[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]

She shivers and holds him a little closer.

“Thee very dear,” she says, oh, so softly.

[the_seafarer]

Caspian leans back to look up at her, lifting one hand from her back to tuck a lock of golden hair behind her ear.

"Stay a while?"

[sai_delgado]

Susan tips her head into his touch and smiles at him.

“Gladly.”

[the_seafarer]

He leans up to kiss her gently, then pulls away with a small smile.

"Good," he murmurs.

[sai_delgado]

She rests her arm around his shoulders and brings her other hand back up to frame his face again.

“Thee must have been happy to see yer friend here, aye?” she coaxes.

[the_seafarer]

"Very," he says, and there's something approaching a real smile on his face as he looks up at her.

"I've never been so surprised in all my life."

[sai_delgado]

She smiles back. “He thinks the world of thee, it’s plain.”

[the_seafarer]

"My most loyal knight," he murmurs, his smile crooking. He draws his fingers gently through her hair.

"I know he can be a bit... intense. He is very valiant, but doesn't have much of a sense of humor."

[sai_delgado]

“I weren’t expecting him to defend me so,” she admits, tipping her head to let him make free of her hair.

[the_seafarer]

"He cannot abide any insult to a lady, actual or only perceived," he says, a little wry.

"And you were kind to him. He likes you. And he hates teasing, because so many have teased him in the past."

[sai_delgado]

She links her hands loosely around his shoulders, her fingers brushing the nape of his neck.

“People can be cruel. He’s very fierce, and very sincere.”

[the_seafarer]

"He is both those things. I have never known him to tell a falsehood of any sort," Caspian tells her, shivering as her fingers brush against his skin.

"But I can't have him challenging everyone at the bar to a duel every time he thinks an insult's been laid down. It won't happen again... I hope," he admits, wry.

[sai_delgado]

“Thee were very firm with him,” she agrees. Susan draws her fingers over his nape just as lightly, but with a deliberate touch, having noticed his shiver, oh aye.

“I’ve not seen thee quite like that before, but I kennit.”

[the_seafarer]

His quick smile flashes at the deliberate way she chases that shiver, even as he shivers deliciously once more.

"That's how he knows me best," he murmurs. "As his commander. I hope you didn't mind too much."

It's not exactly the side of himself he shows most often here, where he is simply Caspian.

[sai_delgado]

“It startled me,” she admits, “but I didn’t mind, Caspian, say true.”

She frees one hand to pull her hair forward over both shoulders, then leans forward so she can drape the golden locks over his.

“It’s as ‘Bert said. Thee never met Roland.”

This seems to make perfect sense to her.

[the_seafarer]

He leans back and coaxes her with him, looking up at her with her hair a golden veil around them. "I don't know how that follows," he admits, "but I'm glad it wasn't too alarming."

Caspian slips his hand into her hair and pulls, lightly, asking her to bend down to him for a kiss.

[sai_delgado]

“He were the dinh of the ka-tet of Nine, and of Nineteen,” she tells him, letting him draw her closer. “He would have been the Lord of Light of Gilead, if it hadn’t fallen. He were the last of the gunslingers for years upon years.” Something very rueful and wry passes over her face, just for a moment. “And he’d speak sharp when he thought it were needed, and more.”

Susan shrugs, and smiles at him. “So aye, I kennit.” She leans down at his coaxing, and her kiss is sweet and willing.

[the_seafarer]

"Hmm," says Caspian, but he's more than willing not to talk of Roland right now, while she's so sweet and warm in his arms. Her hair is a golden cloud around them and he sinks his fingers into it to draw her down for a deeper kiss.

[sai_delgado]

She makes a soft sound against his mouth and presses closer to him, kissing him back.

[the_seafarer]

"Su," he murmurs, and kisses her again, his fingers firming at the back of her head, his arm wrapping more tightly around her waist. She's sweet and steadying and as his pulse climbs, his head clears, a merciful relief from the swirling, darker thoughts of before.

[sai_delgado]

She makes another small sound and shifts in his arms so she can put both of her own around him, drawing as close as she can as she returns his sweet kisses, as longing begins to rise like a tide in her blood.

[the_seafarer]

He curves his hand against her ribs, wrapping her tightly in his arm and pulling her against his chest, drowning in her kisses, in her scent, in her warmth. He draws his other hand down from the back of her head and over her shoulder to the flat of her chest, feeling her heart beating against his palm.

[sai_delgado]

His hand settles over her heart, and she can feel it start to beat faster, and knows he’ll feel the race of it too.

Susan kisses him again as she slides her hands up his back. She tangles one hand in his hair and trails the other along the side of his throat to his shoulder and back again, her touch light and teasing.

[the_seafarer]

He shivers beneath her light touch, utterly willing to lose himself in her completely. Her heart flutters beneath his palm like a butterfly, and he keeps his hand light and gentle as he slides it down over her breast and back up again.

[sai_delgado]

“Oh,” she breathes, arching into his touch. Her fingers curl into the collar of his shirt, warm against his skin.