[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]

"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.

[the_seafarer]

"Yes," he promises, and lets his smile warm to assure her as they start back up the stairs. "It's only that I haven't seen him in so long."

[sai_delgado]

"Then I'm so glad he were here today." Susan smiles up at him. "He's such a kind man, and he cares for thee, it's clear."

[the_seafarer]

"He was my only real friend after Miraz took my nurse away."

He smiles back at her, pleased. "I'm glad you liked him. He liked you, too, very much."

[sai_delgado]

Color tints her cheek. "I liked him well, say true." Bashfulness is quickly overcome by spirit, though, as she adds, "But I'd not like yer uncle at all, never in life."

[the_seafarer]

Caspian can't help but laugh as she declares how she'd dislike Miraz. "No, I don't suppose you would," he chuckles. "He wasn't a very likable man. But I doubt we'll see him here."

Or anywhere. He has no idea where Miraz may have gone after the duel, but it certainly wasn't to Aslan's Country.

[sai_delgado]

His laughter is balm to her heart, and Susan smiles up at him. "Then we've no reason to worry over him, aye?"

Not today, any road.

[the_seafarer]

"None at all," he tells her, and he truly believes it. Miraz was a long, long time ago, and nothing that happened then is anything he cares to think about now.

As they climb, the spiral of the stairs tightens and tightens. There are no rooms or halls coming off it now, only windows which look out over the courtyards or towards the sea.

[sai_delgado]

She'd seen the towers from below as they approached the gleaming castle, but hadn't thought how that might affect them as they climbed. Susan tries to look out every window at once as they wind higher and higher.

"However did they build such a place?"

[the_seafarer]

"It was rebuilt with a great deal of ingenuity and hard work," he tells her. "How it was built in the beginning, I don't know. Perhaps it's always been here."

The stairway finally gives out to a door. He opens it and draws her with him out into brilliant sunlight and a rushing, salt-laced breezed. Around them, the sky is as drowning deep as the sea, clear blue and brilliant.

[sai_delgado]

Susan gasps with wonder as she looks around. The brilliant white of Cair Paravel itself doesn't interfere with her ability to see as far and as clear as ever she's seen anything, from the forests and distant mountains to the sunlight sparkle off the waves.

Carefully, but without fear, she moves to the edge of the tower, looking up and out.