Prompt: "siblings"
Pairings: Gen
Content warnings: N/A
Chapter 68: Aloof
As much as Peter hates to admit it, he was never really friends with Susan. That's not to say he didn't respect or love her, that they were not partners, or even that he did not trust her wholeheartedly. But he loved her the same way he loved the moon. Consistent in her inconsistency, equally helpful and troublesome, and powerful in her own right. Susan never meant harm but trouble did seem to follow in her wake at the most inopportune time.
He sits with her now and unconsciously knows they'll never be close again. Aslan told them moments ago that they were never to return to Narnia and it is the most devastating blow he's felt in his life. Susan, however, looks strange-not like she wants to argue, or that she wants to cry, or even that she'd like to hit someone.
She looks dead; not frozen, not hurt. Like Aslan reached in and scooped out something precious. Logically, he knows that whatever Aslan says is law and he trusts the Lion enough to think that he's doing what is best, but looking at Susan fills him with a sort of pity, which she would hate and that hurts too.
Aslan has killed something in her and, as her elder brother, he has failed her, in protecting her. He reaches for her hand, to comfort her, but she only gently pulls away and he gets the terrible premonition that it will not be the last time she rejects him. But maybe the truth is really this-they were never friends, because he rejected her long before Aslan or Narnia ever did.
