[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]

He steps back, but stays nearby, listening to Alain and Susan talk as he moves to remove Kiseki's saddle and blanket. Close as he and Susan are, there's some connection between her and the two gunslingers he feels he should be careful of. And today, certainly, isn't a day to insert himself into it.

[sai_delgado]

Alain cups her chin in his hand and tips her head up. Her fog-gray glance is shadowed, he sees, and she's on the verge of tears. "Ah, now, Sue." He takes one more step and wraps her in his arms. "Shh, now. I kennit."

"Susan?" Cuthbert vaults the paddock fence on the side of the field and bolts across to the gate.

[the_seafarer]

A small, brown-furred figure scrambles over the paddock fence in pursuit and streaks across the grass. Reepicheep can move rapidly when he wishes, and now he bounds on all four paws and must dig them in to halt himself before crashing into Susan's legs. "My lady," he gasps. "Are you well? We feared the worst – "

"Reep," Caspian says, quiet but with an air of command. When the Mouse looks his way, he gives a speaking look towards Susan, Alain, and Cuthbert. Reepicheep wilts, slightly, but steps back to give the gunslingers room.

[sai_delgado]

She pulls away from Alain, her distress visible, and shakes her head at Cuthbert before she drops to her knees and holds out both gloved hands toward the Mouse.

"I cry yer pardon, Sir Reepicheep," Susan says, her voice clear for all that it's wavering a little. "I didn't mean to worry ye."

[the_seafarer]

At this earnest apology, Reepicheep's gallantry cannot be held back. "Dear lady, nay," he says, and takes one of her hands between both his paws, patting the back of it gently. "I am only relieved you are back, and unharmed."

He'd been frightened right down to his whiskers, Caspian knows, but his relief is visibly all-consuming. "I would never have forgiven myself had some danger befallen you when my sword might have come to your aid."

[sai_delgado]

She cannot, she cannot look up at either of the men who she knows have never forgiven themselves for just exactly that. Her fingers tighten slightly on Reepicheep's paw.

"I kennit," she whispers. "But ye've naught to - I'm all right," she shifts to, quickly. "Forgive me, I beg."

[the_seafarer]

"Yes, of course," Reepicheep is swift to reply. "There is little enough to forgive, Daughter of Eve."

"It's a knight's prerogative to worry over a lady," Caspian says, as lightly as he can. Reepicheep may have only known Susan a short while, but he knows the Mouse feels his loyalty and duty toward her keenly. "And Reep is the finest knight of my acquaintance."

[sai_delgado]

"Still. Thankee-sai," she says, simply, and lets go of his paw. Susan pushes herself back to her feet with a slight wince that she tries to hide, and turns to Cuthbert. The gunslinger rests his hands on her shoulders and gives her a gentle shake. "Thee should've come to us," he scolds, although more gently than she feels she deserves.

"I kennit, but - I, I couldn't," she tries. "Not thee, nor Caspian, or anyone."

[the_seafarer]

Reepicheep bristles at the scolding, however gently it's spoken, and Caspian shifts just enough to catch his glance and give the Mouse a warning look of his own. Kiseki, meanwhile, lowers his head to sniff curiously at the Mouse.

[sai_delgado]

"Susan--"

"All right," Alain interrupts, with a warning look for Cuthbert. "We'll see to Kiseki, Sue, if thee wants to clean up."

She bites her lip and darts a hesitant look at Caspian.

[the_seafarer]

He smiles at her, warm and encouraging. "Go on," he says, and looks at Reepicheep. "Sir Mouse, would you kindly escort sai Delgado back to the bar? I'll follow presently."

[sai_delgado]

"As ye'd have it," she says, softly, and looks away from them all, down at Reepicheep, weariness in the set of her slender shoulders. "If ye'd not mind," she tells the Mouse, and starts away, toward the bar.

[the_seafarer]

Caspian watches her go, then turns to the gunslingers. "I know you've been planning something to take her mind off things," he tells them. "But unless you're quite ready to enact those plans today, I ask that you take over the stables for the day, so I may take her away from the Bar for a short while."

[sai_delgado]

"That's one way of putting it," Cuthbert says. "Did you see how she looked? What happened to her?"

"'Bert," Alain interjects. His steady gaze never wavers from Caspian. "I'd ask where ye'd think to take her, and for how long."

[the_seafarer]

"She fled into the woods," Caspian tells Cuthbert, levelly. "I found her at a place we'd visited a time or two before, thank the Lion."

He settles himself, and looks to Alain. "The door no longer opens for me to Narnia proper," he says. "But instead to Aslan's Country. I have been and returned many times since first arriving here. It is a place of great peace and beauty, and may offer her the respite she needs. And then we will return."

[sai_delgado]

"God and the Man Jesus." Kiseki snorts and tosses his head at the edge to Cuthbert's voice. "She fled? It's gotten that bad?"

"From the sound of it, might be it's what she needs, aye," Alain observes. "I'd not pry into what's between the two of you, sai, but do'ee ken what she's facing now?"

[the_seafarer]

"She told me what happened," he tells the gunslinger. "I won't pretend to understand everything the way the both of you do – I wasn't there."

He looks back and forth between the two men, shoulders set. "All I want is to comfort her and keep her safe, body and mind and all. I expect she'll need the both of you for the night, when it comes... but for today, I ask that you let me do what I can."

In the end, the decision is Susan's, of course, but he's not fool enough to leave the two men before him out of the conversation. The nature of the strange relationship between them all is still largely a mystery to him, but not so much he doesn't recognize its importance.

And so he asks, odd though it feels.

[sai_delgado]

"Well, and that's the thing, isn't it?" Cuthbert points out, an unnatural grimness to his tone. "We weren't there, when we could have been. When we should have been."

"'Bert's right." Alain moves to Kiseki's head, soothing the gelding before he starts to loosen his tack. "Believe you me, sai, what you want is what any of us want. But as it happens... I'm minded to think you might be the best suited to give it."

[the_seafarer]

"You know that isn't what I mean," Caspian says, reining in any sharpness that wants to accompany the words. He likes Cuthbert well enough, but he's not of any mind or temper to assuage the man's guilt just now, when it's Susan who suffered the harm and needs the aid.

He takes a moment, then nods to Alain. "I'll take care of her. You have my word."

[sai_delgado]

"I do, but my point stands. We all carry our own scars, sai--" and oh, but Cuthbert's careful not to look in Alain's direction. "--but Susan's aren't the sort she's been able to share, do'ee kennit? She knows we know, but if she's hiding in the woods instead of letting anyone in, there's a problem."

"He knows that, 'Bert." Alain's tone, in contrast, is mild. "Leave off. Best they get started before it gets much later. She'll be wondering what's taking us so long. If there's anyone who knows how long it takes to care for a horse, Susan's that person."

[the_seafarer]

He expects he knows better than Cuthbert suspects, but neither of them will benefit from riling the other, and Susan least of all. Likewise, he suspects Susan knows precisely what's taking so long, but Alain is correct.

"Then I'll take my leave," he tells them, and pats Kiseki fondly on the shoulder before nodding to the gunslingers. "Gentlemen."

[sai_delgado]

Alain nods amiably back, and shoves Kiseki's saddle at 'Bert. "Here. Make yourself useful, Allgood."

[the_seafarer]

The courteous Mouse stays by Susan's side to her door, then stands politely to the side. "Daughter of Eve," he says, "if it's not too great a trouble, let me stay with you until the King arrives. I swear to you that if you wish for quiet, I will be as silent as a... well. I can hold my tongue without issue."

[sai_delgado]

“It’s naught of trouble,” she says, softly. “Ye’d be welcome, say true, and ye needn’t be quiet.”

She pushes open the door for him, and her glance falls on her unmade bed. “What ye must think of my untidiness,” she says, low with embarrassed distress. “If ye’d only excuse me this once —“

Even as she speaks, she’s crossing the room to flip the covers back over the bed and smooth them into place, without waiting to remove her winter things.

[the_seafarer]

"Please don't concern yourself," the Mouse says, and leaps lightly to the other side of the bed to assist her with making it. "When one comes from as large a family as my own, one becomes accustomed to some disarray. Indeed, I'd hardly say this is any untidiness of note."