Once a Queen

Fairytales

Elise was quite rudely awakened due to the sound of excited yelling.

"Peter, Peter, wake up! Peter, wake up! It's there! It's really there!" Lucy exclaimed, bouncing on Peter's bed to wake him up.

"Shhh. Lucy, what are you talking about?" Peter asked as he rolled over, hoping to get some more sleep in.

"Narnia! It's all in the wardrobe like I told you!" Lucy continued bouncing and yelling.

At this point, Susan and Elise had given up on the thought of catching more sleep and had joined Edmund and Lucy around Peter's bed.

"You've just been dreaming, Lucy," Susan said exhaustedly, hoping to calm down her excitable sister. Elise, on the other hand, almost hoped that Lucy hadn't been dreaming; that she had in fact gone back to Narnia.

"But I haven't! I saw Mr. Tumnus again! And this time, Edmund went too," she said proudly, knowing that she had brought another witness of Narnia.

Edmund looked up in surprise from where he had been re-tying his blue robe.

"You... you saw the faun?" Peter asked, still trying to process everything when his mind was so boggled with sleep.

Edmund quickly shook his head, hands fumbling to keep tying his robe.

"Well, he didn't actually go there with me," Lucy said, walking closer to her dark-haired brother. "He... what were you doing, Edmund?" she asked, apparently confounded by her brother's sudden appearance in a land he once thought was make-believe.

With a smirk, Edmund turned to Peter before saying, "I was just playing along. I'm sorry, Peter. I shouldn't have encouraged her, but you know what little children are like these days. They just don't know when to stop pretending," he said smugly, sitting on the bed across from Lucy.

Hearing Edmund deny her once more, Lucy couldn't hold her inevitable tears back. They ran down her face as she sobbed and ran out of the room, Elise hot on her heels. Susan and Peter look at each other before following, but not before Peter shoved Edmund back on the bed.

Elise followed Lucy, but didn't have enough time to warn her before the younger girl ran into the professor. Nervously, Lucy looked up at the old man, and then wrapped her arms around his middle and continued to sob into his robe. Seemingly startled, the professor looked down at the young girl before glancing up at Elise, who was watching with apologetic eyes. As she opened her mouth to apologize to him, Mrs. Macready hurried down the hall, still in the process of tying her robe around her.

"You children are one shenanigan shy of sleepin' in the stable!" She looks up, surprised to see the professor standing there. "Professor. I'm sorry. I told them you were not to be disturbed," she ground out, glaring at Elise. Elise looked down in shame.

"It's alright, Mrs. Macready. I'm sure there's an explanation. But first of all, I think this one is in need of a little hot chocolate," he said warmly, gently prying Lucy off of him and passing her to the housekeeper.

"Yes, Professor. Come along, dear," Mrs. Macready said as she took Lucy's hand and led her away down the hall.

Thinking now was the best time to go back to bed, knowing Lucy was in good hands, Elise, Susan, and Peter turned to head back down the stairs when a loud, "Ahem," stopped them in their tracks.

The professor sat at his desk, putting tobacco in his pipe, which he then placed in his mouth. "You seem to have upset the internal balance of my housekeeper," he said, glancing up at the three teens sitting on the other side of his desk.

Peter, trying to avoid getting in any more trouble, said, "We're very sorry sir. It won't happen again," while trying to take Susan and Elise's hands to lead them out of the room.

Susan, ever the one to not listen to Peter, pulled her hand out of his grasp and turned back to the Professor. "It's our sister, sir. Lucy," she said.

"Ah, the weeping girl," the Professor said with a small smirk.

"Yes sir, she's upset," Elise piped in. Peter gave her an incredulous look, obviously wanting to take control of the situation.

The Professor's smirk widened at Elise's words, saying only, "Hence the weeping." Elise blushed slightly, realizing how they must sound to the man.

Peter scoffed, rolled his eyes, and once again tried to grab Elise and Susan. "It's nothing. We can handle it!" he said gruffly, his voice filled with contempt.

However, the Professor was not deterred by Peter, merely retorting sarcastically, "Oh, I can see that." By this point, Peter was almost fuming at this man that was questioning his leadership amongst his family.

Before Peter could say anything however, Susan jumped in again, saying, "She thinks she's found a magical land."

The Professor smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkling. Hoping he might know Narnia, Elise elaborated on her sister's comment.

"In the upstairs wardrobe," she said, hope shining in her eyes.

The Professor's reaction was immediate. His smile dropped and he stood up, startling Elise. Fixing her with his piercing gaze, he questioned her.

"What did you say?"

Peter, also startled by the sudden change in character, stuttered a response.

"Um, the wardrobe, upstairs. Lucy thinks she's found a forest inside."

At this point, Peter, Susan and Elise sat down on the couch, while Professor Kirke sat in a chair across from them.

"What was it like?" he asked the Pevensies, a child-like wonder slipping into his voice.

Elise began thinking back to how Lucy had described the wonderful land of Narnia.

"It was beautiful-" she began.

"Like talking to a lunatic!" Susan interrupted.

Professor Diggory shook off Susan's words, waving his hand in the air.

"No, no, no, not her. The forest," he explained, his eyes still wide.

Susan and Peter shared incredulous looks, but Elise was fascinated by the fact that Professor Diggory obviously knew of the land in his upstairs wardrobe.

Looking back to the Professor, Peter asked with disbelief, "You're not saying you believe her?"

For once, the Professor looked startled by what he said. "You don't?" he asked.

Susan looked incredibly offended by the question, answering back with, "But of course not! I mean, logically, it's impossible."

Shaking his head, Professor Diggory turned to look at Elise. "What do they teach in schools these days?" he asked. Elise merely shook her head as well, knowing that their schools crushed all imaginative beliefs at the root, and even Susan and Peter's imaginations had withered and broken.

"Edmund said they were only pretending," Peter piped in, obviously wanting the childish discussion of nonsense to stop there. But the Professor had other ideas.

"And he's usually the more truthful one, is he?"

At that, Peter and Susan once again shared looks, their own case crumbling before them.

"No. This would be the first time," Elise answered in a quiet voice.

Professor Diggory looked as though he had solved a case, the way he leaned back in his chair and folded his hands. "Well, if she's not mad and she's not lying, then logically we must assume she's telling the truth."

"You're saying we should just believe her?" Peter sputtered, still not wanting to accept the fact that his little sister's make-believe world might just be real.

The Professor threw the siblings a questioning stare. "She's your sister, isn't she? You're her family! You might just try acting like one." And with that, Professor Diggory sat down at his desk once more and dismissed the Pevensies. Elise stood up with a glare at Peter and Susan, and stormed out of the office, her siblings trailing along behind her.