She had not forgotten Narnia, for as Aslan himself said, "Once a King or Queen of Narnia, always a King or Queen."
She was the Gentle Queen, as Radiant as the Southern Sun and as graceful as the lily. It was in her blood, her very being, and to the day she died, she would live the way she believed Aslan had commanded her to do. It took quite a while for her to understand what the Great Lion truly meant, but when she did, Susan wept with joy.
"I understand now, I do," Susan had murmured in the night, her spirit renewed and her purpose found.
England and the Earth may not have the same kind of magic that Narnia had, but it was the world that Susan was meant to live in, at least for a time. Her circle in society may not have any need for a Queen, but it would always need gentleness, the kind only a Queen could have.
And so she did.
It was the little things that meant the most. A gentle smile to the little girl who doubted herself. A kind touch to the woman who lost her husband. A warm conversation with the elderly grandmother who spent most days alone. Radiant laughter that lifted her friends' spirits in the turbulences of adolescence where they weren't children, but not quite adults either.
She did not wear a crown of golden flowers or braid white blossoms into her hair, but she was no less a regal Queen.
Sometimes, when Lucy would animatedly describe to Susan of their talking friends, their beloved tea parties, and the sweetness of summer, the memories swirled back so vividly that Susan could see and hear them. Then they'd return to what they actually were, memories, and it was not always a happy feeling.
"Oh Susan, don't you remember when Mrs. Beaver would make us her honeycomb biscuits? How she could make them so sweet and fluffy, I could never tell how!" Lucy smiled as warmly and brightly as the glistening eastern sea.
She was saddened when Lucy took her silence as a refusal to participate in sharing of their wonderful times.
"Stories, they are, Lucy, do not lose yourself to them," Susan gently reminded her sister. For she was the Gentle Queen, and always would she try to be regal and gentle in her truths and bearing.
Her answers did not typically satisfy her younger sister.
Lucy, her valiant sister, had been the very heart of Narnia, the light that warmed the land and the joy that kept Narnia good and kind. She was the Queen who inspired bravery and goodwill in whoever met the youngest sister.
That had not, or ever been, Susan's role.
Lucy believed Susan had forsaken Narnia and chose to believe that Narnia was a fantasy built to protect their minds from the horrors of war. Susan, they said, had grown up, and preferred her lipsticks and social parties over the memories of Narnia. Some days, Susan would agree. She had grown up, and they still clung to the wonderful memories of Narnia. She had to grow up, for no one remained a child forever. She grew up but she never forgot. She grew up as noble and as a Queen should, and the world could not take it away from her.
She wanted to live. To breathe the air that gave her strength, to laugh at good days and to cry from the bad days. She wanted to walk her days with purpose in the time and place that she was given. She desired to enjoy the world but not to be of it, to do the very best she could to better her life with all the gentleness she was crowned with and the radiance she earned as queen.
She was not always gentle.
She was only human, after all.
"Lucy was upset that you called Narnia a story," Peter had told her, sorrow and reproach in his tone. "Why do you deny them?"
"Do not speak to me as a child with no ability of thought or speech," Susan replied sharply, as a Queen might when reprimanded falsely by her brother King. "I cannot live indulging in fantasies for the rest of my life, for that is no life at all."
She once skillfully smoothed conflicts between the squirrels and eagles, wrangled treaties from the prickly ambassadors of Calormen, and negotiated terms with Edmund with the Minotaurs after the Witch's defeat. Why then, could she not phrase her words more tactfully with her siblings?
She watched Peter's face hardened with grief and dismay, and he turned away. A sudden bout of anger had rushed through her.
"Why can't you see what we're supposed to do?" Susan shouted after his retreating figure, strong and magnificent, but did not give her a response.
Edmund likely understood the best, though even he failed to truly understand why she was not as vocal as her siblings in her recollection of their youth.
"Do you remember when we would play against each other nights after late council meetings?" Edmund questioned quietly as they battled their minds in chess. "You often said only Aslan would be able to best me."
Oh, Aslan. If there was one thing in the world she could never betray, it was the memory of Aslan and the command that he gave her. Sometimes, she believed it would hurt less to actually forget.
"And yet, you're currently losing," Susan responded, seizing one of his rooks.
"Susan." There was something imploring in Edmund's voice.
"Edmund," she smiled softly. "Our purpose in life has changed. This is our reality."
It was not the answer she knew he wanted, but it was the one she felt she had to give.
When the call came, and she ran to the train station, she doubted herself and her purpose.
"Why Aslan, why?" She cried as tears rolled down her pale cheeks, the fat and ugly tears that made her face all blotchy and her nose stuffy. "Why did you take them all from me?!"
Her grief burned furiously in her heart, like the raging River Rush and the wrath that had frozen Narnia for a hundred years. She questioned Aslan for tearing Peter from the world so young, for all the good he would have done and the lives he would have saved. For Edmund, his wisdom never to grace another soul again and his dreams never fulfilled. Why had Lucy been snatched away, her lovely light extinguished forever and her delightful laughter never to sing again?
It was much more difficult to be radiant when her heart was broken. She sat in the stillness of her house, five of its tenants permanently moved on.
"How could you?" Susan tried to reconcile death with purpose.
She had forced herself to church a week after the accident. Susan sat in the pew, listening to the sermon speak of love and mercy. Was it mercy when her whole family was ripped apart from her? Was it mercy when she was barred from Narnia? Was it love when all who she did love were no longer within mortal reach?
Hush child.
Warmth crept back into her chilled hands and her heart began to feel lighter. She had not heard that voice in years, but how could she ever forget it?
Was it not I who fashioned the stars in the sky? Who sang the world into being? Who summoned the trees to walk in your hour of need? Who commanded the waters to defend Narnia and her folk? Who are you to doubt my will?
She dared not utter a single word aloud, fearing she would break the spell.
Dearest Gentle Queen, do not weep, for you are not lost or forsaken.
When she went home after church, she laughed at herself for her foolishness for all those years.
"You must learn to know me by another name," Aslan had told them.
"I have, Aslan, I have," Susan whispered in the echoes of her silent home. "I have learned who you are. Forgive me of my doubt."
She had faith that she would see her brothers and sisters again.
When that day would arrive, she did not know, but she would be ready.
But a life spent awaiting the promise of something good was no life at all, she would be merely wishing her life away and not fulfilling the command that Aslan have given her.
Susan had been a teacher for 44 years when she finally retired from her profession and spent another 15 years being the "friendly neighborhood grandma". She never married or had children, but that was okay for her. Every single person she had mentored, taught, or loved was her child.
She moved to a smaller town in the English countryside. She sat next to her coworker's son when his mother passed away. She let the neighborhood children have sleepovers at her house while supplying them with hugs and hot cocoa. She attended many weddings for her students and many funerals as well. She paid for a stranger's lunch. She helped a daughter and father reconcile. When conflicts arose, she met them head-on, not loudly or boastfully, but with all the grace she possessed. Gentleness did not mean weakness or frailness of heart, after all.
"Ms. Pevensie?" One of her former students, now a prestigious medical neurosurgeon, stopped by for a visit of tea and biscuits. Despite being in his 50s, he didn't think he could call her anything but Ms. Pevensie. "May I ask you, how did you touch so many lives?"
Susan took a sip of her warm tea. "You can do almost anything with a touch of grace and gentleness."
"Yes, I remember you saying that when I was your student, but how did you come to that yourself?" He questioned further. "I try and try to act like you did and sometimes I can just never seem to get it quite right."
"Oh Daniel, there's your issue," Susan laughed softly and kindly. "You are not me, and I am not you."
"Well, yes of course," he wrinkled his nose in confusion. "I understand that."
Susan smiled kindly, "Once, the wisest of all teachers told me that I had a purpose on this earth, and it was my noble duty to live it out. I was called Gentle, you see, and it has been the crux of all my principles in my life." Her dark eyes, which had sharpened and softened with age, bore into her student's eyes, capturing them as easily as she captured the attention in a ballroom.
"We all have the same purpose in life, but we all have different paths to take to accomplish that purpose. Mine was to be gentle in my ways and as radiant as the southern sun. My time on this earth is temporary, but while I am here, it is my honor and duty to make the most of it when I can." Susan set her porcelain teacup to the side and grasped Daniel's hands more firmly with a gentle strength that he did not think she had. "You must learn to live with love. If you try, you can find love in all the places you go. You will not be led astray when you walk in love."
Years later, Susan's students would speak at her funeral, on a radiant summer day with white lilies decorating her grave. Of all the things they said, the one thing that was agreed on Susan was "she was always gentle and so radiant that you just couldn't not look at her when she walked into a room."
She met death like a friend. Susan's bones creaked when she got out of bed in the mornings, but she kept her back straight and her footsteps quiet, as if she glided wherever she stepped. She sat on her porch in the stillness of summer mornings, watching the dew glisten on the grass. The mailman would tip his hat to her every day when he delivered the mail.
"G'day, my lady," he would say, for 'ma'am' did not seem befitting of a woman of her regal countenance.
She would always smile brightly with a lovely greeting of her own.
Today she decided to sit in the sunroom of her little English cottage instead of the front porch because it was directly connected to her bedroom. It was hard to get out of bed these days, her body seemed to never move as quickly as she wanted. She had heard from her friends who died before her that when they felt their time approaching, life began to slow down, their heartbeats softer, and their eyesight dimmer.
She had never felt more alive. Had the air always smelled that fresh, or the birds chirped so sweetly? The grass was the greenest she had ever seen, and when she stood, her legs had never felt stronger.
"It's magic!" Lucy's words the day they were pulled to Narnia from the train station echoed in her mind.
Yes, she recognized the tug of magic as well as she recognized her own soul. Her laughter had never sounded more radiantly as it did when she laughed from the depths of her soul. Susan had finished her path and now, she was where she truly belonged.
"Welcome home, dearest one."
It was the sweetest of voices that first welcomed her to Narnia.
It had been many years since she last needed to, but she quickly dropped into a graceful bow, fitting for a Queen.
"Rise, Susan, my daughter," Aslan's voice (no words could describe the majesty of it) commanded, and she hastened to obey. "You have done well, my child. Now, climb on my back, for you shall enter the land that you have faithfully awaited with me."
Decades ago, she had ridden on his back to bring aid to her brothers fighting the White Witch. It was impossible for a lion to run as fast, as long, and as far as Aslan did, but Aslan was Aslan, he was the embodiment of the impossible. They raced across Narnia which passed in a blur, but she could see the beautiful creation that she had once ruled. She saw the Beaverdam, the Dancing Lawn, the fields of Beruna; everything was just as she remembered, and yet completely different. This Narnia was fresher and brighter, and everything that had been flawed was gone. And then, they arrived at Cair Paravel, more lovely than any other building she had ever seen.
There in the courtyard, were all of the Narnians that she had held dear in her heart ever since they first returned to England. She had held faith that she would see her family and friends again, when the time was right, and it had served her well. Aslan allowed her to dismount, her love and gratitude unspoken, but she knew that Aslan knew.
"Hail Susan, Daughter of Eve, the Gentle Queen of Narnia arrived at last," Aslan announced, to the jubilee of all Narnia.
She was glad to have never returned to the Narnia she once ruled, for this Narnia was far better than anything she could have imagined. As Lucy engulfed her in the largest hug she had ever had and Peter swung them both into his arms with Edmund's elated smile, she could only think,
Once a Queen of Narnia, always a Queen of Narnia.
The Gentle Queen was home.
I'm not the best with introspective pieces but I hoped to try to bring my own version of "the problem of Susan" to writing.