Title: Glimpse
Day/Theme: 8. Gasp
Series: Chronicles of Narnia
Character/Pairing: Susan/Caspian
Rating: PG13



The purr of the boy's motorcycle recedes behind her, and she's too far away--too awake, now in cold reality--to pretend it's the soft rumble of a lion's voice.

She hangs up her jacket because it's habit, and it's manners, and she has nothing better to do. The house is still but warm; Lucy and Edmund are sleeping, no doubt, and Peter's gone for the weekend.

Her boots tap the ground, the small sharp sounds echoing gently though the quiet house. She hadn't been expecting the bike ride, but the heels were still low enough--vestiges of a strange practicality warning her of the treachery of ground in battle and quickly pushed away but not far enough--that she wasn't too disadvantaged.

Not as good as a horse, she thought wistfully, though most people would have said a motorcycle ride was smoother than a horse's gait, and faster, and therefore superior. She'd given him the spare helmet, and thanked him only briefly.

A sense of loneliness swept through, a great whisper of desolation. For a moment, with pained acuteness, she ached to go upstairs and shake Lucy awake and tell her--tell her something, tell her anything, so her sister could touch her face and quietly say her name, and tell her what to do, somehow, in a world she didn't belong, where people she couldn't care about grouped around her like flies at honey.

I was a Queen, she thought, and stopped, looking at herself in the mirror in the hall, above the long table. A girl with light flashing eyes, a bold red mouth and tousled dark hair; she touched her cheek, then her throat, and closed her eyes, throat tight, and remembered the weight of warm, welcome arms around her.

She opened her eyes in time to see her image ripple like water, a gentle sighing stirring the glass as it might a fine-spun veil, as the dim hall behind her and her own pale implacable face breathed away like patterns in sand.

She recognized the dark eyes that took their place.

But she hardly recognized the sound that came from her throat--a high sharp gasp, cutting free of her tight throat. She lunged forward before she could stop herself, the table digging into her thighs, her hands on the mirror--it neither gave nor moved, only cast ripples--as she cried his name.

His head came up like she was standing next to him, eyes going wide. His mouth moved, but no sound reached her ears.

Susan dragged in a breath that gulped like a sob and said his name again, voice shaking.

"Susan?"

She spun too fast and banged her hip, craning her head to catch Lucy's muffled call. Just as quick she turned back--only to find the mirror blank, his face gone.

She fell to her knees, numb and blank, hand pressed against her throbbing hip, and leaned her forehead against the table edge. She didn't realize she was crying until she licked her lips and tasted salt, so consumed by the sense of new loss.