Dreams
"What did you want to be when you grew up?"
Caspian tilted his head, surprised and a bit confused by the Queen's question. They were out in the orchards, sitting beneath the midday sun. Susan was leaning against his much broader back, her head resting on his right shoulder blade. He wasn't sure how they had come to be sitting in such an odd position, but he liked it. It was as if she was his comrade, and despite how much he enjoyed holding her in his arms, there was something to be said for having a trusted friend at your back. Caspian continued picking at the grass beneath him idly.
"What do you mean? I always knew what I would be when I was older, I was the crown prince," he reminded her. Susan laughed, a soft amused sound, and her hand pushed an errant strand of hair out of her eyes.
"I know that, Caspian. But what did you want to be?"
"I do not know the answer, my queen. I always knew, and never thought about how things might be different."
"Well, you're no fun," she pouted, causing him to grin and rest his own head back on her much shorter shoulder. Above them the cloud rolled lazily by, although unnoticed by the monarchs.
"Should I make something up for you?" he asked her teasingly, to which she nodded emphatically.
"Yes, you should. I don't like the idea of a little Caspian running around without any dreams," she told him, shifting against him and leaning more of her weight against him. He sat up a bit to accommodate her.
"Ahhh, but I did have dreams," he informed her, his voice softening. "I spent most of my days in daydream, just ask the Professor."
"What did you dream?" Susan asked, plucking a particularly fat blade of grass out of the hand that rested near hers.
"I dreamed of many things," Caspian said. "I dreamed of being brave and being strong."
"You are both," Susan turned her face so it was pressed against the curvature of his shoulders. Caspian chuckled, shaking his head.
"I have spent much of the last several months frightened out of my mind," he said self deprecatingly. "I did what I did out of survival."
"You did what you did for the survival of all your people, Caspian," Susan countered, humming to herself as she breathed in the scent of his hair. "Despite the cost to yourself. That is true bravery."
"I had someone show me how," he replied softly, and would have kissed her had it not taken too much maneuvering to do.
"Tell me another dream," she pressed. "Tell me something you've never told anyone."
"Dear lady, what I tell you I have told to no one. You are the first to want to know who I am, beyond just what I am."
"That's something I understand," Susan said, her voice changing just slightly, but allowing him to catch the tone. Caspian turned his head enough to press a kiss against her hair. "Sometimes all they see is the outside, and never care about the in."
"You speak of more than the crown," he had grown to know her better, and could tell the very few times she brought up thoughts or emotions from her own world.
"Did you know that back home I'm just another girl?" she asked, sounding a touch bitter.
"I doubt that," he replied softly. "Commoner or not, I do not believe any of your family is capable of being ordinary. That is unless your world is filled with extraordinary people much greater than us here in Narnia."
"Quite the opposite," Susan shook her head. "Back there everything is so… grey."
"Grey?"
"There's no color to life. It's like a school uniform, bland and stiff and unwilling to allow anyone to shine. You fall in along every other school uniform, and the next thing you know you are just one of the girls, with no greater expectations and no way of becoming more than they'll let you be."
Caspian was quiet for awhile, thinking about what she had said. Then he asked her quietly, "What did you want to be when you grew up?"
"Different," she breathed. "Alive. Free from seriousness and rules, able to live happy and worry free. And I remember the very moment that was taken away from me. I remember my mother screaming at us to get up, and Lucy crying because she was scared… I remember Edmund dashing back to the house for a picture of Father, and Peter running after him and then the sky lighting up with fire. I remember thinking that they were dead, up until the moment they were back. I remember the way Mum looked at me, and I knew I didn't have the option of being a child anymore. I knew I had to be an adult then, and that everything had changed. There was no more time for wants or dreams."
Susan realized that she had just said all of this, thoughts she had kept from even her siblings, and she blushed.
"I am rambling," she muttered, but Caspian took her hand, squeezing it gently.
"Please do not stop," he told her, encouraging her to continue.
"I would rather hear about you, Caspian," she said, deciding to change the subject. "That was why I asked in the first place."
Caspian smiled ruefully. "There is little to know. Everything of import in my life, with the exception of very few things, had occurred since I fled the castle. Most of it has happened with you by my side."
"There was a man before the King," she countered. "There had to be."
Caspian was silent for a long time. Then he turned around and pulled her back to his chest, hands clasped together against her stomach. The King of Narnia rested his mouth against her bare shoulder, not as a kiss but in quiet introspection.
"There was a boy before the King," he told her honestly. "Then there was the King. The man that I am is only now emerging, my queen. Because in your presence, I have not the desires of a boy but the desires of a man."
Susan said nothing but she did reach behind her, weaving her fingers through his hair at the base of his neck.
"What is this that we have between us?" he asked softly. "Because it grows in my belly every day, filling me with yearning for you. If you do not feel the same, then soon I will need to take my leave of you. I am having trouble containing myself."
"You seem as contained as ever," she teased him, although her voice held only the slightest touch of humor. His hands remained easy against her, his lips not brushing against her skin, merely resting.
"The boy and the King are well mannered."
"And the man?"
"Not so much."
"Tell me another dream," she begged quietly, and he wondered why she sounded sad. "One that you have told no other."
"I dream of the Queen of Narnia," Caspian whispered in a low raw voice. "I dream of my hands running down her body, bringing her pleasure. I dream of her lips burning over mine, of sweet kisses turned deeper. I dream--" he faltered, but her hand gripped his hair tightly, wordlessly pressing him to continue.
"I dream of taking her to my bed and making her mine. And when I am done, I dream of doing it again and again until she cannot fathom leaving my side."
"She already cannot fathom it," Susan said in a far off voice. "It does not take a bedchamber to make her stay."
"Then where does that leave us?"
Susan turned her head so that their foreheads were almost touching.
"If I loved you, the way you dream of, would you still let me go?"
"My queen?" He didn't understand.
"If I let you love me, will you still let me go?" she repeated, her voice wavering. Caspian exhaled a breath he didn't know he was holding.
"I… I do not know." He was unwilling to lie to her, and she smiled gently, knowing that. Knowing she loved that in him. "I am not one to let the things that matter slip through my fingers."
"Then perhaps, sweet Caspian, your dreams will have to stay that way, just dreams."
"I do not understand," he whispered. "Have my words offended you?"
"No. Not at all." And Susan kissed him. It was soft and slow, full of words that she never said, and full of dreams she never told him. Full of the woman he had never known, and would never know.
Her words echoed in his mind, flitting back and forth, even as she spoke the newest ones.
"What did you want to be when you grew up?" Not alone, not alone like this…
"It never would have worked, anyway." Yes, it would have.
"If I let you love me, will you still let me go?" I didn't have a choice.
Susan still left, their dreams be damned.