[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.

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[the_seafarer]

He nods, tracing the lines of the ship with his eyes as though he were standing on the pier and not so far away that she looks like a toy. "Very," he agrees. "She was the pride of our shipbuilders. Afterwards, of course, we built ships that were larger, faster, but... none of them could touch her for beauty."

[sai_delgado]

She glances away from the ship to his face, and is caught and compelled by what she sees there. "We should go down to her," Susan murmurs.

[the_seafarer]

He squeezes her fingers as he looks down at her. The wind tugging at his hair and the sun in his face gives him a look of boyish delight. "You'd like to?"

[sai_delgado]

"Aye, I would," she promises, her smile bright and shining. "If thee'd not mind it."

She goes up on her toes to press a quick kiss to his cheek, then sings, sweet and clear,

"Bright is the morning and brisk is the weather,
Steady the wind o'er the sweet-singing sea,
Proudly the tall ship a-rides in the harbor,
Come fare away with me."

[the_seafarer]

He ducks his head and smiles, then laces their fingers together. "Aye, lady," he murmurs. "With a will."

With a last look from the tower, he turns to the door through which they'd entered and politely offers to walk her down.

[sai_delgado]

Susan takes a final quick look of her own, drawing in the sight of the lands around them, then joins him on the stairs as they start their descent.

"Thankee-sai," she murmurs, after a moment. "For bringing me here. For sharing yer world with me."

[the_seafarer]

"I'm so happy to have done so," he tells her, as they descend. The stairs seem to take less time to traverse on the way down, as though the castle is helping them get to where they want to go.

"I always thought you'd love Narnia, Su. And I always believed Narnia would love you in return."

[sai_delgado]

Mayhap this is what Susannah felt like, for her New York.

(I'll live and die for the sake of love and never count the cost)

"I do," she avows, soft and sure. "What it thinks of me, I'd not dare to guess, but I do."

[the_seafarer]

"You needn't guess. I can feel it as surely as the sun on my skin."

He smiles as they reach the bottom of the stairs and walk in the direction of the eastern gate. "But I'm glad you feel as you do."

[sai_delgado]

"Thee'd be the one to know," she murmurs, as she walks beside him toward the gate that leads down to the pier and the ship waiting there. "It loves thee, too, and always has, I wot."

[the_seafarer]

"All I wanted as a boy was for the stories of Old Narnia to be true," he murmurs. "For there to have been a world of joy and peace and beauty, where Fauns danced and Centaurs watched the skies and Dwarves delved and built. Where gods walked among the Dryads and the Naiads, and the animals themselves spoke. I wanted it so badly to have been true, because if it were true once, it could be true again."

He shakes his head. "Miraz never saw the wonder in it all. I expect most of my ancestors didn't. But I wanted to serve Narnia, to see it live again. I expect... it knows. And remembers me."

[sai_delgado]

"The stories were true," Susan says, just as softly as before, but with a deep and abiding certainty in her words. "The realest ones always are, do'ee kennit? And thee believed them, and brought them back."

(a rose of perfect beauty)

She tugs at his hand to draw him to a stop, then reaches up to touch his cheek. "Thee are a good man, Caspian. And a good king, too."

[the_seafarer]

He comes to a halt as she tugs at him, then leans his cheek into her hand. "Thank you," he says, and curves his fingers over hers before he turns his head to press a kiss into her palm.

"You good opinion means a great deal to me, Su. And to see you here – my heart is so full it could burst."

[sai_delgado]

A faint shiver runs through her at the touch of his lips to her skin, and her smile is soft and warm.

She pulls her other hand free so she can rest it over his heart. "I'd not want it to burst," she teases, but oh, the look in the fog-gray eyes is as soft as her smile. "But I'm glad thee are happy."

[the_seafarer]

He curves his free hand over the one she's set so gently on his chest, and studies her. No sign of the shadows of earlier; her eyes are clear and her lips are sweetly smiling. "I'm glad thee are, too," he tells her, slipping into her own way of speaking, soft and fond.

He'll not leave her alone to face the darkness tonight, he promises himself. The thought of her light, now shining so brightly, dimming as it had earlier brings him real pain. "Sweet Susan."

[sai_delgado]

"Caspian. Thee very dear." Susan presses her hand to his heart for a moment longer, then turns her wrist so she can lace her fingers with his as her smile brightens.

"Yer ship is waiting," she teases, gently. "Will'ee not take us there?"

[the_seafarer]

"With a will, lady."

He takes her hand and holds it in his as he leads her through the gate that looks out to the east, over the sea. A white stone quay stretches out into the water, and at the end, the Treader floats, looking as bright and beautiful as the day they first set sail for the edge of the world.

He can't help himself. Drawn by the sound of wavelets on wood and stone, by the fresh scent of salt on the breeze, by the familiarity of the ship ahead, he laughs and breaks into a run, bringing Susan along with him.

[sai_delgado]

Her hair streams behind her as a golden banner blown by the wind of their passing as they run, and by the time they reach the ship, Susan’s delighted laughter fills the air around them.

She’s filled with happiness of her own at seeing Caspian’s joy, oh aye, and teases, “My ‘da always said the moon got into my blood when I’d run like that, but for thee it’s the sea, is’t not so?”

[the_seafarer]

"I believe you're right," he laughs. Their feet thud up the gangplank and then they're here, aboard the Treader, her brightwork gleaming, her paint fresh, her sails crisply rolled. At the top of the mast, a scarlet and gold pennant snaps in the wind.

Caspian tips his head back and turns, gazing and gazing upon his old ship. "I'll walk you through it all, we'll start at the stern – look, there's the dragon's tail that was snapped off in the battle with the sea monster – "

[sai_delgado]

“The one thee told me of, that wrapped around and squeezed?” He’s so excited and happy that it fills her heart to see it. Susan moves closer to his side and beams at him. “Show me everything, Caspian, do, please.”

[the_seafarer]

"The very same. And it was Reepicheep, you know, who at last devised a way to defeat it."

He shows her about the deck, encouraging her to run her fingers over this piece of brightwork or that coiled line, then brings her to steering so she can see the great polished wheel that set the Treader on her course. "She's much smaller than other ships, of course," he tells Susan, "but far too large to be steered with a tiller, as the Hope is."

[sai_delgado]

“She’s lovely,” Susan insists. She touches the side of the wheel, tracing her fingertips gently over the wood.

“I only ever knew fishing-boats before, and didn’t spend time on them, ye ken.”

[the_seafarer]

He watches as she studies the ship, his eyes aglow, then takes her hand and leads her through the hatch belowdecks. "This was the cabin that I shared with Edmund once they came aboard – I gave Lucy mine, it's back here –"

And yes, the little stern cabin is there, looking as bright and cheerful as ever, the gilded lion's head shining.

[sai_delgado]

“It’s so cozy and clever,” she marvels, admiring how everything is neatly set and secured for storms as well as calm seas. “And thee has the Lion, of course.”

[the_seafarer]

"Always."

Above them, the deck creaks. As Caspian looks up, the sound of boots on the planks comes an a rhythm that feels so familiar he could almost be back there, cruising towards the very edge of the world. "Someone else is here, it seems."