[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]

"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."

[the_seafarer]

His arm around her is strong and sure, offering support more than attempting to clutch or cling. "Things are clearer, here," he murmurs. "It's easier to think on the things that give us too much pain and sorrow elsewhere."

He runs his hand comfortingly up and down her side, tucking her close and safe in the curve of his arm. "I can't pretend to know precisely how it feels, but I know well the feeling of being lost, even in my own body, and almost longing to fade away. The spring festival held no joy for me; I locked myself away until it was over. And that was nothing to what happened to you."

As they wander, the river bends through the edges of the wood – a friendly one, with wide, clear spaces between trees, and not dark and threatening as the Telmarines had feared. "Do you think it would help if I stayed with you tonight?"

[sai_delgado]

She looks up at him, searching his face with gentle concern. "Did it help? For thee to hide away so?"

The quiet susurrus of water flowing over rocks and through the greenery at the river's edge surrounds them, soothing and peaceful. Here and there, distant birds call to each other, and sunlight through the branches dapples the forest floor around them.

"And I'd not wish to be any trouble to thee, but I'd like it if you did."

[the_seafarer]

"Then I shall."

He considers her question for a long, thoughtful moment. "Nay," he says, finally. "Not very much. And to do so – it went against my duty. Which my regents and advisors and friends reminded me of, regularly," he adds, a little wry.

"Caspian the Man had lost his family, but Caspian the King still had Narnia. I suppose that's what got me through. And if spring-time was a little harder than it had been, in the years after, everyone was very nice about it."

[sai_delgado]

"Thee had Narnia," she murmurs, "and Roland had the Tower."

"I'd still wish that thee'd never been hurt so, with such a grief, but I'm glad thee had those who understood."

[the_seafarer]

"I wish the same for you," he says, soft. "And I'm happy you have your friends, who understand."

Better than he does, he knows, for there is the knowing of a pain and then there is the living of it, and no matter the stories they tell one another, he will always have been in his world and she in hers. So, in this moment, he is more grateful for the gunslingers than he could ever easily express. "I know there may be no easing of this for you," he continues, after a moment. "But I hope you'll allow me to try and help you bear it."

[sai_delgado]

"Thee already have." Still quiet, but oh, so certain. "Thee have done so much, more than I thought anyone could."

[the_seafarer]

"I'm glad," he murmurs. "And I hope to do still more."

Evening is beginning to fall over them, the stars starting to glimmer in the dusky dome of the sky as the sun sets, far to the west, turning the air around it to liquid gold.

[sai_delgado]

"I don't want thee to worry," Susan confesses, then draws a quick, delighted breath at the change of color in the sky. "Look how beautiful."

[the_seafarer]

"It'd be a hard-hearted man who didn't, I think."

He follows her glance up to the sky and flashes his quick smile; first at the rich evening colors, then at her. "Let's walk back up towards the meadows," he suggests. "Perhaps by the time we find the dancing-circle, the fauns will have appeared."

[sai_delgado]

"Aye, let's," she agrees, pleased at the thought. "And mayhap we'll see the sunlight off the water from there, too."

[the_seafarer]

He keeps his arm around her and strolls with her up and away from the sleepy river and the shadows of the trees, onto the clean, wind-swept grasses near where they'd first stepped foot in this land. The sunset is molten gold to the West; he turns them East, to look out over the water. The low-slanting light catches in the waves and sets them aglow, orange and gold, fire without the heat or violence.

[sai_delgado]

The air is clean and sweet, tinged with sea-salt. Susan breathes deep of it and leans her head against Caspian's shoulder again as she watches the waves roll in toward the shore.

"I ken it's more," she says, after a moment, "for it's Aslan's Country, but if Narnia were even half as lovely as this I don't see how anyone'd want to be anywhere else."

[the_seafarer]

"I hardly know how to explain it," he says, his cheek resting against her bright hair.

"It is Narnia, but Narnia as it's meant to be. The real Narnia, the true one. The one I lived in, though it always seemed as bright as this, was really the Shadow-lands. It's all here, it's just – the colors are richer, and the air sweeter, and the further up and further in you go, the more real it feels."

[sai_delgado]

"I kennit." Soft still, but with a strange sort of certainty. She's not spoken with anyone of those moments on Serenity after the Beam broke and were renewed, when hope were restored and life and light with it in an upswelling resurgence of near-impossible joy.

It had faded, but for those few moments it had been more real than anything.

"It's everything."

[the_seafarer]

"It is."

He smiles over at her. "But even the Narnia of the Shadow-lands – yes, it was at least half as beautiful as this. And I never did want to ever live anywhere else."

To see other worlds, yes. To visit them, certainly. To venture far, of course. But to live? Nowhere but Narnia was his home.

[sai_delgado]

"Over the mountains, under the sea / fly to the edge of the world with me," Susan murmurs. It has the cadence of a rhyme, nearly chanted. "I never thought to live anywhere but Hambry. And even after I knew I were to be leaving, I couldn't imagine what it would be like to live in Gilead, say true. But Mid-World were never as lovely as this, not since the Great Poisoning and mayhap before even."