@rosegardeninwinter secret santa for @narnianroyalties: Susan Pevensie + Christmas
Christmas before the war is ice skating and snowball fights, is Dad perching her on his shoulders to hang baubles on the tree, is Mum’s shortbread biscuits, is hurrying downstairs in her bare feet, Edmund’s tiny hand clutched in hers, Lucy’s tinier hand in Peter’s, to tear open brightly wrapped packages.
Christmas during the war is Mum humming sad hymns as she stirs hot chocolate that everyone sips distractedly, is curling up in Dad’s chair and watching frost drip down the front window, turning up the king’s Christmas broadcast on the wireless, trying to tune the silence out.
Christmas doesn’t exist in this land beyond the fur coats, this land that is one unbroken stretch of winter, where Edmund betrays them for the sweets Dad bought for his sixth birthday.
Christmas returns with spring.
Christmas in Narnia is flinging the doors of the castle wide for celebration, is velvet gowns and goblets of crimson wine that catch moonlight, is heavy green garland, is fiddle and tambourine and stomping feet, is Lucy’s laughter and Peter’s singing and Edmund’s soft smile, is watching from the balcony as the glow of dryad dances that will continue until dawn recede into the forest, is the sun coming up like pale gold on a breakfast table of piping hot cider and sticky orange buns, is two kings and two queens running out to the courtyard, like children, to catch snowflakes on their tongues, on their pink cheeks, in their hair.
Christmas alone, for the first time, is bringing roses to their graves, is walking by a church and hearing the bells ring, low and somber, is having a good cry in Dad’s chair, is wiping her eyes, tying up her hair with ribbon and applying a touch of lipstick, is going skating because she thinks they would want her to, is breathing in the frigid air that reminds her of stepping through a wardrobe for the first time.
