Hello, yes, I've sort of relapsed back into Narnia. Watching the end of Caspian always used to make me sad, and I happened to wind up watching that (beautiful) movie again last weekend – and, well. The ending just seems so tragic, to me – for Peter and Susan especially, of course. Luckily, fanfiction cures all ills…
This is thoroughly inspired by the works of dirgewithoutmusic (archiveofourown).
.~.
Susan dreams.
They're walking through trees, her and Lucy and Peter and Edmund - the forest dances around them, and sunlight pierces down through the leaves to hail them. The world is bright greens and blues and the gentle brush of warm, spring breeze; and Susan turns in a circle, breathing it in.
Her siblings' voices cut through the crystal air.
"We're back! We're here, we're back in Narnia!" Lucy, radiant and faithful and joyous. She dances around the green space, kicking up her heels; she spins forward to take Susan's hands, grasping hold of Peter's also, and Edmund takes hold of Peter and Susan's other hand, pulling them all together. Lucy's grin is brilliant and blinding, and Susan can't look away.
But she somehow tears away her eyes anyway, turning to let her gaze encompass the others - Peter, looking around with wide and exuberant eyes, and Edmund, a knowing smile playing around the corners of his lips and crinkling his dark eyes. The three of them laugh, bright and happy and beautiful, and Susan finds herself laughing too.
"We're actually back," says Peter reverently, his voice awed, hushed and still full to bursting.
"Oh, I can't wait to see everyone!" Lucy exclaims, hair flying as she leaps for joy.
The trees whisper comfortingly above their heads, and beneath their feet the grass is soft and full of life. Susan looks around, trying to make her eyes wider, trying to take in every miniscule detail. Their laughs keep ringing through the air as Edmund teases Peter, as Lucy tackles them both in a hug, as they tumble to the ground.
The sunlight shifts on Susan's skin, and she turns to see Edmund smiling, with his brow bent in slight puzzlement, eyes squinting in thought. "I wonder what that noise was, though," he says.
Lucy and Peter slow, taking on similar expressions to Edmund – they come to stand together, smiling and thinking hard and wondering. Lucy turns to Susan, reaching out for her hand. "I don't know. Do you?"
Susan beams at her, almost laughing just to see her sister's bright face. "I didn't hear anything, Lu," says Susan. Her voice is light and amused, nearly dismissive and mostly wry at watching her siblings so concerned over this.
Her older brother looks up at her words, his smile widening incredulously. "But you must've! We all heard it, Susan."
Edmund's grin turns slightly mischievous, and he cocks his head at her. "What were you doing, taking a nap?" He asks. Susan turns to meet his eyes, sharp and dark beneath his black bangs curling across his pale forehead. She laughs at him, with him.
"Look, it's not like I don't believe you," exclaimed Susan lightly, smiling. "I just didn't hear it, that's all. I wasn't listening."
"It was pretty hard to miss," says Peter teasingly. "It was so loud – a crashing sound. And then a funny jerking feeling."
Lucy takes a step closer to Susan, smiling up at her. Susan could count every freckle, every eyelash on her sister's face. Lucy's eyebrows twitch up as she tilts her head kindly. "Why don't you remember, Susan?"
Susan wakes up with a start.
.
.
.
She starts her day with a pale face, a sob caught somewhere in her throat. She doesn't let it out, though; she puts the dream from her mind, leaving it on her desk with the carefully dusted photo of them all together, the way they used to be. She gets dressed, eats breakfast, steps out into the big bright world.
Time ticks on, and the sky seems duller for it. Susan doesn't look up, that day; she keeps her gaze tracked on the ground, then on her work. She strives, and then she strives harder – she pours herself into what needs to be done, like always. The sky will wait.
When the sun drifts towards the horizon and Susan is on the train, heading home, she stares out the window and watches the sky darken. It's funny, but she can't force herself to smile; she once thought she'd never set foot on a train again. She thinks she can remember vowing not to, but at the same time she can't imagine why she would. These days, she takes the train like any other normal person, only she sometimes hopes that the trip will end with something a little out of ordinary – a noise, a jerking feeling – taking her somewhere different.
When she steps off of the train, she buries the wish deep within her heart, like always. It's only an echo, anyway, because life goes on and so does Susan.
She ends her day with a glance at the photo, framed and neatly dusted upon her organized desk. It's just a glance, like always, and the ache is the same as it always is. She settles into her not-quite-so-soft bed – she remembers a softer one, bigger and more like home – but she puts it from her mind, and closes her eyes. Her bed is just an ordinary bed, now.
She hopes not to dream, and a part of her hopes not to wake.
.~.
Sometimes, her dream has them laughing and running and hugging each other ferociously. Sometimes they walk, and sometimes Susan finds herself alone in the forest. She'll call out for them, and she'll wonder why it feels so familiar – to be alone and missing them. Sometimes, she'll find them again.
The trees always dance, and the sunlight always races down from the heavens to greet her. The breeze is soft and warm and gentle, and the ground is comforting on her suddenly not-so-weary feet.
She never can tell it apart from reality, despite how unreal it should seem. (To a sensible person, anyway; to someone who's normal and ordinary, the way Susan is now supposed to be – it should seem unreal. But Susan's been to less real places than this, and back again too, and so she just smiles at it all. Sensibility is something she could pride herself on, but here she finds herself thoughtlessly tossing the notion aside. She breathes it in and accepts this realest of worlds that she's somehow, miraculously been thrown back into again.)
Sometimes, things aren't quite as wonderful and perfect, and it seems just as real as ever. Sometimes Lucy cries, and Edmund shouts, and Peter frowns at her in that crumpled way of his. Susan cries too, those times; she tries to ask them what's wrong, why they're all so angry with her. They say that she doesn't believe them, that they really did hear a noise and feel a strange and sudden jerk, too. Susan tries to explain that she just didn't hear anything, that's all, and it's not that she didn't believe them, but they frown all the harder. It's like when her and Peter used to frown at Edmund for telling a lie when he still thought he was being clever and they all knew the truth. Only, Susan really didn't hear anything – no matter how hard she tries, she can't remember anything like it.
(When she wakes up, after those dreams, she sometimes wishes that she could. If only she'd heard the sound, felt the strange jerking sensation – if only she'd gone home, like the rest of them.
Sometimes she'll cry a little, but she does manage to limit herself. Afterwards, it's back to business, back to work, back at the day. She stuffs her wishes deep down in the depths of her heart and pulls herself out of bed.)
When Susan reaches out to hug them all, she gazes at their sunny faces and she widens her eyes, trying to capture every detail. Sometimes she doesn't realize why she's doing it. Sometimes she knows that it's just because she misses them, misses this, misses being here. It's a reason, if not the entire thing, and as she embraces them tightly, it's enough.
Sometimes, they don't mention the noise at all, and Susan doesn't ask. They hold hands, or link arms, and they stride through the trees – Kings and Queens, again, marching through their world with grins on their faces and joy in their hearts. Susan smiles at everything, and laughs when Lucy does, and when they step out of the forest, she stares boldly at the plain before them, the rolling hills in the distance, and beyond that, the glittering sea and the shining castle of Cair Paravel – Susan doesn't squint, and doesn't blink, and she doesn't think of ruins. The palace is whole and beautiful and it beckons them.
Peter and Edmund and Lucy smile at each other and stride forth, the way they're meant to, and Susan finds herself hanging back. She watches them walk away, those times, and a part of her shouts in her head– move! Go! Follow them! But those times are the sort of dreams you get when you can't move, or say a word, or do anything at all that hasn't already been decided as if it were written on a script.
They walk away, and suddenly they vanish amongst the green, and Susan wonders why they didn't turn back. She wonders why her limbs are still frozen, why she can't turn her head or open her mouth to say a word. She thinks she can feel a tear, tracing its way down a cold path along her cheek, but maybe that's just the breeze that has suddenly turned sharp and cold.
She wakes up those times already sobbing. She stifles her cries, brushes away her tears, and gets out of bed.
.~.
During the daylight hours, when she's busy at life and the real world is racing around her, the memory of it sometimes drifts back into her head, and she lets it, once she's locked away any chance at tears. She lets the picture float in her mind – Peter, Lucy, Edmund, trees and sunlight and blue blue sky. Smiling, feeling her cheeks strain effortlessly; laughing, the sound ringing through the air. In her mind, she can't see Lucy's freckles, or Peter's eyes, or Edmund's smile. The details are just slightly washed away, and she can only remember glimpses. Moments – a second, a timeless frame. A photograph.
The trees dancing around them, and brilliant sunlight raining down from the sky, and the breeze brushing against her cheeks – those things, she can remember perfectly. The feeling of Narnia still buzzes in her veins, so easy to take hold of once more – when she's dreaming, anyway. It's her siblings that dwindle away – like flitting through trees, below canopies and beneath mossy trunks and through thorny blooms.
She sometimes worries that their faces are getting blurrier. She can never remember if she actually did see them clearly, in the dream; she can never remember the feel of their hands in hers. Those times, she wakes with a start, and sits up in a rush, eyes searching frantically for her worn old photo frame. She slips out of bed, those times, and she sits at her desk in the dark – she rests her head in her hands, and she stares at the old black-and-white snapshot. They all look so young. The faces of Peter, Lucy, and Edmund look normal, to her eyes, and she hates to think about why that is. She avoids looking at her own face, in the photograph, because it only reminds her of how far she's come, and how far they haven't.
She looks in mirrors, though, and she stares at her unfamiliar face. Thinner, sharper, and more like that Queen that she once was – Susan lives, and she grows, and sometimes she's twenty-one. Sometimes she's twenty-four, and sometimes she's older. She looks at the old photograph every so often – whenever her dreams are too blurred – and she tries to bring her memories to life. Their faces are far too young, and she imagines what they'd look like now. Even the memory of those ancient Kings and Queens begins to fade, and Susan feels a faint panic gnawing on her heart.
Desperation left hardened by time can be quiet. Susan lives, and she never hesitates to do it; she wakes in the mornings, and she puts her dreams from her head – she leaves them on her desk, with that old photograph, and she steps out into the big bright world. The quiet panic curls around her heart, and she stuffs it away in daylight hours.
She wonders how long she's going to have to wait. She wonders if, when she falls through a wardrobe or slips into a painting or gets on the wrong train, she'll find herself back the way she was, young like them and laughing. She wonders if she even gets a 'when'.
In those early days – then, when she first learned what it was to be alone – Susan looked to the future and saw her time running out. In later days, she keeps looking and sees time stretching ahead, and she wonders if she'll ever see the end of it. She keeps striding forward, though, and not just to reach the end. She lives, and she puts away her dreams during daylight hours. She meets new strangers every day, and when they ask about family, she smiles and says their names like it doesn't hurt. Sometimes, it doesn't.
She dreams, and they still ask her about the noise that she didn't hear, all these years later. Susan still can't remember, while she's dreaming, and she smiles and laughs and memorizes their faces. She doesn't remember trains, or midnight calls, or funerals with empty caskets when she's there. She doesn't remember a noise, or a jerking feeling, but sometimes, neither do they.
The real world is always bustling, grabbing for Susan's attention, and she gives it – even though, some days she's not sure which real world it is. She lives in this one, though, and she lives as if there weren't any other. The quiet panic stays. Time ticks on, and she stuffs away her wishes and hopes when she gets out of bed in the mornings. It takes years for her to stop peering suspiciously at any wardrobe she comes across, or to stop stepping up close to a striking painting, wondering secretly if the colors know how to dance. Years pass, and sometimes the thought never crosses her mind. Not in the daylight hours.
Susan dreams, though.
.
.
.
There's a noise, and a jerking feeling.
Then, they're walking through trees - the forest dances around them, and sunlight pierces down through the leaves to greet them. The world is bright greens and blues and the gentle brush of warm, spring breeze on young skin; the ground is comforting on weary feet, and laughter rings through the air. Lucy giggles joyously, and Peter grins broadly, and Edmund's eyes sparkle. They all grasp hands, hugging one another tightly, marveling at the feeling of the world around them.
It's Lucy who stills finally, looking around at the dancing trees and the blinding skies. Her smile fades, and the laughter drifts away on the breeze. She turns to her brothers, frowning.
"Where's Susan?"
*For those of you who don't know (and I know that there are a few out there, as I was once one of those people who didn't read the last book), according to C.S. Lewis and in canon, three of the Pevensie children (Peter, Edmund, and Lucy) as well as Eustace, Jill, Digory, and Polly died in a train wreck. Susan was the only one who wasn't killed.