"Then, after a bit, Susan came down the tree. She and Peter felt pretty shaky when they met and I won't say there wasn't kissing and crying on both sides. But in Narnia no one thinks any the worse of you for that." – CS Lewis
(BTW, this is Edmund's POV)
To be honest, I'd always paid a little more attention to Susan. In my eyes, she was a little more like me than the rest of our siblings. She was slightly dark, and though she never betrayed our group as I had, she was the one who focused on reason, the one who tended to doubt. If our older brother was golden, if our younger sister was innocent, then it was obvious that in comparison that we both lacked these traits.
Partially as a result of this reasoning, though she was older than me, I felt a need to protect Susan. She was vulnerable in a way only she could be, and I didn't want her to fall prey to the same evils I had. So I kept attention to her whereabouts, when she left, who she left with.
From this, I slowly began to notice a pattern that I would have never noticed before: Peter and Susan. Not just as siblings, but as…more. I attribute my knowledge of the relationship between the two high rulers of Narnia to my close attention to Susan, but then again, Lucy was the only other person close enough to them to also notice. However, she was and probably will forever be too innocent to understand such love – especially not this dangerous, darker type.
I think I first noticed it when Peter saved Susan from the wolf, a time long ago. There was something in the way he treated her, oh-so-preciously, as if he were afraid she'd break. The tears and kisses, they were things that shouldn't have been so awkward between siblings, but they were. These were the things I noted at the time, as young as I was.
As I grew older, I noticed more. There was a look of understanding that often passed between the too, the sense that I wasn't in on something. But it wasn't the type of scary sense that, as a child, I would have felt meant a trick was being played on me. No, the sense was actually comforting in its own sort of way, and consequentially, I dismissed it. The High King and Queen of Narnia would disappear to some secluded place together, only to emerge hours later. However, this turn in discussion borders uncomfortable for me to reflect upon, and that is all I care to note about that.
I won't be explicit on my knowledge of the relationship between my older brother and sister, but I suppose from the information I've detailed, it should be pretty obvious the sort of relationship the two had.
Later, realizing how much this knowledge meant to my understanding of Susan, I regret not doing more for her after Narnia, after Peter mysteriously forgot. But returning from Narnia once more, I was a child again, and I owe my irresponsibility to my inability to understand such things, such love, any longer.
I admit, I often grew angry with her denial of Narnia, of our other lives. The connection between her forgetting Narnia, her relationship with Peter in Narnia, and even her quiet sobs during the night were not apparent to me then, though I see it now.
But, to make up for my mistakes, my inaction, I hope to do something now. To save my sister, Susan. I hope to make Peter remember. I hope to bring Susan back to Narnia, this time, for good.