Work Text:
The nine year old queen's eyes widened in delight and she squealed, "Susan!! Marshmallows!?! You made marshmallows!?! We can finally have marshmallows with our hot chocolate!?! How ever did you figure it?"
"Well..." said Susan with a twinkle in her eyes, having spent several days scouring the library, consulting with Mrs. Beaver, and experimenting in the kitchen whenever the others were out. "I suppose it was just a bit of Christmas magic."
"Oh Susan!" Lucy's eyes shone as she threw her arms enthusiastically around her sister. "Thank you! I've missed them ever so much!"
But as Susan hugged her sister back, she heard a train whistle far in the distance, growing closer. She had just time to think," I don't remember any trains in Narnia...?" Then there was a world-shattering jolt, and Lucy suddenly went cold and limp in her arms.
Susan screamed and sat up in bed with a start, tears pouring down her face and covered in sweat, despite the chill of the room. "It's only a nightmare. It's only a nightmare." She murmured , hugging herself and rocking back and forth, trying desperately to still her pounding heart. But the aching weight of loneliness reminded her that truly, it wasn't. Her siblings were gone.
They were not coming back. She would never see them again, never hug or tease or laugh with any of them.
Tears streamed silently down her face as the hollowness in her chest deepened into a chasm she couldn't seem to cross. The proud, vivacious, life-of-the-party Susan had been consumed by an ache worse than any physical ailment could be. The pain burning in her soul was more than any party or alcohol could quench, and she would know.
In her heart of hearts, she wanted to cry to God, to Jesus, to Aslan for some comfort, some peace in her agony. "Thankfully though," she thought somewhat bitterly. "I've reasoned myself out of such fairy tales..."
But in the thick of this dark haunted night, she needed SOMETHING of comfort, something warm, even if it was self-indulgent. Roughly wiping her tears away, she forced herself out of bed, and slipped on a pair of warm house shoes and her favorite silk robe. Susan made her way to the little apartment kitchen and pulled a worn hand-written card from her recipe box. It was scribbled down from memory after days of past experimentation and covered in stains from sweet (and sticky) days and nights of warmth and laughter.
She drew in a steadying breath, closing her eyes and pressing the bit of paper to her breast, then got to work.
With soothing, familiar movements, she poured, measured, stirred, melted, and whipped. By the time the fluffy white confection was nearly finished setting in the icebox, she had a pot of hot chocolate on the stove top. It dawned on her quietly, as she cut up the marshmallows, that she had made enough chocolate for four very cold and enthusiastic cocoa drinkers.
So I think the reader will understand if a few tears happened to salt the bits of marshmallow floating in her mug.