the_seafarer | [au] Narnia and the North

[au] Narnia and the North

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only | Expand All

"Take as long as you need," he offers, looking up at her with a sweet smile. "I'll be right here."

She beams a cheerful smile back at him and disappears into the little bathing room.

It doesn't take her all that long to finish her ablutions, as she's washed her hair already that morning after everything - and if it still has a hint of sea-salt air and wildflowers yet, what of it? Susan makes quick work of everything, folds her clothes neatly and sets them on a little shelf, then makes her way back out once more.

The nightshirt he's loaned her is soft and comfortable and floats around her like a cloud, hitting her mid-thigh. She pads barefoot across the room, combing fruitlessly at her hair with her fingers as she goes.

She's a tall girl, Susan, and his shirt doesn't swamp her the way it had swamped the young Lucy on board the Treader, but her shoulders are slim beneath it and he feels a certain warm delight to watch her come, bare-foot and long-legged and lovely in her undress, moving around in his own borrowed clothing.

He rises from the side of the bed and solicitously pulls back the covers for her, then comes to put an arm around her waist and to kiss her cheek as she'd kissed his. "My turn," he tells her. "Make yourself comfortable, Su."

She leans into the curve of his arm and smiles at him, sweet and warm. "As thee'd have it," she teases, gentle.

He laughs and embraces her – how could he do otherwise? – then kisses her other smiling cheek. "If this is where you're comfortable, how could I move you aside?" he teases back.

"Thee very dear." Susan separates her hair into a split fall and pulls it forward over her shoulders, then lifts the golden locks to drape them over his as she leans up to kiss him.

"Nay, I'll not keep thee," she murmurs. "Not longer than thee'd want, any road."

His washing-up can wait. The locks of gold are the gentlest, sweetest chains he can imagine, but he's held as securely beneath them as he might be under iron. "Lady, thee have me."

Which isn't what she meant, precisely, but his heart demands to be laid open. He shifts back, coaxing her along with him, meaning to sit back on the bed and to draw her onto his lap. "Keep me, then, Su."

He draws her down and she follows, perching on his lap lightly as any butterfly for the first instant, to be certain-sure before she settles more closely against him.

Her gaze is soft and searching as she studies his face, curving one hand against his cheek. "If thee'd have it so," she whispers. "Keep me, and I'll keep thee."

"I would have it so," he murmurs, and leans up and forward to kiss her, his hands flattening on her back. The lamps he's set turn his room into a snug haven, the light just a strong enough glow to see by. No shadows cling, dark and menacing, at the door or behind furniture; it's as peaceful a place as he can make it.

She makes a small soft sound and presses close as she kisses him back, putting her arms around his neck to draw him to her.

Her arms nudge the silken mass of her hair up against the sides of his neck, and he shivers at the sensation and holds her closer, parting his lips to kiss her more deeply. One hand slides up along her back, reverently tracing the line of her spine with his palm, as the soft material of his own shirt shifts and bunches beneath his touch.

Her breath catches at the feel of his hand on her back, and she gives herself willingly to his kisses. Susan threads her fingers into his hair, tangling them in his golden curls, and traces an aimless pattern over his nape with her thumb.

He shivers again, then wraps his arms tight around her and lifts himself, lifts her, so that he can lie back on the bed and bring her with him, covering him like a blanket as he kisses her and kisses her and kisses her again.

The world spins dizzyingly around her as he moves, as he carries her with him. Susan ignores it, utterly lost in him as she returns each sweet kiss. She stretches against him, one hand in his hair and the other at his shoulder, and shivers a little at the soft scrape of fabric against skin.

He groans to feel the press of her body as she stretches, and buries his hands in her hair, which is falling around him in a golden flood, then rolls to kiss her down into his own pillow. His heart hammers in his chest, but his hand is warm and steady as he traces it down her side, to the place where his shirt hangs against her leg. He slips his fingers beneath the hem and slides his palm up the outside of her thigh to her hip.

She arches up against him, into his touch. "Caspian," she murmurs, and kisses him again as she wraps her arms around him. "Oh, Caspian."

Her soft voice seems to turn the blood in his veins to wine; he's heady with it, and with her soft warm skin beneath his fingers, his palm. He runs his hand up her ribcage and shifts his body to the side so he can curve his fingers over her breast, thumb sweeping gentle but firm over the sensitive tip.

"Su," he whispers back, and ducks his head to press kisses along the line of her throat. "Dearest, darling."

A small whimper escapes her as his touch sparks shocks of sensation through her. Susan tips her head back to give him more space, and runs her hands along his back to his waist. She tugs the hem of his shirt free and presses her hands to his skin, wanting more of him.

He makes a low, rough sound as her fingers press into his bare skin. The Kings and Queens of Narnia carry a good deal of polish and politeness, genteel manners and proper conduct, but beneath it all they are, each and every one, Sons and Daughters of Adam and Eve, and the Sons of Adam have ever wanted more.

As he wants, now. His finger squeeze gently around her and he rolls her nipple between two fingers, then lifts his head and shifts down along her body to set his mouth over the tip of her breast, caring nothing for the fabric between his mouth and her skin.

"Oh--"

She bends like a bow, trying to get closer, and runs one hand along his back even as she pulls the other free to cup the back of his neck, cradling his head with her fingers.

He laughs, breathless, and tugs at her borrowed shirt. "Is it terribly rude to ask you to take this off only moments after you've put it on?"

She dissolves into giggles, thrilling at the teasing and laughter near as much as at the sweetness of his touch, say true.

"I'll not mind it," Susan manages, mischief in her glance. She lifts her hand from his back to tangle her fingers in his shirt, pulling lightly. "Mayhap I'd be able to convince thee to do the same?"

His smile breaks like dawn over the ocean, and he sits up abruptly to skin the shirt up and off, over his head. Its passage leaves his hair even more mussed than before, and he's flushed pink all across his bare chest.

"Perhaps," he allows, and lets the shirt fall where it will before he leans down to kiss her once more more.

She kisses him back, slow and sweet and lingering, as her hands roam over his chest and shoulders. Susan traces along each line and curve, describing him with her hands and her touch as though she's trying to memorize him.

He shivers deliciously beneath her touch, and strokes his own hand down over the borrowed shirt she wears, tugging at the hem and coaxing it slowly up along her body, allowing himself to caress each inch of warm skin as it's bared.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject