A/N: Done! And, um, yes, it DID take me long enough. Sorry. sheepish grin
Here it is, without further ado: the end. ; )
"Lucy!" Susan screamed, all attempts at regality gone. Her hands clutched for her bow, fumbling for an instant before they gripped the smooth wood and formed around it. An extension of her hands, that was all.
Lucy's hands were bound behind her back, as were her feet. She was standing against the rock, her mouth a hard line, but somehow Susan knew that if she could see her eyes they would be frightened. Regal, yes, but frightened all the same
Just another limb. Susan raised the bow slowly, her arms shaking.
The Empress looked up, her smile cold and taunting, her knife a hair from Lucy's throat.
"Go ahead queen." She spat. "Stop me. Fulfill the prophecy."
Arod, Kort, Namir and the rest, who had been poised for the moment of action, charged down the hill, but it would be to late. Even with Namir and Arod's speed, they could never reach Lucy before the knife reached her throat.
Susan knew all this in the split-second that she notched a bow and sent it flying down the hill, its aim swift and true, the aim of a practiced eye. She knew that the arrow would strike its target before it even left her hand, knew when she heard the hum in her ears and felt her hands leap to their tasks. Perhaps she had known the minute she saw Lucy standing there, helpless before a false empress.
Susan would not have been sure of the arrow. Susan would have taken into account wind speed and direction, and the slope of the hill, and the Empress' reaction time.
But the woman that fired the bow did none of these things, and so it was Queen Susan who fired the arrow, and who did not need to watch its flight to see whether or not it would strike.
Susan had been aiming for the throat, though she only admitted it years later. She did not watch to see where the arrow struck.
She rushed down the hill in a thoroughly undignified way. What would that American magazine think of its potential model now, running down a hill in dwarfish armor, hair unkempt, eyes wide?
"I don't care." Susan said aloud as she reached the rock where Kort was cutting Lucy's bonds. "I don't care."
She pushed her way through the crowd of beings around Lucy and then stood, uncertain. Was there an adequate apology for the things she had said about Narnia, the things she had said to her siblings? She found she could not look her youngest sister in the eye. But she did not need to.
"Susan!" Lucy said, and threw her arms around Susan. "Susan we didn't think you could come back -- we didn't even think we could but we were sure --"
Susan's arms encircled Lucy and she thanked Aslan silently for the forgiveness of her sister.
"I didn't think so either." She admitted quietly. "I'd almost forgotten Narnia entirely."
It was a painful thing to admit by then, when her bow was warm at her side and her expression was that of a Queen. The look on Lucy's face was almost terrified. Not terrified of her, Susan realized, but terrified for her. That anyone could forget Narnia was a terrible, impossible idea to Lucy.
Lucy had forgiven her without question, something Susan was grateful for for the rest of her life. But there were still two more to face, and they were not there.
"Where are Peter and Edmund?" Susan asked, fear suddenly clutching at her stomach again. Lucy's eyes went wide.
"They'll be in the Empress' castle Susan and I --" Lucy relaxed suddenly, remembering. "Well I don't suppose anyone will stop us now."
Lucy swallowed, and Susan, though she knew the occasion was grave, almost smiled. Even the death of someone so utterly evil made Lucy balk. Susan was glad of that. In some things, she would rather her little sister never grew up.
Susan instinctively gripped her bow.
"We'll get them out." She said. "I promise Lucy. There's nothing left to stop us. And if there was --"
Susan leaves the sentence unfinished, but the hand that is formed around her bow, fingers all practiced and comfortable in their precise places on the warm, polished wood, makes it clear what the end might have been.
It was a simple matter, really. Suddenly everything seemed like a simple matter. They arrived at the Empress' castle and gained entrance silently through a back gate, the guards on the ground unconscious after a swift lunge from Namir, the door to the castle opened with the help of Kort's axe.
The guard inside the door was happy to tell them were the prisoners are being held when he found a snarling leopard at his throat, green eyes sparking with purpose, and soon enough they came to a long, stone corridor with metal doors lining both sides.
With Lucy and her hunting party at her side Susan disarmed the guards with two quick shots from fifteen feet down the hallway. Lucy picked the metal lock with her dagger, and finally, with an immense creaking, the door swung open. A blast of cold air burst into the corridor as Lucy rushed in. Susan stopped in the doorway.
The cell was dark, made of the same stone as the corridor's walls and floor. There was very little light, but what light did filter through served only to illuminated the dust. There was a cot of sorts, though a remarkably lumpy and dingy one, and Susan supposed they had taken turns sleeping on it.
"Lu!" Peter said, his relief evident.
"By Aslan Lu we were about to try the window again," Edmund gestured toward a window, much too small for Edmund or Peter to fit through, "if you didn't make an appearance soon."
They both wrapped their arms around her, Peter thumping her on the back.
"But Lucy how did you --" Edmund began, and stopped short. He had looked over Lucy's shoulder and seen Susan in the doorway.
"That's how." Lucy said, a smile on her face. "Susan's come back."
There was immense silence for all of a second before Edmund stepped forward, his smile enormous, and wrapped his arms around her as well.
"Thank you for coming." He said quietly, joy and gratitude evident in his serious words.
"I -- what should I say to that Ed?" She asked, suddenly near tears. "Thank you for inviting me?"
Lucy burst into laughter and Edmund smiled.
"I'm always glad to invite wayward ones back into the flock." He said with a hint of a wink. "And anyway your offense wasn't exactly high treason."
Susan felt a deep rush of gratitude toward him. Bringing up his first journey into Narnia was not something Edmund liked to do, and she knew he was doing it to make her feel better about what she had done.
The smile disappeared from her face when she turned to look at Peter.
He was standing in the corner of the cell, his hand at his side, but tense. He was ready, she knew, to reach for his sword.
"Susan." He said, sounding almost calm, and definitely cold.
There was a look in Peter's eyes that reminded her inescapably of the look that was there when Edmund returned from the clutches of the White Witch all those years ago. She swallowed, but Ed must have seen it too. He put an hand on Peter's elbow.
"Peter." He said quietly. There was a reminder in his voice, and Peter glanced down at the ground, then at Susan.
"Su." He said, took a deep breath, met her eyes, and smiled. The grin on his face was suddenly as big as Lucy's. "Welcome home."
At dinner later Susan overheard her brothers talking some way down the table.
"Can't ever be first to welcome anyone back can you?" Edmund asked, a grin in his voice.
"Oh shut up." Peter said, but he couldn't maintain an angry facade for even as long as it took to finish his sentence.
Susan never said anything to anyone about it, even Lucy, but she settled happily into her chair and was finally entirely at home -- Peter and Ed bickering meant comfort and normalcy and Narnia, no matter how many years had passed.
A/N: I have to admit that toward the end of this story I didn't handle it the way I would have liked to update wise or sometimes even writing wise. I'd like to try my hand at another chaptered Narnia story at some point. : )
It's been quite the ride for me on this story, trying to get more description into my writing and kick my muse into gear. I really appreciate everyone who's reviewed -- trust me when I say that those reviews, more than anything, powered me through. I received a lot of wonderful compliments, and some great help from reviews, so again (and I cannot say this enough) thank you, thank you, thank you.
As always, please let me know what you thought of it. : )