[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

[the_seafarer]

"As you wish, Daughter of Eve."

Caspian looks cheerful as he heads off to the bar, and Susan looks a good deal brighter as well. The Mouse falls gallantly into step with her as she goes to the fireside where the two gunslingers await.

[sai_delgado]

Eddie hasn't missed a single bit of their return, Bar-hopping mouse notwithstanding. It wasn't technically his shift tonight, but given the news he'd gotten earlier he figured it wouldn't be a bad idea to keep an eye on things.

He eyes the blond guy with interest as he approaches. Some kind of royalty, Cuthbert had said, from another world. "Nothing like making an entrance." He keeps his tone easy and light, and keeps his hands busy polishing a glass with a towel.

[the_seafarer]

"I apologize for my friend," Caspian tells him, as he comes close enough to speak. "Reepicheep can be a bit excitable. It's Eddie, isn't it?"

[sai_delgado]

"Yeah, he seems like a high-strung little guy." He flicks a glance over to where the mouse, having followed Susan over to the others, is perched on an armchair. "Don't worry about it."

Eddie looks back at him. "Got it in one. Eddie Dean, of New York." It takes a conscious effort to repress the Calla-speak, given the feel of things, but he stamps on it hard. "You'd be Susan's friend, right?"

[the_seafarer]

"Yes." Remembering how he'd greet Peter and Ed and the others, he holds out his hand to shake, his smile warming. "Caspian, of Narnia."

New York. All his old curiosity bubbles up, along with the questions he's always wanted to ask and have answered. He wonders if Eddie's New York is on a round world like the Pevensies' London is. "Do you happen to know what Cuthbert and Alain have been drinking? I'd like to bring them another round."

[sai_delgado]

"Nice to meetcha." Eddie switches the towel into his left hand with the glass so that he can shake.

"They've been mainlining coffee all night." Better than heroin, of course, but that's a lot of caffeine. "Might want to switch it up a bit at this point. Why, you need to break some bad news or something?"

Although his tone stays easy, his gaze is keen and interested.

[the_seafarer]

"Both of them?" Caspian asks, a little distressed. Cuthbert, he can understand, but he'd hoped Alain would be a little steadier. He grimaces and shakes his head. "No, not bad news."

He glances over at the gunslingers and thinks again of Susan's soft words. "But it's been a difficult day for them."

[sai_delgado]

"Uh-huh. That and chain-smoking," Eddie informs him, as he pulls a few glasses from under the bar and reaches for a soda spigot. His glance flicks from Caspian to Susan and back so fast it might be easy to miss. "Guess it has at that, especially given what's coming up tomorrow. You know about that?"

He knows he does, but the real question is how much, and the answer'll tell him a hell of a lot.

[the_seafarer]

Caspian nods and looks back at the other man. "Susan had a bad night and a worse morning," he says, though he's certain Eddie already knows. "And tomorrow's certain to be even harder. But I admit I... have worried more what the time of year means for her than for them."

[sai_delgado]

"Anniversaries are a bitch," Eddie agrees. "Suzie's worried too, but she's keeping it tucked. Susan's been avoiding her, and I think that's the bigger problem."

Three whiskey glasses on the bar, the spigot hooked in easy reach, and a mug plunged in ice to chill, that'll do for a start. Eddie scans the bottles and decides classic Jack's called for. "What's Mickey there drink?"

[the_seafarer]

"Susannah?" Caspian hazards, putting together the pieces of what he knows. He'd told Susan he'd make an effort to meet her friends, and it seems he's started already.

But his polite curiosity is shortly replaced by a bemused glance. "Who?"

[sai_delgado]

"Susannah, yeah. My wife, Susannah Dean. Last gunslinger standing, so to speak, save for the big white man himself." He pours free-handed into one whiskey glass after another.

"No Disney in Narnia, I'm guessing. The fuzzy guy with the tail."

[the_seafarer]

"Ah."

Disney makes no sense to him, and he's not sure to whom Eddie's referring when it comes to big white man, but he's on steadier ground with introductions. "That is Sir Reepicheep. He would have a little wine, I think."

[sai_delgado]

"Sir, huh? Okay." Eddie's eyebrows enjoy a closer relationship with his hairline for a second. He finishes with the whiskey, shrugs and pulls out a wineglass - then, reconsidering, digs around under the counter for a slightly smaller version. He follows that up with a search for a bottle of wine and settles on a sauvignon blanc - he'll take white over red any day, say thankya.

"So how's she holding up?"

[the_seafarer]

"Better than before, I think."

He watches Eddie in his preparations, the easy way he moves behind the bar. This is someone who likes people, he thinks, who would likely enough find it easy to strike up a conversation even if they hadn't Susan in common. "I took her to the world that's beyond my door. It seems to have helped."

[sai_delgado]

"Good," Eddie says, bluntly. Wine poured, he goes back to mixing Jack and Coke, one glass at a time. "God knows we can't take her anywhere without help, and there's no coming back from what's on the other side of the door for the rest of us."

[the_seafarer]

"Aye," Caspian says, wry. "The clearing. I know it."

And he believes, whatever pull the door has on her, that Susan doesn't yet wish to go there. "Do you know what Alain and Cuthbert are planning to do tomorrow?"

[sai_delgado]

"Some kind of vision quest vigil thing that they used to do with Roland each year, same time." Eddie scowls, a little. "Suzie's covering 'Bert's shifts, so we're not going with them."

[the_seafarer]

Roland – their leader, a man Caspian has never met, but who seems to loom large in the gunslingers' personal mythology, and Susan's, as well.

(Thee had Narnia – and Roland had the Tower)

"Vision quest?" His eyes narrow in bemusement. "What sort of vigil?"

[sai_delgado]

"Not really - it's a saying," Eddie explains. Sort of. "Probably no actual visions. Or I sure as hell hope not, anyway."

It'd been bad enough seeing what Roland had seen an-tet when he and Susannah and Jake and Oy had heard the story. He doesn't want to imagine reliving it again like that with Susan, or what that might be like for her. His eyes narrow slightly at the thought as he finishes the second drink and moves on to the third.

"So I guess I have to ask - how much do you know about how Susan died? And why?"

[the_seafarer]

"She told me of her aunt," Caspian says. The words are hard, but that tone isn't aimed at Eddie. "The witch; the bonfire. That the gunslingers thought her safe where they left her."

His jaw tightens and relaxes again. "She told me the story, but I didn't press for further details. I'd not wish her to relive that, only for my knowledge."

[sai_delgado]

"Fuck-commala." Eddie stares at him in shock, then past him at the couch where Susan's curled up in the corner across from Cuthbert, smiling. "Jesus, Sue. You really did it."

[the_seafarer]

Caspian follows the man's glance, his brow rucking up in concern. "Did what?"

[sai_delgado]

The spigot hisses as the glass overflows and starts to splash on the counter. Eddie curses again and shuts it off, then dumps the drink and reaches for a towel to mop up before starting to remake it.

It keeps him from having to say anything for a few seconds, and he uses the time to think.

"She told you what she thought was important," he says, finally. "She told you what she thought mattered. Do you get that? I mean, do you really get that?"

[the_seafarer]

It sounds like a trick question, and Caspian is momentarily catapulted back to those horrible twice-a-week walks with his uncle, when Miraz would either drone on about deadly boring things or bark questions the child Caspian was had no idea how to answer.

"I'm starting to think I don't," he says, dry. "To me, it means she trusted me enough to tell me precisely that: what she thought mattered."