Chapter Text
People disappear all the time.
Young girls run away from home. Young children stray from their parents and are never seen again. Housewives take the grocery money and a taxi to the station.
Many of the lost will be found, eventually, dead or alive. Disappearances, after all, have explanations.
Usually.
- DIANA GABALDON, 'OUTLANDER'
"Sir," said Tirian, when he had greeted all these. "If I have read the chronicle aright, there
should be another. Has not your Majesty two sisters? Where is Queen Susan?"
"My sister Susan," answered Peter shortly and gravely, "is no longer a friend of Narnia."
"Yes," said Eustace, "and whenever you've tried to get her to come and talk about Narnia
or do anything about Narnia, she says, `What wonderful memories you have! Fancy your
still thinking about all those funny games we used to play when we were children.'"
"Oh Susan!" said Jill. "She's interested in nothing nowadays except nylons and lipstick
and invitations. She always was a jolly sight too keen on being grown-up."
- C. S. LEWIS, 'THE LAST BATTLE'
She did not try to stay a child all her life, wishing for something she had been told she couldn’t have again. There is nothing wrong with Lucy loving Narnia all her life, refusing an adulthood she didn’t want for a braver, brighter one she built herself. But there is also nothing wrong with Susan trying to find something new to fall in love with, something that might love her back.
You can build things in lipsticks and nylons, if you don’t mind getting a few runs in them. There is nothing wrong with wanting to be pretty, especially when pretty is the only power left to you.
- DIRGEWITHOUTMUSIC, 'THE LAST PEVENSIE'
"Where I came from," Susan says, as they walk through the fields of Harren, in the shadow of the burnt castle, her bow slung over her shoulder, her quiver still half full of arrows, making slow, uneven progress, "the lions were gods."
Robb Stark's blade stills in Susan's periphery, and the young King surveys her once more. It takes people by surprise often, she knows, that she isn't truly Westerosi. She looks like it, she certainly sounds like it, and from the gossip she's overheard, there's a rumor going around the camp that she's Volantene, like Talisa Maegyr. Save for the Mormonts, there aren't many women on this continent who know battle - and Susan has risen in rank amongst both the archers and the healers with dizzying speed. She's doesn't deny it, when they call her Volantene, but she doesn't corroborate it either.
The truth seems to serve men poorly in Westeros.
Robb Stark exhales shakily by her side, and far over the eastern horizon, the sun begins to dip down, shading the riverlands' countryside in gold and amber and long, encroaching shadows. They've won every battle, yes... But Karstark is dead, and Winterfell is ash, and their army has been halved and scattered like dust in the wind.
They've won every battle, but they're losing this war.
"The lions are still gods," he replies darkly, and Susan chances a look at him. The blue of his eyes takes her by surprise - it always does, every single bloody time, and she tightens her grip around her supple, beautiful bow and looks away. A gift, from the King, when he discovered her skill. She is more grateful for it than he knows. Than he;ll ever know.
"The lions here are not gods," she says, low and furious, staring unseeingly at the darkened horizon. There is a growing ache in her bones, a deep, weary thing that leaches her joy, her life, and all Susan wants to is go home, go home, bury her brothers and her sister, and grieve and cry and rail at the moon. She is not supposed to be here. "The lions are monsters. And we're going to kill them all."
He turns to her then, and Susan feels the questing heat of his gaze. She does not meet it. "Yes," he says, and she swallows, hard. "Yes we are."
The corridor leading to the church proper is dark, the murmur of voices muted. Susan looks perfect, she knows she does, a charcoal, silk sheath that brushes her mid-calf, and dark nylons, and shiny ankle boots, elbow-length gloves, the edge hemmed in soft Brussels lace that matches the work around the yoke of her dress, a wide-brimmed hat stolen from a southern belle's dream.
Her hands shake when the reaches for the door, and she grits her teeth, exhaling. Her hands drop away, fumbling at the clasp of her purse. She pulls out a ciggie, and it takes three tries to light the match, to light the fag, the flame flickering violently in her hands.
She draws a deep, desperate lungful of smoke. turning her face up when she exhales, an imprint of scarlet lipstick left around the filter as relief trickles through her veins. She smokes the cigarette quicker than she'd like, and then a second in quick succession, only stopping herself when she begins to reach for a third.
She reaches for the door, and pushes it wide open, and the sound of the waiting mourners rushes out to meet her, a wave of subdued chatter and quiet sobs, and Peter's still, smiling face stares at her from the photo across the chapel's lectern, Peter and Edmund and Lucy, their perfect, static smiles that don't reach their eyes, vacant and poised and fake, and Susan grits her teeth, and swallows her tears, and she hates the world, hates it-
Why must she face this alone, Christ on a motherfucking candlestick, why-
She teeters briefly, on heels like knives, and stumbles through the doorway, and the light falls away, turning the world dim, grey, bleaching it into-
Susan stumbles at the entrance to a church in Nottingham, and nearly falls to her knees in a sept in Riverrun, steadying herself with a grip around a rough-hewn jamb, the screams of battle behind her, and there isn't a moment, not even a moment when she thinks she's in Narnia, not with the acrid taste of smoke in the air, the drawn, terrified faces of children peeking from the shadows, the coppery tang of spilt blood choking her mouth.
This is hell. This must be hell.
She enters the tiny sept, and bangs the door shut behind her, gasping for breath as she falls against the cold, chipped wood, and curses Aslan's name.
Wherever she is, she is not supposed to be here.
"You're a Westerner, aren't you?"
The girl looks up at her, her grey-green eyes huge with fear, swallowing up her little face. "Aye- Aye milady," she stutters, the wet, bloody rag in her hands crumpling up as she shakily takes to her feet.
Susan does not correct the girl - most take her for nobility, here. Something about the accent, perhaps. Or perhaps they see her clearer here, in Westeros, than they did in Nottingham or New York. Perhaps they see her, and see the eyes of a High Queen.
She doesn't know. But she's stopped correcting them.
"Don't worry," Susan soothes, chucking her lightly on the chin, before taking the rag and wringing it out beside the injured soldier. The healer's tent is filled with the moans of wounded men, the stench of piss and blood turning the stink fetid, and Talisa Maegyr moves among them like a general, directing aid and supplies with a hard jaw, and soft eyes. She's a good woman, Susan thinks with distant, distracted approval. But she's too quick to trust, and too kind by half - she's not enough of a politician to be a queen, and sometimes, when she's feeling particularly disloyal to the side she's chosen in this pointless, terrible war, she thinks Catelyn has failed her son terribly, by letting this marriage go through.
A King must keep his word, and Robb- Well. Peter did.
Peter Pevensie, High King of Narnia, was brave, and good, and honorable, and he always kept his word.
Peter died anyway.
She looks at the young girl, smiles, and kneels beside the bedroll, dipping the abandoned rag in hot water and cleaning his suppurating wound. THe soldier shall die by nightfall, she knows, and wonders if they oughtn't simplt slit his throat now, before the pain grows intolderable. The girl kneels beside her, fingers tangling in her lap.
"Will you tell anyone?" she asks hesistantly.
"No, my dear," Susan replies, gentle and sweet. "We need nurses."
The girl smiles at her tentatively, and Susan pats her shoulder before rising to her feet. She moves to leave, and stops. TUrns back. "There was a song you were singing," Susan says, and the girl blanches bone-white. Susan frowns at that, but asks anyway. "What was it?"
"Sor- Sorr- Oh milady, I'm sorry! I won't sing it!" she's crying, eyes brimming with sudden, terrified tears. "It's only- It's such a pretty tune, is all, I didn't mean nothin' by it!"
"Hush!" Susan exclaims, picking the girl up by her shoulders. "Hush, little one," she soothes, stroking the shivering child's back. "It's alright. I've never heard it before, is all."
THe girl hiccups a little sob, frowning in puzzlement. "Never?" she asks.
"No," Susan replies, with a delicate half-shrug. "Will you sing it for me?"
She casts a fearful glance around the tent, and laces her fingers through SUsan's. "Not here, milady. Come."
And when they are secreted away, in a copse of elms by the edges of the battle camp, the girl settles her skirts around her knees, sitting cross-legged in the dewy grass, and tells her about the Fallen House of Reyne. Steadily, she goes through a story of avarice and pride and betrayal, and when she is done and Susan is silent with horror, she begins to sing.
'And 'Who are you?' the proud lord said,
'That I must bow so low?''
"Lady Stark tells me you plan to march on Casterly Rock."
The young king looks up at her questioningly, and when he doesn't reply, Susan enters the hall he's taken for a war room in Harrenhal.
"My mother's been talking battle plans with you?" he asks sharply, and Susan shrugs in response, meeting his gaze steadily. Queen Talisa has been seeing to the troops, but there is only so much she can do, with half their army deserted, and morale flagging amongst the men.
"She needs someone to talk to, your grace," Susan replies carefully. "And she knows I won't- She knows she can trust me."
Robb watches her too, and Susan thinks, if he wasn't so young and so bloody impetuous, if he'd been given time, the chance to grow into himself... He would've made a fine king, someday.
Just not yet. Not today.
"Can she trust you?" RObb asks quietly. "Can she? We don't know who you are, or where you come from. We don't know your last name, your family, your allegiance-"
"I should think," Susan cuts in, ice in every jagged syllable, "that my having killed for you should be sufficient proof of loyalty."
"Yes," Robb says idly. "It should, shouldn't it?” His eyes are flat, and dark, and Susan has the sudden, visceral urge to drive an arrow through his cold fucking expression, the self-righteous, upstart bastard-
She smiles instead, and ducks a mocking half-curtsey. “Your grace knows best,” she says. “And you needn’t worry about me, King Robb. I’m leaving.”
His brows fly up, and Susan masks her satisfaction with a bland smile and dull eyes. “Leaving?” he repeats. “Leaving for where?”
“King’s Landing. I, and four other riders, bastards and unallied boys all. We shall see if it is still possible to rescue your sister from under the Joffrey’s nose. It will make the course of battle smoother.”
"And if you fail?"
"Then we fail," Susan replies smoothly. "Then we die. We're not important enough to keep prisoner. Not for the Lannisters or the Tyrells."
“You’re mad,” Robb mutters, sitting very, very still, eyes wide in shock. “You’re bloody daft, woman.”
Susan laughs, a low, chuckle of a laugh, scraped bloody from her throat like a strange, foreign thing. “Probably,” she allows. “But my plan isn’t much worse than yours, your grace. From what Ca- that is, Lady Stark says, you plan to rely on the Freys to provide reinforcements when you take the Rock.”
"You think that's a bad idea."
Susan smiles slowly, and cocks her head to the side. "Oh, your grace," she drawls, letting New York slink into her accent, smoke across the Hudson River in the early morning, the neon buzz of bright lights, sex and fame and liquor and lust. "I'm just a girl, and I know so little about this place," she demurs, her heart beating to the rhythm of old soul blues, a bassline thrumming in the distance that pulses just for her. "What do I know about the technicalities of war?"
Robb rises to his feet finally, and crosses the gulf of stale air and cold floor between them. "More than you're letting on," he says, and Susan laughs again, breathless this time, faltering a step back, putting desperately needed space between them, before she does something perfectly idiotic, and treasonous to boot, like kiss his stupid mouth, like tug his dark, soft hair, like- she steps back, heart thundering, and executes a shaky dip of a curtsey, before she leaves.
Coward, accuses a gleeful voice in the back of her mind, sounding awfully like Lucy. Queens do not turn tail. Queens do not run away. But this is not Narnia, this is not Nottingham, this is not New York. This is not home, this fractured, burning country is not- And Susan has not known a place to call home in such a very, very long time.