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Ching Tai, evening

Susan waited in a booth for Jenny to show, and fiddled with the chopsticks. What a week. So many new students, and stuck in the middle with no warning-- Peter.

She really needed to talk to a friend much more than she needed dinner.

[here for

romanywitch but available for all your Ching Tai needs]
[That Jenny & Susan talked and had Chinese is okay for broadcast; the conversation is very NFB. Assume the waiters kept moving the shrubbery]

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Jenny slid into the booth across from Su, her cheeks flushed fro the walk across town. "Hey, Su, how's it going?" she asked, flipping her menu open.

"Ohhh. How to tell?" Susan sighed, pushing her hair out of her face. "I'm glad you could make it. I've had some news that's--" She flailed internally, trying to think of a word for it, then chuckled a little. "Wonderful. Awful. I can't tell. I need another opinion, I think."

"I'm not short of opinions," said Jenny, looking up from her study of the appetizers. "And I can decide between crab rangoon or shrimp dumplings when the server comes over to take our order. What gives?"

Susan brushed her hair back, then just blurted it out. "My older brother is in the pack of new students. He's a year older than I. At least, he's supposed to be. Now? He's sixteen. And I..." She laughed again, helplessly. "Am completely bewildered."

"That's weirder than the usual run of weird we get around here," said Jenny, pouring herself a cup of tea. She was completely not thinking about Dawn right now. "So that's got to be--you know, I should 'fess up right about now." She twisted her tea cup in her hands and levelled a look at Su. "I did some research on you. I had a year range to start out with, and Pevensie's not exactly a common name."

"Oh." Susan paused, feeling exposed. "Of course, that's-- so you know. What happened to them." She swallowed, then looked up gratefully when the waiter came over to take their order. "Lemon shrimp, won ton soup, and brown rice, please."

Jenny nodded. "I didn't think you'd want to talk about it, so I kept my mouth shut after the search results came back." She glanced down at the menu, then up at the server. "Shrimp dumplings and kung pao chicken with fried rice."

"It was so long ago." Susan waited until their server left, then quietly added, "And it was terrible. The worst thing that ever happened to me. Not just in the normal tragic sense, but-- I truly thought I was going mad, for a time after that."

"If you did, who'd blame you?" asked Jenny. "That's way beyond harsh. And you weren't too close to your aunt and uncle, from the sounds of things."

"No, I wasn't." Susan fiddled with her chopsticks. "And it was worse, because they'd just lost their son in the same accident. Eustace, my cousin."

"Eustace Clarence Scrubb ~~and he almost deserved it~~," said Jenny quietly. She pulled out her chopsticks and attacked the shrimp dumplings the server brought over. "Want some?" she asked Su, nodding at them. "Do you mind--" She paused. "Tell me to mind my own business if you want. But how come you weren't at the station?"

Susan flushed. Even after all this time, the memory still hurt and embarassed her. "I wanted to go to a party." She took a dumpling, and slowly cut it in two. "You understand, going to the station to catch the train was a last-second thing, it hadn't been planned, Peter suddenly told me they were going, and I-- had other plans. And I was angry. So I told them to go without me." She put a bite of dumpling in her mouth mechanically, chewed, and swallowed. "He told me it was important, that we needed to be there, but I just didn't care. And so... All of them. My entire family gone."

"You were a kid, Su," said Jenny. "And it's not like you could've known what was going to happen. All of which you've probably heard a million times before now, I'm sure." She dipped a piece of dumpling in ginger sauce and popped it in her mouth, chewing and swallowing before she went on. "And so now, seeing Peter here--" Jenny grimaced. "Gotta be hard."

"I burst into tears and wept all over him. Peter was horrified. And promising to make it better, whatever had me crying." Susan smiled shakily. "He's even younger than I remember him, and yet he's exactly the same, and--" She took a sip of her tea. "What am I supposed to tell him? How? 'You and our entire family died and left me alone.' I don't even know if I'd want him to believe me."

"He sounds like a good kid," said Jenny. "Want the last dumpling?" She gestured at it with her chopsticks. "Personally, I wouldn't know what to do either. So you sound like you're going to tell him, but you just don't know how?"

"He is," Susan said vehemently. "He's a wonderful person, I always looked up to him so. How can I lie to him?" She sighed, and paused while the waiter brought their entrees. "He'd know anyway."

"The part that worries me is the time travel. Remember? We talked about how this future may not be mine, and the two different presidents, and..." She paused, looking at Jenny desperately. "What if I can change it? What if they don't have to die on that train?"

"So you don't lie to him." Jenny tried for a reassuring smile. "But you might want to break that bit to him gently."

"Dying's no picnic." Jenny picked up her bowl of fried rice and poured some onto her plate. "If you can do something about it, do it. I find it hard to believe that it won't make things better."

Susan considered her entree, then took several bites, thinking carefully the whole time. After a few minutes, she said, "The only thing that worries me is that his guardian-- someone we knew back then-- might object." She paused. "On the other hand, said guardian has forgotten more about magic than most people have ever known. And he had to know I'd be here." She shook her head. "I wish, oh, I wish he'd... called, or written, something, anything, so I'd know what to tell Peter." She sighed. "I can tell him a little bit, at least. About what happened after we left Narnia. That can't possibly hurt. I hope."

Jenny started poured kung pao chicken on top of her fried rice, then pushed a few hot peppers off to the side of her plate. "A guardian who's forgotten more about magic than most people have known? I'll bet you he knows exactly what he's doing, then." She nodded and took a bite of chicken. "Maybe he didn't because he trusts your judgment." She grinned, then. "Okay, can you satisfy my curiosity? Because I'm dying here. Where the heck is Narnia, and are you this Queen Susan the Gentle chick?"

Susan blinked, then laughed a little, her cheeks pinking. "Narnia-- where it is, I couldn't tell you, not from here. The first time we visited, it was through a magic wardrobe. If you can believe it." She paused, stirring her food into her rice. "And yes, actually, I was a queen. So was Lucy. And both our brothers were kings. We helped break the rule of an evil witch, and fulfilled a prophecy. Then they crowned us." Susan said softly, "Once a king or queen in Narnia, always a king or queen in Narnia."

"At my last high school, there was a portal to hell in the library, remember? A magic wardrobe sounds nice and relaxing in comparison." Jenny sipped at her water. "I don't have to curtsey, do I? Because I suck at that." She chuckled. "Seriously, though? That's pretty cool. Though, then again, given the general refusal of the populace to believe in magic, coming back here was probably a little tough."

"A little rough. Oh, if only." Susan stopped eating entirely, and shook her head. "We were there for twenty-five years, Jenny. We ruled the land full of talking animals and mermaids and magic for a lifetime, and then-- we were pulled back. And I was twelve again. Even saying it aloud, now, it sound insane."

"I grew up with magic all around," said Jenny. "So that doesn't sound insane to me. Narnia must have been a beautiful place." She half-shrugged, one shoulder rising and falling. "I dunno. It would've kind of sucked to have come back twenty-five years later too. Maybe this was the best possible way to get back out of several not quite cool options?"

"Perhaps it was, but honestly--" And this was the first time she's been able to say this, to someone who believed Narnia was real. "I was so angry to be a little girl again. I'd been a woman, a queen, someone of importance and authority, and then I was back in 1940 being treated like a child. I think that's why I started to pretend it wasn't real."

Jenny looked thoughtful. "Okay, that makes sense. The being angry, I mean. Not that I would've thought about it that way." Though it fit with what Elizabeth's attitude had been about the whole concept. "It must've been hard. To convince yourself it wasn't real. You were furious, weren't you?"

"I loved it so," Susan answered softly. "And I didn't really understand why it had to end." She sighed. "I shall have to tell Peter about that tomorrow when I see him, I think. He's been in Narnia for four years now, and he doesn't understand why I am not still there. He deserves some warning."

"Why did it have to end? Do you know now?" asked Jenny. "And again, tell me to shut up if you want. Well, maybe be a little more polite about it?" She smiled and pushed her kung pao chicken around on her plate. "I keep forgetting he's your older brother. But yeah, you're not so wrong there."

"No, really, I appreciate your listening to this so much-- your matter-of-factness about it is keeping me from just... falling to pieces, I think." Susan gave her a shadowy smile. "I think, perhaps, that Asl-- our guardian wanted us to have a childhood. One without the pressures of kingship and rule." She looked thoughtful. "Peter adjusted better than I did. The younger two had one more trip back to Narnia after we were barred. Lucy was so young, and I wasn't talking to her about it later, when she wasn't allowed to go back. Edmund-- he was the smartest, really, and I have no idea how he felt about it." She looked regretful. "Except that they all believed and had faith longer than I did."

"I'm glad I can help. And you can call me any time, you know," said Jenny. She smiled wryly. "It's hard for me not to be matter-of-fact about magic here. Mostly because of the growing up with it thing, but partly because it's finally something I don't have to hide from everyone." She nodded at the server as he brought their check over. "My treat," Jenny said. "I'd figure it'd be hard to go between queen of a magical land and semi-ordinary schoolgirl. Maybe your sibs didn't understand, but it sounds like they also trusted that you'd believe again eventually. Why else would Peter ask you to go to the train station?"

Susan smiled, feeling something wrench in her chest. "Oh. Yes, perhaps... yes. That would make sense." She took a breath. "Thank you. Again. For dinner and the talk. You know I'd love to return the favor in kind, any time you need it."

"It was fun. We don't get together nearly often enough." Jenny smiled wryly. "Thanks. I'll take you up on that the next time my family calls me home for a visit."

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Ching Tai, evening

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