Susan Pevensie is, largely, a private woman. Most of the time, she establishes clear boundaries and then maintains them rigorously. The reasons have differed - in London, she never mentioned Narnia, even to her closest friends; at the time, she'd thought she hadn't wanted them to think her siblings mad. Generally, she doesn't want to be pitied; she also doesn't want to burden anyone with her troubles. Ingrid, of course, knew about everything save the barest mention of Narnia. Miriam knew quite a bit, too, but they'd been growing more distant, in the months before Susan's arrival here, and slowly, Susan had drawn back and let boundaries grow between them.
She has no interest in holding herself apart from Lancelot. He's seen her at both her best and her worst since arriving here. He loves her. Whilst Susan is still trying to sort out what it means to her that she's almost certain she returns the sentiment, what's more important to her is that he's her dearest friend, her closest confidant. She trusts him, is the thing. She's worked very hard at not having secrets from him, and the closer they grow, the more she wants him to know her.
But this - this is just a little embarrassing. It feels a little juvenile. Still, perhaps it will convey her headspace of late more than her fumbling attempts to articulate her thoughts now. So she casts around and finds the book and the paper that fell out of it; when she spots it, she climbs reluctantly from his lap to retrieve it and hand it to him.
None of the letters she's written have been particularly polished, but this one has more fumbled-over than the others. There's very little of substance, yet; by the time Lancelot had arrived she'd finished barely even a paragraph despite sitting at her desk trying to get words down for ages. In between the scratched-out words and sentences, it reads:
Dear Peter,
I hardly know what to say to you. In the end I think one of your pet charges was protecting the family from outside threats - starting with Maugrim and then expanding to anything that threatened any part of the whole of Narnia, rather than just me and little Lucy and, later, Edmund. But I think by the end I had, in your eyes, become one of those threats.
But how did that come to pass? When did I stop being your little sister Susan and start being a silly woman to dismiss and revile? I believe you must have hated me, but I cannot fathom why.
As Lancelot is reading the letter, Susan goes to her bookshelf and retrieves a copy of Plato's writings and Sky Island. She withdraws the letters from those, too, and places them in front of Lancelot.
no subject
She has no interest in holding herself apart from Lancelot. He's seen her at both her best and her worst since arriving here. He loves her. Whilst Susan is still trying to sort out what it means to her that she's almost certain she returns the sentiment, what's more important to her is that he's her dearest friend, her closest confidant. She trusts him, is the thing. She's worked very hard at not having secrets from him, and the closer they grow, the more she wants him to know her.
But this - this is just a little embarrassing. It feels a little juvenile. Still, perhaps it will convey her headspace of late more than her fumbling attempts to articulate her thoughts now. So she casts around and finds the book and the paper that fell out of it; when she spots it, she climbs reluctantly from his lap to retrieve it and hand it to him.
None of the letters she's written have been particularly polished, but this one has more fumbled-over than the others. There's very little of substance, yet; by the time Lancelot had arrived she'd finished barely even a paragraph despite sitting at her desk trying to get words down for ages. In between the scratched-out words and sentences, it reads:
Dear Peter,
I hardly know what to say to you. In the end I think one of your pet charges was protecting the family from outside threats - starting with Maugrim and then expanding to anything that threatened any part of the whole of Narnia, rather than just me and little Lucy and, later, Edmund. But I think by the end I had, in your eyes, become one of those threats.
But how did that come to pass? When did I stop being your little sister Susan and start being a silly woman to dismiss and revile? I believe you must have hated me, but I cannot fathom why.
As Lancelot is reading the letter, Susan goes to her bookshelf and retrieves a copy of Plato's writings and Sky Island. She withdraws the letters from those, too, and places them in front of Lancelot.
And then she waits.