the_seafarer | [ AU ] to break a curse

[ AU ] to break a curse

Reap is past, and Susan is looking brighter and happier by the day, and now true winter is beginning to settle over this strange bar at the end of the universe. Caspian hauls the Hope up into the stables to be wintered and works long hours at the sleigh he'd designed, losing himself in the simple pleasures of working with the wood, sanding and carving in turn.

It's after one such day spent in labor that he comes to the bar proper, freshly showered and comfortably attired in a loose linen shirt and breeches, to join Susan by her spot at the fireside. He's chatting amiably with her about the horses, about how Corella is coming with her harness-training, and has just begun pouring her a glass of wine with the door opens and Caspian freezes. In the next moment, the glass overflows with the rich red liquid, but he doesn't notice; his eyes are locked on the tall, fair young man who has come in, dressed all in black.

Even to those who have never seen him, there may be something familiarly of Caspian about his face... but Susan has seen him, and she'll know as soon as she looks that Rilian, Prince of Narnia and Caspian's son, has returned.

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“Aye, it can be odd indeed if ye’ve not known such before,” she agrees, while his soft voice pulls at her heart. “But I promise ye it’s real, real as roses or rain.”

She gives him a slight curtsey and keeps her smile warm. “I’m Susan Delgado, sai. I keep the stables for sai Bernard, he who runs this place. Is there aught I can do or answer for ye, mayhap?”

"My dreams are often strange," he murmurs. "Tinted by the curse under which I labor. Even now, my time grows short... but there are still some moments left of clarity."

He glances again at the mantel clock, ticking closer and closer to the top of the hour, then smiles at her again. "And I would fain spend them with such sweet company, ere I return to my lady's hearth."

“Fair words, sai,” she smiles back, even as everything in her focuses on what he’s suggested with that glance at the clock.

Keep him here, Caspian had said, but it’s clear to her now that may be difficult in a while, oh aye. Still, she’ll do all she can to keep her promise - and more, mayhap.

“I’d not wish to trouble ye, but ye mentioned a curse? Mayhap ye can find aid here, say true. One of my dearest friends is here, and it were he who freed me of a witch’s evil spell.”

“It lightens my heart to know you have escaped such a fate,” the Knight tells her, sincerely. “Alas, there is but one way to release me from mine own, but my lady works tirelessly, day and night, to bring what is needed to pass.”

“Yer lady sounds kind,” she says, in all honesty. “How is it that ye can be freed? For I’d not wish to see ye under such awful enchantment, say true.”

"My Lady has learned, by her art, that I shall be saved from this foul sorcery when I am become King of a land in the Overworld," the Knight explains. He seems unconcerned that his enchantment may only be broken by conquering and warfare.

"The land is already chosen, as is the very place of breaking out."

But ye're already to be a king by right, why would ye need--

The words tremble dangerously on the tip of her tongue. Susan bites down hard to keep them from spilling out, even as fog-gray eyes go wide.

"I'll hope ye'll not mind my poor manners in yer presence then," she teases, as lightly as she can, and ignores the ache in her heart at the echo of teasing Caspian about just the same thing. "Since ye're to be royalty, and all. Say sorry, I do, but I don't ken this Overworld ye speak of - does the land have a name?"

Although if he's lost under the ground somewhere, in a cave or some such, some 'underworld' instead of what he calls an 'overworld', mayhap that explains why Liliandil couldn't see him.

Edited 2023-11-27 15:43 (UTC)

"Your mannerisms may be a bit rough, but therein lies some of their charm," the Knight tells her, blithely ignorant of being insulting or patronizing. "And I mean to be a good King, over all sorts of peoples."

To her question, he waves a hand. "It matters not; after we have conquered and claimed it, I will give it some new name. Perhaps one to glorify my good Lady, without whom none of this would be possible."

Embarrassed color stains her cheeks, but it's not as though he's wrong, now is it? Rough indeed she and her ways are, when compared to the court of Narnia, or Gilead, or aught else such.

"Then I'll hope ye shall," she says, simply. "For the sake of the people who'll love and serve ye, in time."

The more she hears of this Lady of his, although kind-seeming she may be, the less Susan likes it. "Possible by her - her art, ye said before? Is she a - "

(witch)

"-- does she have power of some kind, then?"

She flushes, and the Knight does not seem to notice, but someone else does. In the next moment, a warm hand comes to her back and a familiar voice speaks, outwardly easy but with a core of steel for those most familiar, as Caspian comes to her side. "An excellent question."

Newly returned from his errand, Caspian stands now in the same linen shirt and light breeches, but he has laced a boiled leather surcoat over his torso, and at his hip hangs the long leather scabbard of the Dwarf-made blade forged for him here by Gimli's hand. His hand rests easily on the pommel and his gaze is clear and steady – anyone unfamiliar with him might expect him to dress so and arm himself thus on any evening at the bar. "I would fain hear of your Lady's powers, as well."

The Knight casts a disinterested glance upon him, but seems willing and eager enough to speak of his Lady. "She is wise beyond the ways of all Men and lesser Beasts," he speaks, confident. "But her power is not enough to lift my enchantment, to her great sorrow."

Relief at Caspian’s presence shifts to pure alarm at the sight of him armed and armored so. Susan doesn’t ken what he intends - does he mean to return with Rilian? She’d not thought such a thing were possible - mayhap if he has her rose?

She forces her words past the panicked whirl of her thoughts. “I’d well imagine it’d distress anyone who cares for ye, sai,” she says. “I beg of ye, let me call for my friend, he who helped me before. Even if he can’t do the same for he, mayhap there’s something he could suggest that yer Lady’d want to hear of.”

And Caspian would have aid, too, she thinks, more than her own self.

"There are none who care for me so but my Lady," the Knight tells Susan, kindly. "Do not trouble your friend; I am amenable to waiting until the time is ripe for our conquest. Until then, a life with her, though one in which I must be bound each night, is better than a life without."

"I wonder, sir Knight, if you remember enough of your life without her to say," Caspian says, dry.

The Knight turns a cool glance on him. "I remember nothing of my life before her. But my life with her has been but marred with my curse, little else."

There are none--

She can't keep herself from casting a quick glance at Caspian's expression, at that, her heart aching for the pain he must be feeling, before she turns back to his son.

"Nothing at all?" she tries. "Not even in the dreams ye spoke of before?"

"My Lady believes there is little to gain from studying my dreams too heavily," the Knight says, dismissive. "Your soft heart does you credit, miss, but even these dreams are but the slightest flaw in the happiness I share with her."

"Such a small flaw in the light of your lady's grace, is it?" Caspian says, easily. The line of his shoulders is achingly hard with tension, but he keeps going, intent on pushing the Knight past the point of polite disagreement. "I wonder, then, that you leave her at all. Will she not miss you, there at her knee?"

The Knight's eyes narrow, cold. "My Lady does all she can for me, sir," he warns, "and I am not so churlish as to discount her care for me. I would not speak thus of her, were I you."

Her breath catches in her throat at the rising strain between them. Jake hadn't remembered Roland while under Walter's spell, and Rilian's forgotten

(his father's face)

Caspian and everything else besides under his own, whatever it is. It can't go on this way, it can't.

Susan draws a quick breath and sends a silent plea to her own father. Help me, Da - help me to be strong enough to help them both. Determination firms the set of her mouth, though her tone remains gentle with concern when she speaks.

"If she cares for ye as ye say," she begins, "then surely she'd be glad were ye to find aid here. Let us help ye, sai. It's no weakness nor shame to accept such, and there's naught of reason not to, unless..."

Carefully, carefully now, she thinks.

"... unless there's something in ye driving ye to refuse." Soft, but clear. "It were that way for me, do'ee ken? I did what I'd never have done elsewise, and struggled against those who tried to stop me."

Edited 2023-11-30 06:04 (UTC)

"If that were indeed the case, would I not also reject my Lady's aid, fair one?" the Knight say, calming a little.

But Caspian does not want him calm. "Good sir Knight, we would be remiss in our own hospitality if we attempted to aid you not," he says, and looks to Susan. "Go and fetch Alain, Su. I think it might be best after all if he were here. 'Bert, too, mayhap."

As Cuthbert has no ability to assist in lifting curses, this may be an odd request, but he looks at her very carefully, hoping she'll realize he has some other plan.

She doesn't want to leave him - either of them, for that matter - but oh, it's clear as anything from the direct way in which he looks at her that he wishes her to do this. Susan nods, golden hair shifting like silk against her shoulders as she does, and doesn't argue.

"I'll find them both as quickly as may be, say true," she promises, and shifts her own glance from Caspian to Rilian. "And I'll take it as a kindness given for ye to allow it, sai."

Susan doesn't give him the chance to disagree, but heads across the room to the staff quarters at a quick pace that's saved from being a dash solely to avoid raising alarm in any who might see her pass.

Caspian watches her go, then turns his attention once more to the son who does not remember either him or Narnia itself. Despite the horror of the moment, despite the anger he is beginning to unleash, he feels a strange sense of calm taking over.

"Do you not find it strange, my lord, that you have no memory of your life before you came to be with your lady, and have suffered since then under a curse of most horrific strength and subtlety?"

The Knight flushes with anger. "It would be best for you, my lord, if you ceased implying such things of my Lady."

Cuthbert's room is the closer, and so Susan goes there first. She knocks with one hand even as she tries the door with the other. On finding it unlocked, she opens it without waiting for him to answer.

Alain's there as well, she sees, companionably smoking in an armchair across from Bert, who's already on his feet as she pushes the door wide. "Susan, what's wrong?" Bert crosses the room in long steps to take her by the arms, hands gentle as he searches her face. "What has thee so upset?"

"Oh, please come," she gasps. "Both of ye, come quickly, do. It's Rilian, Rilian's here, Caspian's son - he said he told thee, Bert, ye kennit -- he doesn't ken him, he's witched and needs help."

Alain's discarded his cigarette and come to join them by the time she finishes her incoherent explanation. "Lead the way, Sue," he says, his voice calm and steady but his gunslinger's gaze keen and sharp, as is Cuthbert's. "We're with thee."

Rilian is taller than he. It's been so long he'd almost forgotten that, how his son had inherited the height and beauty of his mother the Star. Still, Caspian looks up at him with dismissiveness bordering on contempt. "Should I fear you, good sir knight, who hides behind a woman's skirts and fears his own freedom?"

The Knight's face pales to the lips, and his eyes grow cold. With a cool, slithering sound, he draws his blade, the metal gleaming under the friendly lights of the Bar. A waitrat that had been coming near to take their order squeaks and scurries away.

"Rescind your words, boy, or draw your sword and face me."

They walk with Susan into the main bar, where she freezes in her tracks with a sharp gasp. Cuthbert's glance follows hers across the room, and in the next instant he's moving with all speed. He doesn't even have to look to know that Alain's moving as well, off to the side, keeping canda so that they can't be taken down with a single strike.

"You're going to want to sheathe that blade," he warns as he reaches them, light and easy. "You're breaking the rules, and that kind of thing gets frowned on around here."

They are not the only ones moving at the sound of a sword being drawn.

Peter Pevensie, who had only just stepped out of the House of Arch in search of a nice cuppa, is in the next moment striding forth to stand at Caspian's shoulder. He gives the two gunslingers – his comrades on Security – a nod, then speaks, firm and without room for argument. "Those who bear a naked blade in this place oft regret it," he says, stern. "What's all this, then?"

"This child," the Knight says, livid, "has besmirched my Lady's name, honor, and insulted her very self. I'll not stand for it; damn your rules!"

Edited 2023-12-01 02:41 (UTC)

Susan may not be as fast as a gunslinger, but she arrives hard on their heels all the same. She's careful to stop to the side, out of the line of fire or reach of sword, even as she searches Caspian's expression.

Whatever he's thinking and feeling's pressed deep down and hidden, but he's too still and too calm, mayhap unnaturally so. And yet, there's naught of surprise on his features, she realizes. Susan whirls back to Rilian with a flash in her eyes and furious worry for father and son both driving her.

"For shame, sai," she chides. "He seeks to help ye, and ye'd act so?"

"I've no quarrel with you, miss," the Knight says, his jaw tight and his gaze locked on Caspian's face. "But if this churl will not grant me an honorable duel in which to better teach him his manners – "

"Speak softly, sir Knight," Caspian says, dry. He's pushing, pushing – the clock is ticking ever closer to that fatal hour. But it isn't close enough, not yet. "Ere you dishonor your Lady further by seeing yourself thrown into yet another prison, one without her sweet presence. But by what right must I defend myself to you? You, who have even forgotten the face of your father?"

Beside him, Peter stiffens, but Caspian continues, lost now in his grief and rage. "But as you will. Step outside with me, sir, and I will happily prove my honor in clean battle."

Susan goes absolutely still and as pale as snowfall, and Cuthbert lets out a low whistle, studying the two of them. Alain gives Caspian a sharp, searching look. He can't think of a single time when he's seen the other man pick a fight like this. Either he's lost himself under the weight of what he's facing, or there's something the rest of them don't know, and Alain's betting it's the latter.

So's Bert, apparently. "Caspian's got the right of it," 'Bert says. "Take another step, make another move in here, and I'll put you in the cells myself. If you're smart, you'll sheathe. Now. Outside's different."

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