Laughter dances in her eyes as Susan turns away to gather up a few things, then dashes into the bath. It's just as well she's not been given enough time to be all over nerves about such a visit, she decides, as she scrubs at skin and hair under the rainfall of water.

Combing through the golden mass is still more of a trial than she'd like, but the washing helps, and eventually Susan's able to comb it clean and tie it up in a braid thick as her wrist. She binds the end with a leather cord and slips into dark blue denim and a silk-soft cotton blouse the dusky pink shade of a wild rose, then shoves her feet into her boots and dashes back out to rejoin Caspian. "Will I do?" she asks, breathless.