently. He wished, not for the first time on this journey, that Peter was with him. Peter, he knew, was much better at this sort of thing.
But Peter wasn't here, and Edmund certainly couldn't leave this sort of thing to Caspian or—horrors—Eustace. He would have to do his best on his own.
"Look here," he finally burst out. "I do know something of what you're going through. I mean, it's not easy being known at school and everywhere as 'Peter Pevensie's little brother.'"
"I never thought of that," Lucy said.
"Peter's so blasted good at everything," Edmund continued, heartened by his success thus far. "And he draws people to him like—like moths to a flame. People—teachers and the like—expect me to be just like him, and they're always so disappointed when I'm not."
"But that's not fair!" Lucy cried indignantly. "You're good at so many things Peter isn't, like seeing behind the obvious to what's hidden, and sensing people's hurts, and doing kind things in secret (except you're not very good at secrets, so we always knew it was you), and …"
"Yes, but I'm not good at games," Edmund said gently. "And I'm not big and brawny, like Peter, or as charismatic as he is."
"But that doesn't mean you're not …" Edmund rather enjoyed watching the light dawn in Lucy's eyes. "Oh."
"Lu, you don't have to be like Susan," he said. "If people can't love you for who you are, then they're jolly well not worth caring about. The people who matter are the ones who can love you both, just because of who you each are." He waited a moment, then added, "Don't you know there isn't a man aboard this ship who wouldn't give his life for you? Or mouse," he quickly amended.
Lucy finally smiled. "Well, that's just silly. As if I'd ask any of them to do such a pointless thing!"
"Yes, but they would—if necessary—because they love you, Lu. As for the rest—haven't you heard the captain?" Drinian had a fine love for ancient lore and a surprising turn for poetry.
"What about?"
"He's claiming that the Golden Age was only called that because you were queen then." Edmund paused for a heartbeat to give his next line more emphasis.
"He says you're the Sun of Narnia."
And Lucy, this time around, did not giggle at the concept, but rather felt warmed inside. Nor did she think, as was her wont, "Yes, but what would he say about Susan?"
Instead, she shed her brightest smile on her brother, illuminating a few nearby sailors who happened to be in the vicinity and who blinked over the sudden radiance, and flung her arms around his neck in a hug quite as fierce as any she used to give, back when they reigned at Cair Paravel and she had no doubts about—well, anything, really.
"Thank you, Ed," she whispered.
He hugged her back and kissed her forehead in a kingly salute. "No, thank you, Lucy."
"For what?"
"Don't you know?" He took a step back to look at her more properly. "Don't you know why you bring such joy to everyone?"
She gave him a sudden grin of pure mischief. "My charm and wit?"
"Well, yes," he acknowledged. "Lucy—the rest of us don't see Aslan like you do. We only see him rarely. You, on the other hand, see him, and talk to him, anywhere and everywhere. As for the rest of us—
"Well, Lu, when we want to see Aslan, we look at you."
Author's Note: It has been ages since this happened to me--that a story has grabbed hold of me and refused to let me rest until completing it, which is why it's after 11:00 and I'm still up instead of grabbing all the sleep I can before a little one wakes up again for her nightly feeding. That, and it's too hot to sleep comfortable so I might as well be doing something productive.
Anyway. This started out as a fun response to the NFFR challenge of colour. Shortly before the comparisons in the beginning descended into utter silliness (I had loads more in my head but decided to not inflict them on the rest of you) I realized that this actually had a point struggling to make itself known. So I ended the Golden Age bit with the trees (which might have been unnecessary to the plot but I couldn't bear to take them out), and followed Lucy and Edmund down a tortuous path, wondering if I was gong to reach the point before my eyes grew too heavy to hold open, and lo, there it was.
For once in my life I'm completely satisfied with the way a story ended. I have my doubts about certain parts in the middle (why yes, that IS an invitation to tell me it's all wonderful and I'm too severe a self-critic), but I'm thoroughly pleased with the last line.
Or maybe that's just my lack of sleep. You decide.