[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

[sai_delgado]

Susan stares at him in utter surprise. "So much!" she marvels. "A scholar such as I'd never thought to meet, say true. And thee--"

This, as she whirls back to Caspian. "-- thee never said a word of any of it!"

[the_seafarer]

Cornelius chuckles as Caspian blinks at her, taken aback. "Well, I never thought of it as particularly interesting..."

[sai_delgado]

"Mayhap it's all in a day's for a king," she says, practically, and rolls her eyes at him. "But aye, Caspian, it's interesting, say true."

She doesn't even notice that she's slipped and failed to call him by a title as she turns back to Cornelius. "I've only ever heard of one other who knows all sorts of things as ye do, sai, enough to teach them. It's a marvel, it is."

[the_seafarer]

"You're too kind to an old man," Cornelius tells her. His sharp eyes and equally sharp ears have missed nothing, and nor does Caspian miss the interested way he considers the both of them. "This other you speak of, who did they teach?"

[sai_delgado]

"I never met him myself, ye understand," Susan's careful to explain. "But his name were Vannay, sai Abel Vannay of Gilead. He were part of the court there, answering to the Lord of Light, and taught the gunslingers their lessoning in their training -- that which weren't weapons and the way of the gun."

She thinks, trying to remember everything Roland had told her, and that 'Bert and Alain had as well, and concludes, "He were known as Vannay the Wise."

[the_seafarer]

"A good tutor is worth their weight in gold and more," Caspian says. "I'm sure this Vannay was no different."

He smiles over at Cornelius. "You'd have loved Susan as a student, dear Doctor. You've never met anyone so curious and clever and so quick to catch onto things."

[sai_delgado]

"He were well-regarded, say true," Susan agrees, right before she flushes pink at Caspian's compliment.

[the_seafarer]

His eyes crinkle with his smile, while Cornelius leans back comfortably in his chair, lacing his fingers over his generous stomach. "A lady from another world," the Doctor marvels. "Even after death, I see you're having adventures, Sire."

[sai_delgado]

"He'd not be himself if he weren't," Susan says, rallying, and oh, her tone is fond and certain and warm as her smile. "Ye should ask him to share his own new-found tales."

[the_seafarer]

"A lifetime's worth and more," Caspian laughs. "Doctor, if you could see the place where Susan and I met, you'd never contain your astonishment. A place where all worlds come together, and anyone from any time or place can appear."

[sai_delgado]

"Ka like a wind." Susan shrugs very slightly. "Mayhap ye will, in time. Sir Reepicheep found his way there, do'ee ken?"

[the_seafarer]

"Did he?" Cornelius laughs. "I'm not at all surprised. A bolder, more courageous beast I've never known."

[sai_delgado]

"He's very dear, say true." Susan's glance sparkles with amusement. "And he were that surprised to see C - His Majesty there, too."

[the_seafarer]

"Very surprised," Caspian agrees, laughing. "And I to see him. The last I'd seen of him was when he rowed off with Edmund and Lucy and Eustace."

"It sounds a remarkable place," Cornelius agrees. "Perhaps someday when you've come back here for good, you can tell me all about it."

[sai_delgado]

She shies away from the implications of that thought on the instant and tries to shift the direction of the conversation once more, at least a little.

"Are ye here all the time, sai Cornelius?"

[the_seafarer]

"Oh, usually, child," his old tutor tells her. "Although here is really everywhere. This land expands for farther than can be imagined, and connects to all other worlds. The real, indelible versions of those worlds, I mean; the ones we come to at the ends of our lives."

[sai_delgado]

Susan nods. "We call it the clearing at the end of the path," she says, softly.

(peace of the clearing)

"Sai Aziraphael - he's an angel - he calls it heaven."

[the_seafarer]

"I wager it has as many names as there are worlds," Cornelius agrees.

Caspian shifts, a little. "I'd thought to take Susan up to the tower here, so she can see the view."

[sai_delgado]

"And we'd not meant to distract ye from yer studies for so long, either," she adds, hastily. "But oh, it was wonderful to meet ye."

[the_seafarer]

"And so it was to meet you, Susan, Daughter of Eve," Cornelius says. When he smiles, his kind, merry, ugly faces crinkles into a myriad of wrinkles. "I hope we'll meet again, one day."

[sai_delgado]

"I'd like that." She beams at him as she pushes herself from the chair to her feet, then drops him another curtsey before stepping back to clear the way for Caspian.

[the_seafarer]

He gets up and comes to embrace his old tutor, long and fondly, before stepping back. There's a glimmer in the old Doctor's eye as he looks on his King, and a glad thickness to his voice. "Be well, sire," he says.

"And you, old friend," Caspian tells him. "This is not goodbye. Not really."

Cornelius nods. "So it isn't. Then I will only say, fare thee well until we next meet."

[sai_delgado]

(we'll meet again)

She stays quiet, and stays back, understanding in the fog-gray eyes and a gentle smile lingering at the corners of her mouth.

[the_seafarer]

He leaves Cornelius to his studies and comes to offer his arm to Susan, his smile sweet and a little wry. "Come," he murmurs. "There's still so much to see."

[sai_delgado]

She slips her hand into the crook of his elbow and steps close to his side as they exit, eyeing the wry cast to his smile.

"Are thee well?" she murmurs.