(Narnia/SGA) When Atlantis Rings for jedibuttercup
Title: When Atlantis Rings
Author: orockthro
Fandoms: Narnia/Stargate Atlantis
Characters Rodney McKay, John Sheppard; Susan Pevensie
Pairings: none
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 1,660
Spoilers: Through the end of the Narnia books, no spoilers for SGA
Warnings: Slight religious subtext
Disclaimer: Stargate Atlantis and Narnia belong to their respective creators
A/N: Strongly inspired by Neil Gaiman's short story "The Problem of Susan" in his collection Fragile Things.
Summary: Susan is old when the news beaks that governments had been sending people to other worlds. She isn't surprised when she hears a knock at her door.
Susan is old, but not as old as she feels, when she reads in the paper, “Shocking International Extraterrestrial Contact, Revealed!” She still buys the newspaper from the corner stand even though its pages have grown thinner every year since the Internet. The headline is repeated on every paper for weeks and pale faces and looks upwards are the only conversations that take place. It is a month later, when the headline chances slightly, that Susan feels exactly her age. “Americans Travel to Another World,” it reads, and shows a black and white picture of a summer landscape with rolling hills and a palace on a hill. She doesn’t read the article. She knows exactly where they traveled to.
It has been years since Susan last stepped foot in Narnia, years since her brothers and sister were pulled away from her and Susan was left alone in a world she only half remembered how to move in. Years since she saw that summer scene with the grass that smelled like sweet water crests and a palace that had a throne seat just for her. Years since she forgot how to feel anger and sadness.
Susan is old now, and she hates that about herself. She was never old in Narnia. She hates that too. She isn’t surprised when the doorbell rings a few days after the newspaper article comes out, but she is surprised, as she always is, by how old she looks when she passes by the mirror in the hallway. The woman who passes through the hallway in the reflection is gray-haired and bent-backed, and she has a stern look on her face. Susan will always expect to see an auburn haired beauty in the glass, even though that girl is long gone. She will always expect to see a crown on her head, even though she hasn’t been a queen in more years than she can count.
She answers the door to find two uniformed young men three steps down her stoop. They are out of place against the backdrop of her quiet street and they wear small American flags on their shoulders. They look polite in the practiced sort of way that can only come through training and years of doing unpleasant things. “Ms. Pevensie, ma’am,” one of them says, and she catches his American accent as it rolls off his tongue. She knows who they are from the papers, their faces printed a thousand times since the first day they began to release information about the Stargate.
“I’ll put on the tea, then. The sitting room should suit.” She leaves them standing on the third step and walks towards the kitchen.
She doesn’t look in the mirror when she walks past. She sees them walk in slowly, the tall man moving in first and looking in all the corners of the entryway before standing straight and confident. They close the door and bolt it, too, and she smiles at that. They’re still standing in the entryway when she comes out with the teapot and she points them in the direction of the tiny sitting room. Neither offers to help her carry the pot and teacups, and she’s intensely glad.
The sitting room isn’t used much and it’s small and cramped and the pattered wallpaper that was so lovely thirty years ago no longer suits the times. But Susan keeps it clean and occasionally has tea with editors and publishers, and she is nothing if not well versed in diplomacy to make up for the presentation. She sits them down and pours each of them a cup and they wait, awkwardly, until Susan commands them to stop fidgeting and let the tea cool.
“Ma’am, you’re probably wondering why we’re here.”
The tall one sits up straight as he speaks; the other man slouches against her floral armchair and eats one of the biscuits she’s set out only after inspecting its wrapper. She arranges herself in the straight-backed chair that is tilted to get a good view of the window and an even better view of the sitting room’s occupants and carefully folds her hands together over her lap. “No, I’m aware of why you’ve come to me.” She feels young suddenly, like a tease at a party without a date. “I’d guessed it ever since I saw the papers.” She imagines herself as young Susan sitting on her thrown and for a half a second she can almost feel the weight of her crown on her head.
The men look uncomfortably at each other before clumsily introducing themselves. “I’m Colonel John Sheppard,” says the tall one. “Doctor McKay,” the shorter one mumbles.
“Good to meet you, Colonel, Doctor. You look much better than the papers would have me believe.”
They both look flustered and Susan smiles. The Colonel is clearly in charge and he takes the reins of the situation. “Ms. Pevensie, you’re clearly keeping up with the world history of the moment so you know we’re from the Stargate program.”
She raises the teacup to her lips. She bought this set in 1961. They’re outdated now, thick porcelain and thick colors that are more for show than proper drinking, but she loves them because the sixties were good years. Those were the years of happiness and freedom, the first years that she allowed herself to do what she pleased and not feel sad and angry. The colonel and doctor know none of these things as they sit there in her floral chairs and drink her old-woman tea. She wonders what they think of her.
The colonel continues. “This may sound very strange, but we were asked to find you.”
Susan nods as if he had told her there was rain expected later today. “I thought you might have been.” She enjoys how she unnerves the men. Her training in Narnia prompts her to be more diplomatic, fair in the conversations and allow all parties a measure of power. Or, as reality had taught her, a small imagining of power. But Susan ignores those trainings and simply smiles. If she was a young woman she thinks she would be acting coyly. But as an old woman she isn’t sure there is a word for her behavior.
The men watch her like hawks with stiff backs, even the fidgety doctor. “Right. Because you just know these things.” His sarcasm feels well practiced, but it doesn’t impress Susan, who has been to tea with kings and learned to dance with beavers.
Susan raises a silver eyebrow at him.
The colonel clears his throat and looks just as uncomfortable as the doctor looks angry. “Right. Well, we were asked by a talking lion.” He drawls his words and reminds her of the young men during World War Two, when she still thought war was romantic and heroic. Back then she hadn’t yet seen blood coated grass and intestines spilling onto fields and young men naked and cut to ribbons.
“He said to tell you that you can come home now. That he’s,” the colonel closes his eyes and Susan wonders if he’s reveling in Aslan’s power or if he’s trying to recount the god’s words. “That’s he’s forgiven you.” His voice catches and he doesn’t look her in the eye, instead staring out beyond her curtains at the slow moving street. She knows it’s a diversion. Nothing ever happens on that street. There’s a moment of silence, of profuse discomfort, before the colonel adds in a hushed tone, “Ma’am, if you’re… shall we say, ‘otherworldly,’ you don’t need to worry. There are international extraterrestrial laws being enacted as we speak that would protect you.”
Susan laughs softly and feels old and frail again; a husk of a young woman in a wilting body. “I’m not one of your aliens, colonel, and I don’t need your protection, though I appreciate the thought.” She is quiet for a few moments. Aslan has returned. She doesn’t know how to feel. “Tell me, did you see any humans when you were there?” She wonders if her voice sounds as hopeful aloud as it does in her mind. “Two kings and a queen? Siblings?”
The doctor and colonel look at each other but they both shake their heads. “No, ma’am, just more… talking animals. Lots of talking animals, in fact.”
Susan nods. She knew that’s how it would be, deep in her heart. “I see. And you plan to return to that place?”
She school’s her face into a blank slate when they respond. She doesn’t want to know. “Yes. We’re heading back out next month.” The doctor is the one who speaks. The condescension has faded from his voice a little. “You can come with us, if you want.”
Night is falling outside her little street. The street lamps have turned on and glow yellow against the window. With the falling light she can see her own reflection more clearly than the outside world and Susan once again sees Susan-the-old woman instead of Susan-the-queen. Susan knows that if she goes with these Americans she would be Susan-the-queen again. Susan the young, Susan the powerful. Susan the forgiven. She closes her eyes and inhales the sweet scent of tea.
When she opens her eyes again the street lamp outside her window flickers and she misses the days when lights were gas instead of electric. “No. No, I think I’ll stay here this time.” She smiles at the men and they sit until they’ve finished their tea and eaten the biscuits she’s set out. Then she shows them out the door and quietly locks it behind them. No, she thinks to herself as she wearily climbs the stairs up to her bedroom. She passes the mirror in the hall and Susan the old woman smiles back at her. “No, indeed.”
-END-
Prompts:
-same s###, different setting
-too tough to die
Author: orockthro
Fandoms: Narnia/Stargate Atlantis
Characters Rodney McKay, John Sheppard; Susan Pevensie
Pairings: none
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 1,660
Spoilers: Through the end of the Narnia books, no spoilers for SGA
Warnings: Slight religious subtext
Disclaimer: Stargate Atlantis and Narnia belong to their respective creators
A/N: Strongly inspired by Neil Gaiman's short story "The Problem of Susan" in his collection Fragile Things.
Summary: Susan is old when the news beaks that governments had been sending people to other worlds. She isn't surprised when she hears a knock at her door.
Susan is old, but not as old as she feels, when she reads in the paper, “Shocking International Extraterrestrial Contact, Revealed!” She still buys the newspaper from the corner stand even though its pages have grown thinner every year since the Internet. The headline is repeated on every paper for weeks and pale faces and looks upwards are the only conversations that take place. It is a month later, when the headline chances slightly, that Susan feels exactly her age. “Americans Travel to Another World,” it reads, and shows a black and white picture of a summer landscape with rolling hills and a palace on a hill. She doesn’t read the article. She knows exactly where they traveled to.
It has been years since Susan last stepped foot in Narnia, years since her brothers and sister were pulled away from her and Susan was left alone in a world she only half remembered how to move in. Years since she saw that summer scene with the grass that smelled like sweet water crests and a palace that had a throne seat just for her. Years since she forgot how to feel anger and sadness.
Susan is old now, and she hates that about herself. She was never old in Narnia. She hates that too. She isn’t surprised when the doorbell rings a few days after the newspaper article comes out, but she is surprised, as she always is, by how old she looks when she passes by the mirror in the hallway. The woman who passes through the hallway in the reflection is gray-haired and bent-backed, and she has a stern look on her face. Susan will always expect to see an auburn haired beauty in the glass, even though that girl is long gone. She will always expect to see a crown on her head, even though she hasn’t been a queen in more years than she can count.
She answers the door to find two uniformed young men three steps down her stoop. They are out of place against the backdrop of her quiet street and they wear small American flags on their shoulders. They look polite in the practiced sort of way that can only come through training and years of doing unpleasant things. “Ms. Pevensie, ma’am,” one of them says, and she catches his American accent as it rolls off his tongue. She knows who they are from the papers, their faces printed a thousand times since the first day they began to release information about the Stargate.
“I’ll put on the tea, then. The sitting room should suit.” She leaves them standing on the third step and walks towards the kitchen.
She doesn’t look in the mirror when she walks past. She sees them walk in slowly, the tall man moving in first and looking in all the corners of the entryway before standing straight and confident. They close the door and bolt it, too, and she smiles at that. They’re still standing in the entryway when she comes out with the teapot and she points them in the direction of the tiny sitting room. Neither offers to help her carry the pot and teacups, and she’s intensely glad.
The sitting room isn’t used much and it’s small and cramped and the pattered wallpaper that was so lovely thirty years ago no longer suits the times. But Susan keeps it clean and occasionally has tea with editors and publishers, and she is nothing if not well versed in diplomacy to make up for the presentation. She sits them down and pours each of them a cup and they wait, awkwardly, until Susan commands them to stop fidgeting and let the tea cool.
“Ma’am, you’re probably wondering why we’re here.”
The tall one sits up straight as he speaks; the other man slouches against her floral armchair and eats one of the biscuits she’s set out only after inspecting its wrapper. She arranges herself in the straight-backed chair that is tilted to get a good view of the window and an even better view of the sitting room’s occupants and carefully folds her hands together over her lap. “No, I’m aware of why you’ve come to me.” She feels young suddenly, like a tease at a party without a date. “I’d guessed it ever since I saw the papers.” She imagines herself as young Susan sitting on her thrown and for a half a second she can almost feel the weight of her crown on her head.
The men look uncomfortably at each other before clumsily introducing themselves. “I’m Colonel John Sheppard,” says the tall one. “Doctor McKay,” the shorter one mumbles.
“Good to meet you, Colonel, Doctor. You look much better than the papers would have me believe.”
They both look flustered and Susan smiles. The Colonel is clearly in charge and he takes the reins of the situation. “Ms. Pevensie, you’re clearly keeping up with the world history of the moment so you know we’re from the Stargate program.”
She raises the teacup to her lips. She bought this set in 1961. They’re outdated now, thick porcelain and thick colors that are more for show than proper drinking, but she loves them because the sixties were good years. Those were the years of happiness and freedom, the first years that she allowed herself to do what she pleased and not feel sad and angry. The colonel and doctor know none of these things as they sit there in her floral chairs and drink her old-woman tea. She wonders what they think of her.
The colonel continues. “This may sound very strange, but we were asked to find you.”
Susan nods as if he had told her there was rain expected later today. “I thought you might have been.” She enjoys how she unnerves the men. Her training in Narnia prompts her to be more diplomatic, fair in the conversations and allow all parties a measure of power. Or, as reality had taught her, a small imagining of power. But Susan ignores those trainings and simply smiles. If she was a young woman she thinks she would be acting coyly. But as an old woman she isn’t sure there is a word for her behavior.
The men watch her like hawks with stiff backs, even the fidgety doctor. “Right. Because you just know these things.” His sarcasm feels well practiced, but it doesn’t impress Susan, who has been to tea with kings and learned to dance with beavers.
Susan raises a silver eyebrow at him.
The colonel clears his throat and looks just as uncomfortable as the doctor looks angry. “Right. Well, we were asked by a talking lion.” He drawls his words and reminds her of the young men during World War Two, when she still thought war was romantic and heroic. Back then she hadn’t yet seen blood coated grass and intestines spilling onto fields and young men naked and cut to ribbons.
“He said to tell you that you can come home now. That he’s,” the colonel closes his eyes and Susan wonders if he’s reveling in Aslan’s power or if he’s trying to recount the god’s words. “That’s he’s forgiven you.” His voice catches and he doesn’t look her in the eye, instead staring out beyond her curtains at the slow moving street. She knows it’s a diversion. Nothing ever happens on that street. There’s a moment of silence, of profuse discomfort, before the colonel adds in a hushed tone, “Ma’am, if you’re… shall we say, ‘otherworldly,’ you don’t need to worry. There are international extraterrestrial laws being enacted as we speak that would protect you.”
Susan laughs softly and feels old and frail again; a husk of a young woman in a wilting body. “I’m not one of your aliens, colonel, and I don’t need your protection, though I appreciate the thought.” She is quiet for a few moments. Aslan has returned. She doesn’t know how to feel. “Tell me, did you see any humans when you were there?” She wonders if her voice sounds as hopeful aloud as it does in her mind. “Two kings and a queen? Siblings?”
The doctor and colonel look at each other but they both shake their heads. “No, ma’am, just more… talking animals. Lots of talking animals, in fact.”
Susan nods. She knew that’s how it would be, deep in her heart. “I see. And you plan to return to that place?”
She school’s her face into a blank slate when they respond. She doesn’t want to know. “Yes. We’re heading back out next month.” The doctor is the one who speaks. The condescension has faded from his voice a little. “You can come with us, if you want.”
Night is falling outside her little street. The street lamps have turned on and glow yellow against the window. With the falling light she can see her own reflection more clearly than the outside world and Susan once again sees Susan-the-old woman instead of Susan-the-queen. Susan knows that if she goes with these Americans she would be Susan-the-queen again. Susan the young, Susan the powerful. Susan the forgiven. She closes her eyes and inhales the sweet scent of tea.
When she opens her eyes again the street lamp outside her window flickers and she misses the days when lights were gas instead of electric. “No. No, I think I’ll stay here this time.” She smiles at the men and they sit until they’ve finished their tea and eaten the biscuits she’s set out. Then she shows them out the door and quietly locks it behind them. No, she thinks to herself as she wearily climbs the stairs up to her bedroom. She passes the mirror in the hall and Susan the old woman smiles back at her. “No, indeed.”
-END-
Prompts:
-same s###, different setting
-too tough to die