[au] Narnia and the North

[the_seafarer]

There's a chill bite to the air, these days. The horses have been growing out their winter coats, and they look shaggy and plump as Caspian turns them out into the paddocks. Behind the stables, in the makeshift woodshop he'd cobbled together, the sleigh from his drawings is starting to come together. 

He hopes he'll have it finished by Christmas. With a little luck, and maybe some assistance, he thinks it should be possible. The tack, he's largely left up to Susan's devices, though he'd commission Gimli the dwarf for the various buckles and other metal pieces they'll need.

Once the horses are turned out, he gets to his other morning chores with a will, whistling cheerfully as he does. The stable stays strangely quiet around him. It takes him the better part of an hour to realize the strangeness is because he's become accustomed to Susan's cheerful presence working alongside him, talking or humming or simply working in companionable silence. 

Caspian pauses in his task – refilling the grain chest – and looks around. Susan's nowhere to be seen, and when he later wanders through the stables, checking each stall and outside, he can't find her there, either.

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[the_seafarer]

He'd made himself comfortable on the couch, gazing out the window and thinking with quiet delight of all the things he'll show her. Now, as she comes back out into the main room again, he rises to his feet, gazing at her with open admiration.

"More than," he promises, and comes to slip his arms warmly around her waist. Smiling, he lowers his head to kiss her sweet, smiling mouth and her cheek, pink with excitement and nerves. "You look perfect."

Stepping back, he offers her his hand. "Shall we?"

[sai_delgado]

She laces her fingers together with his and beams back at him. "Aye," she says, simply. "Lead on, Caspian, do, and I'll follow thee wherever thee'd have me go."

[the_seafarer]

He swings their hands between them as he walks with her from her quarters, being careful not to squeeze her poor sore fingers too tightly, then brings her to the door. Caspian gives her a brilliant smile, then reaches for the handle with his free hand and swings it open. And beyond –

And beyond lies a land of gentle green hills and a blue sky bright as sapphire. White clouds whisk overhead and wildflowers dot the grass before them, and as they stand there, a delicious, mischievous breeze swirls through the open door, winding around Susan like an affectionate cat, beckoning her. One can almost hear it whispering: come and see, come and see.

[sai_delgado]

Susan gasps, eyes wide and bright. She can't look away from the country beyond the door, filled with color and life and --

(peace of the clearing)

--a vibrant, pure joy that seems to imbue the very breeze that tugs at them. She can smell wildflowers, she's sure of it, and green grass and roses and the distant sweetness of honeysuckle.

"Oh, Caspian." She breathes his name on a sigh, drinking in the sight of Aslan's Country. "Oh, it's beautiful."

[the_seafarer]

Beneath the light from Aslan's Country, here at the top of the world, her eyes are clear as glass and her hair shines like polished gold. Caspian lifts her hand and steps across the threshold, breathing deep the sweet-scented air like a longer sleeper just now awakened. "Welcome, Daughter of Eve," he tells her, and even his voice sounds richer, deeper, more full of joy than before. "Come further up and further in."

The land outside the bar always seems real, but stepping into Aslan's Country, one begins to feel that every other world is but a poor, faded imitation. The grass is a more vibrant green with a sweeter, fresher scent; the air is so clear that things far off in the distance look as clear and real as if they were standing next to them. Caspian has brought them onto a gently rolling hill, but there are mountains climbing into the sky along the horizon on one side and a dark mass of forest on the other. And ahead, far, far ahead, is the calm, sparkling expanse of the sea.

[sai_delgado]

It's been quite some time since she's felt so light and easy and free, say true. Since before the season's turning, before fin de año, and more than that - well before the Academy, even. Susan's not sure, herself, and doesn't want to think about it.

She turns in a slow circle, trying to see everything at once, and yet she still doesn't let go of Caspian's hand.

Her glance falls on the sea far distant, shining beneath the sun, and delight fills her. "Oh, look, look - how lovely."

[the_seafarer]

She turns, her head turning too, and winds herself close to him in the curve of his arm. Her delight sparks his, and he laughs, cheerful, and tucks her a little closer as he nods. "The Eastern Sea," he tells her. "This is not Narnia, exactly... but maybe Narnia as it should be. As it will be."

He takes a deep breath of the sweet, fortifying air, and smiles down at her. "In which direction shall we wander?"

[sai_delgado]

Her soft laugh ripples out. "I'd go in all of them at once if I could, I wot. Where would thee like to show me most, Caspian?"

[the_seafarer]

She already fled into the woods at Milliways, and the mountains are too far to reach on foot. He spins her out from the circle of his arm, chuckling, and points to the glittering water, far ahead. "Yonder," he tells her. "And who knows what we might find along the way?"

[sai_delgado]

She twirls around with a laugh. "Caspian Seafarer," she teases. "Of course that's what thee'd like best. But I think it's perfect, say true. Let's." Susan tugs at his hand, trying to draw him along with her.

[the_seafarer]

"I miss the salt water and the waves," he admits freely, with a laugh, allowing her to tug him along. It's good to see her laughing and full of delight, after the tears and panic of earlier.

These high meadows, clean-swept and fresh with mountain wind, seem home to all manner of creatures, large and small. Butterflies flutter around them; birds soar overhead. And once, Caspian points up as a large figure passes over them: four graceful legs and wide-stretched wings. "I suppose that must be Fledge," he tells her, thrilled. "The first of the Talking Horses and of the winged ones."

[sai_delgado]

"Oh!" Susan tips her head back as far as she can, following the pegasus's flight. "Melina's never flown so high. Mayhap I should find a way to give her a pasear through the air, too."

[the_seafarer]

"I'm certain she'd love that."

He shades his eyes to watch as the winged horse soars overhead, the sunlight glinting from its hide and turning it to bright copper. "Fledge was once a cab-horse in London," he tells her. "By Aslan's will, he became what you see now."

[sai_delgado]

"He seems happy," Susan observes. She gives a cheerful wave to the soaring equine and glances at Caspian. "A cab-horse? Thee means a cart-puller?"

[the_seafarer]

"From what I know, cabs were for people, rather than goods," he muses, as they wander over a vale filled with flowers. "But perhaps it was similar?"

[sai_delgado]

"Mayhap. Betimes those who'd need to go places but had no horses of their own could catch a ride with a farmer or merchant or some sort, do'ee ken?"

Susan bends down to brush her fingers gently over the petals of a few taller flowers, but doesn't pick them.

[the_seafarer]

"Yes, of course."

The flowers release their sweet scent as Susan brushes her fingers over them. The sunshine floods over the meadows like gold made liquid, or light. Ahead of them, over the crest of the next hill, a deeper, tawnier gold flashes. Caspian looks, eagerly, but nothing can be seen aside from another green, flower-bedecked hilltop.

[sai_delgado]

Something about the sudden shift in her attention draws her own. Susan looks in the direction he's looking, trying to see what's caught his eye.

[the_seafarer]

"A trick of the light," he explains, though a deep, warm joy fills him. If anything could ease Susan's mind, if anyone could offer her counsel...

But, of course, He comes and goes as He will. For now, Caspian leads her in that direction. He's expecting to see some reason for the hint, and he isn't disappointed; the hill dips down to a vale bordered on all sides by green slopes and brilliant with wildflowers. One end of the little valley houses a bubbling spring and the other a nearly perfectly flat circle of grass. On closer inspection, it's clear that the grass circle is so flat because it was trodden that way, by dozens upon dozens of neat, cloven hoofs.

[sai_delgado]

Susan blinks at the ring in true surprise and narrows her eyes at it, but oh, there's naught here that feels of wrongness, and how could there be in such a place, say true?

"It's not for summoning, is it?" she murmurs, cautious but still fascinated. "So many hoofprints - what's it made to be?"

[the_seafarer]

"Not for summoning anything but joy," Caspian laughs. "If we're still here when the moon and stars rise, we ought to come back. This is a dancing circle. The fauns will come when the moons rises, and dance all the night long."

[sai_delgado]

"Oh, and I like that far better than the circles I've heard tell of," she admits. "Fauns like the one you told me of that helped Lucy, in the snow?"

[the_seafarer]

"Precisely like that," he tells her. "And like the ones I met on the Dancing Lawn, when Trufflehunter introduced me around as the rightful King."

He leads her over to the little spring and kneels, then cups his hand into the water to take a drink. "Here, Su, try this – sweeter and more refreshing than wine."

[sai_delgado]

She mirrors him, delighting in his joy at sharing this place with her. And just as he's said, the water is pure and cool and sweet, and tastes better than any water she can ever remember having tried.

"Everything here is more," she marvels. "I've never imagined anything like."

[the_seafarer]

He grins at her and stands, offering his hand to help her up. "I know," he agrees. "It feels like how the world is meant to be, doesn't it?"