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Current Mood: morose

Entry tags:

interlude,
letters

.. [interlude]

A letter, tucked between the pages of an anthology of Plato's writings, stained in places with ink and a single ring of red wine.

Dearest Edmund,

Forgive me for saying so, but yours was not the most difficult death to swallow. And yet, the implications of what came after are the hardest for me to accept.

We were never the favorites, you and I. That was Lucy, with her fair shining hair and her reputation as the Valiant; that was Peter, who was the eldest and ~~for some reason~~ regarded as the most reliable. I know now that you spent fifteen-and-ten years trying to make up for betraying us once, as a child. I spent the same time too nervous and uncertain to truly commit to anything. And so you were called Just, and I was called Gentle, and we never quite measured up, did we? It didn't matter all that much to me when you all were alive, but now, sometimes, I think back, and I wonder if I mightn't have forgotten so quickly if I hadn't felt forgotten.

Oh, but that's not the point of this letter, is it? There's no need to point fingers. Let's see: In your honor, I am trying to be more stubborn. I think I might be succeeding. I believe ██████████████ ███████████████████ █████████████████████ █████████████████, but as it turns out, I had it in me all along.

Lucy visited! Several months ago now. I do hope she told you. I do hope she hasn't forgotten. The picture she painted of Aslan's country was- I haven't the words to describe my reaction, but it seems as if earthly cares, like your dear living sister, mightn't be at the forefront of your mind any more. If she told you, then you'll know now that I've remembered everything about Narnia. I'm sorry to you in particular that I forgot for so long - and you know how I am about apologies. On the one hand, I do wish I could have remembered before you died, so that we could have spoken about it together without fighting. On the other hand, I'm glad I didn't. I like being alive, and no matter how much Lucy likes where you all are, now, I shouldn't want to be there.

Oh, Ed, I could never keep a secret from you. I suppose I'll just come out with it, then: You'll hate me for saying this, but I wish you could leave Aslan's country. Lucy's faith is unwavering; to sever her from that land would be her undoing. Peter - I shan't talk about Peter. But when she told me you were no longer curious - that you no longer fought to understand what made people do the great and terrible things they do, that you no longer craved learning more, that you lost your hunger - my heart fell. Who are you, without your passion and inquisition? From what little Lucy told me, I fear Aslan's country has made you smaller. She said no one wants for anything there. That you have everything you need, and so you don't think to need anything. The Edmund I remember would hate that. We shared greater struggles than our siblings, and so striving toward our goals became as important as reaching them. ██████████ █████████ ███████ Who is Edmund Pevensie without the joy of working to some end? Who is Edmund Pevensie when he wants for nothing?

(Please don't think that I wish you wanted for anything. I have found myself in a queer little world where most everything is supplied for us - but there is still room to learn and grow. I believe you'd be suited for this sort of world ever so much more than how Lucy described Aslan's country.)

I did not say this enough when you were alive: I love you, Edmund. I think often of when you were a child, and I would read to you, back even before we first went to Narnia. I hope it has occurred to Lucy to tell you that I have met some of the characters from those story-books: Sirs Lancelot, Sagramore, and Galahad come to mind. Sir Galahad reminds me of you, even though you are very different people, and Sir Lancelot is a very dear █████ friend to me. ~~I think I lo~~ I care very much for him. You'd like him ever so much. He's quite handsome. I imagine you'd appreciate that he's quite handsome.

I do so wish we could have discussed that, too. I believe you might have had homosexual tendencies~~, like me~~, like me. But by the end we weren't discussing much at all, were we? I wasted so much time, forgetting Narnia. I shan't let myself regret it - you of all people know my policy on regret, though you disagreed heartily with it the few times we spoke about it. Oh, Ed, I miss fighting with you ever so much. It was never heartbreaking or horrible, like when Lucy or even Peter got cross or disappointed with me. You wanted me to fight back, and you gave as good as you got. With the others, when Narnia came up, I always felt absolutely horrid. Like I was shaming them in some awful way; like they were condescending to me. You just wanted me to defend my positions. You always seemed so heartbroken about it, but you didn't make me bear your heartbreak. You never accused me of only caring about lipstick and nylons and invitations, because you bothered to fight with me about it, and learned of my classes and my job and - yes - my friends and my dates. You let me explain that my world was more expansive than just one way of being.

I suppose I'm the heartbroken one now. When they asked me to identify your body, I almost couldn't, there was so little there. Sometimes when I close my eyes and try to remember you, it's all I can see. They'd washed the blood off, but I could still tell where it had gone. Your face ██████ ████████████ Perhaps it's good that I still didn't remember Narnia when I went to that morgue. If I'd known then that Lucy's drops were real, I rather think I would have ripped the world apart at the seams to get at them. Aslan once lectured Lucy for spending too much time on you when you were injured during that first battle, do you remember? -Did we ever tell you? Ed, it was never a waste. Aslan was wrong, so terribly wrong. If I had Lucy's cordial, I'd have put a drop on every injury I could see, and if that didn't bring you back to life, I would have yelled at Aslan himself until he struck me down.

I have to write you first, you see, because you'll be the least disappointed at how furious I am with Aslan. You'll just want me to defend my position, as usual. My position is this: I hate what he's done with you. You died, and in so dying, you've become someone who isn't yourself, anymore. Lucy will always be faithful little Lucy who loves Aslan with her whole heart, but you and I, we had questions. We had goals. We had journeys and destinations. I'd hate to rip you out of Heaven, but can it truly be a Heaven if you must be re-molded to fit in there?

And if you truly believe that it suits you... well. I can't help but wish you could come here, even for an hour, and defend your position to me. That you can't means that I shan't ever forgive Aslan. Honestly, Ed, I hope there's some way that you'll some day be able to get furious with me for saying so.

Love,
your silly big sister,
Susan

Current Mood: calm

Entry tags:

? [open post]

Susan is (as always) a woman on a mission.

It's much too cold out to spend hours in an unheated shed outdoors, so she's ~~bullied~~ entreated Lancelot to help her bring in box after box of papers from the one with the dog-house in it. Her favorite parlor continues to shape itself to her preferences - the lock from the day Lancelot was overcome by his traumatic neuroses is still there; too, the fireplace has grown larger, the seating more attuned to her preferred comfort level (a soft, enveloping armchair; a couch firm enough to offer appropriate support, and so on). Lately, she's transplanted an electric kettle to the credenza at the back of the room; the Mansion has since generated a wet bar dedicated entirely to tea; she's further supplied it with some fresh-baked biscuits. There's a corkboard in the corner propped on an easel where she's been compiling ideas for the first play, which is still largely contained to trying to guesstimate exactly how large a cast they should aim for based on how many people Nina might convince to act, rather than serve in behind-the-scenes roles. Slowly, she's moved some of the books cluttering up her bedroom to the shelves here - in truth, though this is a public space, she's started thinking of this parlor in particular as her room. She can't help but wonder if one day, a door will appear connecting it to her bedroom, thus completing her slow acquisition of it.

In any event, by the time she moves in the tenth or twelfth box, the room has generated storage along one wall: long, deep shelves perfectly sized to hold the boxes, bookended by built-in filing cabinets where she can place the papers once they're sorted. So she tucks all the boxes away on the shelves save one, which she places on the sturdy coffee table. Perhaps something inside will offer some clues, either about why they're all here or about what's to come. Today, the door is wide open; she will be glad of most company. In the meantime, there's a record of her favorite sort of music on the gramaphone the Mansion has recently provided this room, and she's swaying in time to it as she opens the box.

Typist note: this post is intended to cover pretty much any time between the body swaps and Dark! Feel free to have anyone stop by to rifle through some mystery silly papers with Susan... or to just chat generally.

Current Mood: scheming

Entry tags:

& [closed post]

About a day after the Mansion translator turns back on, Susan kisses Lancelot's shoulder and sits up to stretch some tightness from her limbs. Her hair, still damp from their shower earlier, falls against Lancelot's side in one big mass. "You're quiet today," she observes, brushing it out of the way. And unexpectedly biddable, but she shan't mention that as it's been rather a delightful surprise. "Is everything all right?"

Current Mood: cold

Entry tags:

@ [closed post]

Susan has been having the dreams with greater frequency, lately¹: Narnia ablaze as the dying stars sink into the sea, giant lizards and dragons ripping every tree and rock from the earth and rending the last of Cair Paravel's ruins into so much rubble, laying all that devastation onto the blaze and then dying themselves as the mountains crumble and the seas rise and leave nothing behind but an empty, starless black.

Nothing, that is, save an open door, and her family standing before it, watching the devastation, and then the door swinging shut.

I've been doing better she tells herself firmly, rising from her bed before the sun has even started to think about peeking over the horizon. The waning moon is hanging low in the sky; the waxing one has already set. She turns on all her lights against the lingering dark and watches them blaze merrily in her vision until she has to glance away, dark spots dancing in their aftermath. She still feels cold as a lifeless, dark world, but at least there's no denying that she isn't in one.

Then, even more firmly, she makes herself get up. She dresses warmly - those thick woolen stockings that join up at the waist (she has since learned they are called tights; the Mansion has been supplying ones lined in a thick, fuzzy material remarkably suitable for winter), a dress similarly appropriate for winter, her woolen coat and leather gloves. Her hair she braids down, not up, so that it's easier to wear a hat against the chill that is resting both deep in her chest and sharp in the morning air outside.

She grabs her longbow and her quiver in addition to the latest of her pile of books - it's good to have contingency plans - but instead of heading toward the range or the woods to seek out a place to sport with Little John, she goes to where she knows Lancelot practices in the morning, stopping only to fill a thermos up with tea. It is, she thinks high time to make good on her threat to watch him.

¹Thanks, Aornis!

Entry tags:

closed post,
janet

; [interlude/closed post]

After a few dances -- with several attendees, but mostly with Lancelot -- Susan liberates two bottles of wine and a plate of food from the ballroom and slips off to go find Janet. Luckily, after struggling to track Lancelot down earlier in the week, she's made a point of mapping the location of everyone's rooms, and so she doesn't have to search to find Janet's.

She raps on the door with the back her hand, careful not to let the food or the wine jostle overmuch. "Diplomatic envoy for Queen Janet of Fillory," she calls.

Current Mood: determined

Entry tags:

} [open post]

When Susan wakes up, dawn is just cresting and she is alone.

This is not news. She often wakes up alone. But she'd hoped, despite Lucy's insistence that her visit was only for the day, that her sister might return. She hasn't, though, and Susan most continue on with her life.

She bathes, and brushes her hair until it's shining, and braids it into its usual crown. She can still feel the remnants of her brief assignation with Liu Mingyan as she stretches to pin her hair in place, and she presses her fingers to a mark on her collarbone for one thoughtful moment.

Then she goes to her closet and throws open its door -

- and freezes.

Susan has spent several weeks trying, impossibly, to inventory the contents of this mansion from top to bottom. Ever since the undead rose, she's been looking for a bow. There's been nothing. She knows there's been nothing; she's checked in every nook and cranny to determine, without question, that there is absolutely nothing.

There are three bow staves lined up along the wall. Although her eye is unpracticed of late, she can tell at a glance that one is a longbow, one is a recurve, and one is composite. She's drawn to them immediately, lifting each one in turn, feeling the wood and - in the case of the composite - the horn, as well. Each is unstrung, but there are a selection of strings coiled and hanging from a peg above them. When she turns, there's a quiver full of arrows; upon inspection, their fletchings and points are varied, as are their lengths.

She trembles, aching with want. Dressing goes quickly, more quickly than she's used to - her nylons twist, and she struggles to attach the garters. So she discards the lot, and pulls on a strange, newfangled pair of woolen stockings that are made of a stretchy material that joins up at the waist. She pulls a warm dress over it - one with sleeves that hug close to her arms. When she goes to retrieve her favorite boots, she finds a supple leather bracer stored with them.

She forces herself to remain calm. Oh, she doesn't leave the supplies in her closet. After all, what if they disappear again? She places them all carefully on her bed, and then rushes to the kitchen for a light breakfast and to fill a canteen with tea. And then she's half-running back to her room, gathering up the lot, and taking it outside.

As she stands outside, near a shooting range clearly made for muskets, she learns that though her body has lost some muscle mass since her last adulthood, it still remembers how to string a bow. These are not bows for novices: They all have heavy draw weights, and she has to warm the longbow up with her hands before she can wrangle the string into its nocks at both ends of its limbs. Susan knows better than to dry-fire a bow. Still, once each one is strung, she situates the quiver at her hip and gives each bow an experimental draw or two, easing the string back into place once she has a sense of their draw. She is thrilled to find that she will need practice some before she can pull the longbow to full draw.

A fierce, wild grin spreads unchecked over her face as she fits her first arrow to its string.

Entry tags:

[pre-threaded] !

Lucy sits in the garden under a tree, eating an apple. It's a funny thing. Whenever she was pulled into the world of Narnia, when she was a living girl, she had noticed that the Narnian air worked strangely. One could arrive as a little English schoolgirl, and an hour or so later your mind would grow sharper and your arms and legs would remember the strength of a Queen.

Now, the place she's found herself is having quite the opposite effect. Lucy has lived for some time in Aslan’s country, and her life in England (or rather, the place she once called England, which is like a shadow of its mirror twin in Aslan's country) feels like quite a distant dream. But as she has been sitting here, her mind has started to remember what it was to be the living Lucy Pevensie. She notices, marveling at the novelty, that the back of her shoe has rubbed a sore onto her ankle and left a gray mark on her stocking. It occurs to her that it's quite chilly. Oughtn't she have brought a coat? Susan does fuss so if she rushes out without one.

And when she takes from her pocket the apple she brought for the journey, it is quite an ordinary apple, not one of the mouthwatering fruits from the trees in Aslan's country. Biting into it gives her such a queer feeling, like hearing an old favorite song that never comes on the radio these days, and suddenly Lucy very much feels like crying.

( Susan has been (dare she say it?), against all odds, settling into life at the Mansion. )

Thank you to Kitsch for playing Lucy - Reactions to meeting the two of them together welcome!

Entry tags:

. [open post]

Susan stares after the boy. Golden-haired with a sword to match, and a smile that held a sober weight under its brightness. He'd introduced himself as Magnus, and told some tall tale about gods and death and fighting wolves, and —

For some reason, this reminded Susan of Peter. The stories he used to tell, of swashbuckling adventure and fighting craven creatures that threatened his siblings. When she closes her eyes, she can almost see it: Peter, hair falling in his eyes, a sword clutched in his tender grasp. Too young; too horribly, terribly young to bear the weight of such battles. But then, they were already at war, and it grasped at them from all sides. Their worries could be made pretty and toothless when pushed into tales of that far-off magical land... oh, drat it, what was its name again!

Susan had made her excuses quickly. The boy - Magnus, not Peter - had seemed keen on chatting longer, but every word hollowed her out. There was a time when Susan could make small-talk with anyone about anything. Perhaps she still has the skill, somewhere deep inside her, but it has been set aside along with her pretty dresses and dates with handsome, blushing persons. She can no longer muster the energy, especially when her hands shake so fiercely she feels like they could shake the rest of her apart. Especially confronted, as it is, with finding herself in what does very much appear to undeniably be another world. It is unfair - unkind, even - that she should be able to travel the way her siblings loved to pretend about even into adulthood, while they're just dead. They get a horrifying, yet banal, fatal accident, and Susan gets what she supposes she is supposed to interpret as some grand adventure? She won't do it. She refuses. Being here is not a good thing, and she does not want it.

Her intent is to go to the Mansion's library and find a dry old book about something boring and uncomplicated. Something that won't eat at her, or reminder her of - of - of -

But her feet take her to the bar.

Well, then. When in Rome.

Content warning for NSFW in the following thread(s): Sagramore, Grantaire