For Narnia and for ASLAN

Dating

Susan didn't date.

She had courted in Narnia. She had been out with many suitors. Some of them insufferable, some of them fantastic. She'd even fancied herself in love.

But now, Susan didn't date.

Susan was too old for the boys her age. It sounded insane, but it was true. How could this teenage boy understand the responsibility she'd already faced as a queen? This boy, who was supposed to have more control over the government than her, knew nothing.

"May I have your number?" A boy who went to the school across the street asked. She gave him a fake number. She didn't want him to call. Susan wouldn't date a child.

Susan was too young for the men her age. She had been a queen, an adult and knew that a grown man who would date a teenage girl, no matter how "mature" he claimed she was, was a not a good person.

"Hey there, doll. Want to be with a real man?" Susan didn't even bother looking at the man who smelled of cigarettes and whiskey. She wouldn't date a creeper.

So, Susan didn't date. That was how she accepted it to be.

When she was thrust back into Narnia, she was disappointed that she didn't get her old body back. She never voiced this (how could she, when there were more important issues at hand?), but she felt it deeply. Oh, to be tall and have the long, dark hair of her reign.

She did what was necessary and pushed forward, as a queen must. But...... There was Caspian.
Caspian, who was her age, and understood, though not yet fully, what it was to have the responsibility of a kingdom on your shoulders. Caspian, who wasn't yet an older man, who matched her in so many ways. Caspian, who seemed to think the same of her.
"You keep it. You may need to call me later," she said. She hadn't given a real number to a boy or man in so long.
Susan only knew Caspian for a short time, but she knew. Knew this was love, more than with Rabadash, or any one of the suitors she'd had.
When she said goodbye, something inside her hurt. She knew she would heal, just as she was healing after her first loss of Narnia. Just as she'd healed her first heartbreak.

For a long while, Susan didn't date. She smiled at the men and boys who asked her, but turned them down.
But then it seemed foolish. Why wasn't she dating? Her kingdom was gone. There was no proof she was a queen. No proof she was who she had been.
Susan began to conceal her past, block it away.
And after a few years, the Gentle Queen seemed to die.
It was just Susan who began to date.