[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 smiles up at him, bright and shining. “I’ll be glad to see ye again, come the day, say true.”

[the_seafarer]

"And I to see you," he promises, and glances down. A familiar golden head has reappeared on the deck, and Drinian smiles.

"Shall we rejoin His Majesty?"

[sai_delgado]

“If we don’t he’ll climb up,” she laughs. “Aye, best we do.” Susan moves to climb from the fighting-top to the rigging.

[the_seafarer]

"You're right," Drinian chuckles, but comes to halt her before she can climb down. "Allow me to go first, in case you slip."

[sai_delgado]

She searches his face and decides not to protest overmuch. “If ye’d have it so, but I’ll not slip.”

[the_seafarer]

"I've no doubt, my lady, but kindly don't ask me to risk it."

He swings himself back onto the rigging and climbs down a bit, then waits for her to follow before he continues, looking up constantly to ensure she's safe.

[sai_delgado]

She descends carefully, not wanting either to fall or to cause Drinian any alarm by a haphazard scramble, since he's so determined to see her secure.

Once she's close enough to the deck, Susan hops down and lands lightly. "It's such a lovely view," she tells Caspian, smiling, before she busies herself with taking her hair down and retying it back in a loose tail.

It gives her a moment to mind herself carefully, aware now of his friend's keen eye.

[the_seafarer]

"It is, isn't it?"

He offers her a hand to step back onto the deck as Drinian ensures she descends safely. Not that either of them need worry; Susan is as adept on the rigging as she is in the saddle. "A little less so when a storm is blowing up, though."

The quiet joy that's suffused him ever since they arrived through the door is even brighter now; he looks like someone with a delightful secret they can't wait to share. "Thank you, Captain, for offering the tour."

"It was my pleasure, Sire," Drinian tells him, smiling.

[sai_delgado]

Caspian looks so happy that it’s practically shining from him like sunlight, and Susan can’t help but smile back at him before she turns to Drinian. “It were kind of ye to do,” she tells him, still smiling, with sincerity in each word. “I’m so glad to have met ye here.”

For Caspian’s sake, aye, but also for himself.

[the_seafarer]

"And I you, Daughter of Eve," Drinian tells her. He bows and reaches for her hand to brush a kiss over her knuckles before turning to Caspian. "Sire."

"Old friend," Caspian says, and comes to embrace the Captain.

[sai_delgado]

Susan steps back and to the side, to give them a moment. It lifts her heart to see the joy in the two of them at their reunion, and even though Caspian’s to return to the bar for now, there’s no feeling of loss here at the parting.

[the_seafarer]

Drinian clasps him tight, then pulls away, smiling. "My best to King Edmund and Queen Lucy," he tells them both. "And Eustace, of course."

For a moment, humor dances in his eyes at some memory. "When next you come, Sire, we'll have such a cruise over the waters here that the poets will weep for not being able to write of it."

"I'll look forward to it, Captain," Caspian laughs, and comes to smile at Susan. "Well, Su. Back ashore?"

[sai_delgado]

She waves to Drinian and looks up at Caspian. “Only if thee are ready,” she murmurs. “If thee’d stay longer—-“

[the_seafarer]

"Another time," he promises.

One day, he'll come back here for good, and until then, he can visit as he chooses. But this trip was not for him. He holds out his hand to her in invitation. "Walk with me?"

[sai_delgado]

She takes his hand without hesitation, for although there's a bruise still on some small corner of her heart --

(I swore allegiance to the Queen)

-- Susan kens well that Drinian spoke in love and she'll not hold it against him, nor act other than true to herself, to Caspian, and to what's shared between them.

"Where would'ee next?" she teases, a flicker of amused mischief in her glance. "Yer land holds so many wonderful things."

[the_seafarer]

"I hardly know."

He laces their fingers together as they step off the gangplank and onto the white stone quay, then peers up at the sky, which is just beginning to be painted with watercolor brushstrokes for evening. "Shall we find the horses, or wander on our own two feet?"

[sai_delgado]

"I'd not mind wandering," she admits, "but will they be well enough where we've left them?"

[the_seafarer]

"No fear on that front," he promises. "They were saddled and bridled because we needed them to be. Now that we don't, they may well be running free and easy."

He directs their steps up the beach, toward a path that will take them by the Great River and into the welcoming woods beyond. "Is there anything I've told you of before you'd still like to see?"

[sai_delgado]

Susan laughs and squeezes his hand. "Caspian, everything here's a wonder, and it's as though I've fallen into a story, say true. There's naught I could even ask."

[the_seafarer]

"It's wonderful, isn't it? Like being inside a dream, but it's only the good sort, and it feels more real than life."

He swings their hands back and forth as they walk, stepping from the path onto the downy turf that slopes up from the riverbed. "I'm so happy you were able to meet some of my friends."

[sai_delgado]

"Aye, 'tis," she agrees, and smiles up at him. "More real than anything but the rose, mayhap."

(joy yes always)

"And I were glad to meet them. They're very dear to thee, and thee to them."

[the_seafarer]

He smiles back at her. "And how do you feel, dear?"

Better than she had, that's clear. There's a joy and lightness to her that hadn't been in evidence back behind the door.

[sai_delgado]

She makes a soft humming sound, trying to think how to answer him, for it's not at all easy to explain - to herself or to him.

"When thee found me this morning," she starts. Each word is soft and picked with as much care as she can manage as she finds her way through them. "I were - I were lost, do'ee ken?"

(and by the wind grieved)

"But now - now it's... it feels as though it's all come right, or will come right, or mostly, and I feel... thee said it were more real here, and I feel real again, too, and not as though I were fading and wisping away, like before."

She thinks about that for a second longer, then concludes. "And happy. I'm happy, Caspian."

[the_seafarer]

He lets go her hand so he can put his arm around her as they walk, listening as she picks out words in her soft voice. "Aye."

His thoughts are of the grief and anger that overtook him at the Edge of the World, of the days of hazy sorrow after the death of his wife and the lost weeks and months after the disappearance of Rilian.

Lost. Even though he'd been there in body, his mind and soul had gone wandering, he knows. "It might not be my place to say, Su, but... I think it will come right. We only need to get past this terrible time of year. And we shall, and there will be an after. And you shan't fade away, but will see the snows and the festival, and spring to follow, and new life in the stables."

He lowers his head to press a kiss to her bright hair. "I'm glad, Su. Very glad to have you here, and for your happiness."

[sai_delgado]

"I'd like that," she says, still soft. Susan slips her arm around his waist and leans into the curve of his embrace. "I'd not -- I don't want to leave thee."

The confession is barely audible.

"Or the others either, thee ken. Not again. It's only - it's been feeling as though I might - might not have the choice, and so this morn... I only thought to get as far away as I could, before something happened."

She leans her head against his shoulder. "Say sorry, I do. It's easier to think on it, now, than it were. I don't kennit, why it affrighted me so."