the_seafarer | [au] Narnia and the North

[au] Narnia and the North

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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He chuckles and lowers his head, shaking it, inviting her to brush out what straw and dust there might be. "He'd see me bald as an egg before he was through," Caspian says, amused. "All right, Su, we'll set to it. What do you need from here?"

"Not too much," she says, practically, as she starts combing through his curls with her fingers. "My coat, mayhap a sombrera or hat against the sun, what there is of it. I've need to braid up my hair, too."

She gives him a quick, slightly rueful smile. "I expect Alain and 'Bert have been planning everything else already."

"All right." When she's finished brushing through his hair, he gets up off the sofa and helps her up as well. "I think you've the right of it. So let's get our things together and be ready for them, shall we?"

She puts her arms around him and steps close to embrace him tight for a moment, then looks up and smiles at him, determined that he not need to worry so over her.

"Go on and fetch yer things," she coaxes. "I'll tend to my hair while thee do, and be waiting here for thee when you return."

He doesn't like the idea of leaving her by herself, but his protest – that he'll do perfectly well in what he's wearing now, and that he's camped out before with less – dies on his lips as he studies her. Beneath her smile and sweetness, that core of strength he admires so much is on full display, and he can't bring himself to naysay her.

"A few moments," he promises, and kisses her gently. "I'll return shortly."

"I'll be here when thee do," she assures him, and forces back the shiver that tries to ripple through her at the press of memory. To distract herself, Susan pulls her hair forward over her shoulder and starts separating it into strands for plaiting.

He's reluctant to leave her, but having agreed to it, he can hardly do anything else. Rather than linger, he gives her a last smile and turns for the door.

A few moments. That's all he'll need. So thinking, he refuses to glance back, fighting back the sudden certainty that this will be the last time he sees her, and heads into the hall.

The door clicks shut behind him, and Susan immediately goes to her chest of drawers and to her wardrobe to gather her things. She doesn't dare give herself time to think, to let any fears or megrims try to rise up and swallow her.

Busy hands, that's what she needs. By the time he comes back, she'll be ready.

And he will come back. She doesn't let herself believe otherwise, not for a second. He will.

He doesn't run to his rooms, but that's the best he can say for himself. Caspian strides to them with quick steps that don't break even as he goes through the door. All his focus is on getting whatever he might need and leaving again.

A change of clothes. As it's turned colder, he's taken to dressing more like Peter and Edmund, who can layer their shirts with jumpers. He hasn't quite come around to the blue jeans Susan and the gunslingers and many of the other patrons wear, but he puts on a pair of trousers Peter had recommended and tugs a warm jumper over a clean shirt. Thus warmly bundled, he takes down his coat and scarf and slings them over his arm.

It's enough. He checks the looking-glass to make sure all the straw is out of his hair, and is swinging back out of his room and towards Susan's before five minutes have passed.

She's gathered her coat, added another flannel work-shirt and her gloves and scarf to a little rucksack, and ended up rejecting her sombrera after all.

Susan shuts the window and makes sure it's firmly latched, then brushes out her hair and starts braiding it over again - this time in a more complex four-strand braid than her usual preference, one she can coil at the nape of her neck. She's trying to do just that when she hears footsteps outside the door.

"It's open," she calls, peering in the mirror hung inside her wardrobe door.

He comes in, relief bright in his chest, and closes the door behind himself. Caspian sets his coat at the end of her bed and watches with interest as her fingers cleverly twist the braided rope of her golden hair.

"I don't think I've ever seen you wear your hair all the way up," he remarks.

"I don't usually," she agrees, smiling over her shoulder at him. "It's heavy, and most of the time I've need to take it right back down again for some reason."

"I imagine it must be."

He comes to sit on the sofa and watches her with interest. "Well, it looks lovely any way you dress it. And I suppose this way you won't need to concern yourself with tangles."

"Or sparks," she says, a little absently, without thinking about it. "I'm glad thee like it, say true."

"Or that," he agrees, heart squeezing in his chest. Outside, the early afternoon is giving way to late, the sun that lights this strange world starting its downward path.

"I do. But then, I don't think there's much of anything not to like where you're concerned."

Susan finishes weaving the end of the braid into the heavy knot of hair, turns, and comes to him where he's seated. She rests her hands on his shoulders and smiles down at him.

"Thee very dear," she murmurs.

He smiles back up at her and curls his fingers lightly over her forearms. "And thee," he tells her.

"Do you have all you need, Su?"

"Aye. And we'd best go before 'Bert and Alain get restless and come looking," she adds, with a glance to the window.

"Alain said we'd want to be far gone before - before the fair-day events start, and I'd not argue that."

"Then let's be on our way."

He lifts her hands away from his shoulders so he can stand, then reaches to take both her rucksack and his coat. Neither Cuthbert nor Alain have made any noises about him not coming along, but he supposes he'll see soon enough if they've given it up as a bad job.

For now, he offers her his free hand with a smile.

She gives it over to him without protest, a flicker of a smile curving her mouth for a moment as she remembers how he'd taken her braiding baskets from her before.

Susan links her fingers with his, pulls the door shut behind them, and walks with him back down the hallway to the bar. She visibly braces herself before stepping into the main room, but she doesn't slow or stop.

Cuthbert and Alain are in a deep conversation at a table near the door, one that has their packs piled on it.

He feels warm pride suffusing his chest at her courage, and walks easily by her side toward the gunslingers. "Well," he says, as they draw near. "You two look all set and ready to go."

"So do you," Cuthbert says. He ducks his head a little to catch Susan's eye. "Aye?" he says, gently, looking for any hesitation, any tiny flicker of a glance or worry, anything at all. If she's feeling some obligation but would rather not have the other man there, he'll handle it, newfound understanding or no.

Her nod is immediate and certain, and answers his unasked question. "Aye," Susan says, firm. "We're ready. I'm ready. Let's just go, 'Bert, please."

Having already talked through it all with Susan, Caspian stands relaxed and easy as Cuthbert gives her that look, and he isn't surprised by Susan's firm declaration. "I agree," he says, glancing out the window. Soon enough, they'll be lighting the fire and setting up the games, and they'd all rather be well gone by then.

"Shall we?"

"Yar," says Alain, laconic, and shoulders one of the packs. Cuthbert takes the other, and Susan squeezes Caspian's hand but doesn't let go as she moves to follow the gunslingers to the door.

They all set out together: Susan on Kiseki, Caspian on Boukephalos, and the two gunslingers on the loaned Duncan and Rachat.

(Of course Caspian had mentioned the difficulty of getting all four of them out to the garden and of course Peter had immediately offered the use of the two geldings, so that was all right.)

The trail leads them quickly away from the gathering festivities and into the quiet woods, and Caspian thinks it's a relief for all of them, and not only Susan. Cuthbert chats lightly as they ride and he himself makes certain to talk, but he thinks all of their minds are already on the coming night.

The moon hasn't yet begun to rise, but it will.

Still, he can't help feeling some relief when the garden's peace comes stealing over them. They walk the horses into the grassy area and get them settled for the night, and then Caspian turns to the gunslingers. Cuthbert's seen the garden once already, but it's all new to Alain. "We ought to take a moment, first, to thank the tree-sisters for their kindness."

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