Finally was brave enough to type this up. I'm proud of this one, I hope y'all like it. Tell me what you think, I hope you catch the book reference at the end. Four for you if you get it. :)

She couldn't believe.

It hadn't happened. They were children. They were silly children who were bored and lonely.

She wouldn't believe.

How could she?

How could she believe that she was a queen? She was nothing. She was a silly girl.

If she was truly a queen, Aslan would not have made her leave. Aslan would have not abandoned her, if she were a queen.

It was just so hard for her to believe. How had she ever ruled? How could Aslan have ever loved her?

It was easiest to say that he never had been there. There were no knights in shining armor, only brash boys whose hands wandered on walks and were too frightened of Peter and Edmund to come for tea a second time. There had never been any beautiful gowns in her wardrobe, only old frocks from charities for the children of soldiers.

There was no Queen Susan the Gentle, mistress of Cair Paravel, feared Lady of the Horn.

There was only little Susan Pevensie. Not as grand and good as Peter, not as brooding and mysterious and brave as Edmund, not as beautiful and golden as Lucy. Just Susan.

There was nothing queenly about her.

How could she ever think there could have been?

Foolish girl.

Narnia? There was no such thing. If Aslan was real, he wouldn't have ever picked you to be a queen. You're just a lonely girl, making up stories to fill your heart. You're all alone.

Susan Pevensie thought these things until her dying day. She believed them, too.

Until she saw light in that last moment, and then his face, the one she thought was not real. The one that did not love her.

"You have listened to fears, child."

She was not a queen.

"Come, let me breathe on you."

She could not have been. You weren't. But how could she smell his scent, then?

"Forget them. Are you brave again?"

She had been a queen. She was always a queen.

"A little, Aslan," said Susan.

-fin-