susan pevensie. (southernsun) wrote in fissuresrpg, @ 2011-10-01 22:21:00 |
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The first time this had happened, Lucy had just walked through a door and felt nothing. When she had entered Narnia from the Hub and eventually found herself back in the Hub again, she had still felt nothing that warned of the change enough to pay attention to at the time. But this time, it was felt, and not as a simple tug. The world spun as her feet felt suddenly compressed, an effect which rippled up her body in a disorienting way, causing her to yelp as the compression moved from shoulder to throat to head. The compression stopped, but the breath of relief was lost because she was weightless, falling freely for a few moments before she landed abruptly on the ground, flat on her back. Winded, she lay there on the blanket-like lawn beneath her and stared upward, struggling for that first breath. The light of the setting sun turned the far away clouds into radiant hues, but those were secondary to the glittering off to her right. Still seeking even shallow breaths, she focused on the sparkle in her peripheral vision. Water? Diamonds? Her heart knew before her eyes processed. Cair Paravel. Like the wind through the trees had just diverted to give her breath back to her, Lucy mustered a raspy laugh of joy. Which version of Cair Paravel it was, she didn’t know just yet, but for the moment it was enough to make her abrupt entrance worth the brief incapacitation. As her lungs filled, the laughter grew truer and brighter until Lucy was simply laying there, laughter ringing out around her, carried on the winds that smelled faintly of saltwater. Susan was tired, sore, and hot as she hiked her way out of the forest. For the first week or two after finding herself at the Hub, Susan had buried herself in searching for Lucy. But as it became more and more apparent that her younger sister was gone, she forced herself to begin focusing on other activities. One of which had been scouring the castle top to bottom. She’d spent so long denying its existence to herself, that she felt the need to get to know it all over again. And it was on one such excursion that she’d come across her bow and quiver. She wept at the sight of them, tears streaming down her face in an entirely unladylike fashion. Nothing in the entire castle held as much meaning to her, possessed so many memories, as that beautiful bow and it’s slim quiver of arrows. Once she’d managed to compose herself, Susan began training herself again. It was hard work. The muscles she’d built up once upon a time had faded, and retraining them was no easy task. She returned home in the evenings in pain all over. And when she woke in the morning, she could hardly move her arms for the stiffness. But Susan found she was enjoying herself like she hadn’t in a very long time indeed. So much so that she was even humming a little tune to herself as she made her way back toward the castle. Her long hair was tied back to keep out of her face, and her dress was rumpled and dirty from her last few hours of practice. Both her bow and quiver were worn strapped to her back, out of the way, but within easy reach should she need them. When she neared the edge of the forest, she stopped humming, her ears having picked up a different sound. She stopped, holding absolutely still as she listened. Laughter. And not just any laughter, but familiar laughter. Susan’s heart leapt up into her throat. Her sensible nature told her it was her mind playing tricks, not to get her hopes up. And for once, she didn’t give a damn what her sensible side told her. She gathered her skirts up into her hands and sprinted out of the forest, following the sound of Lucy’s laughter. When she found her younger sister on her back in the grass, laughing for the entire world to hear, Susan felt like her heart would burst straight of of her chest. Eyes filled with tears, and she was unable to contain the joy she felt when she yelled her sister’s name. “Lucy!” Forgetting any sense of grace or poise, Susan barreled straight toward her. It wasn’t so strange to have her name called out, as if this was Narnia, than perhaps it was one where she was recognized, and if this was the Hub, she had many friends and acquaintances all over. What was strange, in a way that was wondrous and perfect, was that it was Susan calling for her. Lucy would know that voice anywhere, and though things had not been easy between the Pevensie siblings for some time, Lucy had never stopped loving her sister with her whole heart, or missing her in the Hub or at home. “Susan? Oh, Susan!” she cried, scrambling unsteadily to her feet, just in time to grab hold of her older sister. Still unsteady from her arrival, Lucy just gave way to the weakness and fell back to the ground, pulling Susan with her as she hugged her hard. Like puppies the two rolled a few times in the soft grass from the momentum of their not-collision, and Lucy didn’t think about mussing Susan’s hair or outfit, whether her sister would scold or not later, only that she hadn’t seen Susan in a year and the one chance to see them all had ended before it was begun in being brought here. Still she didn’t pay much heed to her surroundings, but from what was seen in the periphery, part of Lucy was seeing and accepting where she was. It was easier to experience that sudden spike of distance disappointment, having Susan right here before her, for reasons too numerous to contemplate at this second. But soon. “Su, I’m so happy to see you,” she said, breathless, but with a thrilled feeling that communicated itself in her tone just the same. Susan’s feet slid lightly on the grass as she attempted to stop before completely knocking Lucy over. She threw her arms around her sister and held onto her tightly as her tears continued to stream down her cheeks. Lucy was here and she was alive and solid in her arms. Susan let out a ridiculous noise that was half sob, half laugh as the two girls tumbled down to the ground together. She loved her brothers dearly, and their deaths had left an aching hole in her heart. But Lucy, oh Lucy. Just seeing her little sister again, bright and laughing, she felt like she’d gotten a piece of her soul back. A little out of breath from the combined efforts of her run and her tears, Susan pushed herself up into a sitting position. She slid her bow and quiver off her back and set them next to her on the grass. Strands of her hair had been pulled free and hung messily about her face, but she didn’t care. She couldn’t take her eyes off Lucy. She was afraid that if she looked away for even a moment, that her sister would disappear. “I’d just about given up on you, you silly, darling, wonderful girl.” As Susan righted herself, so did Lucy. “Me? Oh Su, if you had any idea-” Sitting up had given her the chance to finally look all around her, at the castle that was so familiar, yet so clearly new, and the grounds that didn’t really match the peninsula because the shoreline here was very different beyond. She reached the conclusion within moments. “It isn’t Narnia, is it?” she asked, but she knew the answer in her heart as much as by sight. It was another disappointment for someone who had longed to be there again, even while she had put all of herself into doing what Aslan had wanted of them when their time there was over and even after she had learned what fate waited for her back in England, but Lucy was learning how to cope with that. However, it was Susan being here that kept her from testing those coping skills. “The Hub, then?” she continued, this time looking at Susan for confirmation. After all these years, and this many different adventures, it could be just as possible that this was yet another strange world. Susan watched Lucy’s expression like a hawk, and she could see the small signs of disappointment when her sister distinguished that this was not Narnia. She knew the heartache of missing Narnia well. It had broken her heart when Aslan had told her that she and Peter were never again to return. It was part of the reason that she’d worked so hard to forget it as the years had gone on. It hurt too much to know that she’d never see it again. Susan shook her head when Lucy spoke of Narnia. She reached her hands up and unpinned her hair, letting the dark waves fall around her shoulders again. “The Hub,” she confirmed. “I’ve been here for about a month, wandered in from the rain straight into the castle.” The elaboration didn’t exactly please Lucy. “A month?” she repeated, brow scrunching into a faint frown. Knowing so was upsetting on several levels, from knowing what it was like to be alone-yet-not here to contemplating how long it had been since she herself had been in this place. “How long has it been since I was last here?” Nothing around them appeared to have changed much to indicate any passage of seasons, but that sometimes meant very little in the Hub, where weather could change drastically in a moment or some areas remained exactly the same the entire year. While she knew Susan might not have the answer to how long it had been, she still needed to ask it. It wouldn’t be the first time decades and even centuries had past since she had last laid eyes on Cair Paravel, but Lucy fervently hoped that wasn’t the case, that those she had known weren’t long gone or dead. That realization would never stop being extremely painful. Susan ran her fingers through her hair, unknotting the small tangles. “I’m not certain,” she answered, her own brow furrowing to match Lucy’s. Sitting there next to one another, it was easy to spot their similarities. “You clearly weren’t here when I arrived, but it didn’t seem as if you’d been gone for very long. I found your belongings in the castle, and they didn’t appear to have been undisturbed for so very long. And then the others,” she paused, briefly. “Sarah, Lily, and the others. They helped me search for you. Even when it was quite clear you weren’t here, and I was being too stubborn to admit it.” It wasn’t even a fraction as bad as it could be; in fact, Lucy was exceptionally pleased that she apparently hadn’t been gone longer enough for anyone to have made note of a specific passage of time. “They’re still here? That’s brilliant,” she exclaimed, enthusiasm lightening her expression and lifting her posture. She knew there were those who no doubt would prefer their homes to this place, so it wasn’t wonderful in that sense, but Lucy found it wonderful because it meant friendships formed and people met hadn’t all aged or vanished in her absence. It was one concern now set aside in favor of other matters to discuss. She grasped Susan’s hand, a silent show of understanding for that stubbornness to keep on searching. She herself had never stopped looking, never stopped hoping that one day all four of them would be reunited here. “What where you doing before you found yourself here?” she asked, curious for the answer for comparison’s sake, but also for a worry that had an understandable reason backing it - namely, the future, or lack thereof in her case, that was waiting for them at home from Lucy’s last time perspective. Susan couldn’t help but smile along with her sister. “They are,” she nodded. “And it is.” She found she very much liked the individuals she had met at the Hub, and had no trouble believing that Lucy did too. Susan placed her other hand on top of Lucy’s. She knew quite well that Lucy understood her unwillingness to give up the search. Always faithful, she was. Lucy never would have given up hope. But her hand tightened its grip at her sister’s question. How could she answer that? Did Lucy know what happened to her? Had she been brought here from before the train accident? She blinked a few times, trying to make sense of her racing thoughts. “I was in America,” she said cautiously. For a moment, Lucy merely looked puzzled. America? It had been years since Susan’s prior trip to America, and her sister didn’t look almost seven years younger than the last time Lucy had seen her. That realization, combined with the way Susan was gripping her hand and the almost hesitant way the information was revealed told Lucy all she needed to know about the answer behind the answer. Of course Susan wouldn’t stay in England after- “Oh Su,” she cried, promptly bursting into tears, throwing herself into her sister’s arms. Though she had learned the truth while here in the Hub because of the stories, she hadn’t been able to even begin to imagine what that was like for her sister. “I’m so sorry,” she said, holding her sister even tighter. Susan swallowed past another bout of tears when Lucy threw her arms around her. So she did know then. Susan’s arms move to wrap around her sister, practically pulling her right into her lap. It didn’t matter that Lucy was a grown woman herself, in that moment, all Susan could see was her little sister. She hugged her tightly and kissed Lucy’s fair hair. “Ssh,” she soothed. “You’ve nothing in the world to be apologizing for.” She stayed there for a long while, holding onto Lucy and relishing how real and solid she felt in her arms. Eventually she pulled back and smiled. She tucked Lucy’s hair behind her ears and kissed her on the cheek. “Come on, then. Let’s get you inside.” |