AN: I have always been fascinated with Susan's character. There seems to be so much to explore. And I love Lucy's line in Prince Caspian about the trees and how they used to dance. It struck me as a perfect metaphor for how Susan feels. This story focuses on the connection between that line and Susan. I've been having some unfortunate writer's block while working on another story, so I did what I always do when writer's block strikes: I drank some tea, played some Solitaire, and wrote something completely unrelated. So I hope you enjoy!
Susan watched with a sad smile as Lucy and Edmund danced merrily around the fire, the fauns providing enchanting music. Peter and Caspian had even stopped glaring at each other to watch the heart-warming sight.
Susan felt a cold band tighten around her chest. The scene was so familiar, something they would do often during their reign. Lucy and Susan had loved dancing with the fauns. The dryads would dance with them, and the mermaids would leap, spinning, out of the water as if to join in.
She sighed and laid her hand sadly on the tree she was leaning against. "They used to dance." Lucy's voice floated back to her. But now they were gone, buried so deeply inside themselves that they were lost to the world. Just like Susan.
It was so painful, being back. For a year, Susan had wanted nothing more than to just go home. Back to Narnia. Back to the people and places she loved. Back to where she was useful. Back to where she knew who she was.
But now she was here and it wasn't the same. She wasn't the same. She wanted so badly to sing and dance and leap about in joy, because finally, finally, she had returned home. But she didn't, because she knew in her heart she wouldn't be staying. And it was as if someone had stabbed a shard of ice into her chest.
Every time she caught herself smiling, or felt the familiar rush of home in her veins, she couldn't help but remember that heart-wrenching moment when she had tumbled out of the wardrobe and onto the floor. In that moment she knew she had been torn from the only place she'd ever felt at home. And it had practically destroyed her.
How could she be happy here when she knew at any moment she might be torn from this world and hurled back into the nightmare that was England? When she knew that every moment she spent here brought her one moment closer to renewed heartbreak?
But how could she not be happy here? Everything she saw, everything she heard, was like a soothing balm on her soul. The music of the fauns, the twinkling of the stars, the sweet scent on the air that was so purely Narnia.
She caught herself smiling slightly, even as a tear rolled down her cheek. Why couldn't she just let herself be happy like Lucy was? Why did her mind torture her with thoughts of leaving?
Her hand pressed harder against the rough bark of the tree, willing the spirit inside it to awaken, to prove that it wasn't as dead as she felt. To dance again.
"They used to dance." Susan used to dance. She hadn't danced since leaving Narnia. It had seemed wrong in England, because everything paled in comparison to Narnia. Everything seemed grey and lifeless. And in her heart, that's what she knew she had been becoming. Grey and lifeless.
The faun's music increased in volume and Susan stifled a sob. The haunting melody filled her head. She wanted to break down, to scream, to sob, but she didn't, because what good would it do? Why should she make her siblings worry about her? Make the Narnians doubt their queen?
Her back straightened and her mind filled with new resolve.
She would do this for them. For all of them. She would put on a brave face and smile like her heart wasn't breaking. She would fight the Telmarines like the Archer Queen she was and pretend she wasn't secretly wishing for the war to drag on forever so that she might stay.
She wouldn't show them how dead she felt.
She wouldn't let them see her tears.
She would hide all her pain away, just like the trees.
"They used to dance."
And maybe, someday, she would dance again.