Rosenberg-Pevensie Family Suite, Cair Paravel, Saturday afternoon

[willbedone]

It wasn't a year. Not exactly. A year had been a more formal occasion with a party and guests and dressing up and people doing bows and curtseys and Willow worrying about whether, if she had food stuck in her teeth, would anyone let her know or would they be too polite to mention it or, worse, would they think it was some kind of new fashion craze

Comments

[once_a_king]

"Plus with you and Lu and Susan around, she'll never be lacking for non-frilly people to look up to," Peter pointed out. He was fairly certain Susie was going to end up in the dress either way. "The dryads and...well, possibly she shouldn't look up to the dryads."

[willbedone]

Willow held the dress up for Peter to see. "Look at it! There are little pink flowers! I should be appalled but so cute!!"

[once_a_king]

"I rather like the pink flowers," Peter said. Which was not a comment he'd really would have expected to say before Susie. "They can't be that appalling." Could they?

[willbedone]

"Well they're appalling from the standpoint of an entire culture that insists that girls must do everything in pink," Willow said. "Though when I say that I mean the concept of culture and not necessarily Narnia specifically because Narnia is obviously not Earth for many reasons, not the least of which is all the talking animals which has a not insignificant number of color blind members so it's not like they can tell the difference between pink and not-pink to begin with let alone force it on somebody else as a cultural requirement. Which is good because they'd never know if they'd succeeded or not since people could wear lime green and they'd never know. But that doesn't mean Susie should feel like she has no choice in her flower preferences! Or even liking flowers! Am I forcing our daughter to like flowers? Is that going to cause an allergy?"

You would think having the first child would've helped Willow get this sort of thing out of her system by the time Susie came along. You would clearly not have met Willow before.

[once_a_king]

Peter got up to move behind Willow, resting his hands on her shoulders. "You shan't be causing her an allergy by dressing her in a dress that she won't remember wearing. I'm fairly certain of it. Besides she wore a yellow dress earlier. Which flowers were nowhere nera."

[willbedone]

Willow let herself have a moment to lean in to Peter's touch. "True. I mean daffodils but also lemons and sunlight so it's not exactly a direct correlation. Oh! Maybe we can get her an outfit that has little books on it? Not just as an antidote to outfits with pink flowers. More like the principle of the thing, since books!"

[once_a_king]

"Now I find myself surprised she doesn't already have an outfit with little books on it," Peter teased. "Or perhaps tiny computers?"

[willbedone]

Willow gasped with delight. "Oh how cute that would be! Can we get her one of those? Or twelve?"

[once_a_king]

"Of each?" he grinned. 'I support this plan entirely. What does Susie think?"

[willbedone]

"Da!" Susie said. She had been babbling along with the conversation and now reached out towards her father from where she had been perched on the bed.

"She thinks you're very cute," Willow said. She may not have been speaking on behalf of her daughter there.

[once_a_king]

"Perhaps she's getting 'me' confused with 'herself'," Peter pondered, reaching to pick up Susie to say hello.

[willbedone]

Susie gave a happy cry of "Da!" and reached to touch Peter's face. Willow watched the two of them with a proud smile.

"She is pretty darn cute," Willow agreed. "She takes after her daddy. Which will be very literal once she gets that walking thing under control."

[once_a_king]

"Now that she has hair, I'd say she's cute in a way much like her mother," Peter replied, wrinkling his nose at Susie as he pretended to gnaw on her fingers. "Perhaps she should stay this size. It didn't work with Alex, but we're better at keeping them from growing now."

Yes, that was exactly it.

[willbedone]

"Maybe if we give tight hugs?" Willow suggested. "Not to make it hard to breathe or anything because we're all for lungs doing their job regardless of how tiny, but maybe it would discourage pesky growth spurts that make her bigger and render debates about clothes useless since she can't fit into them anymore anyway."

[once_a_king]

"Tight hugs and keeping a hand on her hand?" he asked, suiting actions to words. "She couldn't grow taller if one's hand were there."

[willbedone]

Willow laughed. "I'd suggest a heavy book but there'd be temptation on all sides to read it."