Fic: The Winter King
Title: The Winter King
Author: westingturtle
Recipient: lassiterfics
Rating: PG
Possible Spoilers/Warnings: AU
Summary: “Well then Susan, Susan Pevensie,” the man extended one hand out to her, his lips curled into a promise. “Come into my carriage.”
AN:There were originally Edmund and Lucy bits, but then they insisted on following their siblings into Narnia and raising an army to rescue them and there was a duel and a PLOT and it all spiraled wildly out of control. So, for the sake of focus and simplicity, it was narrowed to just follow the two eldest Pevensies.
His suit was like nothing Susan had seen since the war had started, and she felt captivated by its thousand shades of blue and gray, its sharply cut cuffs and buttons set in military rows like her father’s uniform. She even glimpsed a saber at his hip that looked like stone but shone like silver. She did not intend to move, had frozen at the first sound of the man’s sleigh, but her quiet gasp of wonder had the man turning towards her.
“Who’s there?” he called, his voice low and musical.
“I am,” Susan stuttered, but stepped out from behind the tree. As he first caught sight of her, the mans pale eyebrows shot high on his forehead, lips pursing and Susan felt suddenly ashamed of her thick brown shoes and the not-quite-seamless repairs to her skirt.
“You are?” His pale eyes flickered briefly reptilian as he looked up and down Susan’s body before turning abruptly soft, voice lowering into kindness. “And who are you, my dear, out in the woods so late?”
“Susan. Susan Pevensie, sir,” she answered, a small bob of her knees turning her shy nod into a curtsey. There was a glimmering of ice crystals in his hair, a faint and glittering circlet like frost on a window pane.
“Well then Susan, Susan Pevensie,” the man extended one hand out to her, his lips curled into a promise. “Come into my carriage.”
* * *
After they’ve gone to bed and the Macready had checked their rooms twice, Peter hauled Susan out of bed by her wrist, dragging her out the door almost before she could grab her dressing gown or slippers.
“What happened today?” he snapped. “We couldn’t find you.”
“I thought that was the point.” She tried to pull away, but he held her wrist tighter.
“Don’t be more of an idiot than you have to be Su, we worried. Lucy was terrified, thinking you’d been kidnapped by Germans. Edmund was no help either, elaborating any scenario she came up with. I can’t believe that you would do something like this. You’re supposed to be more responsible.”
Susan felt a blush of shame steal up her neck, but pushed it away. “You’re not Father, Peter, you don’t get to judge me. I just needed some time on my own. And Lucy always- ”
Peter put his free hand over her mouth, pulling her closer, and just before she let loose the full range of her irritation at his high-handedness, she heard it: footsteps, coming closer down the hallway; the faint rasp of slipper against thick carpet.
“Doesn’t that woman ever sleep?” wailed Susan softly, before Peter dragged her through the house again, tripping noisily up a set of stairs and then shoving them into the first room that is unlocked.
They waited breathlessly, ears pressed to the door but the footsteps still followed. Susan felt expectation prickle against her back, a silent waiting like the air before a storm. She knew even before turning what it was that she would see. “Come on then!” she whispered urgently as the Macready comes closer, and ran into the Wardrobe, Peter at her heels.
Peter stood breathlessly under the silver-gray sky and for a moment Susan let him stare in wonder, let herself bask in the reassurance. It wasn’t her private hallucination, as she’d started to fear it would be. War drove people mad, they said.
Peter turned to her, mouth open in question, but across the snow came the shiver of tiny bells. “This way!” Susan shouted, feeling reckless, and took Peter by the hand to pull him further into the wood.
“Your majesty,” she curtsied, desperately conscious of her shabby dressing gown and tousled hair. The king smiled at her discomfort, than cooled as he turned towards Peter. “And who, exactly, is this?” The king stepped abruptly from the sleigh, hand catching Peter beneath the chin as he inspected him. “A handsome young fellow.” His eyes cut towards hers and Susan saw the displeasure in the tightness of his mouth.
“He is my brother, milord. My brother Peter.”
The king’s face cleared, and he circled Peter a moment with a new expression, hand trailing over Peter’s shoulders as he looked him over carefully. Peter stood silent, still as stone. “Your brother, you say?” He moved back to lean against his sleigh, equidistant from both her and Peter. Susan tried not to feel disappointed at the impartiality. “How many are you?”
“Four, your majesty. The others are asleep.” He nodded slowly to himself. “They’re younger than we are.”
The king looked up, smiled slowly at her. “I’m sure they are.” He stepped forward and took her hand, and she turned her head just enough to see Peter, face finally melting into belief and animation.
* * *
By their third visit, Susan had told the king all about their family as they walked through the intricate crystalline gardens: about Edmund’s sulks and Lucy’s flights of fancy, about Peter trying so desperately to take care of them all that they were slipping through his fingers like water.
“Like snow,” the king suggested, a funny smile on his face.
“Like snow,” she agreed, blushing under his scrutiny.
When Peter came, the king listened as closely to him as he had to Susan, although the subjects were different: the war back home, how long Father had been gone, that Peter had never held a sword.
“That, at least, is something I can resolve,” the king said, leading them deep into his castle. There, in a room whose walls were ice-covered metal and shone like mirrors, they were confronted with a monster.
Susan hade seen creatures about before, from the small bearded men who waited with the sleigh at the lamppost to the wolves that whispered in the king’s ear, but the minotaur was like none of them. Nine feet tall with great horns on his head and cloven hooves, he towered over them and she felt Peter grasp her hand, his body angling in front of hers.
The king’s sharp gaze took this in, and his lips twisted in a rough sort of smile Susan had never seen before. “He’s quite tame, I assure you.” One hand came to rest on its massive shoulder. “Otmin, this is Peter, one of my guests. I’d like you to show him some sword work.”
“Of course, your majesty,” the beast, Otmin, rumbled, its voice like boulders crashing. Susan felt Peter jump, but by the time the king turned to them he had released Susan and stepped bravely forward.
“Thank you, your majesty,” Peter said, accepting the sword handed to him.
“Peter, anything you desire, you have only to ask.” And then, just as Susan had seen her father do a thousand times before he left them for the army, the king clapped Peter on the shoulder, “Good luck son.” Peter’s shoulders straightened and Susan saw him turning to salute Otmin as the king led her from the room. “Otmin,” the king said softly as they paused at the doorway, “start gently with him.”
“Of course, your majesty.”
“Now,” Otmin began behind them. “The first thing to know is that swordplay, real swordplay, is not about honor.”
* * *
Six weeks after they arrive at the Professor’s, four weeks after Susan discovers the kingdom in the wardrobe and one week after the sword lessons begin, Peter’s arm was shattered.
A messenger came to find them in the king’s private garden and Susan stepped sharply back, away from the king and closer to the sculpture at the back of the alcove. He looked almost amused as he turned from Susan to the messenger.
“Your majesty, my lady,” the wolf began, and Susan had long moved past the strangeness of talking animals. “It is the boy, he has broken.”
“What?” she demanded, stepping in front of the king, “What do you mean, ‘broken’?” The wolf turned his attention to her and for a moment she saw a mixture of condescension and pity in his eyes before he snapped into the same attitude of polite servitude that all of the king’s animals have shown her.
“His arm,” the wolf answered, “and perhaps a few of his ribs. There was a regrettable incident in training. And accident of course.”
“Regrettable, indeed,” the king echoed distantly and Susan whirled on him.
“I need to see him,” she told him, her voice firm. His eyes flickered past hers for a moment.
“My lady, I do not know that one so gentle should see so awful a sight. It could be most upsetting. It would be best if we let the doctors work unattended for now, let them work without interruptions.” His voice was smooth, his tone like he spoke to a small child.
Her eyes have not moved from the king. “I don’t care.” The king smiled slowly, and there were prickles at the back of her neck. She did not look away.
“By all means,” he gestured without looking at the wolf. He offered her his arm, “Take us to him.”
* * *
When they reached Peter, he had been removed from whatever room the accident occurred and into a makeshift sickroom. Susan knew this because while the wrap around his arm was soaked a dark and dirty red, there was no blood on the floor, and he must have lost so much more to be so very pale.
Susan sank to the floor beside him, her borrowed velvet skirts pooling around her knees. “Peter?” she whispered but his glazed eyes did not focus on her. Behind her, she could hear the voices of the king and others.
“It was so quickly done your majesty, a simple maneuver.” There was a pause, than the same man spoke again. “He was not as strong as we thought he would be, so easily defeated.
The kings sounded almost amused in reply, “He is, after all, only a human child.”
“Of course, your majesty,” the man said immediately. “The youth is no true warrior, all know this. But,” he hesitated and Susan felt his eyes cross her back as she knelt at her brother’s side, “for one so weak in body, he refused to cry or make a sound, even when we did not think we could stop the bleeding. It was . . . most extraordinary”
The silence that followed was thick, even the other conversations in the hallway dying away. The only sound was Peter’s faint breaths.
“Leave us,” the king’s voice cracked out like a whip, and the moment broke into muttering and the slide of feet across stone floor.
“My dear, there’s nothing you can do for him now, they’ve set his bones and he’s clearly in shock.” His voice was smooth as honey, but it was clearly a demand and Susan looked away from her brother for the first time since she entered the room.
“I don’t want him to be alone,” Susan answered, lifting her eyes to his.
The king dismissed this with a wave of his hands. “He doesn’t even know that you are here. If it’s absolutely necessary, I’ll send one of my own men to sit with him, a fellow soldier who can understand.”
“He is not a soldier!” Susan cried, whirling on him. She faced him, shoulders back and chin held high in a way he had once whispered to her a queen would stand. “He is my brother, and I will sit with him. No one else will be necessary.”
The king’s face was dark and for a moment Susan felt a chill, but his expression abruptly melted into indulgence.
“Of course dear girl, if that’s what you think is best.”
“It is.” She turned back to Peter. It was some time before she heard the door close.
* * *
When Peter woke, as he did often, he didn’t stay awake long. The man - dwarf - that the king sent as a doctor told Susan that it was a concussion and that she should not interrupt his rest.
The king, standing beside him, nodded solemnly and agreed.
More importantly, when Peter woke he shuddered away from whoever was closest, from shadows moving on the wall. The words Susan could make out were “Stop” and “Why.” Susan refused to leave him alone with any of the men or creatures the king sent to take her place, citing sisterly devotion. Peter had no reason to shudder away from her.
“The pain in his head, my lady. He must be hallucinating.” The dwarf puts a gentle hand on her shoulder.
“I was told that the blow was to his side,” she heard herself say distantly. Not a question
The doctor’s hand stuttered, withdrew. “He fell so quickly, there was no time to break his fall. The floor was stone. There was nothing anyone could do.”
Susan wondered.
* * *
“Edmund,” Peter whispered, and something in Susan recoiled, horrified that she might now be truly alone in Narnia.
“He’s not here, Peter,” she tried to sound steady. “There was an accident, you were injured.” Another deep breath. “Edmund is in England.”
A look of annoyance crossed his face and Susan nearly wept. “Should hope so,” he grumbled, then met her eyes. “He’ll be worrying.”
“He will,” she said, nodding. “And I’ll bet Lu’s become a handful and a half by now. Not something I’d look forward to dealing with.”
“My arm,” he tried to lift it, winced, closed his eyes. His face had aged almost overnight, a man’s face instead of a boy’s. “It wasn’t an accident.”
“I know.” She had watched as the king’s doctors changed the bandages, seen more cuts than could have come from a single mis-aimed thrust. She has watched, and said nothing.
“Susan,” he slid his uninjured arm across until his hand touched her knee. “We have to go home.”
“I know.” She gripped his hand in both of hers, pouring fear and frustration and hope through white-knuckled fingers. “I’m trying.”
* * *
“Thank you, your majesty.” Susan sank into as low a curtsey as she dared, head bowed. “Your generosity is overwhelming.”
“My dear Susan, you know we are far beyond such formalities.” “He raised her, hands at her shoulders, but his eyes gleamed with satisfaction. “I worry though, that you leave too soon. Perhaps you should stay longer, rest. I fear this week has been hard on you.”
Susan held every muscle in her body perfectly relaxed and smiled up at the king.
He stood, handsome in the cold winter sunlight, his face like alabaster marble, and Susan’s heart beat against her, that perhaps…
“I am sure that our parting shall not be long, my lord, but I fear I cannot be at ease until I see my brother to his convalescence.
The king stepped back from her a little, looking across the dark stone courtyard to where Peter was being carried, his pallet held gingerly between two minotaurs. Susan did not turn around.
“You know,” he began, seemingly idly. “My doctors advise very strongly against his being moved so soon. “His eyes tracked Peter, the rough sound of wood on wood as he was loaded on to the sleigh. “Too much jostling, he may never be able to use his arm again.”
She turned now, so that she was next to the king. Peter was motionless in the sleigh, responding to neither noise nor movement. “The doctors say he may never use the arm again regardless of what we do. That he may never fully recover in any way, never really be Peter again.” The words hung in the air for a moment, and then Susan continued, “If nothing else, I hope he shall be more comfortable with familiar things around him, with our brother and sister to help look after him.”
The king pursed his lips, and then nodded to himself. “When next you come, you should bring them with you, your brother and sister. I’m sure you and I will have much to show them.”
Relief flooded her joints so quickly that Susan almost fell into a small curtsey. “Yes, your majesty, I will bring them when I return.”
He smiled at her, that sharp assessing smile she had seen that first day by the lamppost, and she could not look away. He blinked at her, turned away. “Your brother will be waiting for you.”
“Yes, your majesty,” she turned from him, tried not to hurry to quickly across the courtyard.
* * *
They stumble past the lamppost, Susan holding half of Peter’s weight as they lurch across the snow. Peter does not have shoes, and Susan’s court slippers are little better.
“We can stop, just for a moment,” Susan gasps, leaning one hand on a tree.
“Is he still there?” Peter asked, pulling her forward.
Susan did not look, because she didn’t need to. Neither she nor Peter had heard the jingling of bells as the sleigh drove off. The king’s dwarf was still watching.
She sighed, but did not argue. The trees quickly grew thicker, providing support on all sides. Susan turned her head back, catching one last glimpse of beautiful, frozen Narnia, and then they fell through the wardrobe.
The crack of wood on elbows and knees was loud in the small room, and she turned quickly to check on Peter only to find him staring back at her.
They were dressed in the clothes they left in, as they had always been, wool pants and polished shoes, but that wasn’t the only thing that had returned. Peter untucked his shirt in a rush, both hands feeling the unmarked skin in wonder.
“Well,” Susan tried maintain the same control that had served her through the day, but it failed in a fit of giggles at Peter’s face as she let herself slide back to the floor. “At least we don’t have to tell the Professor you fell down the stairs.”
“Or worse,” Peter laughed with her, a boy once more. “Tell the Macready.”
When they picked themselves off the floor, still giggling, they both glanced back at the wardrobe, gaping open against the far wall.
“He knew,” Susan said, as Peter stepped forward to shut the door. “He knew that we weren’t coming back.”
“He let us leave; I don’t need to know why.” He looked at her, “Do you?”
“No.” She looks at the wardrobe in all its majesty. “Is it dangerous to leave this here? What if Edmund or Lucy were to find…?”
“I’ll find the Macready’s keys and lock it in the morning. There’s no need to worry.” He pulls her close and kisses her on the forehead and she relaxes a little. They are home. They are safe.
They walk out the door, hand in hand.
Original Prompt:
What I want: Any of the following: 1) an AU where Peter or Susan discovers Narnia first and Jadis, not Tumnus, is the first person they meet. You don't have to rewrite the whole of LWW -- a few scenes would suffice. 2) an AU where Jadis wins. 3) returned!Jadis/any Pevensie, though I would be particularly interested in Jadis/Susan.
Prompt words/objects/quotes/whatever: These are just to help you get started. Feel free to not stick closely to them. 1) What do Peter or Susan ask for from Jadis instead of Turkish Delight? How do they convince their other siblings to come along? How is the burden of betrayal carried differently by Peter or Susan? 2) Does Jadis move into Cair Paravel? Does she leave any of the Pevensies alive? If yes, creepy Jadis/Pevensie implications are super! Is Jadis still in line with the Deep Magic? Does she still talk to Aslan? 3) beauty & composure, periphery, negotiation. "I am the only one who would tell you the truth about your past."
I'm a sucker for any sort of Pevencestuous subtext (especially Peter/Susan or Edmund/Susan), so if you feel like you maybe want to go that way, that's completely fine with me.
What I definitely don't want in my fic: 1) I'm fine with a high R rating, but I don't want the explicit technical details. 2) I don't like when boys cry.
Author: westingturtle
Recipient: lassiterfics
Rating: PG
Possible Spoilers/Warnings: AU
Summary: “Well then Susan, Susan Pevensie,” the man extended one hand out to her, his lips curled into a promise. “Come into my carriage.”
AN:There were originally Edmund and Lucy bits, but then they insisted on following their siblings into Narnia and raising an army to rescue them and there was a duel and a PLOT and it all spiraled wildly out of control. So, for the sake of focus and simplicity, it was narrowed to just follow the two eldest Pevensies.
His suit was like nothing Susan had seen since the war had started, and she felt captivated by its thousand shades of blue and gray, its sharply cut cuffs and buttons set in military rows like her father’s uniform. She even glimpsed a saber at his hip that looked like stone but shone like silver. She did not intend to move, had frozen at the first sound of the man’s sleigh, but her quiet gasp of wonder had the man turning towards her.
“Who’s there?” he called, his voice low and musical.
“I am,” Susan stuttered, but stepped out from behind the tree. As he first caught sight of her, the mans pale eyebrows shot high on his forehead, lips pursing and Susan felt suddenly ashamed of her thick brown shoes and the not-quite-seamless repairs to her skirt.
“You are?” His pale eyes flickered briefly reptilian as he looked up and down Susan’s body before turning abruptly soft, voice lowering into kindness. “And who are you, my dear, out in the woods so late?”
“Susan. Susan Pevensie, sir,” she answered, a small bob of her knees turning her shy nod into a curtsey. There was a glimmering of ice crystals in his hair, a faint and glittering circlet like frost on a window pane.
“Well then Susan, Susan Pevensie,” the man extended one hand out to her, his lips curled into a promise. “Come into my carriage.”
* * *
After they’ve gone to bed and the Macready had checked their rooms twice, Peter hauled Susan out of bed by her wrist, dragging her out the door almost before she could grab her dressing gown or slippers.
“What happened today?” he snapped. “We couldn’t find you.”
“I thought that was the point.” She tried to pull away, but he held her wrist tighter.
“Don’t be more of an idiot than you have to be Su, we worried. Lucy was terrified, thinking you’d been kidnapped by Germans. Edmund was no help either, elaborating any scenario she came up with. I can’t believe that you would do something like this. You’re supposed to be more responsible.”
Susan felt a blush of shame steal up her neck, but pushed it away. “You’re not Father, Peter, you don’t get to judge me. I just needed some time on my own. And Lucy always- ”
Peter put his free hand over her mouth, pulling her closer, and just before she let loose the full range of her irritation at his high-handedness, she heard it: footsteps, coming closer down the hallway; the faint rasp of slipper against thick carpet.
“Doesn’t that woman ever sleep?” wailed Susan softly, before Peter dragged her through the house again, tripping noisily up a set of stairs and then shoving them into the first room that is unlocked.
They waited breathlessly, ears pressed to the door but the footsteps still followed. Susan felt expectation prickle against her back, a silent waiting like the air before a storm. She knew even before turning what it was that she would see. “Come on then!” she whispered urgently as the Macready comes closer, and ran into the Wardrobe, Peter at her heels.
Peter stood breathlessly under the silver-gray sky and for a moment Susan let him stare in wonder, let herself bask in the reassurance. It wasn’t her private hallucination, as she’d started to fear it would be. War drove people mad, they said.
Peter turned to her, mouth open in question, but across the snow came the shiver of tiny bells. “This way!” Susan shouted, feeling reckless, and took Peter by the hand to pull him further into the wood.
“Your majesty,” she curtsied, desperately conscious of her shabby dressing gown and tousled hair. The king smiled at her discomfort, than cooled as he turned towards Peter. “And who, exactly, is this?” The king stepped abruptly from the sleigh, hand catching Peter beneath the chin as he inspected him. “A handsome young fellow.” His eyes cut towards hers and Susan saw the displeasure in the tightness of his mouth.
“He is my brother, milord. My brother Peter.”
The king’s face cleared, and he circled Peter a moment with a new expression, hand trailing over Peter’s shoulders as he looked him over carefully. Peter stood silent, still as stone. “Your brother, you say?” He moved back to lean against his sleigh, equidistant from both her and Peter. Susan tried not to feel disappointed at the impartiality. “How many are you?”
“Four, your majesty. The others are asleep.” He nodded slowly to himself. “They’re younger than we are.”
The king looked up, smiled slowly at her. “I’m sure they are.” He stepped forward and took her hand, and she turned her head just enough to see Peter, face finally melting into belief and animation.
* * *
By their third visit, Susan had told the king all about their family as they walked through the intricate crystalline gardens: about Edmund’s sulks and Lucy’s flights of fancy, about Peter trying so desperately to take care of them all that they were slipping through his fingers like water.
“Like snow,” the king suggested, a funny smile on his face.
“Like snow,” she agreed, blushing under his scrutiny.
When Peter came, the king listened as closely to him as he had to Susan, although the subjects were different: the war back home, how long Father had been gone, that Peter had never held a sword.
“That, at least, is something I can resolve,” the king said, leading them deep into his castle. There, in a room whose walls were ice-covered metal and shone like mirrors, they were confronted with a monster.
Susan hade seen creatures about before, from the small bearded men who waited with the sleigh at the lamppost to the wolves that whispered in the king’s ear, but the minotaur was like none of them. Nine feet tall with great horns on his head and cloven hooves, he towered over them and she felt Peter grasp her hand, his body angling in front of hers.
The king’s sharp gaze took this in, and his lips twisted in a rough sort of smile Susan had never seen before. “He’s quite tame, I assure you.” One hand came to rest on its massive shoulder. “Otmin, this is Peter, one of my guests. I’d like you to show him some sword work.”
“Of course, your majesty,” the beast, Otmin, rumbled, its voice like boulders crashing. Susan felt Peter jump, but by the time the king turned to them he had released Susan and stepped bravely forward.
“Thank you, your majesty,” Peter said, accepting the sword handed to him.
“Peter, anything you desire, you have only to ask.” And then, just as Susan had seen her father do a thousand times before he left them for the army, the king clapped Peter on the shoulder, “Good luck son.” Peter’s shoulders straightened and Susan saw him turning to salute Otmin as the king led her from the room. “Otmin,” the king said softly as they paused at the doorway, “start gently with him.”
“Of course, your majesty.”
“Now,” Otmin began behind them. “The first thing to know is that swordplay, real swordplay, is not about honor.”
* * *
Six weeks after they arrive at the Professor’s, four weeks after Susan discovers the kingdom in the wardrobe and one week after the sword lessons begin, Peter’s arm was shattered.
A messenger came to find them in the king’s private garden and Susan stepped sharply back, away from the king and closer to the sculpture at the back of the alcove. He looked almost amused as he turned from Susan to the messenger.
“Your majesty, my lady,” the wolf began, and Susan had long moved past the strangeness of talking animals. “It is the boy, he has broken.”
“What?” she demanded, stepping in front of the king, “What do you mean, ‘broken’?” The wolf turned his attention to her and for a moment she saw a mixture of condescension and pity in his eyes before he snapped into the same attitude of polite servitude that all of the king’s animals have shown her.
“His arm,” the wolf answered, “and perhaps a few of his ribs. There was a regrettable incident in training. And accident of course.”
“Regrettable, indeed,” the king echoed distantly and Susan whirled on him.
“I need to see him,” she told him, her voice firm. His eyes flickered past hers for a moment.
“My lady, I do not know that one so gentle should see so awful a sight. It could be most upsetting. It would be best if we let the doctors work unattended for now, let them work without interruptions.” His voice was smooth, his tone like he spoke to a small child.
Her eyes have not moved from the king. “I don’t care.” The king smiled slowly, and there were prickles at the back of her neck. She did not look away.
“By all means,” he gestured without looking at the wolf. He offered her his arm, “Take us to him.”
* * *
When they reached Peter, he had been removed from whatever room the accident occurred and into a makeshift sickroom. Susan knew this because while the wrap around his arm was soaked a dark and dirty red, there was no blood on the floor, and he must have lost so much more to be so very pale.
Susan sank to the floor beside him, her borrowed velvet skirts pooling around her knees. “Peter?” she whispered but his glazed eyes did not focus on her. Behind her, she could hear the voices of the king and others.
“It was so quickly done your majesty, a simple maneuver.” There was a pause, than the same man spoke again. “He was not as strong as we thought he would be, so easily defeated.
The kings sounded almost amused in reply, “He is, after all, only a human child.”
“Of course, your majesty,” the man said immediately. “The youth is no true warrior, all know this. But,” he hesitated and Susan felt his eyes cross her back as she knelt at her brother’s side, “for one so weak in body, he refused to cry or make a sound, even when we did not think we could stop the bleeding. It was . . . most extraordinary”
The silence that followed was thick, even the other conversations in the hallway dying away. The only sound was Peter’s faint breaths.
“Leave us,” the king’s voice cracked out like a whip, and the moment broke into muttering and the slide of feet across stone floor.
“My dear, there’s nothing you can do for him now, they’ve set his bones and he’s clearly in shock.” His voice was smooth as honey, but it was clearly a demand and Susan looked away from her brother for the first time since she entered the room.
“I don’t want him to be alone,” Susan answered, lifting her eyes to his.
The king dismissed this with a wave of his hands. “He doesn’t even know that you are here. If it’s absolutely necessary, I’ll send one of my own men to sit with him, a fellow soldier who can understand.”
“He is not a soldier!” Susan cried, whirling on him. She faced him, shoulders back and chin held high in a way he had once whispered to her a queen would stand. “He is my brother, and I will sit with him. No one else will be necessary.”
The king’s face was dark and for a moment Susan felt a chill, but his expression abruptly melted into indulgence.
“Of course dear girl, if that’s what you think is best.”
“It is.” She turned back to Peter. It was some time before she heard the door close.
* * *
When Peter woke, as he did often, he didn’t stay awake long. The man - dwarf - that the king sent as a doctor told Susan that it was a concussion and that she should not interrupt his rest.
The king, standing beside him, nodded solemnly and agreed.
More importantly, when Peter woke he shuddered away from whoever was closest, from shadows moving on the wall. The words Susan could make out were “Stop” and “Why.” Susan refused to leave him alone with any of the men or creatures the king sent to take her place, citing sisterly devotion. Peter had no reason to shudder away from her.
“The pain in his head, my lady. He must be hallucinating.” The dwarf puts a gentle hand on her shoulder.
“I was told that the blow was to his side,” she heard herself say distantly. Not a question
The doctor’s hand stuttered, withdrew. “He fell so quickly, there was no time to break his fall. The floor was stone. There was nothing anyone could do.”
Susan wondered.
* * *
“Edmund,” Peter whispered, and something in Susan recoiled, horrified that she might now be truly alone in Narnia.
“He’s not here, Peter,” she tried to sound steady. “There was an accident, you were injured.” Another deep breath. “Edmund is in England.”
A look of annoyance crossed his face and Susan nearly wept. “Should hope so,” he grumbled, then met her eyes. “He’ll be worrying.”
“He will,” she said, nodding. “And I’ll bet Lu’s become a handful and a half by now. Not something I’d look forward to dealing with.”
“My arm,” he tried to lift it, winced, closed his eyes. His face had aged almost overnight, a man’s face instead of a boy’s. “It wasn’t an accident.”
“I know.” She had watched as the king’s doctors changed the bandages, seen more cuts than could have come from a single mis-aimed thrust. She has watched, and said nothing.
“Susan,” he slid his uninjured arm across until his hand touched her knee. “We have to go home.”
“I know.” She gripped his hand in both of hers, pouring fear and frustration and hope through white-knuckled fingers. “I’m trying.”
* * *
“Thank you, your majesty.” Susan sank into as low a curtsey as she dared, head bowed. “Your generosity is overwhelming.”
“My dear Susan, you know we are far beyond such formalities.” “He raised her, hands at her shoulders, but his eyes gleamed with satisfaction. “I worry though, that you leave too soon. Perhaps you should stay longer, rest. I fear this week has been hard on you.”
Susan held every muscle in her body perfectly relaxed and smiled up at the king.
He stood, handsome in the cold winter sunlight, his face like alabaster marble, and Susan’s heart beat against her, that perhaps…
“I am sure that our parting shall not be long, my lord, but I fear I cannot be at ease until I see my brother to his convalescence.
The king stepped back from her a little, looking across the dark stone courtyard to where Peter was being carried, his pallet held gingerly between two minotaurs. Susan did not turn around.
“You know,” he began, seemingly idly. “My doctors advise very strongly against his being moved so soon. “His eyes tracked Peter, the rough sound of wood on wood as he was loaded on to the sleigh. “Too much jostling, he may never be able to use his arm again.”
She turned now, so that she was next to the king. Peter was motionless in the sleigh, responding to neither noise nor movement. “The doctors say he may never use the arm again regardless of what we do. That he may never fully recover in any way, never really be Peter again.” The words hung in the air for a moment, and then Susan continued, “If nothing else, I hope he shall be more comfortable with familiar things around him, with our brother and sister to help look after him.”
The king pursed his lips, and then nodded to himself. “When next you come, you should bring them with you, your brother and sister. I’m sure you and I will have much to show them.”
Relief flooded her joints so quickly that Susan almost fell into a small curtsey. “Yes, your majesty, I will bring them when I return.”
He smiled at her, that sharp assessing smile she had seen that first day by the lamppost, and she could not look away. He blinked at her, turned away. “Your brother will be waiting for you.”
“Yes, your majesty,” she turned from him, tried not to hurry to quickly across the courtyard.
* * *
They stumble past the lamppost, Susan holding half of Peter’s weight as they lurch across the snow. Peter does not have shoes, and Susan’s court slippers are little better.
“We can stop, just for a moment,” Susan gasps, leaning one hand on a tree.
“Is he still there?” Peter asked, pulling her forward.
Susan did not look, because she didn’t need to. Neither she nor Peter had heard the jingling of bells as the sleigh drove off. The king’s dwarf was still watching.
She sighed, but did not argue. The trees quickly grew thicker, providing support on all sides. Susan turned her head back, catching one last glimpse of beautiful, frozen Narnia, and then they fell through the wardrobe.
The crack of wood on elbows and knees was loud in the small room, and she turned quickly to check on Peter only to find him staring back at her.
They were dressed in the clothes they left in, as they had always been, wool pants and polished shoes, but that wasn’t the only thing that had returned. Peter untucked his shirt in a rush, both hands feeling the unmarked skin in wonder.
“Well,” Susan tried maintain the same control that had served her through the day, but it failed in a fit of giggles at Peter’s face as she let herself slide back to the floor. “At least we don’t have to tell the Professor you fell down the stairs.”
“Or worse,” Peter laughed with her, a boy once more. “Tell the Macready.”
When they picked themselves off the floor, still giggling, they both glanced back at the wardrobe, gaping open against the far wall.
“He knew,” Susan said, as Peter stepped forward to shut the door. “He knew that we weren’t coming back.”
“He let us leave; I don’t need to know why.” He looked at her, “Do you?”
“No.” She looks at the wardrobe in all its majesty. “Is it dangerous to leave this here? What if Edmund or Lucy were to find…?”
“I’ll find the Macready’s keys and lock it in the morning. There’s no need to worry.” He pulls her close and kisses her on the forehead and she relaxes a little. They are home. They are safe.
They walk out the door, hand in hand.
Original Prompt:
What I want: Any of the following: 1) an AU where Peter or Susan discovers Narnia first and Jadis, not Tumnus, is the first person they meet. You don't have to rewrite the whole of LWW -- a few scenes would suffice. 2) an AU where Jadis wins. 3) returned!Jadis/any Pevensie, though I would be particularly interested in Jadis/Susan.
Prompt words/objects/quotes/whatever: These are just to help you get started. Feel free to not stick closely to them. 1) What do Peter or Susan ask for from Jadis instead of Turkish Delight? How do they convince their other siblings to come along? How is the burden of betrayal carried differently by Peter or Susan? 2) Does Jadis move into Cair Paravel? Does she leave any of the Pevensies alive? If yes, creepy Jadis/Pevensie implications are super! Is Jadis still in line with the Deep Magic? Does she still talk to Aslan? 3) beauty & composure, periphery, negotiation. "I am the only one who would tell you the truth about your past."
I'm a sucker for any sort of Pevencestuous subtext (especially Peter/Susan or Edmund/Susan), so if you feel like you maybe want to go that way, that's completely fine with me.
What I definitely don't want in my fic: 1) I'm fine with a high R rating, but I don't want the explicit technical details. 2) I don't like when boys cry.