[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]

"It's not quite the same," he admits. "But my door opens onto Aslan's Country, and there one can roam all through the old familiar places of Narnia before returning here. I have, on many occasions."

[sai_delgado]

She puts her free hand over his and holds on, fog-gray eyes wide. “Thee mean it,” she whispers, searching his face. “Thee can go and come back? It’s not like the clearing?”

[the_seafarer]

"I mean it," he promises, steady and warm. He smiles at her, sweet, and drops his head to gently kiss her sore fingers. "It's not like the clearing. Reep and I have both been there and back again, haven't we, Reepicheep?"

"Yes, Sire," the Mouse replies, swiftly. "You'd love it there, Daughter of Eve. You've never seen a place so lovely."

[sai_delgado]

And oh, but the sweet smile that curves her lips is bright as sunshine, and the look in her eyes is a shining thing of hope and disbelief and delight.

"Then aye, I would, and that willingly and more," she tells him - tells them, really. "Oh, Caspian, how I'd love to see it, say true."

[the_seafarer]

His relief and delight are clear and break across his face in equal measure. "Then go we shall," he promises her. "Just as soon as you're cleaned up and ready. Cuthbert and Alain will mind the stables today."

[sai_delgado]

"Oh, is that what thee needed to speak with them about?" she teases. "Sir Reepicheep, a moment, I beg--"

She tugs her hair free of his paws and leans forward to throw her arms around Caspian and hug him tightly.

[the_seafarer]

He laughs and leans his head against hers. "I didn't want you to worry about the chores," he teases in return.

As a method of taking her mind off things, it seems already to be working splendidly.

[sai_delgado]

"Thee very dear," she whispers. "Caspian, I can't tell thee what it means."

[the_seafarer]

He curves his hand against the back of her head and smiles at the way Reepicheep obviously directs his gaze out the window, softly humming to himself.

"You needn't," he murmurs. "I'm grateful to be able to give this to you, Su."

[sai_delgado]

She holds on for a moment longer, then loosens her hold and sits up, all practicality.

"Then I best get to it, if we're to have any time at all," she says. Susan brushes at her jeans and pauses as a thought strikes her. She looks up at Caspian, uncertain. "What do - I've no gowns like a court lady'd wear--"

[the_seafarer]

"If you want one, I can provide it," he says, taking her concerns seriously. "But your jeans will work just as well, I promise. After all, I expect we'll do quite a lot of walking."

[sai_delgado]

Susan eyes him. "There's a great deal of difference between the two," she points out. "Which is it that I should wear?"

[the_seafarer]

He opens his mouth to say whatever you like, but catches Reepicheep's gimlet gaze and rethinks himself.

"Wear your jeans," he tells her. "If we need anything else, I have a feeling we'll find it there."

[sai_delgado]

"As ye'd have it, then." Susan shifts and gets to her feet. "If ye'd but give me a few minutes to wash up, I can be ready that quick."

[the_seafarer]

"Of course."

He stands up to give her room, and Reepicheep scurries down from the back of the couch. "I will offer my services to Cutherbert and Alain," the Mouse tells them, and makes an elegant leg to Susan. "I hope you enjoy your trip, my lady. I will await your thoughts on your return."

[sai_delgado]

She drops into a curtsey of her own in answer. "Thankee-sai," she tells the Mouse. "And on 'Bert and Alain's behalf as well. For everything."

[the_seafarer]

"Thank you, Reep," Caspian says, and the Mouse bows to him in return. "Sire," he says, and makes his way, humming to himself, out the door.

Caspian turns his smile on Susan. "Now then, Su. Go on and wash your face, and we'll take our leave."

[sai_delgado]

"And my hair," she says, ruefully. "Reepicheep did his best, but it's all a tangle still, I wot. But I'll be as quick as I can."

Before she crosses the room to her wardrobe to gather fresh clothing, Susan touches her fingers lightly to Caspian's cheek. "I see thee very well," she murmurs. "And what thee are doing. Thee very, very dear."

[the_seafarer]

He smiles at her and catches her hand in his, then turns his head to kiss her fingers.

"Go on, then," he murmurs, but the smile that crinkles the corners of his eyes shows he'd heard her.

[sai_delgado]

Laughter dances in her eyes as Susan turns away to gather up a few things, then dashes into the bath. It's just as well she's not been given enough time to be all over nerves about such a visit, she decides, as she scrubs at skin and hair under the rainfall of water.

Combing through the golden mass is still more of a trial than she'd like, but the washing helps, and eventually Susan's able to comb it clean and tie it up in a braid thick as her wrist. She binds the end with a leather cord and slips into dark blue denim and a silk-soft cotton blouse the dusky pink shade of a wild rose, then shoves her feet into her boots and dashes back out to rejoin Caspian. "Will I do?" she asks, breathless.

[the_seafarer]

He'd made himself comfortable on the couch, gazing out the window and thinking with quiet delight of all the things he'll show her. Now, as she comes back out into the main room again, he rises to his feet, gazing at her with open admiration.

"More than," he promises, and comes to slip his arms warmly around her waist. Smiling, he lowers his head to kiss her sweet, smiling mouth and her cheek, pink with excitement and nerves. "You look perfect."

Stepping back, he offers her his hand. "Shall we?"

[sai_delgado]

She laces her fingers together with his and beams back at him. "Aye," she says, simply. "Lead on, Caspian, do, and I'll follow thee wherever thee'd have me go."

[the_seafarer]

He swings their hands between them as he walks with her from her quarters, being careful not to squeeze her poor sore fingers too tightly, then brings her to the door. Caspian gives her a brilliant smile, then reaches for the handle with his free hand and swings it open. And beyond –

And beyond lies a land of gentle green hills and a blue sky bright as sapphire. White clouds whisk overhead and wildflowers dot the grass before them, and as they stand there, a delicious, mischievous breeze swirls through the open door, winding around Susan like an affectionate cat, beckoning her. One can almost hear it whispering: come and see, come and see.

[sai_delgado]

Susan gasps, eyes wide and bright. She can't look away from the country beyond the door, filled with color and life and --

(peace of the clearing)

--a vibrant, pure joy that seems to imbue the very breeze that tugs at them. She can smell wildflowers, she's sure of it, and green grass and roses and the distant sweetness of honeysuckle.

"Oh, Caspian." She breathes his name on a sigh, drinking in the sight of Aslan's Country. "Oh, it's beautiful."

[the_seafarer]

Beneath the light from Aslan's Country, here at the top of the world, her eyes are clear as glass and her hair shines like polished gold. Caspian lifts her hand and steps across the threshold, breathing deep the sweet-scented air like a longer sleeper just now awakened. "Welcome, Daughter of Eve," he tells her, and even his voice sounds richer, deeper, more full of joy than before. "Come further up and further in."

The land outside the bar always seems real, but stepping into Aslan's Country, one begins to feel that every other world is but a poor, faded imitation. The grass is a more vibrant green with a sweeter, fresher scent; the air is so clear that things far off in the distance look as clear and real as if they were standing next to them. Caspian has brought them onto a gently rolling hill, but there are mountains climbing into the sky along the horizon on one side and a dark mass of forest on the other. And ahead, far, far ahead, is the calm, sparkling expanse of the sea.