DYSFUNCTIONAL [SUSAN AND RABADASH DRABBLE FEAT. MANY PEOPLE]
[Note: Long. This would span Golden Age to Post Narnia]
Dysfunctional:Deviating from the norms of social behavior in a way regarded as bad.
"I wonder if it'll all work out." Susan whispered, her words echoing in the room, the walls rejecting them and bouncing them back. "They call us dysfunctional you know?"
"A nicer word for insane." Rabadash laughed harshly as he stared at her moonlit eyes shining like stars. This was another game to play, another game to win."And it is only insanity that lasts along with change."
"Will we last?" And so they were back to wondering. Who was winning?
"I will marry you." Four words that changed her life. Four words that changed her being. Four words that changed the course of both Calormen and Narnia. Rabadash's grin was feral and she tried not to shiver at the promise of victory it held. "In exchange of the safety of my land and my people and my family."
"You have my word." His words were hollow to her ears, but the pride that lightened his being made her heart skip a beat and she wondered maybe this was the right thing to do. Her stare was piercing as she waited for those words that she knew would seal her fate. "In Tash and Aslan's names, as well as in my honor."
Her smile was subdued but her eyes were blazing and Rabadash wondered after all the commotion, if Susan of Narnia was the Barbarian Queen as their stories told.
And so, Narnia lost a Queen Sovereign while Calormen gained one.
—-
She knew well the position of women in Calormen, so in the moonlit atmosphere of her room, much grander and finer than the one she was locked in previously, she waited patiently for her husbandto arrive. Slowly she molded her new person, slowly she made Susan of Calormen, Queen of Narnia. And when the doors opened to admit Rabadash in, she was smiling, calm and kind. "Good evening husband."
"Good evening," He paused, his eyes dilating and his smirking lips slackening. Who wouldn't, for Susan was a rare prize. Porcelain skin shining like starlight, hair like a waterfall of night and lips like full bloomed roses. Her eyes, that of a feline who have seen prey to play, held his before he had the power to rove it through her body. The shimmer of her satin dress hugging and covering too much for his liking, made him growl loud and fierce. His steps were long and quick and before anyone knew he was kissing her hard. Her fingers raking his curls and his pulling her hair back exposing her neck. "Wife."
Susan chuckled and soon enough all that could be heard are moans, tearing cloth and chants. Mine. Mine. Mine!Sweat dribbled down backs and her hair scattered around her like a halo. Her lips opened in a silent plea, while her eyes closed as he assaulted her senses.
"Open your eyes." He grunted and she did. That moment she fell to the brink. He followed closely, relishing her wide eyes and pleasure filled moan.
They stayed like that a few moments, breathing.
"Mine." His word was delivered in a growl, his eyes full of promise and warning.
Susan smiled, tired but kind. "Yours."
"The Tisroc is dead! The Tisroc is dead!" The guard's sudden intrusion to the room was comical to Susan, especially when Rabadash suddenly pulled the blanket all the way to their shoulders and roared his distaste at the disturbance. A lion, however ironic her comparison was. A wild, wild and insane lion. So deep was she in her musings that she gasped when he moved, still inside her.
"You should've locked the door." She chuckled, breathless. The smirk was back on his face, the authority there and the power. Pompous ass. Susan thought as she laid there waiting, "My condolences."
A thrust, a gasp. Rabadash grinned, all white teeth and feral ferocity. "It seems that you never left your title My Queen." He moved untangling the sheets and started dressing his eyes holding hers every moment available. Even when she curled up to her side and yawned. Even when he was raking his fingers to tame his hair. Then he dropped a kiss, with a hint of tongue, on the spot just below her left ear. "Rest."
"Affectionate are we now?" She shivered, drowsiness lacing her words.
"I have my moments."
"Congratulations." She slept with dreams of blood on her hands.
—-
He wondered if she love him.
They call her many things and Rabadash deemed it too early for his wife to be called with many things. Three months. Too early. They call her wise, kind, loving and gentle. The young ones of the castle call her mother in the darkness of the night, however the older people of the court call her barren. A curse of the North.The lords and the Vizier call her useless for not conceiving, behind his back.
But as she entered the throne room with a glide, ignoring every jealous eyes and envious sneers, he asked himself what was it with Susan Pevensie that he couldn't break. Beside him was his newest concubine, his newest conquest wearing tight Calormene dresses and showing the skin of her belly, and all Susan did was curtsy, dressed in flowing Narnian garb, and give both of them a kind smile. No anger, no jealousy, no fury, nothing but calm and overflowing kindness in her eyes that it made him want to wretch. The thought of her planning on boring him and him tiring of her so he would throw her back to her home, made anger surge through his very veins. How dare she? And the woman beside him was nothing more and all that he wanted was there in front of him.
Mine!
That night he ravished her, the bed squeaking at the force of his lust. The pain of her nails digging on his back was bearable until the morning after. As he stand by her bedside already redressed, he watched her as she slept, her lashes like butterfly wings kissing skin. He dropped the occasional kiss on the spot beneath her ear.
He wondered when he became a poet to think and do such sappy and gruesome things.
He wondered if she hated him. He wondered which he could take better and which he would prefer.
—-
She stopped wondering after the first night.
Maybe it was even before that, but Susan stopped wondering about when she stopped wondering. There was no use in dwelling too much in things you could never change. Susan never let regret control her life, never.
Always forward, never back. For the way is barred and all we could ever do is look. She often tells her family.
"My Lady? It is time." Six months. Six months of gaining trust and Susan was allowed finally of a Narnian companion. Finally, a connection to the family she left behind. Martyr! She turned to the Falcon perched on her balcony and held out a thick bundle of letters and a package.
"Thank you my Lord Pilgrim, may your journey be safe and Aslan bless you." She smiled, melancholy and longing perfectly present and true. Her eyes were misted with tears and Pilgrim, a lone falcon who is the eldest of Susan's Queensguard, looked on.
"You know Narnia would come and save you from all this, My Queen. All you need is say the word and Your family, maybe even He, would come to take you away." Susan could only muster a wider smile before she answered. "Such word would not slip from my lips, for the sake of my people no war or blood will be shed in my name. I will protect Narnia even with so much distance from my throne. For the crown still sits atop my head and a title is still with my name. My people first before anything else."
The smell of Calormen spice invaded her senses and she tensed when she saw Pilgrim twitch and with a swish of skirts she was blessed with the view of her husband in full regalia, leaning on the banister with a concubine a few steps behind. She could feel her heart hammer in fear, for she was careless with her words and was caught. She had half the mind to ask Pilgrim to go, before Rabadash take back this boon and sever her connections to Narnia completely. Rabadash was sneering and it didn't bode well to Susan. "So Narnian through and through Susan?"
"Your Highness?" The concubine interrupted, a brave act considering that by now Rabadash temper is unleashed and would blow at a few moments. He only stared at Susan, before moving a hand of nonchalance. "Leave."
The woman, much younger than Susan but beautiful in an exotic way with doe eyes and an air of love around her, never faltered as she continued, "Queen Susan?"
Her smile was affection, for she came to love the young lady and many of the Calormenes as she spent her time with them more and more. She understood the culture and traditions and came to appreciate them in a degree like she loved the Narnians. That the sin of one is not inclusive with his family or race. "I will be fine Areesha, I will call for you do not worry."
Areesha bowed and left, the silence pressing on them like a grip on the throat. She turned to Rabadash the moment the door clicked close. "Would you let me say goodbye to my friend, Rabadash?"
He nodded but didn't leave. She made her goodbyes to Pilgrim swift for she knew that the sooner the better and when the falcon turned to take flight, she almost died. "Be back soon Lord Pilgrim, and send the Monarchs my good tidings."
"I will, benevolent Tisroc." Pilgrim said and with a flap of his wings he was airborne to Narnia. If only I could grow wings.
—
The table being overturned and the chair flying caused her a conflict of feelings. At one she expected this and the other she didn't and the last was she feared this. She had seen his fits back in their courting days, but that was in Narnia, her domain. Here in Calormen, she was and always is in one big disadvantage. The prospect and the great possibility that Rabadash could and would hurt her and the notion rendered her helpless.
He marched to her with a speed and she couldn't comprehend the words he was yelling at her. She couldn't see, couldn't hear and couldn't speak. She could feel his anger, his fury and when his hands clamped around her shoulders and his finger dug to her skin, something snapped within her. Rabadash in all his past anger and bitterness, never inflicted physical pain on her being unless it was in the heat of their lovemaking.
"Speak! You Barbarian Bitch!" He shook her so hard that she was jostled and her hair was ruffled from it's neat loose braid. "You beguile me all these months and at first chance you run to your pitiful siblings to rescue you?! " He pulled her hair back exposing her long neck. He pulled her to him so close that she wondered if she would sink to his body. His fingers were digging on her waist and she shuddered. He felt it and he sneered, as he leaned closer to her ear his sneer grew devilish. It turned into the smile of the devil, and Susan wondered where she heard, where she knew of devils. But it was not the time to think of those forgotten. "Mine." Rabadash growled. "You are mine. Go to Narnia, escape my grasp and remember everything will fall apart."
"I am your Queen, husband." His eyes were manic and she chose her words carefully, trying to grip the edges of a facade even in the face of such danger… such anger. "I am a Queen of two nations, but I am yours."
"I have reaped the forbidden fruit and tasted it." Growls she needed to focus to understand. She had never seen him like this, like a beast out in a rampage only a loose string holding him together. "Death claim me before I let you leave. Wife."
"This is home now Rabadash. You are home." She lied so effectively, her words so sincere and heartfelt to his ears. "You believe I will leave this behind?"
"Yes."
"Leave the father of my children?"
That rendered him speechless.
—-
She heard an echo of a horn blown, her horn, the night she gave birth. It provided her immense comfort and peace. She felt a warm breath bless her senses and filled her with the forest breeze. The stars where blazing and dancing and she wondered if somehow, her family knew. Maybe the stars have sent the news.
Susan rested on her bed, curled to her side and smiling contently. In her embrace was her twins. Her little boy got her eyes, a darker shade of blue and a soft smile, the rest he was his father's son. Her little lady was hers, except for the dark eyes she inherited from her father. They didn't cry or make a fuss, albeit content in sleeping in their mother's embrace. She didn't hear the cries of Hurrah or of celebration as finally the Calormen throne has his heir. In the darkness of her room, she hummed and sang the lullaby she often used to Lucy in their earlier days, and in rarer times, to Edmund when he wakes up shaken from a nightmare.
She was broken in her trance by her husband entering the room and marching his way to her bedside. His eyes are critical and blank.
"Naseer." Conqueror. He simply said as he placed his hand over the boy's head with so much gentleness that Susan had never seen possible. Then he turned to the girl and then to Susan. "What will you name her?"
He whispered it in such a way that it sounded so reverent. As if this little princess wasn't a lesser rank just because she was a woman of Calormen. Susan met his gaze with her blue eyes glowing silver because of the moonlight.
"Persephone."
"Persephone?" Rabadash quirked a brow. "A queer name, my queen."
Susan only smiled. Persephone. To destroy. Murder.
Her little Conqueror and Maiden.
—
Susan has defied many Calormen traditions and has adapted to a great number of them, but by the way she brightened at the news of the Narnian Monarchy arriving to visit made Rabadash grit his teeth. He had tried, to almost desperation, to hide the twin's birth from the northern countries. Susan let him, motherhood making her busy but glowing even more beautiful.
"Well at least you succeeded in hiding them for two, almost three, years." He thought as he sat on his throne watching his wife who have claimed their children in her arms the whole time. Areesha was benevolently by her side, ready to follow whatever her queen requires.
"Susan!" He could hear the murmurs of the Calormen court. Harsh whispers of criticism as the Valiant ran to her sister, while the latter laughed.
Lucy slowed down enough to not slam into Susan when she saw the little ones in her sister's arms. With big eyes she took her in. "Oh Susan! You are glowing!" Then she embraced her sister, tears springing from her eyes. Peter followed immediately, his arms were steady and strong as it engulfed her. "Sister mine. Sister dearest. Thou art safe?" he whispered to which she could simply nod. She couldn't speak for she knew she would break into tears the moment she do so.
Edmund, now so much taller, strode with bright eyes but she could feel almost immediately his guilt and murderous aura lingering as an undertone. His smile was relieved but his eyes tell a different story. As he placed a kiss on her forehead, she murmured. "Peace." Of which he replied with a chuckle and "Have you found it?"
He placed the same blessing to her children. Naseer gurgling and laughing. While her daughter looked on, curious and wary. She met Edmund's eyes for a few moments before giving him a toothy smile.
"Kore." Edmund said with a smirk before stepping away. His eyes knowing. "Genius, really."
Isla stepped forward, Tommen in her arms. The Princess Consort made a small curtsy of which Susan laughed off and gave her an awkward hug with the children still in their arms. The three children immediately found a connection and started doing a talk of their own with the limited words they have. The adults laughed in pure adoration.
Rabadash found the scene before him unsettling. Mine. He stood and marched to Susan's side, dismissing Areesha with a glare and taking Persephone to his arms. "Welcome, brothers and sisters, I am sure you are excited in this reunion so please let us move on to more comfortable quarters."
Mine.
—
"The White Stag has been sighted." Persephone whimpered at her mother's sudden movement. Susan immediately soothed her and apologized. Naseer snapping attention to his mother and sister even from her place beside Tommen. Peter, who delivered the news was grinning from ear to ear. "We've been searching it for a while now before we came here to visit."
"Why only now?" Peter was confused at her question, it took him a few minutes before he understood. When he answered, his voice was barely above a whisper.
"There was a rebellion. A guild, I believe you know of which I say, has planned to overthrow us this past years. The battle was fierce and we have lost many. That is also one of the many reasons why Pilgrim hasn't come as often as he should."
"Why didn't you tell me?" She asked even when she already knew the answer.
"You are a mother now Su." Lucy answered, her eyes full of wisdom even if her words were simple. Susan felt her heart soar at her sister's growth. We dare not ask a boon to Rabadash. It may give us…you freedom, but only temporary.
"And I am fine." I understand. She addressed then the matter at hand. "What do you plan of the White Stag? To catch it is a great adventure at itself. And if you do catch it, what will you wish for?"
"I haven't really thought of it that hard yet. But the safety and prosperity of Narnia is a great deal." Peter was solemn as he watched his son, his heir play. Isla who sat beside him merely gave a meaningful glance.
"And you Edmund?" The Just turned to the Valiant. A silence passed before they turned back to his older sister and grinned.
"Pomegranates." Susan laughed.
—-
Two months later. Another howl of her horn, woke her up in her slumber with a scream. It echoed as the walls of her room rejected to absorb the sound. Immediately, the twins started crying and she couldn't move. Her door was barged open by force and guards stumbled in with panic. Among them was Rabadash, who was still in his lavish clothes and his sword in hand. His eyes jumped to the children assuring his heir's safety before turning to Susan with initial irritation.
Her face said it all. The end is coming.
It was after a few days when a tabby cat came slinking to Susan's balcony to deliver to her Queen the horrible news. The Kings and Queen disappeared. The Lantern Waste is in an uproar of search. Phillip said that they disappeared after passing a great tree of iron with a lamp on top. We need you. The Princess Consort cannot do this alone. Threats on the Crown Prince are many and we could only do so much.
Who blew my horn?
Tumnus. Susan nodded as she ran her fingers through the cat's fur. Not now. Not yet. Do not make the news go South. Do not let it reach here. I will come, not now, but I will.
Understood.
It was another two months later, before Rabadash was found dead in his study, a jeweled dagger buried through his chest, straight to his heart. The Queen and her children and trusted Areesha disappearing. It was also the time when Caspian I decided to become the Conqueror.
Rabadash was the Tisroc no more.
—
Susan's return was a quiet event. The Queen escorted by Oreius and Pilgrim. She immediately passed on her children to Areesha and bid her to rest and get some help for the twins, and without missing a moment she swept into the meeting room and silenced every well wisher, shocked lord, and stuttering general with a wave of her hand. Pilgrim was by her side as she took her usual place on the round table, because no one, not even Isla seemed to be brave enough to sit on even one of the Four's place. As she sat on her seat she automatically turned to her right and her left. Pain stabbing her with claws. You're all alone now!
By the end of the day, she had known of the Telmarine's advance and the threat's on Tommen's life. As she enter her room, Oh how she missed the velvet blues and purples. She turned to a door inside her room and made her way to the nursery, her aching head not a hindrance to see her children.
What could she actually do? She wondered as she watched her sleeping children. Morale is low with the disappearance of her siblings and she would like to use the least amount of blood as possible.
"Beauty be thine and tame the Beast." she sang softly. "Do not let them see the very Beast you too are."
—-
Caspian I was murdered in his sleep by the Gentle Queen posing as a courtesan, and the great spread of news halted the invaders. Susan gained a new name, that of a Witch. But the Narnians knew better and the use of magic different from what the rest of the world knew.
Susan lived happily with her children for many years. Side by side with Isla, they ruled Narnia as Queen and Regent. Preparing Tommen, Naseer and Persephone in their place to the four thrones. Susan or Isla never remarried.
The Queen was assassinated by Tommen's 17th year and Narnia mourned the loss of the Gentle.
—-
Those who knew the stories. Those who remembered history, bowed with reverence to Queen Susan the Gentle, when she entered Aslan's How along side her siblings and Caspian X. They honored her for still holding the peace even for a few more decades. They learned that it was Caspian III that succeeded on conquering Narnia after Persephone's death.
All Susan thought amidst Caspian's gaze was how different he looked from the ancestor she killed. And what life her children had lived. And if anger resides on the boy prince's heart for the murder she did.
The name Witch for the Gentle was still sung by the silent trees, the fear the Telmarines tell of the lady who bewitched the failed Conqueror and killed him.
She shouldn't have hesitated in murdering Miraz. The way she didn't hesitate with Caspian I. But alas, she was a mother and she knew the feeling of raising fatherless children. Said father died by her hand.
The kiss of farewell was bitter and Susan was laughing inside her head as the memory of slitting Caspian I's throat came unbidden.
—-
She wasn't much of a drinker, even in Narnia she kept a sane head because she needed to be the one to send her siblings safely to bed and make sure the guests reach their rooms after a heavy night of drinking. But there are no guests to take care of. No siblings.
No siblings.
No siblings. Dead. Mangled. Dead and buried.
She strangled a sob as she tipped the familiar tasting wine and relishing the burn.
She'd ignored every suitor who wanted to dance. She hid from them all, opting to the most inconspicuous place on the room.
"Miss. A dance?" Another irritating man. She waved him away, but the man gripped her wrist and she tensed, feeling old instincts kicking in and she needed to remind herself like every time that she has no dagger beneath her skirts.
"No." The man persisted.
"You shouldn't pester my beloved." She sighed at the intrusion and tensed when the voice sounded familiar. She tried to place the voice but her wine addled mind wasn't helping. "Are you alright love?"
Calormen spice. Desert sand.
"Hello Husband." Her voice came out as a purr as she leaned back on the chair. "A surprise to see you…Ra..ba..dash."
The feral grin was familiar, his hold was familiar and even when he leaned close to place a kiss on the underside of her ear. Memories came rushing back. "Hello. Wife. I believe you still owe me a lifetime since you did plunged a knife through my heart the last time."
"Would sorry suffice?" When he bit her earlobe, she knew it was not.
"Mine." Her laughter that night was of bliss and true joy. As twisted as it was.
Apparently he was sent to England by Aslan, he still cursed the Lion's name a little playfully now, by his death and as a one of the peasant he so despised. He worked his way to the society ladder and made a fortune with brewing Calormene wine. And when he told her that the one she drank that night of their reunion was a brew of it, she hummed and said that it did remind her of home.
"Calormen isn't your home." he pointed out as they lounged sipping the wine. He had taken into courting her once more and this time with no pesky siblings and overbearing court rules, he was only bound by the promise of loyalty, fidelity and honesty to Susan and she to him as well.
"I am a Queen of two Kingdoms. I came to love Calormen as home." She murmured, her bare feet on the Persian rug in his rich living room.
"Tell me about Naseer and Kore." And she did, as much as she remembered. Every vivid detail. And when she was done, silence prevailed before he spoke again.
"Marry me."
—
It was weird in their household. There are maids and nurses and nannies but the kids found it weird that when their parents fought it was with low growls and whispers.
Until the older two, Lucille and Eezra, found their parents sparring with swords in their back garden.
Of course they wanted to learn. Of course they wanted to know. And of course the parents taught them. Archery and Sword Fighting. Court Etiquette and Politics.
And they told them.
About the Prince who claimed the Forbidden Fruit. Of Narnia and Queens and Kings. Uncles and Aunt. Lions and Crows.
And also about twins named Naseer and Persephone.
—-
Susan went to Aslan's country first.
Imagine her amusement at the reactions of the Narnians when she welcomed Rabadash with open arms.
End
Sorry the end was rushed but I need to get this off my drafts.
Hope you like it.