Disclaimer: I own nothing, warning mentions of non-permanent death, miscarriage, depression and incest.
"Normal speech"'
"Book" "Old Narnian speech"Aslan's P.O.V
I couldn't believe what I had done, I couldn't believe that I didn't realise what forcing them to leave Narnia had done. I just sat there in progressive horror, as it slowly got worse. At the end of the chapter I could endure it no longer, I stood and raked my claws against the window desperately.
"Let me out, let me out, let me out" I growled, trying to force my way out of the room. "I can't listen to this" I said heartbroken.
"If you don't quit it I'm bringing Lucy here, 27 year old Lucy" Dionysus threatened. No, I thought violently. She'd… I didn't even know how she'd react. I just didn't want my Lucy to hate me. No, no, no I told myself, she's not my Lucy, not matter how much I wanted her to be.
"You can't do that" I growled hitting the window again, there was a flash of white light and there stood Queen Lucy the valiant, Narnia's Wild Queen in all her glory.
"There better be good Dionysus" she said holding her hands in her hips looking so beautiful it almost hurt, "I have spent the last week on the battlefield, I have not slept at all in that time, I am hungry, busied, bleeding and Susan shoved me into one of her heavy, frilly dresses that I can not breathe in so I could greet the visiting nobles in. Five. Minutes" her voice got progressively louder as she continued her irritated rant.
"I'm a God I can do what I like" he said obviously answering me, there was a whirling sound and a flash of silver as Lucy's knife imbedded itself in his stomach. "I was taking to him," he wheezed nodding in my direction and pulling the knife from his gut. Cleaning it and tossing it back.
"Oh, that is alright then" she said looking in my direction, "Oh Darling, what is the matter with thee" she said softly, striding over and dropping to the floor and folding so far into me it appeared that she was trying to fold into my very skin, ready to fight all the monster of the universe with a serene look on the face and win… for me.
"Nothing" I grumbled, struggling with the urge to purr in delight as her hands were petting my fur. Her expression changed to one of wild anger.
"Do not" she said harshly digging her nails in and yanking his fur hard, "Presume to lie to me Kitten." My answering growl had everyone scuttle back…
"Lucy" I growled warningly rolling to have her pinned underneath me, something that affected me more than it should. "Do not…"
"Care" she challenged, the leg she had not wrapped around me kicked out at the knee of my back leg. Giving her ample opportunity to flip me onto my back and lean forward to whisper in my ear fiercely, "It has been a long time since anyone's told you no, has it not Darling?" I moved my jaw to the side of her throat and line my teeth up to the scar from the last times in warning. She pressed closer into my teeth, proving the she wasn't afraid or troubled by my threat. I closed my jaw and her blood filled my mouth, so decadently sweet I wanted more, but I pulled away afraid she'd know. Know exactly how much I wanted her, exactly how much I loved her.
"I am not a tame lion, dear one" I said darkly, "Do not think for one minute think that I am, or that I will be manipulated in any way." She chuckled threateningly.
"Nor am I a tame Queen" she decreed regally in warning, "As you well know for this is not the first, nor I doubt will it be the last argument on the subject. Now I shall ask thee one more time," she said threateningly before changing her tone to one that the other Narnian's had heard from the Queen Lucy they had known, the one trapped in a child's body, "Darling, what is the matter with thee?" Her sweet words bellied her position, sitting on my stomach with he skirts bunched up, her legs on either side of me blood dripping down her neck and a hand at my throat ready to tear her nails though it should I dare to lie to her again.
"We are reading a book about our past, you're future and I ripped apart you're entire world" I said, my voice full of self-loathing.
"Oh, you are feeling guilty for something you think you've done" she sighed, "Do not worry, I forgive you… I shall always forgive you, no matter what it is that you think you've done" and with that she lay down beside me and closed her eyes. I sighed and moved over her so that she was warm and we were both comfortable, she fell into a deep sleep in moments. The Narnian's didn't exactly know what to say about the whole ideal, but shook it off when Dionysus explained it was normal for us before picking up the book and reading.
Chapter 2. SusanWe made it through our first day with Mother, a woman whom despite being perfectly lovely had managed to drive us insane before bed. I put in a lot of effort to distract her attention from babying my siblings to much, I felt I owed it to them after worrying the so badly when we came back. I had a miscarriage, and it hurt, physically and mentally. I'd let the cold seep into my bones and numb the anguish I felt, slipping into non-responsiveness, behaviour unbefitting of a Narnian Queen.
"That is so like Susan" Caspian comments, "To decree her reaction to losing… losing her baby as unbefitting and then to change her behaviour accordingly."
Dark chuckling filled the room, he was right that was so very like Susan. Lucy shifted restlessly in my arms, I wasn't sure if I was happier for having her here or if made the sting of how I betrayed her so much worse.
The next dawn we got up and took our weapons out to the backyard, Peter and Edmund began to spar. Lucy unsheathed her dagger and commenced to start a complicated dance slicing and stabbing away at imaginary foes. I began a dance much the same as Lucy's shooting of arrows to hit things that would cause no harm and leave no marks. It wouldn't do to make Mother suspicious, Aslan forbid.
"I miss them" Reepicheep said heavily, "They trained to protect us even before they knew the needed to"
"Weakness is not something any of them tolerate in themselves" Dionysus said. He was stating solid fact as well. Was it right for me, right that I pulled them out of there home because I couldn't bear to see Lucy age and die?
"Shall I make us breakfast" Lucy asked after we'd all gotten cleaned up. We agreed thankfully, sitting down and waiting more tired after a work out than we had been in years in Narnia. Soon the wonderful smell of Narnian food was wafting throughout the house, which showed how much we'd become accustomed to the liberties that the Professor had allowed 'us children'.
"How did they live through that?" Trumpkin asked, "Beards and bedsteads I don't think I could manger it"
"I'm guessing that diplomacy would be useful in that" came Glenstorms response. Censorship as well, I thought to myself as all four of them were capable of cursing a blue streak that has me blushing.
"Lucy Grace Anne Pevensie, what do you think you're doing" Mother shrieked in outrage raising her hand to smack her. I stood filled with rage, how dare she? But Edmund got there first, catching her wrist in a vice like grip.
"That woman" Dionysus spat the word with venom, "Needs to find her self a shovel and start to dig." Though I wasn't sure that anybody else heard him over the outraged noise that came from the group of us.
I was growling loudly in rage. Until Lucy shifted and muttered in her sleep causing us to keep quiet hastily.
"Do you really think that anyone of us would allow Lucy to cook if we were not a hundred percent sure that she knew what she was doing" he said in a voice so cold and so full of anger it burned, "Do not presume to hit my baby sister, nor any of my siblings ever again"
"She's lucky he didn't snap it," I growled. The Narnian's appeared to fully agree.
"Would he really do that?" Reepicheep asked, I suppose that they'd only know them to appear to be children. Dionysus snorted.
"The last person to attempt to lay their hand on Queen Lucy in an attempt to harm her ended up with a snapped neck courtesy of King Edmund" He informed them. This made them apprehensive, though if Edmund hadn't killed the man I would have.
"I am you're Mum, it is my right" she said her voice shaking with fear and anger. Edmund released her hand and she stumbled back.
"She has a point" a satyr said hesitantly, afraid of the response. "Look at it from her point of view she was just trying to discipline her daughter, so she didn't harm herself." I huffed irritably, but knew he was right.
"Don't mind him," Dionysus said smirking at me, "Any form of sense or reason that he possess fly's out the window when Lucy is involved"
"Not anymore, don't you ever raise your hand to my siblings again" Peter said impassively moving forward to set the table as Edmund helped Lucy plate up.
"Do you think that the threat was scary enough not to need an or else attached to it" a Dryad question softly.
"Undoubtedly" Trumpkin responded. Threats against his family do tend to make him quiet frightening, I thought reminded of similar instances.
She just stood in the middle of the kitchen tears in her eyes, but she wasn't our Mother anymore. We had to go through trials and suffering, great joy and tremendous responsibility all on our own.
"That is true, how can they treat her like there children again?" I pondered aloud, nobody seemed to have the answer to that. I felt guilty, they were the trials the had suffered for me, the responsibility I had bestowed upon them and in the end when the had found there place in there world, the joy I had taken from them. All because I couldn't stand to lose.
It didn't matter that we'd been forced back into our child like bodies or that this woman was trying to raise us the best way she knew how… Peter raised us, he was my brother come father and then brother again, and he was Edmunds husband and Lucy's father now… we weren't her children anymore.
"I don't know if I could have been that strong" Caspian said sharply.
"I beg your pardon, you Majesty?" Reepicheep asked in confusion, at the idea of a task that his King could not do.
"Be all on my own in a strange county that my three younger siblings had suddenly found ourselves ruling and still be able to raise them" he responded. It was a tall order when it was put like that, even if it had only seemed like the logical conclusion at the time.
"This look lovely" I say sitting down to eat, "Join us Mother?" She wiped away her tears and sat down to eat. She commented that the food was delicious, and unlike anything she had ever tasted before.
"There mistaking her for a visiting noble" Reepicheep said in amusement. "In Narnia you can just swap form a strong disagreement like that to civil conversation because the person they would have been having the disagreement with would want to be on there good side so they would let it pass" he explained as more than one confused face glance at him.
"That is really incredibly insightfully" a satyr commented lightly. It seemed there was more to the good-hearted mouse-knight than I had originally thought.
"What do you boys plan on doing today?" she asked, whatever answer she was expecting it wasn't the one she got.
"Oh dear there going to argue," Dionysus said cheerfully, "I'm glad I came to read, this entire book is utter madness and I do love madness." Being the God of wine, madness and debauchery I supposed that he would.
"We were planning to see about finding some work" Edmund responded, we had discussed it last night. The boys would see about work and Lucy and I would deal with the house. Mothers face filled with shock and outrage.
"Why would she be upset by that?" a Dryad asked baffled, "There trying to be a part of the household and do something constructive"
"They are her children, to her they are twelve and ten. She's just worried" somebody answered sadly, she was a Mother herself, so I think she wound know best.
"You are both children, there is no need for you to go to work," she ranted, "I know money isn't as good as it could be but still…"
"All the more reason for you to let them help" Trumpkin muttered under his breath. I sighed and looked down at Lucy, I wasn't looking forward to when it shifted to her perspective.
"Mother we live here to" Peter explained patiently, or rather patiently for Peter. "We eat the food, use the water, the electricity and we should contribute to the house hold expenses."
"What logical argument can she have against that" Trumpkin asked annoyed, "I'm not even there and I'm frustrated"
"An illogical argument" Dionysus said sighing.
"Shouldn't you be happy that were gaining a sense of responsibility?" Edmund questioned artlessly. Silver-tongued fiend my brother was, all parents want responsible children. As such Peter and Edmund left half an hour later to find work despite Mothers feeble objections.
"She didn't stand a chance" I said shaking my mane, "The only two people that can come between the Magnificent and the Just and there objective are the Gentle and the Valiant and vice versa." Nobody here doubted it for a second.
"Lucy, would you like to take the top floor or the bottom?" I asked her looking about the house. It would take a fair bit of cleaning and re-decorating to make it more like home but it was do-able.
"Do they have the right to do that without consulting their Mother?" Caspian asked, "I mean they've been taken from there home, suffered terrible losses and must be in a great deal of pain, but it isn't their house is it?" There wasn't an answer to his question.
"I was thinking that we could work together to get it done" She said looking around the room and frowning.
"It can't be that bad" I muttered, I'd seen some of the places Lucy was able to sleep, some of them were pretty bad.
"What are you girls talking about?" Mother asked wearily. I suppose she was supposed to have her children back now. Except she didn't, she was stuck with us grown up strangers inhabiting the bodies of her children… we who once were her children. We stole her happily ever after and I was sorry for it.
"How guilty would you feel?" Trumpkin asked, "They can't help not being who she wants them to be but they would still feel pretty guilty." Seconded only by me I thought bitterly, but it was my own doing.
"Oh, we were just going to clean up a bit" Lucy said with a child like smile, "Maybe we could re-decorate a little." Mother looked alarmed, but didn't have the time to say anything about it she was late for work.
"I wonder if she'll be able to find anything when she gets home?" Caspian asked jokingly, causing some much needed laughter. It worked a charm.
"Bye Mother" we called as she left. Making our way back inside we looked around the kitchen critically, there was a lot of work to be done and we had to get it finished before Mother got back.
"Why?" Dionysus asked, "It's not like anybody can stop Lucy when she decides to do something."
"That's for sure" Trumpkin muttered knowingly. I suppressed a chuckle, they had no idea.
We had the whole house done by the time she got home. Everything was toughly cleaned, furniture was moved, items were re-organised, curtains were changed, and our bedrooms were completely redone. Peter and Edmund things were moved into a single room to so they didn't have to sneak into each other's every night. Lucy and I moved in together to, as to avoid suspicion.
"How hard would that be, there lucky there sisters are so thoughtful" Reepicheep say sadly.
"No what would be harder would be the fact that at ages twelve and ten they can't have sex" Dionysus commented sympathetically. Everyone blushed and I smothered a laugh.
Many of our own childish toys we put in boxes to give away later in one of the spare rooms. The house looked so much better at this point, but there were still some things that Peter and Edmund would need to fix and the garden needed doing. Other than that it was so much better.
"They did all that in a single day?" an unbelieving exclamation sounded. There were many chuckles laughs at that, especially from those who knew of the resourcefulness of the two Queens.
The boys arrived home an hour before Mother and spent it laying on the couch together, relishing in the time they could have together as husband's not brothers. Nobody here would understand, and I hated that they had to be so unhappy.
"Does that mean what I think it does?" a dryad asked slyly.
"Knowing them it's a possibility" Dionysus said smirking, "Lucy never knocks anyway so they've gotten used to having an audience"
"Stop messing with them" I sighed, "But it is true, Lucy doesn't knock, or care what's happening on the other side of any door"
"Children, I'm home" Mother called, "Annabelle's come to visit." The boys quickly scrambled to opposite ends of the couch, as Mother and a blonde women walked into the lounge room. A blonde woman… with a baby.
"Oh, Susan I'm sorry, I am so, so sorry" I whisper shifting closer to Lucy. I hated myself, for that one moment I absolutely loathed myself. I had killed her child… in my ignorance and arrogance… all because I couldn't lose Lucy.
"I love what you've done with the place Helen" I vaguely heard the woman remark as I stared at the adorable baby in her arms. I placed my shaky hands on my stomach and took a deep breath, ignoring to stabbing pain in my chest.
There was more than one person with tears running down there face.
"It's not fair" was whispered in many corners of the room. It wasn't, I repressed the urge to bury my face into Lucy's body. Shame washed through me in droves.
"I didn't, what did you girls do today" she said halfway between awed and accusing. Lucy had come in from the kitchen, taken one look at the baby asked me to watch dinner for her before turning around to answer Mother.
"She is a good sister" Caspian muttered. She was, she was an even better queen though, until I took it all away because I couldn't share with him.
"Oh just redecorated a bit" she said happily, her voice floating back into the lounge as she made her way into the kitchen. "It lets in more light now." It looks more like Cair Paravel now, I missed home.
"They did seem rather happy to be sleeping in a ruin" Trumpkin said laughing, "I guess no matter how broken home is always home." It was I suppose, there was nothing that I could do about it now and I was sorry for it.
"Are you okay?" Lucy asked taking my hand, "I know it must be hard for thee to see a babe such a short time after, did you pick a name?"
"I wonder what she would have the child named" Dionysus said chuckling, "More than that I wonder what a child with Lucy for an aunt would be like?" I shuddered to think about it, that child though… they would have been loved immensely.
"Sherlock or Mycroft for a boy and Athena or Dawn for a girl" I whispered softly. She squeezed my hand, bringing it to her lips and placing a kiss on my knuckles.
"There both unusual names" Caspian frowned. Many of the Narnia's laughed.
"They are Narnian name, your majesty" Reepicheep explained.
"I wish that we had never left Narnia," she said simply, but it meant a great deal. Lucy had the most curious power over wishing. In Narnia they always came true, but they always had a terrible price. I looked at her baffled. "It doesn't work here" she said quietly.
"Of course it doesn't work there, I didn't know where you were" Dionysus grumbled, "So how was I supposed to grant your wishes?"
"You granted her wishes?" a centaur asked curiously, "Why?"
"Because her actions always begot madness, causing madness allowed me to always be able to come to Narnia instead of just during revels" he explained, "The only thing is the wishes I granted always have madness of some sort as a cost." There was silence while everybody absorbed that.
"Susan, come here a moment" Mother called, I sighed in aggravation. I suppose it wasn't her fault, she didn't know why the baby was upsetting to me. I made my way into the room. "There you are, you looked a bit pale a moment ago, it was almost as if you'd seen a ghost."
"Yeah, a ghost of a whole life" I muttered, finally giving in and burying my face into Lucy's body.
"I'm fine," I said demurely, puzzling on how right she was. I had seen a ghost. A ghost of another life. The baby let out a cry and I started almost violently. "May I hold her?" I ask indicating to the baby. Annabelle hands her over with a smile.
"I don't know if I could do that" somebody commented, "I have children and I don't think I could stand to be in the same room as a baby let alone hold it if that had happened to me"
She fitted right into my arms like she was meant to be there and I felt a small part of me, the part that had remained hopeful that this how ordeal was a dream, that I'd wake up in Cair, still pregnant die. I sung her a Narnia lullaby, silently grieving for my lost baby under the watchful and compassionate eyes of my brothers… I wanted to go home.
It was official, I hated myself… how could I have done this. I ripped apart an entire family because I was told in no uncertain terms that if I couldn't share Lucy that I couldn't have her at all. If I could go back and change it… I would. But I will never be able to fix this.
Done. I'm not sure if I'll update this again, if not I'll delete it. I've recently begun watching Black butler and it's given me the idea of borrowing some of their characters.