#i have very long hair and thus an inordinate amount to say about susan and her floor-length hair

[queenlucythevaliant]

Heavy is the Head

(Or, ten years on, Susan grows her hair out again)

 When Susan was seventeen, she bobbed her hair and Lucy bit her lip until it bled. At the time, Susan hadn’t understood it. She’d muttered something uncharitable about her sister’s childishness and gone about her day. Bobs were the fashion, and since when was Lucy opposed to short hair anyway?

Lucy was remembering another seventeen-year-old Susan with hair that fell to her waist. That Susan had been a queen. She hadn’t chided Lucy for caring about Narnia. The Susan who was seventeen in 1945 cut her hair short because it was stylish, and Lucy fought hard not to see it as one less thing tying her sister to the queen she had been.

When Susan was thirty-two, she began growing her hair long again. One of her girlfriends asked her about it and Susan replied, “I used to have it long, you know.”

This Susan had spent ten long years wending her way back to faith. Little by little, she allowed herself to sift through old memories of Narnia. More and more, she was thinking about her hair. It was like this:

Susan’s crown was the lightest of the four, which Edmund called ironic. “Your head’s always been the heaviest,” he said. Susan pretended not to understand, but she knew what he meant. She had spent her whole life choosing to carry worry and concern, ever since she was four and tending to Peter’s skinned knees. As her hair grew longer, Edmund joked that she was making up the difference.

There was a practical art to braiding hair, Susan found. Divide, twist, pin, pin. A calming ritual for otherwise frenzied mornings. She liked to gather her crown up in her hair and weave it into place. When it didn’t move, she held her head up higher.

Peter always said he could tell the political situation by the state of Susan’s hair. “One braid for war, two for peace?” Edmund quipped.

Peter shook his head. “No,” he said. “It’s neater when there’s danger or contention about. Fewer flyaways means more pins and nets and the like, which means that our royal sister fears disaster. She took extra time ensuring that her hair will be secure, even if the Cair itself goes up in flames.”

“Perhaps,” said Lucy. “Or maybe she just wants pins on hand in case there are locks to pick.”

Oh, Lucy. Lucy had a habit of driving off lady’s maids. She’d come home from Lion knew where, the hem of her gown caked in dirt and her hair caught in a series of snarls. Worse, she could never sit still long enough for any of her maids to work all the snarls out of her hair.

Only Susan could manage it—though whether it was Susan’s skill with hair or her ability to manage Lucy, no one could say. But Susan had come in on her sister scowling and yanking at her brush trying to unknot her hair twenty minutes before a banquet on more occasions than she could count. Each time, she sat her sister down before her own gilt mirror. Then, Susan would work the brush through Lucy’s hair in gentle, even strokes, all the while telling stories in order to keep her distracted. Like an enchantress, Lucy would say.

Lucy kept her hair short to medium-length for convenience’s sake. Susan grew hers out, and she could never quite say why. Peter would say she liked the ritual of fashioning and securing it each morning. Lucy would say she liked the feel of it, falling like a waterfall over her shoulders or growing silky-soft under a brush. Edmund would say she liked the weight. It had been ten years since Susan’s siblings died. Longer, since she’d had hair long enough to argue about. More and more, she wondered who was right.

When she was thirty-two, Susan started growing her hair long again. It didn’t style the way it used to, but that didn’t concern her. Of course, growing long hair takes time. One morning, when she was thirty-three, Susan looked at her reflection in the mirror and decided her hair was long enough to put up.

They were each right in their own ways, but in that moment, Susan was thinking of Edmund. It was heavy. Almost like a crown.

#i have very long hair and thus an inordinate amount to say about susan and her floor-length hair #40s styles were super cute but they're usually pretty short #idk #i have very specific ideas about what happens to susan #tender hearted big sis #narnia #pontifications and creations #Leah stories