Ok we all talk about the Pevensies' trauma at returning to Earth at the end of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and their trouble readjusting to life there again but think of all the funny/good parts too

They return from the country, and their mom is surprised when all her children hug her at the station. Even Peter, who thinks he's all grown up. Even Edmund, who went away surly and withdrawn. She doesn't know her children haven't seen her in over a decade.

They miss their dear Cair Paravel, but they absolutely do not miss its chamber pots. Indoor plumbing is amazing.

It takes a while to remember how modern technology works, though. How many heart attacks did the siblings give their parents or the professor because they walked into a dark room only to turn on the light and find the children sitting there in the dark. (They were by the window! There was still plenty of light from the sunset! They would have gotten a candle in a minute!) The kids sheepishly remember oh yeah electricity is a thing.

(Edmund has a new electric torch in Prince Caspian. He was so excited to get that torch. Almost more excited than you'd think a kid his age would be, and his parents expect Peter at least to tease him, but the siblings all agree light in your hand at the touch of a switch is terrific.)

Suddenly getting really high grades in some subjects and terrible in others. Their grammar, reading comprehension, spelling, vocab, even penmanship? Amazing. History and geography? They don't remember anything. One time in class Susan forgets Earth is round and wants to die.

Also they can never remember what the date is supposed to be because Narnia uses different months and years. They can estimate time really well by looking at the sun though, and Edmund at least can always tell which way is north etc without thinking about it (again, using the sun)

Okay but how many times did they go to pick something up or reach something and realize they are so much shorter and less muscled than they expect? It's a common sight to see Peter climbing on counters to reach a top cabinet, grumbling about how he's High King this is demeaning. (No he never takes the extra five seconds to grab a stool. He will climb that shelf.)

Peter and Susan being delighted because they are no longer almost thirty. (In a few years Edmund and Lucy will tease them about being old and their parents will not understand.)

Lucy doesn't have to deal with periods anymore for a few years yet. Susan might not either. Heck yeah

Lucy loves to climb into her siblings' laps and be cuddled. In Narnia she eventually she grew too big, but now she is small and snuggleable again. Peter is her favorite, and if she's upset, he'll tickle her and tell bad jokes until she's smiling again, but really she loves cuddling with all her family. She grew up without her parents; how many times did she just want to crawl into her mom's lap and her mom was a world away? Imagine the first time she realizes she can now. Or, imagine one day, a cold and grey sort of day, when the rain is pattering against the windows, and it sounds like the rain on the windows of the Professor's house, that first day they went exploring. It sounds like the day they played hide and seek. It sounds so like the rain on the windows of Cair Paravel, that if Lucy closes her eyes she can imagine she's back there, having tea and chatting with Mr. Tumnus before the fireplace of her room, and soon the rain will stop, and they will go out on the balcony and wave to the naiads and the dryads and the mermaids, who have come out to enjoy the rain and visit one other on the banks of the Great River winding past Cair Paravel down to the sea.

But if Lucy looks out the window, all she'll see is the rain over London, so it's not only a cold and grey sort of day, it's a lonely sort of day too.

Susan and Edmund are playing chess in the living room (and they must have studied with Professor Kirke, thinks their mother, because they certainly weren't that good when they left). Lucy goes over to Edmund, and oh dear, thinks their mother, now he's going to call her a baby and be horrible to her, but instead he picks her up and puts her on his lap without even taking his eyes off the chessboard; it's simply a matter of course.

"Doesn't the rain sound familiar?" says Lucy in a solemn, wistful way.

Their mother doesn't know what that means, but her siblings must, because Susan says, "Yes, Lu, it does,” and Edmund gives her a little hug with his free arm as she tucks herself under his chin to watch the chess match.

(Five minutes later there is a crash from the next room as Peter falls off a counter. Their mother does not understand the words he must have picked up from the Professor, but he's grounded for them anyway. His siblings have no respect for their High King, because they refuse to stop laughing.)

thoughts on the Pevensies returning home

Peter Pevensie was a strange boy. His mind is too old for his body, too quick, too sharp for a boy. He walks with a presence expected of a king or a royal, with blue eyes that darken like storms. He holds anger and a distance seen in veterans, his hand moving to his hip for a scabbard that isn't there - knuckles white. He moves like a warless soldier, an unexplained limp throwing his balance. He writes in an intricate scrawl unseen before the war, his letters curving in a foreign way untaught in his education. Peter returned a stranger from the war, silent, removed, an island onto himself with a burden too heavy for a child to bear.

Only in the aftermath of a fight do his eyes shine; nose burst, blood dripping, smudged across his cheek, knuckles bruised, and hands shaking; he's alive. He rises from the floor, knighted, his eyes searching for his sisters in the crowd. His brother doesn't leave his side. They move as one, the Pevensies, in a way their peers can't comprehend as they watch all four fall naturally in line.

But Peter is quiet, studious, and knowledgeable, seen only by his teachers as they read pages and pages of analytical political study and wonderful fictional tales. "The Pevensie boy will go far," they say, not knowing he already has.

His mother doesn't recognize him after the war. She watches distrustfully from a corner. She sobs at night, listening to her son's screams, knowing nothing she can do will ease their pain. Helen ran on the first night, throwing Peter's door open to find her children by his bedside - her eldest thrashing uncontrollably off the mattress with a sheen of sweat across his skin. Susan sings a mellow tune in a language Helen doesn't know, a hymn, that brings Peter back to them. He looks to Edmund for something and finds comfort in his eyes, a shared knowing. Her sons, who couldn't agree on the simplest of discussions, fall in line. But Peter sleeps with a knife under his cushion. She found out the hard way, reaching for him during one of his nightmares only to find herself pinned against the wall - a wild look in Peter's eye before he staggered back and dropped the knife.

Edmund throws himself into books, taking Lucy with him. They sit for hours in the library in harmony, not saying a word. His balance is thrown too, his mind searching for a limp that he doesn't have, missing the weight of his scabbard at his side. He joins the fencing club and takes Peter with him. They fence like no one else; without a worthy adversary, the boys take to each other with a wildness in their grins and a skillset unforeseen in beginner fencers. Their rapiers are an exertion of their bodies, as natural as shaking hands, and for the briefest time, they seem at peace. He shrinks away from the snow when it comes, thrust into the darkest places of his mind, unwilling to leave the house. He sits by the chessboard for hours, enveloped in his studies until stirred.

Susan turns silent, her mind somewhere far as she holds her book. Her hands twitch too, a wince when the door slams, her hand flying to her back where her quiver isn't. She hums a sad melody that no one can place, mourning something no one can find. She takes up archery again when she can bear a bow in her hands without crying, her callous-less palms unfamiliar to her, her mind trapped behind the wall of adolescence. She loses her friends to girlishness and youth, unable to go back to what she was. Eventually, she loses Narnia too. It's easier, she tells herself, to grow up and move on and return to what is. But her mourning doesn't leave her; she just forgets.

Lucy remains bright, carrying a happier song than her sister. She dances endlessly, her bare feet in the grass, and sings the most beautiful songs that make the flowers grow and the sun glisten. Though she has grown too, shed her childhood with the end of the war. She stands around the table with her sister, watching, brow furrowed as her brothers play chess. She comments and predicts, and makes suggestions that they take. She reads, curled into Edmund's side as his high voice lulls her to sleep with tales of Arthurian legends. She swims, her form wild and graceful as she vanishes into the water. They can't figure out how she does it - a girl so small holding her breath for so long. She cries into her sister, weeping at the loss of her friends, her too-small hands too clumsy for her will.

"I don't know our children anymore," Helen writes to her husband, overcome by grief as she realizes her children haven't grown up but away into a place she cannot follow.

Helen did not know her children.

They were in the same bodies and they still called her mother, yet they had age in their eyes and walked with the assurance of adults.

Peter had taken up drawing, when they got home. She found one of his sketches, wrinkled up and tossed to the ground. It was him, or a version of him anyway. This Peter was wearing the same schoolboy clothes. But he had a long scar that cut across his eyebrow. There was a burn mark on his hands. His nose was crooked, as if it had been broken, healed, then broken again. This Peter carried a sword. This Peter wore a crown. There was something sad in his eyes, a look that she only saw in the old soldiers that frequented their neighborhood cafe. Sometimes Helen found Peter there, talking with them. They showed him their battle wounds and he looked upon them not with the jealously or awe of boys his age, but with grief. He drew them, too. In their civilian clothes, worn down by time, but with guns in their hands and determination in their eyes. He recognized them, and they him.

Helen put the drawing away and didn’t speak of it to anyone, unsure of the life her son had lived within it.

Susan had taken up shooting, when they got home. Helen felt some reservations at allowing her young daughter to go to the range alone, but she could see the hunger in Susan’s eyes. Her daughter was no longer the blushing schoolgirl trying to be older than she was. This Susan was assured, capable. Helen could see her daughter suffocating in London under the restrictions placed on a girl her age, and couldn’t bring herself to turn her daughter down. Helen accompanied her, that first day of shooting. It only took Susan a few tries before she was hitting the target with deadly accuracy. The gun seemed an extension of her body. Helen asked her about how it felt. “It feels like cheating.” Her daughter had said, frowning, before she turned back to the target and shot it dead center. When she saw the concerned look in Helen’s eyes she smiled, kissed her mother on the forehead, and murmured a word of thanks.

Helen did not watch her daughter shoot anymore after that, unsure of the sorrow in Susan’s eyes when she held the gun.

Edmund had taken up reading, when they got home. Helen had tried and tried to foster a love of reading in all her children, but he had been the one to resist. Now he voluntarily spent hours on the couch, turning pages with a speed that surprised her. He didn’t speak with his old friends, anymore. Helen was pleased with his new appetite for books, but that soon turned into concern when he delved into worlds like he was trying to escape the one he was in. Once, she picked up a book of his and leafed through it, searching for a clue as to why her son was swallowed whole by it. There was a poem he had underlined. It spoke of regret and grief and the killing of the monsters within. Helen remembered the look on Edmunds face when his friends had come to the door after they first got back, inviting him to join. He politely turned them down, but Helen saw the fear in his eyes. She had loved Edmund before they left and she loved him when they returned, but she could not deny that this boy was different, more than any of them. He had done a lot of growing up in a very short time, it seemed.

Helen did not read through Edmunds books, anymore, unsure and afraid of what exactly he was running from.

Lucy had always sang, her happiest child. She came into the world with a song bursting forth. She still sang, when they got home. But these songs were different. When she sang, the faces of the flowers turned towards her. The grass seemed to grow taller around her bare feet. The world was greener, when Lucy sang. Once, Helen had gone to retrieve her as she stood on their porch during a storm. Lucy was singing a song unlike the others, a sorrowful song for soldiers marching off to war. It was unlike anything Helen had heard, and it seemed the storm felt that way, too. The wind blew harder around Lucy, the rain hit her face as the trees bent towards her, the ancient things trying to bow. Lucy had laughed in delight, throwing her arms wide. That was the first real laugh Helen had heard from any of her children upon their return. When Lucy laughed, it sounded like she was finally taking a breath. The storm kept raging on when she stopped, and Lucy kept smiling until Helen found her voice and asked her to come inside.

Helen did not find her daughter in the storms, anymore, unsure of the way her daughter relished the power of something so dangerous.

When together, Helen felt the most relief. The others seemed to age when Peter spoke, but they didn’t have the sorrow in his eyes and it lessened his. The others seemed more dangerous when Susan touched their shoulders, but she knew they would never be dangerous to each other, and that was all that really mattered. The others were more solemn when Edmund informed them of his readings, but Helen saw how they savored the joy in his eyes when he did so, as if saving it to remember later. The others straightened when Lucy entered the room, as if their youngest daughter was reminding them to keep their heads high. Together, they were more changed than ever.

Helen did not know her children.

Headcanons about when the Pevensie siblings returned to England (the first time)

When they came back to England through the wardrobe and they returned to their younger bodies, naturally all the scars they received in Narnia disappeared. All but one, the one in on Edmund’s stomach remained, the one he got at his first battle. No one really knew why he still had it, why it hadn’t disappeared it just didn’t. It was there and it served as a constant reminder of the white witch, that the experience had been real.

Everyone noticed a change in the Pevensies when they came back from the countryside. That included their teachers.

Lucy was suddenly a very clever girl, not that she hadn’t been before, but now she had a maturity to her. Her reading ability had improved immensely and she wrote the most beautiful poems.

Edmund’s demeanour had turned a whole 180°. He was more strategic, less rash. It was way more difficult to make him mad, he usually just responded with a witty comeback. And he seemed to put more effort into his work. He had always been smart, but now he was outstanding. He passed all his classes with ease, except for history that is (he kept forgetting that they had never had a king named Frank). He had also gotten very much better at chess, there was no one in the whole school they could beat him, not even the English teacher Mr. Evenly that had gotten very far in the English championship in chess. (Let’s pretend that exists even if it doesn’t)

Susan stood straighter and had a more regal look to her demeanour, not in a way that she expected everyone to obey her or anything like that. It was just very difficult not to respect her. She had gotten very good at resolving conflicts and avoid violence.

Peter had also changed a lot, he was more mature but also more rash in his decisions. He started acting more with his fists (that didn’t really start until it had been about half a year). He did write amazing novels though, stories about battles. Battles with medieval methods and weapons. The details were incredible, it was almost as he’d been in the battles himself.

They all had gotten a whole lot better at swimming. Edmund managed to save a man double his size and weight when he went through the ice. Lucy was always very fast and her technique was like nothing teachers had seen before, it was like she had been taught by a fish. (Possibly mermaid or nymph of some kind.)(Same goes for the others, I just can’t really come up with something)

All of them had nightmares but they had also become very good at controlling and hiding certain emotions behind a curtain or wall.

Edmund often got panic attacks during the cold months, especially when it snowed. Susan started making him something warm to drink every time she noticed it was getting colder or she saw snow falling before school, Peter wrapped up and cuddled Edmund in blankets and Lucy just came into his room with her warm smile and sat and talked with him. With time he wasn’t as sensitive to cold and snow and the panic attacks died down but the small rituals of the siblings having this cosy bonding time with one another continued for a lot longer.

And through all of this Helen was an amazing mother, she might not know what the change in her children was caused by but she always helped. Through panic attacks and frantic studying, she held them after nightmares and she just kept being their mother. She was their mum and raised that just as good as Narnia had.

Hope it was to your enjoyment <3

Happy women's day to these girlbosses!!

Okay I just started rewatching The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe and it’s really reaffirming how well the train station scene establishes the characters — specifically Edmund, Peter and Susan. 

They’re all upset about leaving, and Edmund’s natural way of expressing this is through complaints. Immediately, Peter jumps to scold him. Then his mum tells him to listen to Peter and tries to kiss his temple, but Edmund evades it. It seems so cold at first, but it makes sense, because Edmund reacting this way to his mother’s affection is about so much more than him being grumpy and mean. Edmund feels overshadowed by his siblings, and his biggest conflict is with Peter. He just expressed not wanting to leave London and missing their dad in his own language and Peter scolded him for it, like he always does. Now, his mother hears this, but instead of defending Edmund, she sides with Peter, telling him that he needs to listen to his brother. No matter Helen’s intentions with this line, to Edmund, it reads as her affirming that his place is second to Peter. She’s saying what he thinks of himself, and what he thinks everyone else thinks of him, too: that Edmund belongs in the shadows behind Peter. That Peter is right and Edmund is wrong. So he treats his mother coldly, because in his eyes, that’s how she just treated him. He probably regrets it soon after. 

Then she hugs Peter, and tells him to look after the others. The responsibility of taking care of the entire family falls on his shoulders. He promises that he will, and every choice he makes from there on is grounded in the fact that he thinks it’s the best way to take care of his siblings. Helen turns to Susan, and tells her to be a big girl, influencing Susan to try and act as adult as possible. During the entirety of the movie, Susan is basically playing a game of “What Would an Adult Do?”, which puts her in conflict with Peter when they disagree on the best course of action. 

It’s kind of sad how everything the older siblings do to keep the family together is exactly what’s tearing them apart. 

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witcht and The Wardrobe, 2005.

‘My children do not know me,” she murmurs, a cleaving realization. Her heart aches like it burns, like it withers to heat and flame, like all that will remain is ash.

There is no doubt that her children love her. But, know her? No, they haven’t known their mother since they returned from the Country. (And it’s something great like that, capitalized and underlined and the Country stole her children from her. Sent her changelings in return.)

Helen drapes her hands across each other, clutching tight, fingers intertwined and raises them to a trembling chin. Rests her knuckles to lips and prays. ‘Lord, my children,’ she begs of Him, ‘return them. Please. Amen.’

Half a year ago, Edmund Pevensie found himself in a white wood with a Queen who was not quite as gentle as she first seemed. Now, England finds itself buried under a massive snow storm, the likes of which he hadn't seen in well over a decade of gentle winters and warm summers. The cold brings back memories he'd rather not remember, but couldn't possibly forget.

oh yeah i write too. if you even care

something something the incredible horror of coming home to a world you did not grow up in, from the perspective of your unchanged mother

narnia au where their parents were with them at the train station during the beginning of Prince Caspian. To say goodbye to them. Their parents being a little bit clingy(ptsd and overprotectiveness) wanted to both see them off on the train. The parents accidentally end up in Narnia with them. Shenanigans abound. Just imagine these two proper British parents having to deal with the fact that a magical talking lion made their children Kings and Queens, and they were for 15 years in Narnia, Narnia in general, watching their children fight and command armies, Caspian, and the fact that their kids are not really children anymore. Also Mrs and Mr Pevensies having to rely on their children in this unfamiliar place.

ooh yes, there is definitely untapped potential in Mr. and Mrs. Pevensie ending up in Narnia. They would struggle so much with everything. Why are there talking animals and trees and water. Why won't our children listen to us. Who gave our tiny daughter a dagger. Why are her siblings acting like Lucy having a dagger is fine.

Also, if they tag along from the start of PC, they would quickly meet Trumpkin, and I'm laughing so hard at the thought. Because he's also a pretty skeptical person, but they'd have different ideas of what counts as reasonable.

Mr. and Mrs. Pevensie: a real dwarf? How is he here? How did we get here?

Lucy: oh, Aslan probably summoned us.

Trumpkin: the magical king lion? don't be ridiculous. everyone knows there haven't been talking lions in Narnia in centuries

Mr. and Mrs. Pevensie: but other animals talking is normal

Trumpkin: obviously

Also the battle at the end? There are very serious thoughts to be had about the parents seeing their children all grown up, and realizing how capable they are (and mourning a little at how much responsibility they've obviously had to shoulder so young. they sent their children to the countryside to give them as much childhood as they could, and instead war found them. war and greater burdens than they would have had back home), but I keep getting distracted trying to decide which would be funnier, the book or the movie version.

Movie:

Mr. and Mrs. P: Lucy's not riding into battle! None of you should, but especially her!

Peter: don't be ridiculous

Peter: she's riding alone into the forest to find a lion

Or there's the book version of events, where Peter, Edmund, and Caspian fight in the battle while Susan and Lucy are off riding around on a lion, and literal Bacchus shows up with Silenus and a bunch of maenads and they conjure grape vines and wine everywhere.

(askfjdl and then Edmund eats dirt. The dryads are eating dirt at the victory feast and Edmund eats some because it looks like chocolate and imagine his parents. They've just started accepting their children actually are grown up and capable and royalty--and then their youngest son eats dirt.)

Also, maybe Mr. and Mrs. Pevensie look at Caspian and go "oh, another child carrying way too much responsibility. oh, you're an orphan and your uncle tried to kill you? okay, we have five children now"

there’s not necessarily an age limit to Narnia, besties, it’s about how you can serve Narnia and how Narnia can serve you within your own story.

It isn't that Lucy doesn't know Helen is her mother. She remembers, in hazy, smudged colours, the shape of those lips upon her forehead. The feeling of those soft fingers in her hair, knotted at the back, greasy in the front. Dark eyes, in dots, as a painting that makes no sense at all when viewed up close.

Helen Pevensie is thick layers of paint, not yet dry. Not yet framed. Not yet hung, with instructions on where to stand. So when Lucy, with child-eyes and child-lungs, looks at her, she sees:

Susan's smile lines. Peter's nose. The blush of Edmund's lips. Her own freckles, faded and powdered. Smudged. When she smiles and cradles little eight year old Lucy in her arms, the paint flakes from her hair.

Greys and browns. Blues.

Susan's skin is smooth. There is a gap between her teeth, and her hair is too short by half. Lucy skims her knees running on a straight alley, and it's Susan who holds her in her lap, humming songs of home. Susan's small hands on her neck, Susan's eyes, no longer golden as the mid-day sun in a cloudless sky.

Peter's nose is missing the hump that came from breaking it when he was ten-and-seven. His cheeks are bare. His hands are steady when she presses against him, fevered and coughing and greying at the edges. His voice is too high when he reads to her, and his skin is too soft.

His eyes are just blue, now, nevermind the storm outside.

It isn't that Lucy doesn't know Helen is her mother. It is just that her lap isn't the one she folds herself into. It's just that it isn't her blouse she presses her tears into.

"Lucy, darling", says Helen Pevensie. Her eyes are grey. Her mouth is grey. Her hands are grey. "Come sit with your mother, hm?" Lucy turns her face into the crook of Susan's neck.

Helen Pevensie sighs.

Helen telling Peter to look after the others in TLTWTW movie is another level of heartbreaking for me. As an oldest sister, when you see your younger sibling struggle, knowing it was your job to watch after them just runs you to the ground. Peter was hearing Helen’s voice in his head the entire movie. When Edmund ran off. When Lucy nearly drowned. When his sisters were attacked by wolves. When his brother was almost killed. The worst didn’t happen- they all ended up alive and well. But it didn’t change the fact that it was Peter’s job, and although the worst didn’t happen, something bad did. To someone he was supposed to protect. And he, in his head, could have stopped it.

In other Narnia thoughts, I applaud the moviemakers for the line Lucy gives Tumnus when he asks if she's a daughter of Eve and she says, "Well my mum's name is Helen..." this is great because the first Queen of Narnia was Queen Helen. It's a clever little nod to Magician's Nephew, and I do have to wonder if Tumnus thought that's what Lucy was talking about, either in the moment or later, and I am very amused by it.