[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]

"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."

[sai_delgado]

"Exactly." Eddie takes the chilled mug from the ice and sets it on the bartop with desperately careful control. "Because she forgave him."

He shakes his head and reaches for the spigot again, this time switching it to root beer. "The vigil was because Roland left her to die," he says, baldly. "And he spent the rest of his life regretting it."

[the_seafarer]

Caspian stares at him, drinks and fireside forgotten.

"He left her to die."

It's not quite a question, but neither is it a statement of certainty. There's a curious, carefully controlled rage that's beginning to unfurl in his stomach, as far from the way he'd felt only moments ago beyond the door as anything in his life. It feels very like the shock and fury that nearly drove him mad the day Drinian came to him –

(by my silence I have destroyed your son)

– and his hand curls into a tight fist on the bar-top.

[sai_delgado]

"Yeah." Eddie's voice is weary. He concentrates on filling Susan's glass, but keeps a sharp eye on her friend as he does.

It's entirely possible Suzie's going to tear him a new one for this, but Eddie Dean's gotten used to making hard calls about what's gunslinger business - and what's not only gunslinger business, when it comes down to it. And if this is what it takes for Susan to make it through the day tomorrow and this time come out okay on the other side, he'll do it.

"Of course, he didn't know the truth. Just what he saw in the magic 8-ball from hell. It showed him she'd been taken prisoner, and what he thought was her being rescued, so he thought that was good enough and she'd be safe. It wasn't. And by the time he figured that out, it was too late."

Eddie finishes with the drink, looks up and meets Caspian's eyes. "So, vigil. All three of them. Roland's gone now, but Susan's still here. And I don't know about you, but I'd like to keep it that way."

[the_seafarer]

His hand is still tightly clenched, but his voice is ruthlessly controlled when he speaks.

"And so they plan to... what, exactly? Hold this vigil, where she must revisit the last, horrible day of her life, because Roland tormented himself the same way? Spend the night drowning in guilt and pain?"

[sai_delgado]

You can lead a horse to water, Eddie thinks. "They mean to keep watch with her," he explains, carefully. There's a stack of trays under the bar, and he plucks the top one and sets it on the wood in front of him.

"It's how they were able to help Roland, not to torture him, Jesus. They want to help her too, so they're figuring on getting her as far away from here as they can and not leaving her alone with her thoughts."

[the_seafarer]

He wonders very much whether it did help Roland, or if it was only the hollow satisfaction of pressing on an old wound until it hurt anew.

But something else the man says catches on his thoughts. "As far from here as they can?" he asks, in blank astonishment. Without the door, that must mean – "They plan to spend the night in the woods? This late in the season?"

[sai_delgado]

"Uh-huh." Eddie lines everything up neatly across the middle of the tray, whiskey in the back and the stuff for Susan and Sir Mouseketeer in the front. "Just another Mid-World camping trip, if you feel me. They'd do damn near anything for Susan. We all would, I guess."

He pushes the tray toward Caspian and meets his eyes. "You should swing by the apartment sometime and meet Suzie."

[the_seafarer]

"As would I."

In his surprise, he hadn't even thought to ask for hot chocolate, nor the tea for himself he'd meant to have. He has little enough idea what the drinks are that the man had mixed, but he's too eager now to return to Susan and the gunslingers.

He sets his hands on the handles of the tray and nods as he meets the young man's eyes. "I will," he promises. "Thank you, Eddie."

For more than he might know. Caspian lifts the tray and turns, meaning to make his way across the room to the others.

[sai_delgado]

"Sure thing," Eddie calls after him. "Catch ya on the flip side."

He guesses they'll see.

[the_seafarer]

He approaches the cozy spot by the fire, and smiles as Susan shifts to make a space for him. "I'm afraid Eddie distracted me," he says, lightly. "I never did ask for hot chocolate. But I think he poured you something nice anyway."

Caspian sets the tray down on the table and offers Susan the glass Eddie had poured for her, then gives the small glass of wine to Reepicheep. "I've no idea what these others are."

[sai_delgado]

"He does that betimes," Susan laughs, curling her fingers around the chilled glass. "This's root beer, I wot. He kens I like it."

"Not graf," is Alain's dry observation. Cuthbert snorts. "Not coffee either. I think we're being cut off." He leans forward to claim one of the glasses and waves it under his nose. "Alcohol of some sort."

[the_seafarer]

"Something strong," is Caspian's assessment. "For he cut it with something else."

He offers one of the other glasses to Alain, then takes the last one left and settles into the corner of the couch, his glance tracking to Susan. She's laughing and seems content, and that tense curl in his stomach relaxes a bit. "Have you been telling them of your adventures, Su?"

[sai_delgado]

"Oh -- Coke, mayhap," Susan suggests, remembering when Eddie'd mixed something similar for himself, Roland, and her. "As long as it's not the sticky-sweet 'diet' type he gave me once, ye'll all be fine."

She beams a pleased smile at Caspian in answer to his question. "Aye, and Sir Reepicheep's been helping me to explain."