narniaexchange | love is the strongest choice for crescent

Title: love is the strongest choice
Author:

ladyairy
Recipient:

crescent_gaia
Rating: G
Content/Warnings: Movieverse, some angst
Summary: Struggling with feelings for Caspian, Susan receives a little advice from her sister.

love is the strongest choice

Susan remembers her coronation. She remembers getting her first period, both times. She remembers growing up, and receiving her first marriage proposal when she still felt like a child. She had gone to Peter then, knowing she had to refuse but not knowing how to do it so no one would be offended. But Peter couldn't help her with her changing body, and Peter had no advice when she first began to notice boys, and then men, in different ways than she used to. She remembers kissing men, and the feelings churning in her stomach before kissing men.

She is girl and woman at the same time, adult and child. She was known as the Gentle, but might as well have been called Queen Susan the Rational for her influence on her sometimes headstrong siblings. Peter and Edmund almost always came first to her for advice, and Lucy- well Lucy rarely needed advice, but she needed comfort, sometimes, and Susan was always there to give it. What would she say now, when Susan was so uncertain of herself?

Susan's already decided that these feelings are... well, impossible. She's felt the pangs of infatuation before, and knows the difference between someone worth pursuing and someone who she'll regret seeing.

And it isn't that Caspian isn't worth pursuing, perhaps more so than any boy-- any man-- she's ever met but...

There's a war going on, and the danger in Narnia is real. Her feelings are a distraction.

And say they win, which seems a dimmer possibility every day Aslan refuses (for Susan sees it as a refusal) to appear before them. They'll all have to go home again, the Pevensie siblings, and even if Aslan grants Susan and Caspian a lifetime of happiness together, it could be snatched away in an instant- brought back to that station on the underground, a teenage girl again.

She was just getting used to it, too. Her, and Lucy, and the girls at school, and some of the boys weren't too bad. Peter hated it, and it hurt to watch him and Edmund chafing at the bit, men in the bodies of boys. But Susan could let go, in a way the others didn't seem to be able to. She had adjusted to being a Daughter of Eve in Narnia, and then adjusted to being a Queen, and then a woman, and after all that adjusting to being a young girl again was almost a relief.

But now, Susan found herself wishing she looked the woman she felt. He admired her- but she must seem so strange and unreal to him. He had been raised a prince- she had been crowed queen quite suddenly after an otherwise reasonably ordinary life. He had heard of her as a legendary figure, a sort of Queen Arthur, when all she had really been was a person with no political or maritime training struggling with the help of her beloved siblings to protect Narnia as best they could from the outside forces that threatened to destroy it. He knew things now that it had taken Susan, and even Peter, the sharpest of them all when it came to ruling, years to understand properly.

The gap between them was enormous.

Susan pushed the thought to the back of her mind as she saw Lucy approaching with a smile on her face. Susan smiled back, albeit half-heartedly.

Lucy noticed.

"Su, what's wrong?"

"Nothing," Susan said quickly, embarrassed.

Lucy gave her a Look, and replied, "I know you're upset. But it might make you feel better if you share it with me."

Susan sighed, and held her arms open for a hug, which Lucy happily took. "I'm sorry, Lucy. It's just something I'm a bit angry at myself about, and I thought, well, that you'd think less of me if I admitted it."

"Is it about you and Caspian?"

Susan stared at Lucy in horror. "Am I that obvious?"

Lucy laughed. "You were so angry at Peter for not listening to Caspian, I thought something was going on. So did Edmund."

Susan groaned. Her siblings would never let her live this down. "I've been an adult. This shouldn't be so humiliating."

"But you've never really fancied someone before, have you, Su?" Lucy said seriously. "Not like this."

Susan looked down. She thought about the ambassadors she'd dallied with and the kings she'd known. "No. Never like this." Tears were building up in her eyes. "And I'm so afraid."

"Don't be," Lucy said soothingly. "Believe in Aslan. Believe that he's watching us, waiting for the right moment to step in."

"What if I can't?" she said softly. "Lu, I know you're completely certain in him, but I can't be. I don't understand why he had us leave when we did last time. At first, I didn't understand why we were back and still as children."

"But you understand now!" Lucy broke in. "To help Caspian. And maybe to love him, too."

Susan turned pink.

Without another word, Lucy hugged Susan tightly. "We all see the way he looks at you, Su. It'll be all right."

"I-I know," Susan managed, wiping away her tears before they could fall. "But what if we're taken out of Narnia again? What if-"

"It doesn't matter!" Lucy cried. "What matters is that you love him and he loves you. And Aslan would want you to be together, I'm sure of it."

Susan smiled, holding back a laugh. "Well, if Aslan says so-"

"He would," Lucy said, firmly.

"I suppose I should stop feeling sorry for myself."

"You should."

Susan did laugh then. "Thank you, Lucy. Perhaps you've always been the wisest of us all."

Lucy practically glowed with the praise. "I love you, Su."

"I love you too, Lu."

As Lucy skipped off to talk to a young centaur, Susan remained, knowing that whatever choice she made, her siblings would be there for her.

Original Prompt that we sent you:
What I want: I know movie verse more than book verse, so I would like something along those lines. However, if you are only coming up with something that is from book 'verse, please feel free to write it.

Susan is my favorite character, followed closely by Lucy, so something centering on one of them or both would be great. I do like shipping Susan with Caspian and Lucy with Aslan if you were thinking of writing something along those lines.

Prompt words/objects/quotes/whatever:
"I don't believe in fairy tales / But I believe in you and me" -- Wonderland, Natalia Kills

Image: http://www.unicornlady.net/legends/images/sunsigns.gif

Both within the family and without, our sisters hold up our mirrors: our
images of who we are and of who we can dare to be. -- Elizabeth Fishel