I saw the new movie and reread the last book and felt compelled to tell the story that never told itself. It's a little dark.
X
I don't really know how many years it's been. Soon after, I could not help but count but it tore at my heart each time the number grew bigger. Now that the tearing isn't nearly as painful, I wish I had that number no matter how large it might be. I wish for a lot of things I'm probably better off without. I wish I could see his face once more. For real. Not the one that haunts my dreams. I got to spend so little time with him that it's almost unfair. Especially when Lucy and Edmund got to see him again, for even longer. She said he had yet to pick a Queen, but I'm certain that changed over the many years that's passed. I'm certain he's been dead for centuries in Narnia where time always runs far too quickly for my tastes.
I've tried to keep faith in Narnia and everything that we were; everything that we could be. But I'm not Lucy. How was I to keep faith when I could find no meaning? It wasn't fair what Narnia did to us. My brothers and sister might not have been able to see it, but Narnia tore us apart. We spent years longing to return to the only place that ever felt like home, but were always told we didn't belong. We were only allowed there when they needed us. And when we were here, our true home, we didn't feel like we belonged. We were Kings and Queens lost in a world that didn't accept them and all but banned from the one that did.
Perhaps we have meaning to the Narnians. I know we do. I remember our pictures craved into walls and painted into story books. I'll always remember. I remember everything about Narnia. Especially him. I think that was what had me doubting Narnia. I was ripped from him and there was no meaning for it other than Narnia no longer needed us. But did Narnia ever consider that maybe we needed it? I suppose that's the question I'd asked myself for years as I tried to leave Narnia behind. It was difficult, however. Almost comparable to leaving a lover. I did my best to walk away from something that didn't want me, but with a lover, I could look back in longing and have one last image. With Narnia, there was no looking back. We were shut out once we left and we were left to whim of the Narnians and their troubles.
I don't know if I will forgive Narnia for what it did to me, but I know Peter, Edmund and Lucy did. I know without a doubt that they are enjoying Narnia now. I suppose they weren't blessed with the cynical heart that I was. They were capable of blind faith where I wasn't. I know they are there and not here, even if their bodies lay beneath the ground before me. I buried them all beside one another, Peter in the middle. That was how our thrones were aligned.
No, I wasn't given a sign that they were granted a second life in Narnia, but I wasn't blind to what had happened. It was far more than coincidence that all three of my siblings, Kings and Queen of Narnia, plus our annoying cousin and his school friend, our uncle and his own school friend, all heroes of Narnia at one point or another, suddenly perished in one single train wreck. Perhaps Aslan had grown tired that day and decided it would be far easier to remove them all at once from this world; the world he banished us to years before. I know they're there without me, and I'm not sure how I feel about that.
I'm not even sure if I want to be there anymore. I would enjoy Narnia, I know, but how do I live with a man who might've been everything to me knowing he's since grown older and probably married? Probably with children too. I don't know if he was haunted the way I was. I'll never know if he wanted me as much as I wanted him. I can't assume that was Aslan's intent when we were forced out of Narnia, but he knew it was a consequence. He knew what he was doing to me, and did so anyway. I never underestimated him the way Peter had once, but I never believed in him so wholeheartedly like Lucy. Maybe that was my mistake. But it hardly matters anymore. As badly as I may want to know how many years it's been, I know there is nothing I can do to change it. I will never see his face again, and I doubt I'll ever see my siblings either. Not in what's left of this life, and not in the next. They'll still be in Narnia filling three out of four thrones, and I'll still be banished here where their tombstones will never read Kings and Queens of Narnia.