[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

[sai_delgado]

"I can't see it clear," she breathes. "But it's wrong."

Wrong like the sound of the thinny in Eyebolt canyon; wrong like the insectile greedy whispering among the crowd that burned her.

She's right, Alain thinks, hands hovering ready to draw. Cuthbert feels it too, he can see that from the way his friend's turned grim, no laughter in him now as they brace themselves for the fight.

[the_seafarer]

He can feel it, a discordant chord humming through the shadows, rising with the moon –

(it's wrong)

– and his hand tightens on his sword. The gunslingers, too, are braced and ready, all four of them here and willing to stand against the darkness, to hold, and small as their group might be, the circle they make is strong. Above the trees, the bloody moon shows its first curving line, and scarlet light washes dully over the woods. The wrongness of it grates at him like sharp-edged metal.

(it's wrong

wrong

wrong will be

wrong will be right)

He doesn't know what it is that catches his attention away from the rising moon, but something does – some flutter of wings or flash of light. Caspian lifts his gaze to the darkened sky and sees a single star glowing, bright and calm, strong enough to be visible even in the weird washed-out half-light of the harvest moon.

(courage, dear heart)

The star pulses, sending a wave of cool light over them, and in it – in it –

(he's the King of the Wood)

– he sees something else moving among the trees, starlight gleaming off richly golden haunches, and a sweet, wild scent fills the air. Caspian, unable to help himself, cries out in joy.

Wrong will be right, when Aslan comes in sight,
At the sound of his roar, sorrows will be no more,
When he bares his teeth, winter meets its death,
And when he shakes his mane, we shall have spring again.

The tree-sisters bow their heads, the breeze flits joyfully around them, and the single star above glows in peaceful encouragement as the Lion paces slowly into the glade, his massive paws velveted and silent on the grass.

[sai_delgado]

Something changes, and at first Susan doesn't know what's happening. The bloody light of Demon Moon alters, shifting into a cool, soft glow for no reason she can tell, and she feels the first breath of hope stir within her.

(the white the coming of the White)

Beside her Caspian cries out, and there's naught of fear or horror or anger in it - it's a welcoming cry, a wonder-cry of delight and happiness--

(joy yes always)

--and at his side, Susan turns to see bright and shining gold.

"Oh," she breathes, near unable to speak, fog-gray eyes wide and her hands clasped in front of her now almost as if prayer. She can hear Cuthbert and Alain turning behind her, but she cannot look away from the Lion, the Guardian, Aslan himself, here with them in the no-longer-haunted glade.

"Oh, look."

[the_seafarer]

He comes to them, and the garden fills again with the cool white light of the stars, shining from his fur and his shaggy mane. His tail flicks calmly back and forth as he paces past the tree-sisters, the lion, the Lion, the Great Lion, terrible and beautiful in equal measure, and in his steps comes peace and joy and solemn steadiness. Caspian breathes in and feels he could run or leap or fight without tiring, and his eyes are shining as he watches the Lion come near.

Aslan, far larger than any lion, larger even than the last time Caspian saw him, steps close and regards them with amber eyes both wise and calm. "Hail, Susan, Daughter of Eve."

His voice is rich and warm. He turns his great, shaggy head, and observes Cuthbert and Alain. "Hile, gunslingers."

[sai_delgado]

"Hile, Guardian," Cuthbert manages, echoed by Alain, his mouth as always running ahead of the rest of him without thought. He's glad of it, though, because all his thoughts have fallen into a spinning whirl.

They'd been ready to fight and die (again) if need be, to confront the darkness --

(all small boys born to the High Speech must face the dark alone)

--and it's hard at first to understand that this time the battle's over without the need to fire a single shot, that they've been granted an almost impossible grace.

And not just them; far from it. Cuthbert watches as Susan takes a step forward, the look in her eyes bright, and sinks into a deep curtsey, head bowed. "Hail, sai Aslan," she responds, echoing the Lion's own greeting with wonder in her soft words. "Thee are so very welcome, say true."

[the_seafarer]

Aslan pads over to her, each massive paw leaving dimpled indentations in the grass. "Your fears have haunted you, child," he tells her, and nuzzles gently at her face with his soft nose. "Come, let me breathe on you. Forget them."

A delicious scent lifts from his mane, from his breath, warm and life-giving and impossible. His breath puffs gently over her, before he lowers his head and licks at her hands, scratched from her panicked flight through the woods the morning before. "The time of nightmares is over now. You have done well, all of you."

[sai_delgado]

She looks up unafraid into his amber eyes as the strangely strengthening perfume that rises from his mane and drifts from his breath wreaths her, somehow banishing all her worries and fears and lifting the weary, grinding weight from her shoulders. The rough scrape of his tongue is still somehow gentle, and she can almost feel the small wounds healing under his touch, sure deep within that they'll be gone by morning.

"Thankee-sai," she murmurs, wondering and happy at his reassurance and so, so pleased to hear him praise those she cares for as well. "Ye are kind, and more than kind, and I can't thank ye enough."

[the_seafarer]

"You have been brave, sweetheart," the Lion tells her. "Be brave a little longer."

He turns now to Caspian, whose eyes are alight with quiet joy. "Aslan," he says, happily, and when the Lion comes close, Caspian throws his arms about the great neck and presses his face into the shaggy mane, breathing deep. When he pulls away, he kisses the strong, beautiful face, and Aslan kisses him in return. "My dear son," he says, the rumble of a growl low in his voice. "Come and stand by me."

"Always," Caspian tells him, and as Aslan turns to face the rising moon, he stands straight and tall beside the Lion.

"Cuthbert, son of Robert," Aslan says. "Alain, son of Christopher. Take your places at my side. Sweetheart – "

This to Susan, as his tail lashes his flanks. "You may wish to cover your ears. I am going to roar."

[sai_delgado]

My dear son, the Lion says to Caspian, and Susan can't hold back her bright, beaming smile at that. It only grows when he calls 'Bert and Alain by name, knowing them, and oh, not only their own names but the names of their fathers as well.

She curtseys to him again at his request and moves to stand to the side, hands pressed to her ears and breath practically held as she waits.

[the_seafarer]

Once Caspian is standing at one side and the gunslingers at the other, all of them facing the rising moon, now a great ruddy disk in the sky, the Lion lifts his head, shakes his mane, and roars.

It starts low and throbbing, like a note played on an organ, but grows louder and louder until the very sky and ground seem to shake with it, until the trees of the wood bend before it and clouds scud rapidly away. The roar rolls like thunder, like the crash of a cleansing river smashing through a dam, and fills their ears and chests and lungs.

The black shadows that had been slinking and lurking in the woods can't hold their ground in the face of the Lion's roar, and when it finally dissipates and leaves them in ringing silence, the heavy wrongness of before seems to have lifted entirely. Even the moon only looks like a small silver coin once again, instead of the bloody circle it had been.

[sai_delgado]

The roar shakes the world around them, an earthquake, a shattering blast, and the last time Alain heard anything of the sort was when the Beam that crossed beneath Gilead broke and they'd watched the city fall.

(all things serve the Beam)

But it's not the same. No, it's nowhere near the same, say true and say thankya, say hallelujah and amen. Where the Beam-quake had wreaked death and destruction and misery, the Lion's roar is a thing of beauty and defiance and power and strength and renunciation of all that is wrong or ever could be.

(cam-a-cam-mal, pria toi, Gan delah)

Silence falls over the glade in stages as the sound rolls into the distance and slowly fades. Alain lets out a soft breath and looks at Cuthbert, who looks back. Neither of them can find words to speak.

[the_seafarer]

Aslan reaches out his front paws and stretches like an enormous housecat, then shakes out his mane once more and turns back to them. Caspian's grin is boyish and delighted as he watches the Lion, as the last reverberations of the roar fade from his ears.

"Now," Aslan says, and settles down onto his belly, his tail flipping lazily. "Come and sit between my paws, Daughter of Eve. Lean on me and regain your strength. Come near, Sons of Adam. I think I would like a little romp through this garden – but not yet. For now, I only wish to speak with you, dear ones."

[sai_delgado]

Susan blinks, startled almost beyond words -- almost. "If ye'd have it so," she says, shy in a way she almost never is.

But shy or not, she comes forward, and settles carefully between Aslan's front paws, curling up a little against one while Cuthbert and Alain stand nearby in the easy, casual way she's seen them do when there's naught of threat but still they'd remain aware of everything around them.

The Lion's paw is strong, and his breath above her warm and sweet. Susan looks first at Caspian, wide-eyed, and tips her head back to look up as she dares to ask the Lion, "What would'ee wish to speak of? We'd listen, aye."

[the_seafarer]

The braided gold of her hair almost merges with the living, darker gold of the Lion's coat. There's a faint rumbling in his chest that could almost be called a purr... if one were bold enough to suggest it. Around them, the tree-sisters are back at rest, their quiet joy and peace suffusing the garden around them.

Caspian, familiar with the Lion, takes a seat nearby, his sword close at hand but no longer in his fingers. Aslan looks down at Susan solemnly, but Caspian can see the affection in that dear face. "I have not come to preach at you, children," he tells them, and now the amusement is clear enough in his voice that Caspian suspects even the gunslingers will hear it.

"And I would not have expected Cuthbert, son of Robert, to be able to hold his tongue this long. Why this silence, gunslingers? Will you not hold palaver with me?"

[sai_delgado]

Cuthbert's jaw drops, and Susan can't help but giggle at the look on his face. "He's got you dead to rights, 'Bert," Alain murmurs, and Cuthbert throws back his head and laughs, bright and ringing, before he lowers himself into a bow, leg extended and triple-tapping his throat.

"Cry yer pardon, sai Aslan," Cuthbert tells the Lion as he straightens once more. "I guess it's possible some of the lessons Ro' tried to drum into my head all these years about when to keep quiet stuck after all. But aye, we'd hold palaver with you, and that gladly."

[the_seafarer]

Caspian chuckles, sitting relaxed and cheerful, forearms loose over his knees. "Sit," Aslan tells the gunslingers. "The night is long, and its magic is deep."

He looks down at Susan. "I have shaken it loose, Daughter of Eve, but I think it will not break until dawn. So I will stay with you tonight, all of you who have chosen time and time again to stand against the darkness... in my name, and in the name of those like me."

[sai_delgado]

"What was it?" Alain lowers himself to the ground, resting easy enough on the grass, one leg drawn up. "Is it, rather. Rhea's work?"

Susan curls a little more closely against the Lion, he sees, but there's no sign of the former strain even at mention of the witch's name.

[the_seafarer]

"In some ways, yes."

The Lion's voice is deep and rich. His large paws, safely velveted, bracket Susan safely. "It is her work in the same way the splitting of a tree is the work of a wedge struck by a mallet. But who holds the mallet? Who swings it? And would the tree have fallen if the wedge had been added one stroke earlier?"

Caspian listens as the beloved voice speaks, thinking of destiny, thinking of a tempestuous hour in his cabin there at the edge of the world, when he railed against his own. "The witch tapped into something far greater than herself. You've felt it, all of you – the force that binds you together and set you on your path. She was the tipping strike, but not the hand that struck it."

[sai_delgado]

"Ka like a wind," Susan murmurs. Cuthbert nods to her. "Say true."

He settles near Alain and meets the Lion's gaze with a steady one of his own. "I'll echo Susan's thanks," he says, and Alain makes a quiet sound of agreement as Cuthbert continues. "She's very dear to us. To all of us," he adds, with a glance to Caspian.

[the_seafarer]

Aslan gravely nods his great head. "Connecting with such a force strengthened her magic," he says. "But even now the web is loosening and falling apart. The roots were wide, but shallow. There is far Deeper Magic against which she could not prevail... You may never be easy during the harvest-time, Daughter of Eve, but I think the terrors of this first anniversary will not return."

His tail flicks lazily as his amber eyes fix on the gunslingers. After a moment of long silence, Caspian shifts, and murmurs: "He isn't here as a favor, Cuthbert. He's here for the love of us. All of us. As a father might be, when his children are hurt."

[sai_delgado]

"I kennit," Susan murmurs, comforted by his assurance, and thinking over what Caspian and Reepicheep have each told her of such Deep Magic.

She glances at Caspian as he makes his quiet observation, then to Cuthbert as he says, "I meant no offense." His irrepressible smile's quick and mayhap a little rueful, she thinks. "I'm not used to talking to any of the Guardians."

[the_seafarer]

"You have given none, Son of Adam," Aslan says, and again Caspian has to hide a small smile. The Lion likes Cuthbert, and Alain too, but the gunslingers aren't well enough acquainted with him yet to be easy of the knowledge.

That low growl, almost a purr, is back in Aslan's voice as he continues. "But you have talked to them, gunslinger. Many times, over many years. Your words have been heard. It is just this is the first time one of our number is talking back."

[sai_delgado]

A faint smile curves her mouth. "Bird and bear and hare and fish," she says, and is a little amused at the startled blink Alain gives as he puts it together. "Oh aye, if thee'd consider it that way, then we've talked to any number of ye a lot, at that."

[the_seafarer]

"Whenever anything good and honorable is done, it is done also in my name, though you may not know it, or speak it." Aslan tells them. "Along with whatever names were spoken. The name of the Rose. Or the Tower. So it has always been."

[sai_delgado]

"In the service of the White," Cuthbert observes, obviously on much more familiar ground with that. Susan shifts a little, turning onto her hip so that she can see all three of them easily as she leans against the Lion's paw, and gives Caspian a sweet, happy smile.