[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.

Comments

[the_seafarer]

Caspian frowns in it in bemusement. "I'm not sure," he says. "What is it?"

Even aside from Susan, he doesn't want to risk an open flame in the garden, but he's never seen anything quite like the can Cuthbert shows to him.

[sai_delgado]

"Here--" He pulls out a pocketknife and uses the blade to pry the can open so they can both study the contents.

"Susannah says it burns blue and contained in the can. Looks and smells different from real fire, but enough to heat a pot of coffee or boil water."

[the_seafarer]

He peers into the can and shakes his head. "It certainly sounds useful," he agrees. "Mayhap just warn the birch-woman about it."

Without the prospect of a fire, he'd resigned himself to the likelihood of a cold supper. Something warm would be nice, if they can manage it. He hefts Alain's pack and Susan's rucksack and starts making his way to the little glade.

[sai_delgado]

"Good idea." Cuthbert leaps up as through spring-launched and heads off to do just that.

It takes a little while to explain, but it seems the treewife's trusting enough of them to not be concerned. Or rather, of Caspian and Susan - Cuthbert's not expecting that either he or Alain's well-known enough here for that.

All in all, it doesn't take too long to set up a comfortable campsite, with everything arranged neatly where needed and packs stowed.

[the_seafarer]

The little glade's as homey as they can make it, comfortable with blankets and the bedrolls tucked off to the side, the can of Sterno surrounded with a makeshift firebreak of smooth stones from the brooke.

And not a moment too soon, Caspian thinks, glancing up at the sky. A veil of evening is just beginning to pull across the blue, and the sun is sinking low.

[sai_delgado]

He's been keeping an eye on their progress in making camp, and an eye on Susan, growing increasingly more worried. Not that he's ever had any difficulty with comfortable silence, but he doesn't like the way her attempts at conversation stop and start, or the way she's holding her hands clasped in front of her, unthinking.

"Looks like they've got things ready," he murmurs, and touches her on the arm to draw her to a halt. "Come with me?"

Susan blinks up at him and nods. It looks like she starts to say something, but gives it up as too much effort. Alain nods back, takes both her hands in his - gods, they're ice-cold - and rubs them a bit to warm them before he puts an arm around her and walks her back to the others.

[the_seafarer]

Cuthbert's relaxed, down on his hunkers, but Caspian doesn't need to know him so well as Alain and Susan do to recognize the readiness in his pose, the way his glance scans the garden and trees around them. If something were to go wrong, he'd be up and those big guns at his hip would be blazing without a second's pause, Caspian has no doubt.

He gets up as Alain brings Susan over, and guides them to a blanket on the grass. "Come sit, Su," he says, as cheerily as he can. "We'll be snug as you like here."

[sai_delgado]

She blinks at him, uncertain, as her hand drifts up to the noose around her neck.

(don't try to sit)

Her fingers find only skin, and Susan takes a careful breath. "Aye, of course."

[the_seafarer]

It's starting to take her, he thinks. With the fall of the day, the anniversary will come with its full strength.

He hopes they have enough to stand against it, this small circle of willing hearts, in a place of life and growth. Caspian reaches gently for her hand to guide her down to the blanket, if she'll let him.

[sai_delgado]

Alain gives over and lets Caspian take her from his protective embrace, and she goes willingly, which doesn't surprise him at all.

He trades a grim look with Cuthbert, knowing that they're both remembering Roland's screams and the cursed pink glam of the gods-damned grapefruit as he watched her burn.

[the_seafarer]

By the Lion, her hands are like ice. Caspian settles her down on the blanket, and comes to a knee next to her. He takes her hands in his own and rubs them gently, trying to get the blood to flow a little more strongly and to warm her.

He looks up at the gunslingers, rueful. "What now?"

[sai_delgado]

"We ride through," Cuthbert says, low and fierce. "Susan, stay with us, I beg. Sue?"

"I'm here," she says, and looks up from her hands in Caspian's and past his shoulder to Cuthbert. "I'm here. It weren't like this for ye all those years, was it?"

She remembers Mal telling her about the memories of his friend David--

(dead friends haunt old soldiers)

--and she blinks back sudden weary tears, even as 'Bert tells her, "Not like this, nay."

[the_seafarer]

He sits and puts his arm about her – she's ghostly pale and her eyes are shadowed and she feels as cold as if they were seated in a snowbank instead of a garden. "It's all right, Susan," he murmurs. "You have us here with you. Only stay with us, won't you, dear?"

[sai_delgado]

"I didn't mean to leave," she tells them, starkly. "I tried, thee has to know I tried."

Something twists in Cuthbert's face at that.

[the_seafarer]

"They know," Caspian offers. There's a slow shift of movement behind him; he looks to see the birch-woman planting herself at the edge of the glade, in a line between Susan and the woods. A soft susurrus runs through her leaves, almost like she's humming some soothing melody.

[sai_delgado]

"She's waiting for the moon." Susan looks up at the light fading from the sky, then looks back at the others. "Do'ee hear them chanting?"

"That's not them," Alain says, steady and quiet. "They're not here, Sue. They can't reach you."

"But she is," Susan informs them. She's staring past them all, at the ash-black figure standing outside their circle.

(I curse thee with the ashes)

"The dead walk here, do'ee not ken?"

[the_seafarer]

Caspian looks, and his heart hammers in his chest. In a trice, he's up and in front of Susan, a storm flashing in his sea-gray eyes.

(who ever heard of a witch that really died?)

"Begone," he demands. Behind him, behind Susan, the birch-woman's branches rustle as though a heavy wind has blown through. "I cast you out, witch."

[sai_delgado]

"Oh, thee fornicating, cozening bitch," Cordelia Delgado breathes, stepping forward into the light, her mad gaze fixed on her niece. As one, Cuthbert and Alain spring to flank Caspian. "Look at thee now, Miss Oh So Young And Pretty! Spreading yer legs for all of them, aren't ye, ye faithless slut?"

Pale she is still, but Susan's on her feet now, hands flat against her thighs. "Ye'll want to watch yer words, Aunt," she warns.

[the_seafarer]

Red-hot fury the likes of which he's hardly known since he was the young man he now appears to be fills Caspian's chest and rises into his head like steam. "Step back," he orders, coldly.

(is he really as bad as that? would he really murder me?)

"And if you cannot speak courteously to this lady, then you will keep your poisonous tongue behind your teeth or lose teeth, tongue, and head, all."

Something else shifts just beyond Susan's hateful aunt – the beech tree he'd seen on his last visit. He'd thought the beech-woman asleep, like the willow, but now its branches seem to be moving against the wind. There's a soft but intent murmur in the air, like the sound of the brooke, or wind through leaves.

Awake! Awake! Danger – fire – murder – awake!

[sai_delgado]

"She can't, I wot," Susan murmurs. She comes up between Caspian and Cuthbert, careful not to get in either of their way. "I forgave ye once, Aunt, for what ye did to yer brother, my father. And ye burned me for it."

"Cord, Cord, Cord," Cuthbert says. "For Susan's sake we'll give you one warning. Leave this place and never return, else we'll send you to Na'ar."

"It weren't yers to forgive me aught, ye murdering whore, and ye'll not keep her!" Cordelia lashes at them all. "Ye'll not hold her here, or anywhere! I cursed her with the ashes, cursed her to darkness, and I'll claim her to her rightful end once and for all. She's for the fire--"

(charyou tree)

Something flashes in her hand; something orange and bright and viciously burning.

"--and ye'll not keep her from it!"

[the_seafarer]

Two things happen at once as Susan's hateful aunt brings up her hand: first, Caspian draws his sword with a silvery hiss of metal on leather, and second, the garden – indeed, the woods all around them – erupt into a roar of sound.

It's a thing he's only heard once before, on the battlefield between the Telmarine army and Old Narnia: as if a wild summer storm had broken over the entire forest. The beech-woman is well awake now, he sees – Cordelia, in her maddened fury, seems unaware of the great trunk and lashing branches coming behind her. Darkness is indeed encroaching... but it comes for Cordelia, trees shifting forward, branches reaching. Behind him, he can hear the birch-woman calling; before him, he sees the beech-woman reach to wrap her branches around Cordelia like a lover.

Caspian holds his sword at the ready, but hangs back from attacking. "You should not have brought fire into this place, evil one," he says, cold. "And the trees here are fond of your niece. No one will go into the darkness this night but you."

[sai_delgado]

"Tell yer tale to the underworld," Alain says, his expression grim, which is just as well, because it's hiding the shock he feels. His guns are in hand now, along with Cuthbert's, braced and ready. That roar's more than a single tree could make, meaning they're in the middle of an entire forest with fighting ability, and this isn't over.

There's sorrow on Susan's face, he sees, but she doesn't raise a hand. "Goodbye, aunt," she says, oh, so soft. "Fare ye well, if ye can."

[the_seafarer]

He watches as the beech-woman drags the screaming Cordelia away from the circle, as dozens of reaching branches grasp for her. The torch, when dropped, is summarily smothered by the queenly beech, who steps on it with every evidence of distaste: roots grow quickly over it; loam muffles the glow and the smoke that wafts up.

(The Wood! The Wood! The end of the world!)

What happens to the woman, he doesn't see, but his sword stays in his hand until her last screeches have disappeared into the woods well beyond the sanctuary of the garden.

Behind them, the birch-woman's branches lash in consternation. Black sorcery! she cries. Evil, wretched. We have taken her from this place. We are sorry she broke through. Forgive us.

[sai_delgado]

"Oh, say not so--" Susan whirls from staring at the blackness that's swallowed her aunt to face the birch-woman instead, distress in every aspect of her now.

"Lady-sai, say not so, it were me brought trouble here to disturb the peace of yer garden. There's naught ye need forgiveness for, say true. Cry yer pardon, I do."

[the_seafarer]

Caspian looks very hard at the trees, which he doubts could have come so wholly to life under the tree-sisters' will alone. As he does, he smells fresh water and earth, and when his glance shifts, he sees with a small shock that the willow-woman, she who had even forgotten how to speak has made her slow way up from her bed by the stream.

Nor is she alone: the white pine has joined her. The four tree-sisters now all stand in a protective circle around them, branches waving gently.

The birch-woman leans forward to embrace Susan in green leaves and the sweet smell of sap. We promised, she murmurs. No harm will come to you here. No killing frost. No flame.