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 doesn't have to pull her after for long, for she's trim and quick and agile from all her work with the horses, and soon enough Susan's laughing too as she dodges back and forth in what feels like a children's game of tag with them both. She's not weary now, not in the least, the weight and grief-filled exhaustion having slipped away from her like a bad dream forgotten upon waking.

Susan darts back and forth, trying her best to catch him and be quick as she can about it, and as she does her braid slips free and begins to unravel into a banner behind her.

There's no chance they'll catch the Lion, not unless he wants to be caught, but Caspian enjoys himself anyway, both with the exercise and with watching Susan laughing and delighted, running lightly through the garden, her hair streaming in a golden river behind her.

Cuthbert and Alain, apparently happy to take their loss, stay where they are and call words of encouragement, but it ends in much the same way, with Aslan pouncing and Caspian going down in a startled cry, embraced by those huge but beautifully gentle velveted paws. He sticks out his hand for Susan to draw her down into the jumble, laughing.

She flings herself down beside where the Lion has Caspian gently pinned, and pats gently at one of his paws while she links her other hand with Caspian's.

"Such mischief," she teases.

Aslan growls, but it's the contented, playful growl of a cat that has had its supper and a little playtime and is now thinking seriously about a wash and a long nap. His heavy paw remains safely velveted, and his tail flicks back and forth. Through the garden, Caspian thinks he can hear the tree-sisters laughing. Above them, the moon has tracked a fair distance through the sky, but the star he'd seen before is still in sight, now hanging low over the treetops.

Aslan nuzzles at Susan, panting and warm, as Caspian laces their fingers together. "It is well, daughter," he says. "The malaise has left you now."

"It has," she confirms, softly. Greatly daring, Susan reaches up to pet his mane.

"I'd not thought it would, ye ken." She squeezes Caspian's hand, and glances over at where Cuthbert and Alain are talking quietly, some distance away, before looking back at Aslan. "And had only hoped to not let it make a difference in the end. But now - it's gone, aye."

Aslan shifts onto his side, and Caspian draws Susan to lie with him against the great golden flank, warm and golden as a summer's day. "You have been blessed with a new existence," the Lion tells her – tells them both – tells them all. "Make merry while you can. And have courage, dear heart. You are dearly beloved."

She bites her lip in uncertainty at taking such a liberty, but Caspian seems certain-sure and it's clear that if Aslan objected they'd not be in any doubt of it. Susan settles cautiously against the Lion's side and looks up at him.

(you were fearless once - take back your birthright)

"It's hard to believe, some, but I'll not waste the gift I've been given," she assures him - assures them, really. A sweet smile curves her lips, and she squeezes Caspian's hand. "And aye, I kennit. It's a great fortune to me."

A low vibration rumbles against their backs, and the Lion's side moves slowly with his breath, warm and vital and more real than anything, even the garden around them. Far from objecting, Aslan stretches against them, rather like a cat relaxing in the sun, and looks up at that single star with joyful, unblinking eyes. His claws show their points as he kneads into the soft loam of the garden.

Caspian looks over toward Alain and Cuthbert, and motions to them with a movement of his head, inviting them over to join.

This is the strangest night, for all that it feels right in some undefinable way. Alain glances at ‘Bert, and although he’s the one with the touch, his friend might as well be reading his mind when he answers that look aloud. “Might as well. It’s not like either of us is going to cry off now, aye?”

“Yar,” Alain agrees, and follows as Cuthbert hops to his feet and strolls over to Susan, Caspian, and the Lion.

Aslan is quiet and relaxed against them, and Caspian breathes deep, feeling the calm strength of the Lion seeping through him. He leans back and looks up at the sky, resting his head on Aslan's gently moving ribs, and runs his thumb over Susan's fingers. With the horror and strain of the night slipping away, he feels only tired and curious about what's to come.

Caspian's on one side of Susan, and he settles on her other side, with Alain by him, cautiously leaning back against the Lion. Cuthbert decides very quickly that he shouldn't think too hard about any of that. Of course, in the process of carefully not thinking about things, other things come spilling right out of his mouth unchecked.

"How did you know?" He tilts his head a little to look toward the Lion's face.

Aslan's tail flicks, and his mane ruffles gently in the garden breeze. "Bird and bear and hare and fish," he intones, in his low and rich and rumbling voice. "I hear the prayers you make to your fathers. And those lifted to me."

Caspian is quiet for a moment, then rolls his head to look towards Susan and the gunslingers. "I thought I glimpsed him, yesterday," he murmurs. "We'd spoken, once, in my cabin on the Treader, on a day when I – when I needed to hear him. So I went there again, and asked."

Susan leans her head against Caspian's shoulder, at that. "While I were speaking with Drinian," she murmurs, realizing. "Aye?"

"Yes," he admits. "But he didn't come just because I asked."

Who knows why Aslan decides to intervene, and why he sometimes does not? The Lion doesn't clarify, only goes on looking up at the now peaceful harvest moon.

Cuthbert peers quickly at the Lion, but doesn't see any reaction to Caspian's statement. "I guess the Beam works a lot more clearly in Narnia, or something."

"Narnia is his world," Caspian says, easily, as if this explains everything. "He's in all of them, but Narnia is the one he sang into being."

"Ah." From Alain's expression, this explains a great deal. "Like Eddie and Susannah's world is Keystone Rose."

"Oh," Susan breathes, understanding. "I kennit."

Caspian shrugs, uncertain what they mean, but willing to accept the understanding that's on all of their faces. Behind them, Aslan makes a rumbling sound that's half chuckle, half purr, but says nothing. "Another world of the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve," he marvels. "So many more than I ever imagined."

"Eddie tells it well," Susan murmurs softly to Caspian, in response to that shrug. "He were the one explained it all to me. We'll talk with him, an'ye like; I'd just make a muddle of it."

Meanwhile, Cuthbert grins at Aslan. "We're persistent."

"I'd like that," Caspian tells her. "I liked Eddie a great deal."

Aslan growls low in his chest; it sounds amused. "Brave, persistent, and complex all."

Caspian laughs. "And flawed, I suppose," he adds, then looks curiously at Cuthbert. "Was your world round, like the Pevensies', too?"

Cuthbert shakes his head. "Our world turns around the Dark Tower. Well, all worlds do, may it do ya, but the Tower stands based in our world."

He glances over at Alain. "You should--" Alain shakes his head and offers a lazy grin. "Say on. Vannay'd be proud."

Cuthbert rolls his eyes at him and turns back to Caspian. "So no, not like the Pevensies' world, if theirs is like Eddie's, that is. Do they have 'planes'?"

Caspian considers this for a moment, then nods his head. "That was something Eustace would mention," he tells them. "Great metal birds, like dragons? But meant for warfare."

"And travel," Cuthbert adds. "From what Eddie's said, you can get on a 'plane' in one city and go to another on the other side of the world in a matter of hours."

His grin is brilliant. "Have to say I wouldn't mind trying that myself."

Caspian tries to picture it, and simply can't.

"Wouldn't you go upside down?"

"The world bends," Cuthbert explains. "Hold a moment--"

He rolls to his feet, careful not to push off from the Lion's side, and goes to rummage in his pack. "Ha, knew I brought it!" As he come back to resume his seat, he tosses Caspian the wiggly-stranded ball that Lilly had given him. Susan laughs. "Why did'ee bring that along, 'Bert?"

"Good thing I did," he counters, amused. "Look there - if each of those strands is a person standing on a round world, and the end of each is their head, then for them it's always 'up' from the center they're standing on, see it?" He leans forward across Susan, snagging a blade of grass as he does, and draws the tip of it in the air over the koosh ball. "And if that's how a plane flies, when it lands again, it's 'up' too, because the world spins on beneath it while it's in the air above."

Edited 2023-03-02 18:42 (UTC)

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