Work Text:
But what if something was different? What if there had been no Narnia?
What if they never followed Lucy through a wardrobe into a land of eternal winter? What if Lucy had returned to her room to sob herself to sleep, and when she went back, the wardrobe wouldn’t open? What if Lucy had returned to her room to sit in silence, in imagination, only wondering what could have happened (what would have happened)?
Because Narnia was a land that needed them, true, but there are other siblings, other stories (a prophecy is only what you make of it, some people would say. It’s only true because you make it so. Because someone is scared (wants uncompromising power and resolute authority), and acts without compassion and without foresight, and the others just want the one. What is a nation, a people, when you have a brother; and so the prophecy comes true). But that is another story. In this one, there is just England. Just resentment and anger and bullying and caring (and love, still at the center). In this story, there is still a war too large for young children and truths too real for them to have to face.
In this world (where Narnia is simply a word Lucy mutters in her sleep), there is no ‘Edmund the Just.’ The world isn’t just, so he will not be. (Some people come home from war, and some are never seen again. He thinks about that sometimes.) In this story, Edmund never betrays them for candy. He still betrays them though for the sake of pride and anger and school boy camaraderie; he still betrays them. Except here there is no one to save him, because there is nothing tangible to save–just an angry, bitter, childish young boy who sees nothing in the world worthy of kindness. It is easier to be angry, he learns. It is far more amusing to be witty and cruel, to use your fists to strike and your words to parry. It’s easier. That’s all there is to it. (Why be just and fair and merciful when the world will beat you down, and people will cave to a statement of bitter wit and clever manipulation?)
Susan never grows up Gentle. She still grows up beautiful and witty and worrisome, but in this story she grows up without magic and a court and duty; there is only war and starvation and frustration. In this story, under the rouge and lipstick and nylons is a scared girl with furrows between her brows and brusque efficiency in her fingers. This world doesn’t stop for anyone, she learns, and so she works even harder and parties even fiercer as the music grows ever louder. In this story, she is bright and fierce even as the world is grey and then brightly (falsely) colored plastic. (This is not a world than lends itself to gentleness; if you are gentle, it will destroy you, and Susan refuses to be destroyed.)
Peter never becomes the jovial, fierce, Magnificent man he could have been. Responsibility still rests on his too young shoulders, but there is no Lion to relieve the pressure. His brother never returns to him the way he might have done, and the failure of it never leaves his heart (he was very young when Ed was born, but he remembers it. He remembers looking at the quiet, red bundle of baby resting in his mother’s arms, and something changed in him then–something fierce and protective and excited).
In this world, Peter is still the child of war, but it is a cruel war and a cruel recovery, and this is a world without a High King’s honor and glory. He looks at the war and its loss, and it breaks his loyal heart. But he is still strong here, still alive and still the oldest, and he takes the lessons he’s learned, holds them close to his beating heart, and he goes to work. He doesn’t share the camaraderie with the Professor, but he still studies. He works and works, and he builds a life under the grey skies of London. (There is no golden, shining Magnificence here; there is only a man, raised in Depression and grown in War who will work every day and hope every night; in England, there is only a man).
In this story, it is only Lucy. It was still Lucy who found the wardrobe, who crawled into a forest, who had tea with a faun, who heard the prophecy, who ran with fear, who cried and begged and was called a liar. But when Lucy went back to England, no one found Narnia again. This is a Lucy who saw the magic, but never got to live with it. Who was right, who didn’t lie, but was never believed. (Shut up, Lu. Don’t tell stories. We’ll go home soon; it’s okay. Don’t let Mum hear you.) Lucy grows up in the cold, magicless land of England, and her faithful heart never stops bleeding. (I saw you, she says to no one. I saw you and you were real and alive, and I didn’t make you up, I didn’t!) She learns to keep silent, and she stops knocking on the backs of wardrobes.
This is a Lucy who grows up quiet, who sees the heartbreak and exhaustion on people’s faces and the obliviousness of what could be, and chooses not speak (she tries first, for a little while, but no one will ever listen to a girl who claims to visit other worlds. ‘Poor dear heart,’ they would say. ‘the war is hard on children’). This is a Lucy who is still brave, still strong (she holds on, after all), but this is a Lucy who must be realistic. So she is silent, and it is a different kind of Valiant. This is a world that will not believe; who cannot see past the crumbling edifices of a broken world to see what cannot be proven. (This is not a world for a believer.)
In this world, a world without Narnia, without magic and hope and adventure and sacrifice and trial and error and Aslan and Tumnus and Jadis, when they work and study and grow beautiful and grow silent, they do not learn to be what they could (Magnificent, Gentle, Just, and Valiant). They are alive and tired and young just the once; they are bitter and kind and quiet and working and striving (for something, that’s all anyone knows).
.
.
.
Except.
Except that’s not the story. Lucy does go back and brings her bitter brother and the older ones with her (and so the prologue to their life’s great adventure begins).
In their world, a world with Narnia, they grow up Magnificent, Gentle, Just, and Valiant. They grow up brave and strong and beautiful and smart and kind. They grow up with faith in their bones and the unbelievable in front of their eyes, and there is always joy in the midst of the sorrow.
In their world, they go back to a thankless, magicless land as adults in children’s bodies. In this world, they can see past the cold and the grey to the magic that must be there, and they can feel its faded hum rustling under their skin. This is a world that cannot see the glow that never leaves those that choose to remember; a world unprepared for the wisdom and glory. But these are four children who have learned to be loyal, to be faithful, to be merciful, to be fierce.
In a world without Narnia, Narnia would still have been freed. Another four, another story, another world, another life.
(It was the Pevensies who needed Narnia.)