[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]

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.

[the_seafarer]

"Nobility of ancestry is far from the only mark of character," Reepicheep says, courtly, and Caspian smiles; the warmth in his eyes is just for her.

"Reep's right," he says. "Believe me, I've known plenty of nobles who don't deserve the title."

[sai_delgado]

She flushes pink at their courtliness and turns to ‘Bert, who shakes his head at her.

“I’m in agreement with them.”

He manages to swallow back the second half of his observation, how she’d have made a lovely Lady of Light, before he can stick his foot all the way down his own throat.

[the_seafarer]

She's lovelier than ever with that pink tinge to her cheeks; Caspian smiles and nods at Cuthbert.

"Besides," he says. "Here, you outrank all the rest of us stable workers."

[sai_delgado]

“Thee knows I don’t think of it like that!” she protests.

“Can I be the one to tell Alain?” Cuthbert asks, innocently, and Susan scowls at him.