Chapter Text
You wished that the room were just unfamiliar.
Well, you wished that it weren't unfamiliar at all; you wished that you were waking in your own room. But if it had to be unfamiliar, you wished that it would be just unfamiliar, and not unfamiliar and bizarre.
The bed was grand; everything in the room was grand, and light flooded in from a pair of opened doors that led out to a balcony, which overlooked a vast forest, and then a vivid blue ocean. It felt like you were inside a storybook castle, and the air above your head was full of flying creatures that didn't look like butterflies but also couldn't reasonably have been anything else.
When the urge to freeze in place yielded to the urge to run, you stumbled out of the ornate bed and discovered that you were wearing a long, medieval-looking nightgown.
As much as this was exactly the sort of thing that could only happen in a dream, your senses felt real, and your surroundings seemed much too inventive and coherent for your brain to have thrown together on a whim.
You ran from the room and found that it was connected to an equally palatial corridor. You didn't see anyone around, despite the vastness of the building you were in. You gravitated to a wall that had windows to outside, and you walked along that same wall until you came upon a door, which was heavy but unbarred. You stepped out, barefoot, onto a stone path.
The outside air was crisp and carried the smell of unfamiliar woods. In the distance, there was a beach. You could see no houses, no city scenery. Only forest, and the building, the castle, from which you'd just emerged.
Where on Earth were you?
A song began to ring through the air. You made out the words, "Daughter of Eve, welcome!" It sounded like a chorus of children singing. You looked around wildly for the source of the voices, but you were alone except for a smattering of small birds overhead, whose winding patterns of flight almost resembled an intricately choreographed dance.
You watched and listened for a while, dazed.
"I told them not to startle you," a familiar voice suddenly said, "but they do get excited."
You turned and found that your best friend was here, except instead of her usual sensible skirts and cardigans, she was wearing an opulent dress like something royalty would wear. More opulent than what you had on. Her dark hair fell around her shoulders, shinier and wavier than usual, like she or someone else had dedicated a great deal of effort to it, rather than just the exact amount of attention needed to keep it impeccably tidy.
But it was more than all that. More than her appearance. She looked different.
Susan Pevensie always appeared confident. She had a perpetual look in her eyes as if she knew more than most everyone she came across. She was never disrespectful to those with authority over her, but her disposition towards them always seemed to carry the slightest trace of condescension, nearing wistfulness or pity, as if she were thinking, You have no idea, do you?
It carried over into your friendship, as well.
You were aware that you sort of let her boss you around a lot, but she was never mean or pushy about it...perhaps because she never had to be. Her air of casual authority, giving no impression of arrogance but of wisdom, was extremely effective on most people she met, and you were no exception. You just happened to be someone she had chosen to also befriend. To link arms with and talk with and listen to. Even as something in her smile had always made you think that your thoughts and your problems seemed so quaint to her, she also always assured you that she wanted to hear them, and she always seemed genuine about it. You spent every day with her, and despite seeming to glide above the trivialities of daily life, Susan never indicated that she did not value her time with you. No, she made you special with her, just by choosing you.
Even if you couldn't plumb the depths of Susan, you knew Susan.
And the Susan you saw before you now...It was like the Susan who lived in the back of her eyes had emerged to the forefront.
The regal bearing, the complete lack of self-consciousness, and that almost wicked bit of sharpness that you saw only on occasion, like when you were late in meeting her at whatever agreed-upon spot, or when some other friend or acquaintance tried to pull you aside when you were already walking with her, or...Well, or just yesterday, when you had told her that Anthony Bridges had asked you on a date and you had said yes.
( "No," she'd scoffed at first, with an amused smile, as if exercising her understood veto privileges. It wasn't until you'd pressed the issue, and insisted that you wanted to go, that you would go, that her eyes had taken on that sharpness, her arguments that ruthless precision.)
This was your first time seeing her since that row, and her smile was utterly beauteous and wickedly sharp. Friendly and almost cruel-looking.
"You look amazing," you told her, gesturing to the gown.
She seemed barely to register the compliment, as though she'd heard it a million times. (She probably had, and in better words.) "You haven't seen yourself," she said, arching an eyebrow playfully. "I've always thought the clothing here would suit you. I shan't feign surprise that I am right once again."
The little birds had started circling you both, each one spiraling around you and up into the air, then back down to circle you again. Again, like an elaborate dance.
"Where are we, Su?" you asked. You didn't normally shorten her name, but you needed the diminutive to make things feel less...important. This all felt very important, and it was scaring you.
"I can tell you the name, but it won't help." As she strode closer, that smile did not change. "It's not on any map that you've seen. This is Cair Paravel, in Narnia. The new Cair Paravel, that is. For years, it stood empty, awaiting the return of the ones who ended the endless winter."
You had never known Susan to tell jokes, but you forced a laugh, hoping this was one.
This succeeded only in changing her smile. Her lips closed over her white teeth and pressed together, a look that seemed mockingly rueful.
"Su, wherever we are...I need to get back home." You almost brought up that you had someplace to be this afternoon, in support of your statement, but just in time you remembered that perhaps you didn't want to rehash your most recent argument.
Susan seemed to read your mind, regardless. "Of course. You have a terribly important outing planned with Anthony Bridges, don't you? How inconsiderate of me, to have forgotten."
Her elegant, lofty tone was not comforting. "This isn't about Anthony. It isn't. This place is just...strange. I don't know how I got here."
"I brought you, of course."
"What do you mean?"
"Do try to keep up," she teased. At a single amused glance from her, the birds dispersed and were soon out of sight and earshot. Susan slipped her arm through yours and led you down a previously unseen path through the woods– an elegant, companionable gesture with a deceptive amount of force behind it. She always had been stronger than she looked. "I thought we needed the time away," she finally said. "You were beginning to get distracted."
"How did you bring me here?"
"Do you truly expect to feel better for knowing? You're here now. And you won't leave until I believe it is time."
Protestations swam through your mind but died on your tongue. This sort of thing was classic Susan. Taking charge, questioning your questions, and telling you how things were going to be, in that calm and reasonable tone that made command sound like mere fact. She was herself, and you knew her. But this was different.
It wasn't entirely a difference in Susan, you realized. The way the world interacted with Susan had changed. There was no tree whose branches skimmed even the edges of her gown; in fact, what seemed at first to be random swaying in the wind was definitely a consistent movement of tree branches out of her path, clearing the way without brushing against her. The light, soundless summery breezes cradled her voice, carrying it in every direction so that it seemed you could hear her in both ears despite her standing on only one side of you, and the sunlight streamed over her through the parting trees and framed her person as though she was something otherworldly. Something holy. The normal shadows one expected to see on a person, underneath the eyelashes or in the crease of the wrist, just weren't there. As if she glowed.
The pair of you broke through the edge of the trees and into a clearing while you were still staring at Susan. You looked away to see your new surroundings, and before you was a short walk to a grassy overhang and, beneath it, a sandy beach and then blue waves as far as the eye could see.
Your jaw dropped.
"I knew you'd admire the view," Susan remarked. "I'd say you'll catch flies like that, but the flies know better."
You closed your mouth and shook your head, still at a loss for words.
"We'll have a stroll here," she mused, "Then luncheon at the palace. After that, I'll show you off to the fauns, the centaurs, and the beavers."
You sighed. Classic Susan. She never asked anything difficult of you. Just that you come when called and stay near her and let yourself be shown off to... "Did you say 'beavers'?"