#The doll doesn't even have the chest cavity yet

[puppetmaster13u]

Day 10

Au belongs to @phoenixcatch7

(Which btw my mutual I have discovered something perfect for vibes for the dolls. Spirit Warriors from Spelljammers in DnD, I would watch the video by Dungeon Dad on Youtube, they're great)

[quecksilvereyes]

dialogue prompt: stay right there. i'll be over in a minute. i'll help. narnia character: susan is on the brain susan it shall be

thank you for the prompt!!! this ended up as a Peter & Susan piece because of course. inevitably it does.

prompt from this post! feel free to pick one and send me a narnia character! I'll write you a little ficlet.

_

Your eldest stands by the stove, shaking hands and split lip, his brows furrowed. His teeth dug into the inside of his cheek, his back straight, he stares at the kettle.

It's whistling. The steam rushes through the spout like some angry thing trapped in a locked box, and the gas-fed flames underneath lick at the metal. "Peter", you say, and rest your fingers against your temple. "Peter, please."

Peter does not move. Peter, blue-eyed and blond and strung like piano wire, licks his lips. They are swollen, still, and raw as his knuckles are. Your ears ring. Your mouth sits, weary and smeared, somewhere in the pit of your stomach.

"Peter", you say. "Darling."

Darling doesn't blink. Darling gnaws at his cheek. Darling's hands twitch. Darling doesn't breathe.

"Oh, Peter." Susan's voice has been, since they've returned, as smooth as honey. As sharp as allium. Her hair is pinned up, still, wrapped around the rollers she has taken to sleeping with. In her hand, she holds the silk scarf the Professor must have gifted her, buttercup-yellow and finer than anything you've ever owned.

There is still that gap between her front teeth, and she has not yet grown into her eyes. Big and pale, and paired with that rose-petal mouth, she looks more like a doll now than she did when she was born.

She's the only one who was born screaming, flushed purple and clinging to you with all the strength of a thing that is not prepared for change. The bruises would not fade for two weeks, and sometimes in the mornings when the skies are grey and the rain pelts heavy against the windows, they ache still.

"Stay right there. I'll be there in a minute", says Susan, who is so still now, a porcelaine coated thing painted with the most delicate of brushes. She wraps her scarf around her shoulders and her hand around her brother's neck.

Darling inhales, a whistling as a boiling kettle. There's something wet in the cavity of his chest, and when your daughter lays her palm in between his shoulder blades, the piano wire snaps.

"I'll help", says Susan, and kills the gas. She removes the lid from the kettle. Her hands are perfectly steady. Her breath comes perfectly even, and when your eldest buries his wretched face in the crook of her neck, she holds him until he shakes no longer.

Helen, what did the country give back to you?