Disclaimer: No characters belong to me, nor does Narnia.
"What in the world do you have in here, Susan?" A lean man of about 25 with bright red hair asked as he heaved a box out of the boot of Susan's old car.
"I told you, Evan, just a few things I wanted to keep," Susan said as she took a smaller box from the backseat.
"Few things is an understatement," Emmy said, her voice muffled as emerged from inside the trunk with another box. "This is the fifteenth one we've unpacked!"
"You've been counting?" Susan replied with a raise of her eyebrow.
"Well, you know, there's not much better to do," Emmy said with a sarcastic sigh.
Susan smiled sheepishly and quickly took the box she was holding up the steps to her apartment and put it down just inside the door. Once inside she took a quick look around. The apartment looked worse than it had on moving day, and that had been a regular labrynth of boxes. Now, in addition to the massive amounts of furniture she had managed to squeeze into the 71 square meter apartment (a/n: aprox. 767 sq. ft), there was stacked at least thirty boxes, each balanced precariously atop one another.
"How in the world are you planning on fitting all this in here, Su?" Emmy said from behind her. Susan whirled around, startled, to see only her friend in the doorway holding a box.
"I'll manage," she replied hastily.
"How?" Evan asked from behind the large box he was carrying. "Your going to have to rent out another apartment just to fit all this," he said as he put the box down with a grunt.
Susan grinned. "Your right… perhaps we ought to take it all back down and move it back," she said very seriously as she surveyed the boxes.
The twin looks of horror on her friends faces was priceless, and Susan wished that she could have afforded a new camera so she could capture their faces.
"Oh come off it. You know I was only kidding," Susan said quickly, a large smile on her face.
"Good… for a minute I thought you had gone out of your ever loving mind," Evan replied with a well intentioned glare of mock annoyance.
"No… Not yet anyway. But thank you two so much for helping me do this. It really means a lot to me," Susan said, hugging each of her friends.
"Don't mention it," Emmy said smiling. "We were glad to help… right Evan," she said, jabbing him in the side.
"Oh, yes, certainly," he replied quickly.
Susan stepped back and smiled as well. "Well, looks like I have a hot date with these boxes… so I'll see you both around," she said hopefully.
"Definatley. At work at least," Emmy promised.
"Just ring if you need any more moving help," Evan said with a smirk as he left, Emmy close behind him.
Susan closed the door behind them, stepping around the boxes to the window where she saw them start down the road to the train station. She watched until she could see them no more, then turned and sighed as she looked at the towers newly erected in her parlor and dining room.
"What am I going to do with all this?" she said as she surveyed the mess in front of her. "Best start at the beginning," she reasoned after a moment, and went to the closest box at hand, marked 'Ed knick-knacks'. She pried open the top and looked inside, running a hand through her hair. The box was full to the brim of old things that Edmund had always insisted upon keeping- mostly train models and books of that sort of thing. She sighed as she looked at it all. At the house she couldn't bear to part with any of it- but now, the daunting task of finding a home for all such things tempted her to chuck the lot of it into the dumpster.
But as she picked through the things again, some were just too important to donate or throw away. For the rest of the day Susan dug through boxes, picking out the most precious items to be kept and checking boxes twice to make sure she had missed nothing. Lucy's necklace, Edmund's first model train, Peter's pocket watch: all found their way into special places about Susan's apartment. By 10, Susan found herself exhausted and though only about a quarter of the boxes were sorted through, decided to retire, since the next day she was expected back at work.
The boxes remained in Susan's apartment for a little over a month. All the while Susan considered their contents, weighing each item in importance, and from each large box pulled perhaps an item or two. With work, Susan could hardly afford to spend much longer than two hours sifting through the items, but slowly she worked her way through until no box was left unopened save one.
It was the box Susan had been dreading- a large cardboard one, of a grand weight that had taken both Susan and Evan to lift it up the two flights of stairs to her apartment. It had loomed from the corner where she had shoved it for the past month now, a not so welcome reminder of a task she would not relished. So, as was her habit, she ignored it until she could ignore it no more. She sighed and looked at it with a grimace. "Best suck it up and get it over with," she said, and resolutely went to the box.
It had taken both Evan and Emmy to shove the box into its current position, snug in the corner, Susan remembered as she fell onto her bum after trying unsuccessfully to pull the box from its position. Twice more she tried, only succeeding to tear the cardboard from end to end. With a frustrated huff she pushed back her hair and stood staring at the chest, hands on her hips, sizing it up. "How the bloody is it so heavy?" she asked aloud as she looked at it.
This examination turned up no more results than the one in the attic had- aside from the fact that the thing was positively filthy. With a grimace Susan took a nearby rag and wiped off a layer of grime to better look at the thing. A carved top she had noticed before, and made of oak if she wasn't much mistaken. She walked in a semi-circle about the box, as far to the left and right extremeties as the walls would allow her as she searched for a way to get it out. No immediate idea aside from cleaning the thing out came to her, so with a large amount of disdain she knelt and fingered the latch, noticing for the first time the lion carved on top along with S.P. in script. "Funny," she said as she undid the latch and opened it, "I never remember such a chest."
Opening up the chest was like opening a whole new world. The papers which Susan had initially taken for scraps were in actuality precise drawings of fantastic creatures, with rolls of scrolls lining the sides that when opened revealed beautiful precise hand in a language she could not place. Under these lay textiles of the finest quality- a cloak, petticoats, chemise, and the dress she remembered from last time. Holding it up to the light only revealed it to be more handsome and fine than she had even imagined it to be- and also, to her great chagrin, dispelled any hope that she and her siblings had ever made it. With a quick shake of her head she laid the dress aside and checked the clock- half past eleven, and work would be waiting for her the next morning. So with a certain amount of relief mixed with regret, Susan closed the lid to the chest and went to bed.
To Susan's surprise, the next day she could hardly keep her mind on work. Her thoughts so usually concentrated upon her work or the next social function drifted constantly to the dress that lay at home. For a week she avoided the garment like a plague, skirting it as she passed from the kitchen to her room every day and night, afraid for some reason to be near it. Furiously she tried to keep her mind away from the chest and its contents, going on more outings with her friends until she was so exhausted all she could manage to do when she returned was crash. Yet still the contents haunted her dreams- oft times Susan would find herself in the dress in these dreams, laughing happily with her family.
Finally the weekend came, and after a long Friday evening, Susan returned home to crash as usual. But the next morning, she could hardly think of what to do with herself. Quite against her will she skirted the corner of her dining room to the kitchen, grabing herself a cup of cold water from the tap. As she stood drinking, she stared out at the dining room. As she considered the dress, she chided herself. "Its just some fabric… nothing to be scared of," she said to herself, putting the glass down and walking to it once more. As she neared, she could have sworn it drew her in, beckoning, calling her to a land not her own, yet so familiar. Her hand ran over the smooth fabric, and before she knew what she was doing she held it up to herself, taking it to a full length mirror in her room.
To her great surprise, it looked as though it would fit, and even moreso, she wanted to wear it. She could hardly describe the feeling, save for that it felt right to wear such a lovely thing. Quickly she went back to the dining room and fetched the underthings, and returned to her room. Then, with the giddy delight of a child playing dress-up, Susan exchanged her own garments for these new ones, sliding on the petticoat and cheimise with great familiarity. A bundle of stockings she also found, with pretty ribbon garters, which with an eerily practiced hand she pulled on. Then came the crowning glory of the dress. With nimble, practiced hands Susan loosened the stays in the back and slid it on, noting how light and free it felt, and tied the stays tightly. She spun around happiliy, feeling like she had just stepped out a fairytale, and turned to the mirror.
The woman staring back at her was one Susan did not recall seeing in many years. Long deep brown, boardering black tresses fell down her back, excentuating her beautiful face. Fair skin with a rosy blush about her cheeks, she was a beauty. In a practiced fluid motion she swept down into a curtsy, her elegant neck bowing just enough for respect but at the same time aloof enough to make people aware of her importance. As she straightened, she turned to the chest once more, where on top lay the silver crown. Without knowing what she was doing, she retrieved it, and took it back. For a few minutes she only stared at it, then looked at herself in the mirror. With trembling hands she reached up and placed it upon her own head, gasping at what she saw in the mirror. Quickly she removed it, quaking, and her knees bucked. She knelt there, sobbing, in remorse and horror at what she had just seen.
For in those few brief moments that the crown had touched her head, Susan the Gentle, Queen of Narnia had lived.
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a/n: Well, that was very mildly entertaining wasn't it? (insert yawn here)Mayhap I'll rethink this whole thing, botch it and start over? Hmm?
To all of you who probably just died as you read that: j/k! This wasa pretty fun chapter to write. If you couldn't tell, I kinda got into it at the end. :) Will Susan embrace her true self? Will she return to her family? Will Emmy and Evan ever be in a chapter again? Will I ever stop writing these stupid questions in a desperate attempt for suspense! (The answer to the last one is yes, by the way.)
Oh yes, I wanted to give you guys a huge thank you for your outpouring of reviews. It was so awesome! 18 on chapter 3 alone. wOOt! Virtual huggles all around! Hope you guys don't mind, but I really haven't the time for personal shoutouts, since I'm cutting into history homework/practice time as it is. Whoops. You guys know I love ya, right?
Anyway, hope you all enjoied this chapter, and please review. Same 10 review policy! And I'm very sorry for the delay... inspiriation left until today. Guess I found it at the dentist or something..
Yours,
Kate