FANFIC | Sting
Title: Adventures: Sting
Author: kitoky
Fandom: Chronicles of Narnia; post-Last Battle.
Characters/Pairings: Susan, OC?rillian
Rating: K+
Summary: His mother was beautiful and the best mother there is, but Susan imagines that’s what everyone thinks of their mother.
Author's Note: Written for casue100; prompt set 50/50, #04 ponderings (will be posted there soon). Third installment of the Adventures series. See parts one & two. Two and half months in between parts one and two and only seven days for the third one to be posted? No way.
Disclaimer: All rights go to CS Lewis, Walden Media, etc.
Adventures: Sting
Check out parts one & two.
...............
The clouds above spin and twist around one another, not letting out a single drop, but threatening enough to leave the people wary.
“Your mother,” Susan starts from her spot on the park bench. “She was bitten?”
The boy beside her nods, and Susan thinks back on what he decided to share with her. His mother was beautiful and the best mother there is, but Susan imagines that’s what everyone thinks of their mother. She and Lucy often felt the same about theirs.
There is a tug in her chest, a well-practiced reminder to tell herself to think on other things.
“Bitten by a …?”
“Dog,” he replies unthinkingly.
“A dog?”
“No, a wolf.” Susan sees the scrunching of his brows and the tug on his mouth before he looks away from her, she expects, to hide his uncertainty.
“A wolf, oh my,” she tries to keep the disbelief out of her voice, but she almost winces at how breathy and skeptical it sounds.
He stills and tugs anxiously at his hat. “A lion,” he finally says.
She smiles gently, because she knows his story has come to a fork in the road.
“No,” she places a light hand on his shoulder, encouraged when he does not skitter away from her. “Lions are good and regal. They do not go after even the worst of mothers. And I doubt there are any lions around in these parts.”
“Suppose they go after mothers of bad sons, then?” He matches her surprised expression with a cool one, “As a punishment?”
Susan doesn’t expect his pondering to be serious, because it certainly sounds ridiculous. All the same, she feels herself tense and blinks the stinging in her eyes away. She can admit she’s dallied with similar thoughts many years ago when days and nights were the same from the inside of her disarrayed London flat, and distant relatives came knocking out of concern only to be turned away at the door.
“She’s gone because of me,” she hears the heaviness of the boy’s words and she can barely contain the breath that shoots out of her, because it hurts how familiar these feelings are.
Out of the corner of her eye, she sees him stare at her and she isn’t sure if he’s concerned for her or if he's asking for her response. Either way she’s unable to answer, because somehow it’s her turn to look away from him in order to wipe the tear she didn’t know she had left from her cheek.
Later, she tells herself that the clouds finally slipped up.
............
Fin
Author: kitoky
Fandom: Chronicles of Narnia; post-Last Battle.
Characters/Pairings: Susan, OC?rillian
Rating: K+
Summary: His mother was beautiful and the best mother there is, but Susan imagines that’s what everyone thinks of their mother.
Author's Note: Written for casue100; prompt set 50/50, #04 ponderings (will be posted there soon). Third installment of the Adventures series. See parts one & two. Two and half months in between parts one and two and only seven days for the third one to be posted? No way.
Disclaimer: All rights go to CS Lewis, Walden Media, etc.
Adventures: Sting
Check out parts one & two.
...............
The clouds above spin and twist around one another, not letting out a single drop, but threatening enough to leave the people wary.
“Your mother,” Susan starts from her spot on the park bench. “She was bitten?”
The boy beside her nods, and Susan thinks back on what he decided to share with her. His mother was beautiful and the best mother there is, but Susan imagines that’s what everyone thinks of their mother. She and Lucy often felt the same about theirs.
There is a tug in her chest, a well-practiced reminder to tell herself to think on other things.
“Bitten by a …?”
“Dog,” he replies unthinkingly.
“A dog?”
“No, a wolf.” Susan sees the scrunching of his brows and the tug on his mouth before he looks away from her, she expects, to hide his uncertainty.
“A wolf, oh my,” she tries to keep the disbelief out of her voice, but she almost winces at how breathy and skeptical it sounds.
He stills and tugs anxiously at his hat. “A lion,” he finally says.
She smiles gently, because she knows his story has come to a fork in the road.
“No,” she places a light hand on his shoulder, encouraged when he does not skitter away from her. “Lions are good and regal. They do not go after even the worst of mothers. And I doubt there are any lions around in these parts.”
“Suppose they go after mothers of bad sons, then?” He matches her surprised expression with a cool one, “As a punishment?”
Susan doesn’t expect his pondering to be serious, because it certainly sounds ridiculous. All the same, she feels herself tense and blinks the stinging in her eyes away. She can admit she’s dallied with similar thoughts many years ago when days and nights were the same from the inside of her disarrayed London flat, and distant relatives came knocking out of concern only to be turned away at the door.
“She’s gone because of me,” she hears the heaviness of the boy’s words and she can barely contain the breath that shoots out of her, because it hurts how familiar these feelings are.
Out of the corner of her eye, she sees him stare at her and she isn’t sure if he’s concerned for her or if he's asking for her response. Either way she’s unable to answer, because somehow it’s her turn to look away from him in order to wipe the tear she didn’t know she had left from her cheek.
Later, she tells herself that the clouds finally slipped up.
............
Fin