[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.

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[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.

[the_seafarer]

Caspian smiles back at her, as warm and happy as he had been in Aslan's Country behind the door.

The Lion noses a little at Susan's hair, the curve of her cheek. "Is your strength returning, daughter?"

[sai_delgado]

"Aye," she promises. "I'm much better than I were, and - and the weariness is all but gone."

As is the weight that had been in near every breath, dragging her down like stone.

[the_seafarer]

"Then it is time for a little movement."

He nudges her fondly with his nose and stands – carefully, so she isn't pushed – then gazes at them with bright eyes, legs quivering tail lashing his flanks. A thrill of delight rushes through Caspian, even before the Lion speaks again. "Much is said of the reflexes of gunslingers," Aslan says. His large mouth is open, tongue red and lolling with laughter, and each word has a rumbling hint of his roar in it. "I think I shall put them to the test. Now, children – catch me if you can!"

In the next moment he pulls himself back, then springs lightly over the gunslingers' heads, landing behind them with a softness that belies his size.

[sai_delgado]

Susan gasps and presses her hands to her mouth to stifle a delighted giggle, reminded of nothing so much as a barn-cat when it's suddenly taken a notion to play.

Both Cuthbert and Alain are caught slightly off guard, to judge from the slightly gobsmacked look on 'Bert's face, but their training and instinct's enough for them to react without needing to think about it. Alain rolls one way and 'Bert the other, both coming to their feet with the near-uncanny swiftness she's seen before. Cuthbert breaks to the side, evidently aiming to circle round, while Alain drops back to flank the Lion.

[the_seafarer]

The Lion frisks playfully between them, now almost letting them close enough to catch his flicking tail, now leaping over Alain's head and pouncing on a laughing Caspian. The two go rolling over and over in a jumble of arms and legs and golden fur, until Aslan releases him and goes running into the garden proper.

Caspian laughs again and offers Susan his hand up. "Come on," he tells her, cheerful. "Maybe all four of us together can catch him."

[sai_delgado]

"I doubt it," Susan laughs back, but she puts her hand in Caspian's with a will all the same.

"Come on," Cuthbert calls over his shoulder, as he and Alain go tearing after the Lion. "Else you'll miss your chance!"

[the_seafarer]

Aslan leads them on a joyful, merry chase through the garden, and somehow no flowers are crushed or fruit ruined in their play. He jumps the stream and bats water with one enormous paw at Cuthbert, then jukes to the side to avoid Alain as the gunslinger comes after him. At times, he's hopelessly out of reach, and at others his fur is within an inch or less of their reaching fingers.

Caspian feels he hasn't laughed so much in an age, running after the Lion with Susan's hand in his. Ahead, Aslan stops suddenly and lets the gunslingers' momentum carry them into him, then lovingly wrestles them down to the ground.

[sai_delgado]

"Guardian, I am defeated, and fain must concede smiling," Cuthbert drawls, clapping one hand to his hat to keep it from falling off as he tips his head back against the grass. Alain just holds up both hands with a small wry grin.

[the_seafarer]

Aslan nuzzles at their faces, then gives them both rough-tongued lion kisses before throwing himself to the ground and rolling. He romps around the gunslingers like a kitten playing with a ball of yarn, then gambols over toward Caspian and Susan.

"Well, Daughter of Eve," he says, that joyful roar still in his voice. "Caspian King. Will you try your luck?"