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edenfalling"Form and Function," in which, yet again, I go meta on Narnia via Susan thinking way too hard about stuff and having a conversation with Edmund that just raises more questions in her mind. *sigh* One of these days, I am going to write a Susan fic that deals with nothing more theologically serious than a date with a pleasant young man. But today is not that day. (575 words)
[ETA: The revised and slightly extended final version is now up here on AO3 and here on ff.net. Probably.]
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Form and Function
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Lucy was the one who figured it out first, though once she pointed out the correspondences to her siblings, they felt instantly as if they had known all along in the backs of their minds. And at first, knowing was enough. For Lucy, it remained enough; she had always trusted Aslan absolutely.
Peter... Susan wasn't certain about Peter, but she suspected he had fought through a month of doubt at some point. He had certainly spent a string of restless nights wandering up and down the stairs in their parents' house before he went off to university. She asked Edmund later if Peter had confessed anything to him.
"It's a classic soldier's dilemma," Edmund said with a shrug. "It's tricky to reconcile 'love thy neighbor as thyself,' and 'turn the other cheek' with something as inherently violent as a lion, and with an implicit blessing on certain battles and executions. Peter's still beating himself up over the ethics of war."
Susan frowned. It did seem the sort of thing Peter would agonize over; he always took on every last scrap of responsibility he legitimately should, and then another double handful as well. But if this were a soldier's dilemma... "So why aren't you beating yourself up alongside him?" she asked.
Edmund favored her with a wry glance. "Who says I'm not?" Susan's frown deepened, and Edmund sighed. "Fine, Su. It's different for me. I'm not the one who never fell, who needs to be the shining example. I know perfectly well there are dark corners in the world. Sometimes love isn't enough. Sometimes you have to cut the rot out with fire. I made my peace with that long ago; Peter's still fighting that truth."
Susan murmured absent-minded thanks and went back to the room she shared with Lucy, trying to sort her thoughts into some rational order.
Put simply, the similarity was impossible to ignore or deny once it had been made clear, and yet she could not wrap her mind and heart around it. Aslan was Aslan, and Aslan was a lion. He was Other -- loving, to be sure, and wise and good and comforting -- but he was a creature born to rend and tear, to eat the flesh of his prey and his enemies, to pierce and cow and terrify them into surrender.
All the love in the world could not make a lion human.
Lucy swore Aslan had appeared to her in the form of an albatross and a lamb -- and Edmund verified her tales -- but in the depths of her heart, Susan couldn't believe. A lion was a lion, always and forever.
And his love hurt. It pierced like swords, like claws, like fangs. Velvet paws and a soft mane could never equal the simple warmth of human arms wrapped around her in an embrace, human lips against her cheek, human fingers laced through her own.
Susan couldn't deny the similarities. She couldn't reconcile them either.
It was simplest to shut the whole question away.
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Inspired by the 9/8/09![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
15_minute_fic word #122: shape
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It's a beautiful day in Ithaca. It's also my first day of work since last Thursday. I feel somewhat disconnected from my job right now -- disconnected from everything, actually, as if I might float away unexpectedly. I get this faux out-of-body feeling now and then, and I am never sure what causes it or how to react.
[ETA: The revised and slightly extended final version is now up here on AO3 and here on ff.net. Probably.]
---------------------------------------------
Form and Function
---------------------------------------------
Lucy was the one who figured it out first, though once she pointed out the correspondences to her siblings, they felt instantly as if they had known all along in the backs of their minds. And at first, knowing was enough. For Lucy, it remained enough; she had always trusted Aslan absolutely.
Peter... Susan wasn't certain about Peter, but she suspected he had fought through a month of doubt at some point. He had certainly spent a string of restless nights wandering up and down the stairs in their parents' house before he went off to university. She asked Edmund later if Peter had confessed anything to him.
"It's a classic soldier's dilemma," Edmund said with a shrug. "It's tricky to reconcile 'love thy neighbor as thyself,' and 'turn the other cheek' with something as inherently violent as a lion, and with an implicit blessing on certain battles and executions. Peter's still beating himself up over the ethics of war."
Susan frowned. It did seem the sort of thing Peter would agonize over; he always took on every last scrap of responsibility he legitimately should, and then another double handful as well. But if this were a soldier's dilemma... "So why aren't you beating yourself up alongside him?" she asked.
Edmund favored her with a wry glance. "Who says I'm not?" Susan's frown deepened, and Edmund sighed. "Fine, Su. It's different for me. I'm not the one who never fell, who needs to be the shining example. I know perfectly well there are dark corners in the world. Sometimes love isn't enough. Sometimes you have to cut the rot out with fire. I made my peace with that long ago; Peter's still fighting that truth."
Susan murmured absent-minded thanks and went back to the room she shared with Lucy, trying to sort her thoughts into some rational order.
Put simply, the similarity was impossible to ignore or deny once it had been made clear, and yet she could not wrap her mind and heart around it. Aslan was Aslan, and Aslan was a lion. He was Other -- loving, to be sure, and wise and good and comforting -- but he was a creature born to rend and tear, to eat the flesh of his prey and his enemies, to pierce and cow and terrify them into surrender.
All the love in the world could not make a lion human.
Lucy swore Aslan had appeared to her in the form of an albatross and a lamb -- and Edmund verified her tales -- but in the depths of her heart, Susan couldn't believe. A lion was a lion, always and forever.
And his love hurt. It pierced like swords, like claws, like fangs. Velvet paws and a soft mane could never equal the simple warmth of human arms wrapped around her in an embrace, human lips against her cheek, human fingers laced through her own.
Susan couldn't deny the similarities. She couldn't reconcile them either.
It was simplest to shut the whole question away.
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Inspired by the 9/8/09
15_minute_fic word #122: shape---------------------------------------------
It's a beautiful day in Ithaca. It's also my first day of work since last Thursday. I feel somewhat disconnected from my job right now -- disconnected from everything, actually, as if I might float away unexpectedly. I get this faux out-of-body feeling now and then, and I am never sure what causes it or how to react.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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Date: 2009-09-12 08:42 am (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2010-02-26 05:32 am (UTC)This one is lovely - I feel as though it almost floats, so that even as it deals with such deep and serious thoughts I am lifted back up by the form and style.
I love how you're working with all this meta, and how you reconcile this question of Aslan-as-Jesus without really reconciling it - or at least without cramming any one answer down the reader's throat. We can either see it as clearly as Lucy, have Peter's issues, make a more cautious peace with it as Edmund, or simply not be able to deal with it like Susan. Wonderful and so well-written, as always.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-27 02:36 am (UTC)I do think the ff.net version of this fic is better, though -- it has smoother transitions and the treatment of Peter is a bit less rushed. (This is because, unless I have taken the time to have someone else look over a story, I usually revise and polish things before I post them on ff.net. The LJ versions are sort of a public beta draft.)
(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-27 02:38 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-27 02:54 am (UTC)