[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]

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."

[the_seafarer]

Caspian sips curiously at the drink, then makes a face. "Tastes like fizzy syrup," he reports. Beneath the sweetness, there's something with a little heat to it, but he doesn't recognize it. The drink is sweet enough to make his teeth ache, and he gives it a glance askance before setting it on his knee and smiling at the gunslingers.

"The world gave her a merry welcome," he agrees. "And she met several dear friends of mine."

[sai_delgado]

Alain takes a cautious sip of the drink. "Had worse. Lilly's creative." He looks over at Caspian. "Sounds like a good day."

[the_seafarer]

"It was."

He looks to Susan, who'd needed it more than she could even rightly say that morning, and smiles. "I believe."

[sai_delgado]

"Aye, thee say true," Susan agrees. She looks around at them. "Say sorry, I do, to have worried ye all so, but it's better now than it were."

"Good." Cuthbert leans in to drape his arm around her shoulders and pulls her into a loose hug. "Glad to hear it."

[the_seafarer]

Reepicheep sips at his wine, curious at the pale gold of it, and Caspian sets one ankle on the other knee and lays his free arm along the back of the couch, smiling to see Cuthbert's affection and Susan's ease.

They're trying what they know. Is it their fault what they know is so unlikely to help?

Difficult to say if they'll listen to him. But Susan had told him not to stand apart, and that's as much of an invitation to offer his opinion as he needs.

But not now, he thinks. Why bring it to Susan's mind, when it'll be lingering there soon enough? "A shame the two of you didn't come," he says, easy and warm. "You might have enjoyed the dance."

[sai_delgado]

"Were we invited?" Cuthbert drawls, and Susan swats him on the wrist. "Stop teasing him," she scolds. "Besides, he's right. Ye'd have liked it."

"Ka-mai," Alain points out, dry as sand. "Might as well ask the sun to stop shining."

[the_seafarer]

"Next time," Caspian says, unbothered by Cuthbert's comments. The gunslinger knows well enough why he'd brought only Susan, this time.

[sai_delgado]

Cuthbert draws back his hand, pretending to be wounded, then promptly uses it to tug playfully at a lock of her hair. When she sniffs at him, he winks at her and leans forward to pick up his own drink again.

"Next time, yar," he offers, and takes a sip. "Interesting."

He's glad beyond words to see Susan smiling and happy rather than the bruised and shadowed way she'd looked that morning. But tomorrow still lies ahead of them all, and it's not like they've got a lot to offer in the way of dances and distraction for it, only their company.

[the_seafarer]

He settles more comfortably back into the couch and watches as Reepicheep animatedly chats at Alain, the quiet gunslinger appearing to listen with tolerance, if not outright good humor. The drink improves as the ice melts into it, and he feels it as a pleasant warmth in his chest and head as the level slowly drops.

But it doesn't dull his consciousness of Susan becoming slowly quieter and more preoccupied, listening more than speaking. Not quite morose, but the clarity of Aslan's country seems to slowly drift away from her – that, or the shadow of Reap-Tide is re-settling itself on her shoulders.

[sai_delgado]

She loses interest in her root beer halfway down the glass and leans forward long enough to set it on the low table, then sits back on the couch, curling a little into Caspian's side after a glance at his face to be certain he'd not mind it.

Mayhap it's only to be expected that she'd be tired at the end of such an eventful day. At least, she hopes that's all it is, and even as the thought occurs she wants to weep at the suspicion that it's not.

Susan leans her head against Caspian's shoulder, absently listening to the others talk, and watches the light through the lake window shift as Demon Moon rises outside.

[the_seafarer]

He puts his arm around her as she curls against him, and trades a glance with Cuthbert over Susan's golden head; the gunslinger looks as grim as he feels at the change that's stealing over her. Caspian sets aside what's left of his drink and lowers his head, keeping a steady smile in his voice.

"Are thee tired, Su?" he asks, using her own trick of speech in a murmur, the way she's started calling him thee, ever since they became more to one another than friends.

[sai_delgado]

"Hm?" She blinks, drawn back from her drifting thoughts to herself. Susan looks up at him, then around at the others in mild confusion that shifts to weary realization as she catches the swift look 'Bert and Alain trade with each other. She tries a smile, a little overstrained mayhap but there, but as she does she can almost hear the star-queen's gentle words.

(let them love you as they will)

"Mayhap a little," she admits, letting the smile fade. "I shouldn't be so distracted, though." Her glance shifts to Reepicheep. "Cry yer pardon - I lost track of the tale ye were telling."

[the_seafarer]

"No pardon is necessary, Daughter of Eve," Reepicheep promises her. In point of fact, he'd been telling a story she already knows, that of the sea-monster that attacked the Treader, so he'd been focused more on the gunslingers than on her.

But there's a worried look in his bright eyes as he glances at his King; Caspian gives him a slightly wry one in return. "After such a full day, no one could begrudge you some weariness. If you'd care to rest, I will happily escort you back to your rooms."