[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]

"Perhaps not in title or land," he agrees, musing, and smiles at her again, nudging his forehead against hers. "But beauty does not require either."

[sai_delgado]

"Aye, and I'm no beauty of legend and story either," she says, practically, for Susan's never read sai King's books herself and is thus blissfully unaware of the truth of it.

"But thee are a dear, dear mischief."

[the_seafarer]

"Only because you were not born in Narnia," is Caspian's opinion. "I can think of any number of poets, singers, and storytellers who would have fallen all over themselves attempting to describe your loveliness, Su."

[sai_delgado]

She blinks at him, for he looks and sounds deeply certain and not as though he's teasing at all. Susan feels the warmth in her cheeks grow, and casts her gaze down through her eyelashes, suddenly shy.

[the_seafarer]

He smiles and turns his head to kiss her warm cheek, then slides a hand down her arm to catch her fingers in his.

"Come," he murmurs, not wanting her to be embarrassed. "There's a stair up ahead. Let me show you the view from one of the towers."

[sai_delgado]

She squeezes his hand and smiles up at him. "I'd like that, say true. How far can thee see?"

[the_seafarer]

"I suppose we'll have to find out," he teases, and draws her back along the hall, while the paintings and tapestries and statuary look on.

The tower stair rises in a tight spiral, opening now and again to a room or another hall. As they climb, one of these draws Caspian's attention: a comfortable library with shelves thickly stocked with books and a paper-covered desk at which an old man is bent, scribbling something.

Caspian draws to a halt, his heart in his throat, and his fingers tighten on Susan's. "Doctor Cornelius?"

[sai_delgado]

She draws in a soft gasp of a breath, standing still beside Caspian, and holds to his hand to try to steady him if she can.

For oh, she kens that name and well - his dear teacher who'd loved him so well, and taught him so much.

Susan remembers the joy 'Bert, Alain, and Roland all three had shown when Cort arrived, and hopes, hopes the same for Caspian as hard as she can.

[the_seafarer]

The old half-dwarf turns and peers at Caspian, then rushes up with a speed that belies his age. Caspian, in turn, looses Susan's hand to meet his dear old tutor in an embrace, laughing with joy.

"Dear boy," Cornelius says, over and over again. "Dear boy. What a treat to see your face."

"And I to see yours, dear Doctor," Caspian says, delighted beyond compare. He steps back, unable to stop smiling. "May I introduce Susan Delgado? Su, this is my dear, dear old friend, tutor, and advisor, Doctor Cornelius."

[sai_delgado]

Susan drops a curtsey and beams a delighted smile at the older man. "It's wonderful to meet ye, Sai Cornelius, say true. C-- His Majesty's spoken so fondly of ye."

[the_seafarer]

Cornelius comes forward to take her hands in his, beaming at her from behind his long gray beard. He's shorter than her, and much rounder than them both, and his eyes are as clear and twinkling as Caspian remembers. "Susan," he says. "An auspicious name, in these lands. Welcome, welcome. Come in, if you like. There are a good many stairs to climb to get to this room; take your ease a moment."

[sai_delgado]

"Only if we'd not be disturbing ye," she says, to be polite, although she's certain-sure that Caspian'd love to spend a while with this man, and suspects Cornelius feels the same. "Ye looked busy, through the door."

[the_seafarer]

Caspian guides her politely to an overstuffed armchair and stands nearby, while Cornelius sits back down at his desk and chuckles. "Oh, I have all the time for dusty academics and research I could wish for, here. But to meet someone new, that is a rare pleasure."

[sai_delgado]

Susan peers up at Caspian and pats the arm of the chair in invitation, then glances around for another. Surely he doesn't intend to hover over them?

"I'll try to live up to yer hopes then, sai," she laughs.

[the_seafarer]

Caspian takes a seat on the arm of her chair and winks down at her, while Cornelius looks fascinated. "Never have I heard an accent such as yours," he marvels. "From which land have you come? The Lone Islands?"

[sai_delgado]

"Further than that, I wot," Susan tells him. "I've crossed here from another world entire, do'ee ken? From Mid-World. I'm of a town called Hambry, the seat o'barony for the Barony of Mejis."

She says it all easily, not allowing herself to dwell on any of the unhappy things, but instead focusing on the pleasure of sharing her world with another so.

[the_seafarer]

"Well, the Lion says 'all times are soon,'" his old tutor muses. "So perhaps 'all worlds are one. Or near enough, at any rate, once the bonds of reality have lifted."

His bright eyes twinkle at her. "You know, his Majesty there was desperate for stories of other worlds as a child."

[sai_delgado]

"Other worlds than these," she agrees, pleased at the thought of not having to lose those she's come to care for from worlds beyond her own.

"We've a similar saying - 'time is a face on the water,' and I've always found it so, say true."

There's clear mischief in the glance she tosses at Caspian, then. "Were he? Aye, and I can see it. I'd love to hear what he were like as a boy, if ye'd not mind the telling."

[the_seafarer]

"Shall I step outside?" Caspian teases, laughing. "So you may talk in peace?"

Cornelius winks at Susan, then leans forward, conspiratorial. "To be honest, he was quite a quiet lad," he tells her. "Always daydreaming. His old nurse told me he used to try to get the castle pets to speak to him."

[sai_delgado]

Susan wrinkles her nose at Caspian. "Thee are braver than that," she teases, before turning back to the doctor. Fog-gray eyes widen in true surprise.

"Quiet? Do'ee say so? Say true?"

[the_seafarer]

Caspian leans an arm on the back of the chair, his smile tinged slightly wry, as Cornelius laughs. "Never would guess it now, would you? But he was a good and curious scholar, a dutiful Prince, and a kind lad, which was worth more than all the rest."

[sai_delgado]

Realization strikes her all of an instant. Of course Caspian's youth in his uncle's house would have been different. She reaches for his free hand, unthinking, and as she holds to it she brushes her thumb over the inside of his wrist in apology and comfort both.

"He's still curious, and kind, and good," she replies. "But ye know that already." Seeking to shift the topic just a little, she adds, "He told me ye taught him of magic, sai?"

[the_seafarer]

He laces his fingers with hers and squeezes them, gently. "Only the theory," Cornelius tells her. "Miraz didn't think it appropriate for a Prince to learn anything else."

To himself, Caspian thinks his uncle wasn't likely to have him be taught anything that Miraz himself did not already know, in order to mitigate any threat from his young nephew. But Cornelius goes on. "I myself only dabble in the stuff. Tricky business, magic."

[sai_delgado]

"Tricky indeed," Susan says, and oh, but she can't keep her tone from being a little wry. "But mayhap safer here in sai Aslan's Country than elsewhere."

[the_seafarer]

"This is a place of Deep Magic," Cornelius agrees, solemn. "Deep Magic from before the dawn of time. And of only the good sort, my dear. Never fear."

Caspian looks down at her. "Doctor Cornelius here was the one who found Queen Susan's Horn," he says. "Which turned the tide of our rebellion."