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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"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.

"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.

"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?"

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."

"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.

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!

"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!"

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."

"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."

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.

Edited 2023-03-01 03:26 (UTC)

"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."

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.

And oh, at this she cannot help herself, not any longer. A sob bursts from her as she clings to the birch-woman in turn, shivering with the effort it takes to keep from breaking down utterly.

"I doubt very much we'll see anything of Susan's Aunt Cord again," Caspian murmurs to the gunslingers. He sheaths his sword with a sigh, as the birch-woman curls around Susan, a light breeze shushing through her leaves.

"Good riddance, if you ask me." Cuthbert keeps his voice low, and he hasn't holstered just yet. Nor has Alain. "I wouldn't have thought we'd see her in the first place."

"I don't think the magic woven around Susan is the only enchantment working here tonight," Caspian says, grim. He looks up at the sky, which has now darkened almost fully into night.

"Best to keep our wits about us."

"Never a bad idea," Alain observes, dry. He tilts his head toward the forest where Cord disappeared and raises his eyebrows at Cuthbert, who gives a small shrug in return. Both gunslingers holster their weapons in the same moment.

As they do, Susan pulls away from the birch-woman's gentle embrace, wiping her eyes. She murmurs soft words of thanks to the tree-sisters, dropping a curtsey, then comes back to join the others. "I'm sorry ye had to see her like that," she says, rueful.

Caspian shakes his head and comes to her, shaking out a handkerchief and offering it to her. "I'm sorry you did," he says, gently.

"Are you all right, Su?"

She accepts it and blots at her eyes, then manages a little smile for them all. "I'm just glad I were able to talk Reepicheep out of being here," she says, not quite answering Caspian's question. She can feel the weight moving heavy up her bones, can see the orange gleam that heralds the rising moon to come.

"He'd have been that upset, he would." Cuthbert chokes back a disbelieving laugh.

"We none of us would have been able to stop him from flying at her," Caspian agrees, smiling a little. "And I don't believe I'd be inclined to try."

He puts an arm at her back and guides her a little closer to the gunslingers, until she's in yet another ring of protection, this time with the three of them.

Edited 2023-03-01 04:16 (UTC)

"Nay, I suppose not," Susan murmurs. She notices it, oh aye-- she's well aware of what they're trying to do as they move to arrange themselves around her.

(too much protection makes you weak - you have to be able to stand)

She'll never speak a word of blame for what came before -- it were ka, ever and always that cruel wind, and naught else. But she understands well why they'd still do so now--

(we'd all protect her if we could)

-- and why Caspian would as well, being who he is, adventurer, king, and more beside--

(beloved)

--and oh, but she loves them for it, loves them deeply and lasting, the three who are here and the one who is not, as well.

(Roland I love thee)

Time seems almost to stretch oddly around them as they stand together so, and she'll never be certain sure how long has passed in what seems to her like one single, endless moment. And it's in that moment that Susan thinks that although Susannah (Detta) had been right in her warnings, she'd been wrong as well.

It's not about the way of the gun, say true, not here. It's love, she thinks, that makes all the difference, and it's love that will get them through the burning horror of this day's memory and what she fears is yet to come as the moon rises.

And that's what she says-- oh, so very soft, and yet so very clear, while she still can, before her mind's mazed again or worse. Susan leans close into the curve of Caspian's arm, and reaches to catch one of 'Bert's hands, and one of Alain's as well.

"I love thee, do'ee kennit? All of thee, say true."

The gunslingers both take her hands as she offers them, and he thinks he hears Cuthbert's harsh, indrawn breath. Caspian spreads his hand over her side and lowers his forehead to a moment to her hair. "Beloved," he murmurs. "Aye, Su, we know it well."

In this, he thinks, he can speak for them all. The three of them here – and he knows without question they're far from the only ones who love Susan – would all do anything for her, and that gladly. Their love for her and hers for them; the love of the tree-sisters' for green and growing things; all of it weaving together into an enchantment stronger, he's sure, than any wicked glamour could ever be.

"And thee," he hears Alain murmur, while he wrestles with the sudden lump in his throat.

(Roland's love is my love)

"Aye," he manages, squeezing her hand tight - and then flashing a bright teasing smile at her. "So be careful, Sue, or thee'll have all three of us reclining at yer feet now."

Susan laughs, and his heart lifts to see it.

She laughs, and he smiles to hear it. They aren't through the night, not by a long way, but every step taken is another that's moving them toward the morning. "Aye," he chuckles. "And I doubt we'd be the only ones."

"Made of mischief, all of thee," Susan says, mock-sternly, then rolls her eyes at Alain's bland tone as he observes, "Not me, surely."

"Aye, thee too, ka-mai or not." But even as she says it, something stirs well beyond the edge of the garden, and her glance drifts unconsciously toward it.

For ka works and the world moves on, may it do ya, and though those gathered here may not know it, ka's workings with regard to one Roland Deschain have been long set in

(a handful of dust)

a pattern as strong and binding as any chain. Time is soft here in the places between, and softer still on this night when the veils between the worlds are dim and thin and drifting, and although a price was paid and a horn once lost was found and in a rose-covered field far distant a Tower waits for change, here the weight of ka's wheel drags still at those who Roland failed to save.

(lost and by the wind grieved - O Discordia)

And oh, though she does not know it, Susan Delgado was the first of them all, and now here she stands again among them, the linchpin that marked the beginning of all their losses, while at the edges of this tenuous place of safety something dark begins to rise.

(what rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?)

"Something's wrong." For all it's a mere whisper, it's achingly clear.

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