Title: Regrets
Day/Theme: 3. Wail
Series: Chronicles of Narnia
Character/Pairing:
Rating: PG13



She didn't have the words for this--this anger, a hard pitted knot curling like an ember in her chest.

In the shadow of Aslan's How, a Narnian wailed a keen lament, voice throbbing with pain. A survivor, maybe regretting the surviving. Susan tips her head back, draws in deep unsteady breaths, pretends she isn't trying not to cry. Her fingers dug into her breastbone, like she could rub the painful coal of resentment and grief to the surface if she tried hard enough.

Men and pride and war. She wanted to curse.

Really, Peter, is it that hard to just walk away?

She hard the step and twisted, sharply, tensing--and then she was facing Caspian, his dark eyes too wide, his face shifting from grim, hard lines to surprised ones, but not losing the deep marks of pain and regret around his mouth.

They stared at each for a long moment and then Susan said, her voice toneless, "sit. It's all right."

He sank down, looking out over the pale, chill morning, and his hand lay still on his leg, face expressionless.

"Right now," Susan said in a distant voice, "I think Narnia would be better off without us."

His eyes flashed towards her, dark and startled, and after a long moment he said quietly, "no. The plan might have worked."

Susan stared at her lap then, teeth sinking into her lower lip. "And it might have been called off."

Caspian looked away again, his eyes on the misty shapes of the trees. "And nothing of this has blame that can be placed on you."

"Do you think that matters when people are dead?" She asked tightly.

"No," he said softly. "To a Queen, I suppose it must not."

That made her look at him, startled, trying to divine the meaning beneath the surface of the words, but he watched the trees still.

Finally she simply lowered her head and looked at her hands where they lay on the dark earth, tender shoots of grass ticking her palms. The words were thick in her throat, out of her blind grasp, and she drew in a deep breath, let it out, felt the pain unfurl in her heart, releasing from the burning knot of pain and thwarted anger to something cleaner.

They shared the stillness and the pain and the burden, and in the quiet of the morning it was almost enough.