A/N: You guessed it. I don't own Narnia. Or any of the characters, though I think Reepicheep would be mildly entertaining at school.
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The dulled silver bell above the door chimed obligingly as an especially strong gust of London wind hurried the two girls into the silent, cozy shop. Susan shut the door behind her, gratefully exchanging the heady scents of exotic perfumes and new clothing borne on a flooding wave of heat for the bluster of the freezing rain outside. Attempting to dry her face with a pocket handkerchief, she turned toward her sister. "You would think we might have picked a better day to shop!"
Lucy paid no attention. Wiping the fog off the glass with a glove, she peered at the blurry shape of the brightly lit bookstore across the street. "Come on, Su," she said, laying her hand on the doorknob. "It's only just over there."
"Oh, do let's wait until this lets up!" implored Susan. "These shoes are new!" She drew a tiny mirror from her bag. "Look at my hair!" she wailed, stuffing stray tendrils back up under her hat only to have more escape on the other side.
"You look fine," said Lucy. "Anyway, if anyone saw you looking awful, they'd know it was the weather. They have to deal with London too, remember?"
"You're terribly comforting," replied Susan dryly. A tiny smile did creep onto her face, though, and she dropped the mirror back into her bag.
"Ready?" asked Lucy, opening the door a crack.
"Really, Lucy," said Susan with playful sternness. "One would think that your shop is about to grow wings and fly away." Her sister made a little impatient noise as Susan glanced around at the store's wares: racks of fancy blouses, skirts, and full-length formal gowns glittering in the back.
Lucy could see where this was going. She closed the door with a reluctant sigh. The soft "snap" as it latched shut did nothing to improve her spirits.
Susan watched with a slight smile –a smile that on anyone less refined could only be described as mischievous. She took Lucy's arm and began guiding her towards the far end of the shop. "Now, dearest," she said. "I do believe you have a birthday coming up."
Lucy closed her eyes briefly.
"And," continued Susan. "I have it on good authority that one Andrew Shelley requested that you accompany him to the winter party at the Sinclair's last week."
Her younger sister's eyes snapped open. "Who told you that?" she demanded.
Susan's smile grew almost imperceptibly wider. "I have my sources."
Lucy recovered herself quickly. "Andrew is a slob and an immature nuisance. I wouldn't go with him if you paid me." Nevertheless, a slight flush crept up her pale cheek. Susan noted this and tucked the information away for later. "Anyway," Lucy said. "I don't go to parties. All those people in their stuffy clothes and affected manners…" She waved one hand dismissively, letting the sentence trail away into silence.
Susan cleared her throat, trying to push away the uncomfortable feeling that Lucy, with her crystalline judgment, was quite right in her assessment of the high life that Susan so prized. "Well," she regathered her thoughts. "You may not agree with me now –and really, seventeen is too young to be courting seriously, if you ask me–" (Lucy very wisely said nothing at this point) "—but someday, not so far off as you might think, some young man will sweep you off your feet and you will want to go to parties and all those annoyances." She stopped walking and turned to face her sister. "Really."
"You sound like Mum," muttered Lucy. "And I'm not seventeen yet, not for another week."
"Close enough," replied Susan cheerfully as she began to flip through a towering rack of multicolored, shimmering finery.
Despite herself, Lucy felt the corners of her mouth quirk up, and she allowed herself to be caught up in the fun. For the next quarter-hour or so, the sisters exclaimed over the dazzling gowns, laughing and talking as they once had. At last, Lucy was sent off to the fitting room, four or five splendid formals in hand.
Susan sat down on a chair outside to wait. It had been far too long. Susan, to her mother's disapproval, had moved into a small flat closer to her job last August. She had seen very little of Lucy since then, and their relationship showed the change. She barely knew her youngest sibling anymore.
The move had been necessary, she told herself firmly. She needed to be closer to her work and to her life. Surely they didn't expect her to stay there forever? After all, Peter was doing very well at the Cambridge dorms, and Ed was getting ready to follow him. Susan gave a little smile of loving pride, for it had been she who had convinced both of her brothers to apply.
Lucy emerged then, nearly tripping over the hem of a shockingly frilly pink thing that Susan had selected. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and pulled a comically reproachful face at her sister. "I feel like a French poodle," she said.
Susan had to laugh. "It's not all that bad," she said. "That style of gown is quite à la mode these days." Her words fell sour, though, even on her own ears. Lucy wore what she –not some wealthy woman in Paris– considered to be beautiful; the idea of her carefree, impetuous sister forcing herself into the mold of the vogue was suddenly exceptionally distasteful.
As Lucy rustled away, horribly fashionable, it struck Susan that that was just what she had done. She stared at herself in the mirror opposite as if a stranger had replaced her reflection. Why had she bought this hat? Now that she looked, there was nothing particularly attractive about it, other than the fact that it was on the cover of the latest catalogue laying open on the sales counter where she worked. And these shoes…they pinched terribly, and they had rubbed a rather bad blister on her heel. Lion's mane, she reflected bitterly. What have I become?
But the moment passed. She smoothed over the fret and discontent with a practiced smile, and suddenly she was Susan Pevensie again: stunningly beautiful, fashionable, flirtatious, and independent. And –so long as she could conceal the lack of whatever Lucy possessed that gave her the ability to accept whatever life brought her with joy– it was enough.
A parade of gowns followed: a sweeping black full-length trimmed with satiny red that made Lucy look sinister and majestic (that is, until she viewed herself in the mirror and dissolved into helpless giggles), a deep midnight blue etched at the hem with frosty designs in silver that Susan liked but Lucy said didn't quite fit, and a delicate cream that wavered like mist when she walked but went terribly with her hair.
By this time, Lucy was more than a little discouraged, and anxious lest the bookshop should close before they got there. Despite her efforts to hide this for the sake of her sister, Susan noticed.
"How many more do you have in there, dearest?" she asked, looking at Lucy through the mirror.
Lucy didn't have to look. "Just one."
Susan smiled and brushed a loose thread off her sister's shoulder. "Then go on and try that last one, and then we'll go and look at that bookshop you wanted me to see. "
Lucy blushed that her thoughts were so easily read, but her eyes sparkled with gratitude and anticipation as she disappeared into the fitting room for the last time.
Susan sighed in regret as she sat back down. She and Lucy had always had different tastes, different temperaments, but she had hoped that she could show her sister a glimpse of her world, if only for this evening.
Lucy took longer changing that previously, and Susan was about to get up to see if she needed anything when the door opened. Susan rose to her feet, her lips parting slightly in a silent "O."
Her sister stood before her, draped in glimmering royal green. The neckline extended from shoulder to shoulder, embroidered in strange golden designs that stood out sharply on the dark fabric. The sleeves flared at the elbows, dropping about halfway to her knees. The skirt just brushed the floor, the pleats separating to reveal folds of rich golden cloth underneath. The waist was embellished with the same exquisite patterns as the neck, like the indistinct shapes of daffodils in the spring. Lucy had let her hair fall from the thick braid she had bound it in before they left, and now it floated in a cloud of rippling gold nearly halfway down her back as she turned to display the gown. Susan could only stare in wonder.
Lucy misunderstood her silence and flushed scarlet. "I know the style isn't all that fashionable," she began, speaking a little too quickly. "But I like it." Her gaze flicked briefly up to her sister's, vulnerable, defiant, and pleading all at once.
Susan found her voice. "Fashionable?" she breathed. "Lucy, it's…"she swallowed hard. "It's perfect."
"Do you think so?"
"Dearest, look at yourself!" Susan gestured toward the mirror. "You look roya-" She stopped abruptly and drew away slightly as she realized what she had been about to say.
The flash of pain that crossed Susan's face slammed into Lucy like an icy wave. "I'm sorry," she said instantly. She hesitated for a moment before turning away and murmuring, "I'll go change."
Susan stared numbly after her for a heartbeat before shaking herself awake. "Lu, wait."
Her sister turned around.
Susan's practical side took over as she grasped for words. "Does it fit?"
Lucy nodded mutely.
"You need a gown," Susan told her. "And…I think it should be that one."
A smile of uncomprehending delight spread across her sister's face like summer's dawning. "You mean you won't be ashamed to be seen with me like this?" she quipped.
Susan laughed, shattering the tension between them. "Well, I would, but you look so lovely that they wouldn't even see me next to you," she said, only half teasing. "That gown is you, Lucy, and you look much better in it than in anything fashionable that I could pick out for you." She wrapped her sister in a warm hug. "Don't ever change."
Lucy smiled again, but it was tainted this time with a barely detectable note of sorrow.
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A/N: Reviews would be great. Even flames, if they aren't just flames for the sake of being flames. If you see anything that should be changed, please share. )