[au] an early snow

[the_seafarer]

It's only mid-autumn, as the Bar-year reckons, but one morning Caspian wakes early to find that the light coming through his window has that particular muted quality to it that only comes from sifting through clouds and a veil of snow.

And snow it is indeed, when he comes outside: it crunches pleasantly beneath his boots as his breath freezes in the air and his cheeks turn pink with the cold. Snow; and still it falls, silent and light.

He heads to the stables with the intention of finishing his chores quickly so he can let the horses out to frolic in it, whistling as he goes.

Comments

[sai_delgado]

“That much is the same, mayhap,” she muses, almost distantly.

(life to yer crop)

“Celebrations and dancing and all sorts of things, say true.”

[the_seafarer]

"Yes," he says, though there's none of his usual delight in telling her of his home. "There were often competitions for the handsomest crops and the best foods. We would press the apples from the castle orchard into cider."

The way he watches her, it's clear he expects the footing to drop out from beneath him at any moment. "Roasted apples and nuts and the like. It was a busy time but a merry one."

[sai_delgado]

The concern in his eyes causes an answering pang in her heart. Susan reaches up with her free hand to cradle his cheek, her touch warm, trying to remind him she's here with him as she tells him what she has to, now.

"Aye, it were merry, I wot. It were in Mejis too, once, save for the rumors and traditions handed down from older times. Darker times."

(the ways of the old ones were the ways of death)

She draws a careful breath and lets it out, then finishes, as gently as she can,

"And save for nearly a year ago now, when the witch Rhea, Rhea of the Coos, led the people of Hambry to burn me on the Reap-Night bonfire."

(charyou tree)

[the_seafarer]

It's so shocking that it takes a moment for what she's saying to sink in, but when it does the surprise and concern in his eyes shifts, first to horror, then to anguish. "My god," he says, aghast beyond all possible words. "Su – "

But what is there to say? Nothing. It clogs in his chest and his throat as though someone has ripped his voice from him.

(She feels so real. She feels so alive and warm, her hand gentle at his cheek, her eyes on his. But in the end, they are both ghosts, are they not? Ghosts who only remember what it was to live and breathe and age and hurt. And die.)

And the look in her eyes – the very knowledge that she is, in this moment, concerned for him takes his breath utterly away. Tenderly, he lifts his hand to take hers from his cheek, to press her fingers between his palms. "I'm so sorry, Su," he says, low. "Dear one, I am so sorry."

[sai_delgado]

“I kennit.” Just as softly as before, as she sees his feelings in his sea-gray gaze, as he holds her hands between his with such care.

“And it didn’t - there weren’t any pain,” Susan promises him. “If that helps thee at all.”

[the_seafarer]

He breathes out something like a horrified laugh and lifts her fingers to his lips, pressing his mouth against them for a long moment.

There must have been pain. If not the kind she means, then the pain of betrayal and fear. And that she wishes to soothe him – ! "Not terribly much," he admits, and reaches with his free hand to brush his thumb over her cheek.

"But I hope that it helped you."

[sai_delgado]

It hadn’t, not really, but it’s all she has to offer, the only comfort she can think to give.

“That’s why they’re so protective,” she murmurs, after a moment. “‘Bert and Alain especially. They thought I were safe, where they left me. And they couldn’t - when it happened - they couldn’t get there, not in time, ye ken.”

“And it’s why- the season, I mean. It’s only the memory, sometimes. I kennit it’s not the same, but sometimes…”

Susan shrugs. “They’re building a bonfire-stack already, down near the ocean beach, someone is. I don’t - I don’t go near.”

[the_seafarer]

"No," he says, instantly. "Of course not. And of course I see."

How could he not? He, himself, had been so protective of Lucy during their voyage on the Dawn Treader. He leans his head to nudge his forehead against hers.

"How can I help?" he asks, softly. "Would that I could simply take you away until the season was over, but I've no idea how. Or where."

[sai_delgado]

“Oh, if only thee could,” she murmurs, then sighs and turns to more practical matters.

“But there’s naught to be done, I wot. Just be patient with me? I’ll try not to let it - to let it interfere with things.”

[the_seafarer]

"Don't," he says, anguished, and pulls back to look at her clearly.

"Oh, please don't, Su. You've nothing – I couldn't care less about what it might interfere with. How could you be expected to act as though this were any other time of year? And not a year yet since? Dearest, please. Whatever you feel – whatever you need – it's all right, Su. I swear it. And I'll do all that I can, day or night."

[sai_delgado]

“I know thee will,” she tells him. Susan reaches up to touch his cheek, then rests her fingers at the hollow of his throat. “I kennit, say true. It’s just all so strange, right now.”

She sounds a little uncertain about that, but shakes her head and continues, “And I’d not - I weren’t trying to hide it from thee, Caspian, or not really. I only - I knew it’d hurt thee to hear it.”

[the_seafarer]

"I'd never dream you were, Su. Never."

He tugs her braid over her shoulder and runs his hand lightly along it. "But I am glad you felt you could tell me."

[sai_delgado]

She nods. “If there’s aught else - if thee has questions… I’d not mind answering. I just - I don’t, I’m not sure what thee’d want to hear, so I’m not sure what else to tell thee.”

[the_seafarer]

"Only if there's anything else you wish to speak of," he says, gently. He can't imagine asking questions, making her relive those terrible moments. Even if he were curious – and he's too sickened by it to feel any sort of curiosity – the thought of asking is to terrible to bear.

"If there is, I'll listen. Always."

[sai_delgado]

She bites her lip, thinking. “It were Rhea cast the spell on me,” she says, after a few seconds’ thought. “The one I told thee of before. She hated me; hated all of us, I wot, but Roland for certain, and me as well.”

[the_seafarer]

He shakes his head, unable to understand how anyone might hate the girl before him. "You said she'd get on with my uncle," he murmurs. "You were right, I expect. Why on earth did she hate you so? And Roland?"

[sai_delgado]

“I did?” she asks, surprised. “I were thinking more of my Aunt Cord, given what she did, but aye, mayhap so.”

Susan shrugs. “Roland she hated because he told her not to cross him, after he found what she’d done. And because she were Farson’s servant, against the Affiliation and the gunslingers, with the grapefruit. A magic glass,” she explains, and holds out both hands to show him the size of the globe. “One of the set that was made by the wizard Maerlyn, the Bends o’ the Rainbow. The pink one.”

“Me, because… oh, she hated me always, since I went to her to be proved honest. Called me names and cursed me, especially when I wouldn’t let - let her do to me what she wanted,” she decides on. “She always were a cruel, jealous thing.”

[the_seafarer]

"Your aunt, aye. I'm sorry, Su, my thoughts are all a-jumble just now."

They must still be, because he's not sure he's keeping track of the story. "I can well see why Roland would react as he did to a witch who cast a spell," he says. "But – honest? You're ever honest, Su, why would you have ever needed to prove yourself so?"

[sai_delgado]

“I - oh.” A deep, ashamed flush colors a face gone salt-pale in the instant before she drops her eyes from his.

“I - it were part of the contract. The one my aunt made, with the mayor,” she tells the grass somewhere beside them. “For me to - to be his gilly. It were - a demand to be sure I’d not been with anyone, so he could be - be sure of his heir.”

[the_seafarer]

"His... "

He frowns, unable for a moment to understand either Susan's shame or what she's saying. He's never heard the term she uses before, and so he puzzles through the rest of her words before something snaps into place and he, too, turns white and then red, though with shock and rage in place of shame. "She – sold you? For – oh, what a hateful thing she was, and Rhea of the Coos too, and the mayor besides," he nearly thunders, the level of his voice kept lower only because he has not quite forgotten where they are and who he sits with.

"Disgusting, pathetic old crones! To treat you so, as though you were naught but property?"

And oh but he's properly furious now, and perhaps the image in his mind of Susan, forced into this contract, is merging with one of Lucy on a slaver's auction block.

[sai_delgado]

Caspian’s furious, on her behalf, and a part of her is wide-eyed and startled while another part thinks he must not understand - and yet another part is fiercely glad.

“After my da’ died - after he were murdered,” she corrects. “I were but eleven then. And after - first they took the horses, and then more and more besides, until there were nothing left, and when I were old enough - all the time my aunt kept at me, telling me that it were an old tradition, that we’d have everything back as gifts and payment, that wouldn’t I love to have a baby, if only I’d… and so eventually I let her make the contract. I told thee I weren’t as good as thee thought I were.”

She can’t meet his eyes, doesn’t know how to tell him how Cord would sit in the kitchen counting the gold coins over and over again, her avarice and the hate in the way she looked at her.

(Miss Oh-So-Young and Pretty)

“But she knew, what they’d done to my father, her brother, and never said a word, only hounded me into something he’d have hated and I hated, too. I didn’t kennit, then. Not until near the end, when she slipped.”

[the_seafarer]

There is so much, so much he needs to respond to, but the first and fiercest overflows in him like a spring tide, and he takes both her hands in his, ducking his head to try and get her to look at him.

"Susan," he says, forcing his voice to something more like his normal tone – he'd never, not in the world or any other, raise his voice to her – "my darling, you are as good as gold and as sweet as sunlight. You are good all the way through, no matter what those horrible people did to you, made you believe. None of it was your fault, Su. Not a bit of it, contract or no. And had it all gone through, you'd still be just the same good person I know. Your heart is as pure as this snow that's falling all around us."

[sai_delgado]

She lets her gaze be drawn, unaware of the misery in her fog-gray eyes. He means it, she knows, every word. She can tell. Would that she could believe it so easily as he says it.

Propriety? she hears Roland say, when she'd known him only as Will Dearborn, echoes of the past from that awful night at the Mayor's House ringing in her ears. I'm surprised you know the meaning of the word. She remembers Olive Thorin, quiet and sad and overlooked at the foot of her husband's table, and so brave as well, so brave at the last when she'd died trying to save Susan and never mind all that'd come before.

Oh, she'd made her promise, no matter how she'd been driven to it, and then broken it as well - and paid for it, in the end, and others too. It's not fair, but when did that mean anything to ka's workings?

Tears shimmer in her eyes for an instant before she closes them, fighting back the sob that threatens to break free.

"Thee are kind," she whispers. "More than I deserve."

[the_seafarer]

"Oh, Su," he says, unhappily, and reaches to draw her into his arms. "Come here."

She believes it, he can see, the way he'd once believed that he must have deserved somehow his aunt and uncle's hatred, that if they disliked him as they did, it must have somehow been his own failing, his own fault, instead of theirs.

[sai_delgado]

She goes as he's asked, into his arms, slipping her own around him and holding on as she lays her head on his shoulder, her breath warm across the base of his throat.