[AU] to find all you seek

[the_seafarer]

It is hardly unusual that the door opens. 

It is slightly unusual, perhaps, that it opens seemingly on its own, onto a warm green land bordered by a calm, gleaming sea that smells of salt and something like lilies.

With such a view, anyone glancing out the door might be forgiven if they did not see the individual for whom it opened – not unless they glanced down.

And then down some more, where a mouse – a Mouse – stands on its back legs, studying the room before it with a soldier's practiced eye. It is about a foot high, darkly furred, and a scarlet feather nods rakishly from a golden circlet it wears about one ear. 

Apparently making up its mind, the Mouse enters, and the door closes. 

(One story ends, and another begins.)

The Mouse scurries – er, climbs – to the top of a seat at the Bar and lifts its small, impatient voice. "Hey there!" it calls. "Who is master of this alehouse?"

Comments

[sai_delgado]

"Oh, believe me, I am," Cuthbert says, even as his eyebrows rise at the mouse's demand.

Susan huffs an exasperated breath at him. "Keep it up and see if I don't swat ye with yer own hat next," she warns, and sits back against the couch. "Sir Reepicheep, there's naught to be concerned over, say true."

[the_seafarer]

Reepicheep bows to Susan, though he keeps one bright eye on Cuthbert. "If you wish, madam," he says, a little stiffly.

Caspian, familiar with the frown on the Mouse's face, glances around the room before interjecting. "You needn't fear, Reep; 'Bert and Susan are old friends. She's used to his teasing."

Reepicheep looks unconvinced that any teasing ought to happen at all, but subsides.

[sai_delgado]

Cuthbert's eyebrows are even higher than before, and temper of his own snaps in his glance - well-controlled, but there, as he looks back and forth between the Narnians. "You're not seriously implying I'd mean Susan insult? Or hurt her in any way?"

"Of course thee wouldn't, 'Bert," Susan interjects, trying to soothe any and all ruffled feathers now. "Mayhap it's only that he's not met a ka-mai before." She looks back to the Mouse, golden hair shifting around her like a cloud with how quick she turns.

"It's all right, say true," she promises. "It were kind of ye to be concerned, but 'Bert would never seek to upset me, never in life."

(we'd all protect her if we could)

"It's a ka-mai's way to tease so and make others laugh."

[the_seafarer]

"I certainly hope not," Reepicheep says, bristling slightly. "Though I fail to see the respect in petty theft and teasing."

One paw settles at his empty swordbelt, and Caspian, keen both to keep Reepicheep from getting in trouble on his first day and not to lose what small ground he may have made with Cuthbert, breathes out through his nose before he speaks. "Reepicheep!" he says, sharply. His expression is stern, and that faint ring of command from earlier by the shore is clearer now.

The knight snaps to attention, both eyes fixed on his king. "Your valiance does you credit, but you will kindly not pick a fight with our friend Cuthbert, please," says Caspian, stern. "Particularly not over so small a thing."

"But, Sire – "

"Peace! There's no insult here. You do not know him yet and so I forgive your ignorance, but there is no one here more devoted to this lady than he. Am I quite clear?"

Reepicheep, somewhat forlorn, nods and turns to Cuthbert, squaring his small shoulders. "My apologies, good sir knight. This place and its patrons are still strange to me."

[sai_delgado]

Susan looks completely startled by all of this, and sits very still, fog-gray eyes wide and uncertain as she watches.

Cuthbert gives Caspian a very sharp, searching look indeed before nodding to the mouse.

"Other worlds than these," he says, easily enough. "I've seen worse trouble from people while they're getting used to the bar. Apology accepted."

[the_seafarer]

Caspian relaxes slightly and glances at Susan, smiling slightly as he squeezes her fingers to reassure her.

"I wish you could meet Glenstorm the centaur, Cuthbert," he says. "Now there's a fellow who would prove a challenge even for a ka-mai such as yourself. I don't think I saw him laugh even once in all our long years together."

[sai_delgado]

Now Cuthbert's the one to laugh.

"Did ye ever meet Roland Deschain?"

[the_seafarer]

"Never, more's the pity," Caspian says, smiling.

"I suppose he was the same way?"

[sai_delgado]

"Well, Roland had 'Bert and Eddie, thee ken," Susan says, practically. "So he laughed sometimes."

"Some few times," Cuthbert corrects.

To Reepicheep, Susan adds, "Eddie - Eddie Dean - he's a bartender here. Ye'll meet him soon, most likely."

[the_seafarer]

"I'll look forward to making his acquaintance," Reepicheep tells her, while Caspian chuckles.

"Glenstorm sometimes seemed to be carved out of stone," he says, and even Reepicheep relaxes enough to smile slightly.

"He never relented, Sire?"

"Well," Caspian admits. "He had a soft spot for Rilian. But then, so did most of the court."

[sai_delgado]

"Rilian?" Cuthbert asks.

"Caspian's son, who were king after him," Susan tells him, and Cuthbert blinks, and looks at Caspian.

[the_seafarer]

"The very same," he says, lightly.

He has the solace, at least, of knowing that Rilian did return – he remembers it. The last thing he saw before awakening again in Aslan's Country: Rilian's face above his.

[sai_delgado]

"Ye're older than ye look," Cuthbert observes, and Susan shoves her toes against his ankle. "'Bert," she warns.

"Look, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that, I'm just noticing," he argues, reasonably.

[the_seafarer]

"You're right, I am," Caspian says, peaceably.

"You don't look a day older than the last time I saw you, aboard the Dawn Treader, Sire," says Reepicheep, and Caspian nods.

"Aslan was kind and granted me my youth once more when I awoke in his country."

[sai_delgado]

Cuthbert pulls out a pack of handrolled cigarettes and offers them to both Reepicheep and Caspian before taking one for himself.

"The Dawn Treader," he repeats. "That'd be yer ship, I'm guessing."

Susan gives him a look, and he returns a winning smile.

[the_seafarer]

"You guess right," Caspian says, smiling.

"She was the first Narnian ship built in ten generations, or perhaps longer."

[sai_delgado]

"Long time," Cuthbert observes, and Susan huffs out a breath. "If ye're going to ask so many questions, the least ye can do is offer answers of yer own," she scolds him.

"Fair enough," he allows, as his seemingly-innocent smile broadens. "But they have to ask me something first."

[the_seafarer]

"It's no trouble," he assures Susan. "After all, we're still getting to know one another, aren't we?"

He turns back to Cuthbert. "You mentioned Arthur Eld, before. Who was he?"

[sai_delgado]

"The first High King after the Great Cataclysm," Cuthbert tells him. "Which was the great war the Old Ones caused, ye ken."

"The ways of the Old Ones were the ways of death, it's said," Susan mutters, and Cuthbert nods. "Aye, and I've not seen anything ever to make me think different."

"He established the line of Eld, created the Affiliation, and began to bring the world back together. Most of the gunslingers are - were - descended from him or his knights."

[the_seafarer]

Caspian frowns, listening, even as Reepicheep perks up at the mention of the High King.

"Old Ones?" he says. "What ways were those?"

[sai_delgado]

"They poisoned the world," Susan says, softly. "With their technology and their machines and their lack of care for aught else."

"She's right," Cuthbert says, more than a little grim. "Pollution and radiation and chemicals and all kinds of destruction. It's been thousands of years, and ... well. So long as the Tower stands, there's a chance of recovery."

[the_seafarer]

Caspian looks rather stern, but it isn't at either Susan or Cuthbert.

(Have you no idea of progress, of development?
I have seen them both in an egg – we call it 'going bad' in Narnia)

"I see," he says. "Then it seems your Arthur Eld did for your world what the Pevensies did for Narnia; set it back on the right track."

[sai_delgado]

"He did, aye," Cuthbert says. He looks for an instant as though he's going to say something else, then glances at Susan and doesn't, focusing instead on taking a long drag from his cigarette.

"He were the first Lord of Light in Gilead," Susan says, looking at Caspian and having not noticed Cuthbert's evasive glance. "Roland were descended from him."

[the_seafarer]

"A noble lineage," Caspian says, thinking of his own rather tarnished ancestral line.

[sai_delgado]

"Oh aye, all of ye here are noble except me," Susan teases, laughing.