Susan did not see Peter in battle for years—arriving to his stand against Jadis almost too late, catching up while he picked himself up from the torn earth, on the other side of the conflict when the remnants of Jadis’ army tried their luck at the Cair. Sure, she knew he fought and killed, just as she did, just as Edmund and Lucy did—and oh, how Susan loathes that last part, but Lucy had been the one to find the first assassin in their halls and there was nothing to be done about it now. There was entirely too much death in their first year, Susan thinks, the fairytale shine of Narnia soon breaking apart and leaving a country and people in desperate need of rest and time behind. It took her days to get the blood out underneath her and Lucy’s fingernails, and she knew Peter had just as bad a time with Edmund next door. With a lump in her throat, Susan wondered often if this was to be the rest of their lives: washing themselves clean of battles that were forced upon them by a world far too big for their hands to hold. But even then, with the bloodied waters between them all, she never truly saw Peter in battle. A slain Maugrim who had about as much a part in his own death as Peter’s shaking sword did, a witch that Susan never saw die, assassins that ended up on the moth-eaten carpets she had found in old storage rooms; things that should give her pause but she simply couldn’t consider for long with all there was to do. They had killed to end up where they were, and Susan knew deep down that they would have to kill to stay, too. Now, standing with her bow held tight and a quiver empty of arrows, a sword at her side she has yet to finish learning how to swing, Susan finds herself in a pocket of tar-slow time. Here, she stands with a muddied hemline and their castle once more under siege—unknown foes, but foes all the same—and there, across the way, with his hair longer than Susan has ever known him to have, Peter lets out a roaring laugh. Rhindon is far out of sight, a glaive taking its place in Peter’s steady hands. Even from afar, Susan feels it in her bones when Peter’s swing launches an enemy’s torn body across the field. There are bodies, horror-frozen faces, the stench of blood and bile. The steps to the Cair will perhaps forever bear the stain of this assault. They have lost people they held dear. Susan has wept enough to fill an ocean. And Peter laughs. With storm-eyes, bloodied tongue, and bared teeth, her older brother wages joyous war.
sometimes i think about narnia and i vibrate out of my skin like...
you walk into a world you cannot understand, frozen and dying, and it is you who thaws it. you who kills the witch, you who breaks the stone table, you who slays the wolf. it is you who is crowned and it is you who wails for two worlds when the wardrobe doors shut behind you.
your skin never sits quite right and your teeth are too dull. there are wars in your bones and decades in your eyes before you can reach the telephone on the wall.
you are king. you are queen. they won't let you read the newspapers at breakfast.
it calls you back from beyond a train and from within paint. begs with bloody palms and salt-crusted cheeks. takes from you all that you can give - and sends you back.
you watch your sister fade.
you are a child twice and an adult once. and when you stand in your home again, with crushed bones and the smell of coal still in your nose, you watch them sneer at your sister.
your sister is the sun above you. she is, beautiful and stone-cast, alive in a world you could never stomach. she smiles, still, and stretches her skin over human bones.
she is no longer a friend of narnia. do you tell them it is her who has to bury you all and the stars that are falling from the skies in shards?
They had not gone far before they came to a place where the ground became rough and there were rocks all about and little hills up and little hills down. At the bottom of one small valley Mr. Tumnus turned suddenly aside as if he were going to walk straight into an unusually large rock, but at the last moment Lucy found he was leading her into the entrance of a cave. As soon as they were inside she found herself blinking in the light of a wood fire. Then Mr. Tumnus stooped and took a flaming piece of wood out of the fire with a neat little pair of tongs, and lit a lamp. "Now we shan't be long," he said, and immediately put a kettle on. Lucy thought she had never been in a nicer place.
What Lucy Found There | The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
#this shot is so important #because here is a little snapshot #of the pevensies in the golden age #look at how lucy has to be close to pete #she gravitates towards him #the first thing she does #is to maintain physical contact #and then always leans into him #and stays close by #and pete keeps himself angled towards her #and his arms are ready to protect her #and the fact that they both slightly #leaning towards one another #this is fifteen years of love #the contact and proximity #are such second nature #they don’t even have to look at each other #they are just at such ease with each other #that even after all these years #lucy is drawn to her eldest brother #and pete still subconsciously #looks to protect her #and golden age pete and lu #are so very important
i say im past my pevensie sibling angst phase and then make 4 playlists that all cater to the particular painful experience each one of them went through in/outside of/because of narnia
like come on what am i supposed to do when this is so peter-comes-home-from-narnia-a-child-&-must-learn-to-live-with-it coded what else am i supposed to do !!!
susan was the only one who initially refused to look for the adventure around the lamppost during the hunting of the white stag. the only one who wanted to abandon the whole venture altogether until she was convinced otherwise. she was the only one who felt the pull to return to the real world & for whatever reason, hesitated before following it.
the dimension this just added to my understanding of the pain the pevensies, and susan especially, must have felt at narnia being ripped away from them.
@narnianetwork voyage 8: p r i d e → aromantic peter pevensie
@narnianetwork voyage 8: p r i d e → edmund pevensie + caspian x ; dark academia au
“You have a traitor there, Aslan,“ said the Witch. Of course everyone present knew that she meant Edmund. But Edmund had got past thinking about himself after all he’d been through and after the talk he’d had that morning. He just went on looking at Aslan. It didn’t seem to matter what the Witch said.”
I'm never gonna meet What could've been, would've been What should've been you