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Introducing Susan Pevensie
Oct. 31st, 2023 11:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quote_gentle_unquoteSusan misses them all terribly. Edmund, and his quiet, thoughtful ways; his keen eye toward justice. Peter, tall and commanding even when covered in dust from all his old books. Ah, but she misses Lucy the most. Lucy, whose brightness and gaiety and steadfast faith were effervescent to behold: Lucy dancing in the kitchen of the sensible flat Susan shared with a roommate, Lucy gasping over a clutch of narcissus struggling to grow in a park in the city, Lucy turning with a quick smile to point out something only she could possibly see as a novelty.
Sometimes, when Susan misses Lucy the most, she'll go to the library and read books about girls who strike out against what's expected or wanted of them to do what's right. Girls who face down the tyrant to save the village, not one single dollop of fear surfacing in the moment to hold them back. She puts them down when her hands start to shake, and picks them up again when the ache at the center of her grows too fierce to hold.
Susan thought she had been doing the right thing. Cautioning her brothers and her sister from getting caught up again in the childish fantasies they clung to so long ago (understandably, perhaps, but no less concerning) to get them through the horrors of the long, cold war. She'd refused to participate in this most recent turn. She'd had a date, or maybe it was just a dance with some friends, or maybe a night-class. Her world has been hollowed out since; she doesn't remember.
There are moments when Susan feels as if her life is superimposed upon itself. It's like she can remember herself growing older, and taller; courting wonder and beauty and being called "gentle" despite her persistent, unrelenting clutch on logic. Like there is a world out there where she is lionhearted; beloved; a force to be reckoned with and cherished for her status.
But that's hogwash; that's her own stubborn grasp toward those same childhood fantasies that killed her family. She is not that woman. She's harsh at times; desperate at others. She has her logic still, and her beauty, but when she wakes up from dreams where little Lucy is allowed to grow old, her beautiful grin etching lines permanently into her face, suitors coming from across foreign seas to vie for Susan's hand, she is only alone, and can spare no ounce of her remaining wherewithal toward gentleness. She wants to set her face forward and live; she wants to reach back to her brothers and her parents and darling, dear Lucy and follow them into the darkness.
At the deepest end of sorrow, when you have no tears left to cry, all that is left is a quietness. Time stretches thin and endlessly long. It has been months since Susan buried her entire family, and will be months still until she can breathe without feeling like an arrow has stabbed her through the chest. She has set her nylons and lipsticks aside for the time being, and replaced them with funereal black; her calling-card is empty and set aside while she wanders, aimless, through the barest of routines.
And yet, almost without realizing it, she has found herself opening doorways. To closets, to kitchens, to the bath-rooms of her friends, to the poorly-latched garden-sheds in all the great parks. She turns the knobs firmly, with conviction, and pulls the doors soundly open. She doesn't know what she's looking for; it's not as if she'll be able to open Miriam's bedroom door and find a strange new world where her family is waiting on the other side.
But she cannot stop herself.
Today, again with trembling hands, she sets down her book (about another silly, determined girl saving her village with a heart full of ideals and forthright conviction in her own choices) and goes to the library's washroom. Not heeding the far-off sound of some horn blowing outside, she opens the door firmly, and steps through briskly...
...into a well-lit hallway of an unfamiliar house.
[Those who run into her will find a young woman, barely twenty-two, who holds herself like she is at least twice that age. Her long black hair has been braided into a crown around her head; her plain mourning dress is the same color. Her face is washed out, wan from sorrow and too little time spent outside. Still, there is a steely look in her eye, a determined set to her mouth, and a truly fabulous pair of heeled boots on her feet.]
Sometimes, when Susan misses Lucy the most, she'll go to the library and read books about girls who strike out against what's expected or wanted of them to do what's right. Girls who face down the tyrant to save the village, not one single dollop of fear surfacing in the moment to hold them back. She puts them down when her hands start to shake, and picks them up again when the ache at the center of her grows too fierce to hold.
Susan thought she had been doing the right thing. Cautioning her brothers and her sister from getting caught up again in the childish fantasies they clung to so long ago (understandably, perhaps, but no less concerning) to get them through the horrors of the long, cold war. She'd refused to participate in this most recent turn. She'd had a date, or maybe it was just a dance with some friends, or maybe a night-class. Her world has been hollowed out since; she doesn't remember.
There are moments when Susan feels as if her life is superimposed upon itself. It's like she can remember herself growing older, and taller; courting wonder and beauty and being called "gentle" despite her persistent, unrelenting clutch on logic. Like there is a world out there where she is lionhearted; beloved; a force to be reckoned with and cherished for her status.
But that's hogwash; that's her own stubborn grasp toward those same childhood fantasies that killed her family. She is not that woman. She's harsh at times; desperate at others. She has her logic still, and her beauty, but when she wakes up from dreams where little Lucy is allowed to grow old, her beautiful grin etching lines permanently into her face, suitors coming from across foreign seas to vie for Susan's hand, she is only alone, and can spare no ounce of her remaining wherewithal toward gentleness. She wants to set her face forward and live; she wants to reach back to her brothers and her parents and darling, dear Lucy and follow them into the darkness.
At the deepest end of sorrow, when you have no tears left to cry, all that is left is a quietness. Time stretches thin and endlessly long. It has been months since Susan buried her entire family, and will be months still until she can breathe without feeling like an arrow has stabbed her through the chest. She has set her nylons and lipsticks aside for the time being, and replaced them with funereal black; her calling-card is empty and set aside while she wanders, aimless, through the barest of routines.
And yet, almost without realizing it, she has found herself opening doorways. To closets, to kitchens, to the bath-rooms of her friends, to the poorly-latched garden-sheds in all the great parks. She turns the knobs firmly, with conviction, and pulls the doors soundly open. She doesn't know what she's looking for; it's not as if she'll be able to open Miriam's bedroom door and find a strange new world where her family is waiting on the other side.
But she cannot stop herself.
Today, again with trembling hands, she sets down her book (about another silly, determined girl saving her village with a heart full of ideals and forthright conviction in her own choices) and goes to the library's washroom. Not heeding the far-off sound of some horn blowing outside, she opens the door firmly, and steps through briskly...
...into a well-lit hallway of an unfamiliar house.
[Those who run into her will find a young woman, barely twenty-two, who holds herself like she is at least twice that age. Her long black hair has been braided into a crown around her head; her plain mourning dress is the same color. Her face is washed out, wan from sorrow and too little time spent outside. Still, there is a steely look in her eye, a determined set to her mouth, and a truly fabulous pair of heeled boots on her feet.]
