Disclaimer: I don't own a thing. Surprise!

Thanks: Lots of hugs and cookies to my Beta Esther-Channah who is working hard to make this a story and not one big long epic poem (I over adjective, so sue me! Lols).

Notes: Not sure what to say that won't give things away. I guess the simplest way to put it is that I always hated the way the books treated Susan so I wrote her her own story. Its going to long, complex and full of surprises and hopefully different from every other Susan story you have ever read while still giving you that Chronicles of Narnia feeling. Reviews would be super appreciated. Thanks, and please, enjoy.

Chapter One: Dead, but Not at Peace.

Lucy lay to her right, blood pooling beneath the fringe of her short light hair, unquestionably dead. And there, she thought, though she could not be entirely sure, was Peter's black, silver-buckled boot protruding from a great pile of burning rubble. From her vantage, half-buried beneath hulking scraps of metal and concrete, Susan could not detect any sign of Edmund in the surrounding destruction that moments before had been a passenger train. There were many other people of course, and there were cries of pain and shouts of fear in the increasing darkness as stars began to appear in the night sky over the wreckage. Susan, for her part, felt nothing, nothing but a deep begging weariness. She was convinced that her spine must be broken. She could move her head, albeit with great effort, and nothing else. She shifted her gaze downward and saw a great splinter of wood protruding from her abdomen. Her right arm was buried, her left bent oddly. Bile rose in her throat, and she swallowed several times. She was dying, that was quite obvious to her, and now that she realized it, she could actually feel her will and life draining from her. Fear bubbled and then dissipated.

Memories of a land, a green land of wonder and magic, flooded over her.

Blinking at the stars, she remembered how clear and vibrant those of the other realm had been.

Narnia.

It was a prayer on the wind, rustling over the dead and the dying in the middle of the blackening countryside.

It had been several long, long years since Susan had thought about Narnia. The others had clung and pinned, Susan had lived. A love of adventure, born from her time in that land, had taken her all across the world, to many different places and cultures. While Peter mourned his long-lost Kingship, Susan had danced naked and free in the African deserts with a beautiful man whose skin matched the blackness of a moonless sky. While Lucy married and dreamed and waited and judged, Susan studied in ancient temples, traveled through forgotten places, and discovered what she could of the life she had been given. She'd loved and rejoiced in the world and its people, while Edmund brooded and rebelled, sinking deeper and deeper into a place where none of them could reach him. Narnia had been taken from them, yes, and the loss had come hard, but rather than wait for a Lion to save her, Susan had moved on with her life, made her own way.

Susan felt her life draining quickly now, and she felt a wave of sadness that she could not have seen her mother one last time, been surrounded by family, however judgmental, just once more. As the stars brightened, Susan's vision waned. She drifted toward blackness. Her life had been very full, brimming with love and experience, her end had come earlier than she had imagined, but she found no real room, nor reason to complain. All was well in her heart, and in her soul. Susan had not forgotten Narnia, nor had she ever become anyone unworthy of dwelling there, she simply, and profoundly, no longer neededit.

She drifted toward the all-consuming peace of death, until a light began to grow inside her. The light became a feeling, and then a being. And as she blinked, he was there.

"Daughter of Eve."

Susan, disoriented, and naked, trembled where she stood. She fell to her knees, and landed on something soft but invisible.

"I did not think I would see you again."

Her voice sounded strange and unfamiliar to her ears. It seemed to spark and drift in the space between herself and the enormous, magnificent Lion.

"You might not have thought it, but you knew in your heart you knew. Else I would not be here."

Susan could hardly dispute him. This was Aslan after all. There was a silence that could have lasted an eternity or only a few moments.

"My brothers... and sister?"

The Lion bowed his head slightly. His golden eyes were sad.

"They have moved on, I have given them to a land in which they will be forever happy, and at peace."

"They suffered when they could no longer return..."

The words hung in the strange brilliance, and Susan was shocked to see the great Lion look vaguely ashamed.

"My only excuse is that I had been otherwise occupied.... I did not mean to neglect you, nor your siblings."

Susan arose, feeling wobbly, as though she was a toddler, learning to walk for the first time.

"They are the ones that suffered. And though they scorned my attitude, I moved on in life. I grew up."

The Lion neared her, seeming to grow larger with every step, until he was a mountain before her eyes. And then, he was suddenly smaller, just two heads above her, and she could feel his hot sweet breath across her bare skin. Power radiated from him and pulsed through her in waves.

"I must admit... you were not the Pevensie child whom I'd thought to find, here at the end. I had believed Lucy, or perhaps Edmund, would be the strongest. But you Susan Pevensie, once a great Queen of Narnia, were the strongest of them all. And while your sister and brothers pass into a world of peace and happiness... I would ask for your help."

Resentment came first. What right did he have to ask her for anything? He had abandoned her! And he'd left her siblings to try to make their way in a world in which they no longer fit. He had taken more... more than she might have ever realized. She looked up into his great golden eyes, and she knew he could see her, see every single part of her. There was love and apology in those eyes. Her resentment burned brighter for a moment, like the sputter of a flame, and then the feeling was gone. Susan sighed deeply, resigned.

"If you ask it of me, Aslan, then I will do what I can." She bowed her head.

"The task will be hard, maybe impossible, but there is no one but you who can achieve it. I have asked much of you and your siblings in the past, but your missions then, despite their dangers they were the adventures and battles of children. In many ways Peter, Edmund, and Lucy, never truly grew. The task I would set you on will require all the perceptions and experiences of a woman grown and learned. Someone who was once strong enough to let go of a past and make her own future."

Susan nodded slowly as she floated in the great glowing nothingness. Her skin tingled pleasantly; it was hard to imagine pain and suffering in this peaceful place.

"But first," he continued, "I would like to do what I can to reward you for your efforts thus far. Two requests, and I will do what I can to grant them."

Two requests? Like... wishes? She, dead and waiting to be sent on a mission about which she knew nothing… to make two requests. She'd always assumed that her passing would mean peace and quiet, not crazy quests and choices.

"I never married."

The words spouted forth almost of their own accord; she couldn't even remember thinking them.

"Susan...." Aslan's voice was rough.

"You said anything."

"I said anything I could."

Susan swallowed, but she was determined. For all the growing up she had managed to do, there had always been an emptiness, a void that nothing, no matter where she went or she did, could fill.

"It is... all I want."

"Doing what I must with you now will be.... testing enough. To take two would be...."

Aslan broke off suddenly, and turned his head, as though he had heard something. Susan tried to follow his gaze, but all she could see was the warm soothing bright nothing. Aslan had been quiet long enough that Susan was considering breaking the silence herself, when he let out a deep rumbling sigh, which she could feel in the tips of her toes.

"It will not be as you would wish, perhaps. He will need to come into his own, and you will have to find him yourself. If you do not he will spend the rest of his life in The World searching for his heart and his purpose, but never finding it. So be wary, Daughter. Though I will grant you this desire, it is up to you to see it fulfilled."

Susan sighed. "Is nothing ever easy?"

Aslan smiled his great Lion smile.

"If life were easy, one could not appreciate it. And love is only found and made whole through trials and tribulations; only then can it be realized."

Susan shook her head, chuckling.

"Not even death can be easy. I was looking forward to some quiet time."

Aslan brushed her cheek with the side of his warm furry face.

"If you succeed my dearest daughter, all the glory of the heavens will be yours. The very stars will sing your name."

Susan wrapped her arms around his great neck and squeezed. "I would settle for peace... and happiness."

There was silence. Then, with sadness he whispered, "It would be yours already if were up to me. I would see you happy for eternity, Susan..."