Corrected a few typos, but nothing important is changed.
I don't own Narnia or its lovely rulers.
The Five Times that Susan the Gentle Cried
The first time Susan the Gentle cried was exactly one month after her coronation.
"Oh, Peter, this bread tastes just like the bread Mum's friend used to make, you remember—" and she fell silent, realizing that she could not remember the name of this friend of her mother's who had made such delightful bread back in Spare Oom. And as she thought back to her childhood, panicking as names and faces blurred in her memory, elusive and fleeting, Queen Susan fell to her knees and cried for the world she left behind, brushing off the comfort offered by her family.
The second time Susan the Gentle cried was in the fifth year of her reign.
Edmund and Lucy were sailing the Eastern Seas, serving Narnia on a series of diplomatic missions, and Peter had been called away to battle unexpectedly. It was the first time she had been without all three of her siblings for any great length of time. But Susan was no less than a queen, and she served her country well, entertaining guests, brokering trade agreements and peace treaties, and ruling over her people despite her loneliness. Her façade was seamless, and diplomats and visiting rulers everywhere marveled at the composure and flawless manners of the Barbarian Queen of Narnia. It was not until she reached her chambers, a month into her unwilling solitude, that she allowed the tears to fall, succumbing to the stress of ruling alone and the isolation.
The third time Susan the Gentle cried was when the Narnian forces returned, victorious, from Archenland.
For though the battle had been a great success, lives had been lost, all because she had been too blinded by pretty words and the charm of a snake to know her own mind and to determine ill intentions. Upon first returning from Calormene, she threw herself into reacquainting herself with all things so uniquely Narnian, all the things she had almost left behind, and for what? An unhappy marriage where she went from sovereign queen to unhappy wife, expected to be seen and not heard. To become nothing more than a pretty face who could do no good for anyone. And so, she took joy in her power, in her queenliness, and she reminded herself that she had been chosen for great things. It wasn't until she was faced with the evidence that people had died for her naïveté that the events of the last six months caught up with her, and she held her head up high, walked by the worried glances of her siblings, entered her private gardens, and sobbed great tears of anger for the foolish mistake she had almost made and for what she had brought upon others.
She renewed her determination to be always strong, to rely on no one but herself for solace. She would be logical, not deceived by her emotions. For though she was Gentle, she was strong, and could bear her tears on her own. And so she paid no mind to the gentle admonishments of Aslan or the concern of her siblings, straightened her shoulders, and returned to her throne.
The fourth time Susan the Gentle cried was the day before returning to Finchley.
She had staved off the tears while she still lived with the professor, hanging onto the belief that as long as she lived in the same house as the wardrobe, there was a chance that she could reenter the world she loved so much. Her desperate hope kept the tears at bay. But when she knew she was to return home, if indeed she could still call it her home, to the place where she lived when she knew nothing of Narnia, nothing of her own great potential, she turned away from her family and ran to the wardrobe, where she wrapped herself in the grand coats and bawled into the furs.
Susan the Gentle did not cry the second time she was returned to England. She did not cry when Narnia refused her reentry. She held her head up high and committed herself to living in the moment. And she immersed herself in trends and parties and found that silliness was a good way to fend off the heartache. So she ignored the disapproving looks of her siblings and she became a modern girl who had absolutely nothing to be sad about, and she quite forgot that she had ever known anything else.
The fifth time Susan cried was after she buried her family.
She didn't cry when she first heard the news. She didn't cry during the funeral. She stared into nothingness, hearing nothing, feeling nothing, until she opened her eyes and she was back at home with no memory of getting there. And when she opened her eyes, she realized she was alone.
She walked over to her mantle, running her fingers over a small lion figurine that Lucy had given her a couple Christmases ago. It was quite the silly present, really, but now that she really looked at it, she felt the ghost of a memory that told her at one time, the image of a lion had meant something to her, something important.
Susan the Gentle. She had been called that once. She had been named Gentle by a lion that looked not unlike the one in her hand right now.
Susan the Gentle. What was his name? No, what was His name, for this Lion was certainly a He, not a he, and a Lion, rather than a mere lion.
Susan the Gentle. She opened her eyes again, and this time she saw. She fell down to her knees. Aslan, she thought, oh, Aslan. And she felt wisps of memories sneaking up on her, memories of white beaches and blue rivers and Dancing Trees and Talking Animals and a crown with yellow flowers.
And Susan the Gentle cried for all she had lost, and all that she found in return. And this time, she did not cry alone.