Susan Pevensie comes back from Narnia and tries to forget, not because she doesn't believe in Narnia anymore, but because it hurts too much thinking about what she lost.
In Narnia, she was revered, respected. People wrote songs about her, asked for her hand in marriage. She was with her siblings, and she was free, and she could finally stop worrying about her brothers dying in an air raid. She had a people she protected, a land she ruled, and family to look after. She was respected in courts and battefields alike.
Narnia brought other problems, of course. Not all her suitors were kind about her rejection, and Peter and Edmund were expected to lead armies, which meant they were always in the line of fire. More than once had they come home with grave injuries that took months to recover from, even with Lucy's secret potion.
It is this Narnia Susan vividly remembers just aftee she comes back, a wild and savage land where magic roams free, but evil roams free too. It is the Narnia of eternal winter, of giants and ogres, of Aslan dying on the Stone Table. The Narnia of Telmarines, of dead friends, of failed sieges.
England forces her back into obedience, into a mold. Tells her to behave in a way expected of a young lady. Lucy can stay wild a little longer, but Susan has an education to focus on, men to impress. England tells her she is below her brothers again, should get married and have kids.
So Susan tries to forget, convincing herself that the stiff upper lip, tight collars, kneelong skirts, ridicule from adults when she speaks her mind and forced silence is better than the freedom she had in Narnia.
For that freedom had to be paid for in blood. At least in England her family and friends don't risk dying, not after the war.
She alienates from her brothers and sister further. She tells them Narnia was a game, a fantasy. But the difference in faith is also due tk the way she has to hide how it changed her. Peter, Lucy and Edmund do not have to. The boys write long essays about justice and religion, join the fencing team. Lucy dances everywhere she goes and is known to never wear shoes if she can help it.
But the archery club at school will not accept Susan. Neither will the debate team. Her teachers are annoyed with the fact she never slips up, disgruntled at the fact a woman runs rings around them intelectually. Susan is a young woman after a time of war, and all of society would rather she shut up and do what she is told.
Soon, Susan has new friends, new things that matter. All these adult thoughts she can only discuss with her brothers and sister drive her crazy, and there is no one around that takes them seriously. And so she tries to grow up as fast as possible, get to an age where people listen to her again. She forgets so that she doesn't have to deal with the feeling she was meant for much more, to ease the mourning of all that she lost when she kissed Caspian goodbye.
All the Pevensies start forgetting Narnia slowly, the memories fading. Soon none of them remember the names of their generals at Beruna. They forget the smell of battle, the weight of an iron sword in their hands. But they all still walk as if their crowns are on their heads, and ride horses in a way none of their instructors understand. It takes a while before they are back to their Narnian levels, but it is clear to them someone has instructed them before. None of them can figure out what commands they use, however. Is it western style, perhaps? Or maybe rodeo? They cannot have been taught in England, not with the amount of control they can exert with and without saddles, the sense of balance. Some of their teachers are astonished by their academic growth, but others attribute it to the lax education standards after the war. Susan is sold short most often, but all the Pevensie children suffer from arguments with teachers and attitude problems. Teachers generally don't like it if you behave like you are older or more important than them. It's worse because they are almost never wrong, even though all of them feel the effects that having a teenage brain has on their speed of thought and the coherence of their arguments.
The Pevensies deal with these remnants of Narnia in different ways. Susan becomes an actress. She picks West End over Oxford because the stage is a place she is allowed to be free. And since Narnia, dry textbooks don't thrill her like they used to, while the fantasy concepts of spirits and courts and magic and other things thespians work with entince her all the more. Inside her is a longing to become someone else. She knows where it comes from, but she doesn't want to acknowledge it.
Susan plays a queen often, or a diplomat, or a model. Something about her performances have audiences hooked, convinced she was royalty in a different life.
Remembering Narnia hurts. She scolds someone for being reckless with the stage props while teaching them the correct way for a full minute before realizing the person in question is older than her, and doesn't listen to a young woman. He has the same name as her younger brother.
So Susan forgets. But as she carves her way into the elite of old Hollywood, years later, she begins to remember as well. What it's like to have a voice. How it feels like to have people listen.
When Lucy, Edmund and Peter die in the train accident, Susan weeps for days. She knows what she has lost in them. She is now the only person fluent in their interpersonal language, the only one that still remembers the mating call of the centaurs, what jokes a forest spirit makes. She is now truly alone in the world.
Narnia comes rushing back to her during this grieving period. Eventually, she remembers that she used to have a voice, a crown, lovers of whatever gender she wanted. And also how Narnia would have you pay for freedom in blood. They gave up on that freedom to protect her siblings. only to lose them anyways. Suddenly, Susan remembers how Narnia was fair, how a bargain struck was a bargain kept. She remembers the nymphs, the trees in spring. She remembers the beauty of it all.
Later, when Susan is a grown woman and an arrived actor in Hollywood, Aslan begins returning to her dreams. He never speaks to her, but the sight of him gives her strenght. She was once Susan the Gentle, who accompanied Aslan to his death. It is time she returns to being that person.
After the Stonewall riots and during the AIDS epidemic, Susan is the only actress willing to make a public stand. It costs her 2 box office hits and a 3 month ban from the tabloids. But she remembers justice, and the price of freedom. Others start looking to her for wisdom, just like they did all those years ago. Susan feels her quiet strenght returning, her faith slowly coming back.
She stops wishing she could forget Narnia. The magic that was responsible for the memory faded with time. Maybe it was just to protect her from mourning a world where she was so much more.
When Susan looks at the boys coming back from wars in Korea and Vietnam, she recognizes the look in their eyes. Reflected in their behaviour is a maturity that shouldn't be present in teenagers. The loss of innocence, the unrepairable damage to their childhood illusions. It is a look she spent her twenties avoiding mirrors for, because she knew what it meant. No matter what she told herself then, she believed in Narnia. She still does now.
She knows her siblings are in a different place now, and that she revoked her faith in that place, but slowly, as the years grey her hair and wrinkle her face, she begins to believe she may one day join them there. She remembers Aslan as a kind lion, even if he wasn't a tame one.
She grew old in Narnia once, after all. She hopes to die there.
Once a queen of Narnia, always a queen of Narnia
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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?
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Edmund: Its so strange to see another human in Narnia that isnt my sibling, but im glad youre here
Caspian: I can imagine
Edmund: I mean, finally theres someone who understands all of the human culture who I can talk to without bickering, but still, when I saw those two Telmarine guys I was like "JESUS CHRIST THERES MORE", haha, you know?
Caspian: ... yeah...yeah I get it, I understand everything... everything human- just a quick question uh... whats a jesus christ?
Edmund: s-
Edmund: sorry what
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Peter: oi mate could you pass me a bo'lo'wa'er please
Caspian, crying: SOMEONE TELL ME WHAT HES SAYING
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Lucy (on the dawn treader): Well thats quite a storm, its raining cats and dogs out there!
Caspian: ... I...Im pretty sure its raining water
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Susan, struggling to string her bow: *quietly* fuck
Caspian: whats a 'fuck'?
Susan, whos bared witness to all of his confusion and had to explain everything for the past 72 hours: I dont have time for this
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