to begin with, their lungs are fragile, human things. they breathe in english city air, struggle in the cold months, carry rain and childish laughter inside them. until suddenly itās dust, smoke, breathing out a ruined home inside a mass of mourning people. their tongues are coated in ash, and their breaths stutter in the damp train station air.
in narnia, their lungs fill up with winter, blood and soil.
edmund breathes in, and his lungs are full of shards of ice that crawl up his throat eagerly until he is choking on sugar and slowly melting snow.
susan breathes in, and her lungs are full of steel and wood resolve, birch roots and daffodils settling in with a fierce grip that makes her ache.
peter breathes out, and his lungs are iron-clad, with flames licking up the insides until all he feels is the fire trying to spill past his lips into his hands.
lucy breathes out, and pink petals break through wet soil in time with her breaths, her lungs full of spring and claws that tear their way across her tongue.
over time, their lungs adjust to narnian air, and itās easy to breathe with all the roots and leaves inside them.Ā they grow strong, so much more compared to the weak little things that used to flutter inside them.
they fall, and their lungs are so very empty, yet too heavy for a proper breath of rotten english wind. their inhales are shallow, broken, full of tears and pleas that dissipate before they hit the air. their brittle child bodies carry cracked marble lungs, hollow and abandoned inside grieving chests and no moss there to soothe the sharp edges. it hurts.
a year later, their home has shattered, is silent once again, lifeless underneath their feet. their lungs rest easier in familiar air, but never steady until narnia takes her first breath in years. she brings flowers, fire, crystal waters, iron and sharp edges back into their chests, and their laughter breathes life in turn. familiar roots snake through the holes inside and fill their chests.Ā
they donāt leave as suddenly this time, and their marble lungs wrap around homeās flowers even in englandās strange air. they breathe in london rain and breathe out narnian spring, petals drifting from their mouths into grey skies. itās better.
they end. marble shatters in growing bodies, drives into painfully human shells and squashes the garden. susan, tasting tears and metal on her tongue, barely stops herself from climbing through the wreckage to try and dig for flowers. she wonders if it hurt at all for their last breaths to draw in glass and warped metal. they have been breathing through the weight of a world for so very long, she cannot help but think that her siblings welcomed it all with open arms. she closes her eyes and finds tender roots still spreading through her lungs. she breathes. it will be alright.
