Caspian X (
the_seafarer) wrote2022-01-10 06:08 pm
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[au] an early snow
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.
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.
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(life to yer crop)
“Celebrations and dancing and all sorts of things, say true.”
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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."
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"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)
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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."
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“And it didn’t - there weren’t any pain,” Susan promises him. “If that helps thee at all.”
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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."
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“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.”
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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."
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“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.”
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"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."
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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.”
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He tugs her braid over her shoulder and runs his hand lightly along it. "But I am glad you felt you could tell me."
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"If there is, I'll listen. Always."
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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.”
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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?"
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“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.”
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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.
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“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.”
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"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."
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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."
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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.
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