Daughter of Eve, Niece of Thomas
By JalendaviLady
Timeline: A few days post-The Last Battle and beyond.
Disclaimer: The movies belong to Walden Media and the books belong to the current holders of the C. S. Lewis's estate.
Note: I am going to try to do pairs of one current Susan and one flashback chapter released fairly back to back. I am a couple of chapters ahead right now but may be slow posting them simply to not end up with a giant time gap again thanks to Real Life.
Chapter 5: Job
Nephew of Judas.
She was pacing the house.
Nephew of Judas.
This was what people went to other worlds for? This was what he delivered them back to, because all of the Nephews had been saved with his blood, one way or another, in other worlds? This?
She was almost afraid to know how many.
No, scratch that. She was afraid.
Glenn and Mogie had invited her to come join the next meeting, and had even offered transportation there.
If that was what they had thought of someone like Edmund, what would they think of a doubter like her? Someone who would have died if she hadn't rejected everything... everything...
Everything.
Or she could have talked the boys out of going after those bloody rings (all the pain they had caused, in two worlds now), now tucked away in the wardrobe (Professor Kirke had left it to her, after all, and where else was fitting to hold such things?) in a locked cashbox. Aslan had told the Professor to leave those alone, she'd heard them talking about it! If no one had gone for the rings, none of them would have been there...
They would have been orphans, but they'd still have each other, and the Professor...
She curled up on Edmund's old bed in the room he and Peter had once shared when they were younger and cried.
If she hadn't denied Narnia, they would be alive.
Susan went back to the shop a few days later.
"Need another hand around here?" she asked.
Glenn laughed. "After the condition you left that bow in?"
"To be honest, the one I was used to was enchanted so that it would take determined effort to mangle it." She glanced around. "Where's Mogie?"
"Ah, he only comes in during the mornings. He helps me keep the books, and I don't mind him being around and pulling a decent wage off me." He fussed with a rack of arrows. "Besides, it keeps him busy, he could live off the family business if he wanted and his mother would let him."
"Oh?"
"Mogie's ancestors were marooned on an island centuries ago. When the island was found, his family came back to Europe and used what they had amassed there to get a nice start. His uncle raises hunting hounds, and Mogie is rather a natural with canines."
"How did he get a name like that?"
"Every world is a bit different. His had wolves, and Mranu was a wolf, so we tried to call him Mowgli but Mogie was what stuck." He stood back from the rack. "Now, an extra set of hands and eyes all the time, that I could use. And someone, perhaps, to talk to when business is slow."
"I could handle that." She smiled. "What was your world?"
"Mainly centaurs, some satyrs and fauns. That's where I learned all this, centaurs. Plains as far as the eye could see, and human settlements here and there where the rocks came out of the earth in huge masses. It was beautiful to see one backlit with the setting sun." He shook his head. "And now I've got old Thunderhoof to thank for all this."
"I miss our centaurs. Narnia had so many different people..."
"Well," Glenn said after a moment, "there's things to sort through in the back. If you wouldn't mind starting now, I could use eyes up here until Mogie shows."
"I don't mind. It's better than pacing and thinking at home."
He turned to go into the back.
"Sir?"
"Yes, Susan?"
"Just what usually happens when everyone gets together?"
"We talk, eat together, debate theology. If there's someone new present, she is usually expected to explain what happened in her travels. Not in detail, but enough."
"Enough to tell if that someone is a Niece or not, you mean."
"Usually. There's also a desire to learn whatever name he went by in that world. Sometimes there has been contact between humans and another world for hundreds of years, and there are other travellers who know the same sights to talk to, which is not your case at all. But yes, mainly to sort out the Nephews and Nieces."
"I don't have to worry about that." Her words were nearly half to reassure herself. Edmund was... Edmund was dead, and nothing in the world of the living could harm him now. "If I'm a Niece of anybody..."
Glenn raised an eyebrow.
"...then I'm a Niece of Thomas. I didn't believe, either."
He chuckled. "Just don't say that around the others, Miss Pevensie. We'll talk more about setting your employment up properly once I get done sorting through some things in the storage room."