@ [closed post]

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan has been having the dreams with greater frequency, lately¹: Narnia ablaze as the dying stars sink into the sea, giant lizards and dragons ripping every tree and rock from the earth and rending the last of Cair Paravel's ruins into so much rubble, laying all that devastation onto the blaze and then dying themselves as the mountains crumble and the seas rise and leave nothing behind but an empty, starless black.

Nothing, that is, save an open door, and her family standing before it, watching the devastation, and then the door swinging shut.

I've been doing better she tells herself firmly, rising from her bed before the sun has even started to think about peeking over the horizon. The waning moon is hanging low in the sky; the waxing one has already set. She turns on all her lights against the lingering dark and watches them blaze merrily in her vision until she has to glance away, dark spots dancing in their aftermath. She still feels cold as a lifeless, dark world, but at least there's no denying that she isn't in one.

Then, even more firmly, she makes herself get up. She dresses warmly - those thick woolen stockings that join up at the waist (she has since learned they are called tights; the Mansion has been supplying ones lined in a thick, fuzzy material remarkably suitable for winter), a dress similarly appropriate for winter, her woolen coat and leather gloves. Her hair she braids down, not up, so that it's easier to wear a hat against the chill that is resting both deep in her chest and sharp in the morning air outside.

She grabs her longbow and her quiver in addition to the latest of her pile of books - it's good to have contingency plans - but instead of heading toward the range or the woods to seek out a place to sport with Little John, she goes to where she knows Lancelot practices in the morning, stopping only to fill a thermos up with tea. It is, she thinks high time to make good on her threat to watch him.


¹Thanks, Aornis!

Comments

[lanselos_du_lac]

He kisses back, just as sweet and a little yielding, his fingers brushing the side of her neck.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

She grazes his lips with her teeth, and when she pulls back from the kiss, she drags his lower lip with her for a brief moment before letting it go and pressing a swift, soothing follow-up kiss to it. "Speaking of challenges," she says, stroking his hair back with a careful thumb.

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot looks flushed and happy, well-kissed. He says, "Hm?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan smiles. There's the faintest predatory note to it. "What are we to do with this room?" she asks, glancing around. It is rather spartan - now that she's here for reasons other than panicking about his well-being and their primary order of business is out of the way, she's really taking it all in.

[lanselos_du_lac]

He laughs, "Is it not pleasant? My sword goes on the wall. I keep it clean. What more is needed?"

He's definitely teasing her, but he keeps his expression sweetly blank.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"A woman's touch," Susan says, archly. "What were your rooms at home like?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Not unlike this. Clean and spare. But there were tapestries and rugs, a good deal more fabric. And trunks and ally-- I had gear and more things. I admit, I did not think on it much."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan considers this. "Are you comfortable, with nothing about?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

His expression shifts a bit, and he says carefully, "I hadn't much considered it."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

She watches his face for a moment, trying to read between any lines. "I only want to know because I shan't press the issue if you really do prefer it like this."

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot takes a moment to think about this in seriousness. He doesn't feel uncomfortable, but it's true that this is not how he lives at court.

He looks faintly puzzled as he says, "I suppose I can't say it's my preference. It felt right, for a long while, but--"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Gently: "But?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

He rolls it around for a moment, considering; it is somehow easier, with Susan, to figure out just what he's feeling. After a minute he says, "I suppose I felt this is as much as I deserved."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan can't help but make a doubtful sound, even as her heart twinges. "Sweet Lancelot," she says, resting a hand on his chest and spreading her fingers wide. "You deserve ever so much more."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Perhaps," he allows, quietly. He gives her a little smile. "Still, when I arrived I did not feel as such."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"No," says Susan. She understands, obviously - both because of the circumstances she knows he's come from, and because she had a similar frame of mind upon her arrival. "I imagine you wouldn't have done."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"As well, I expected to leave, or hoped to. Until I changed my mind." He strokes her shoulder. "So perhaps now, it is time to make a change."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan swallows her own words by kissing him then, slow and deep, her hand still on his chest.

[lanselos_du_lac]

He lets his hand drift to rest lightly on her back, kissing back with a kind of gratitude -- that she should understand him so well seems a gift in itself.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Lancelot is so warm, so solid, so sweet. Susan, frankly, hadn't known any man could capture and hold her attention the way that he has. She's aware, on some level, that she's holding her affection for him at arms-length, the same way she does with anything that means a great deal to her. So that she can revolve it in her mind's eye and inspect it fully, but also so that it doesn't get caught up with the tangle at the heart of her.

But that tangle, though it presses at her awareness more keenly to-day than it has in recent weeks, almost feels more manageable when she's entwined with him like this, naked with the sweat mostly dry between them and his sheets barely preserving any vestiges of her modesty, his heartbeat under her fingertips, his tongue in her mouth. She feels a surge of gay gladness, that Lancelot has decided he wants to be here, that he's said she's played some small role in that decision. Her fingers twitch against his chest, and she pulls him closer.

[lanselos_du_lac]

His other arm slides around her waist as his fingers tangle in her hair. He is relaxed, now, easy; his own feelings well up again within him and he sighs a little against her mouth.

What he feels for her does not overwhelm him, does not frighten him -- the only surprise is that it feels so natural, a blaze that gives warmth and comfort, not a thing that will singe him or burn him to ash. It felt that way, sometimes, with Guinever. She (and Arthur, he now knows) had struck him like a bolt, set him ablaze such that he would do anything, would try anything, would smash himself to pieces if she asked. It felt like that was how love was, even though there was nearly always pain right alongside the heat.

It isn't like that with Susan, and that's a curious thing. But it's also so lovely, so good, that he refuses to question it. And if he doesn't speak of it to her for a little while longer, that's well. She knows enough. He doesn't need to say anything, just now.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Eventually, Susan breaks the kiss, but she follows it up by peppering his face with littler, playful kisses, easing herself down. "I should like," she says, and then gets shy about the direction her thoughts are taking her. She course-corrects. "To know what sort of decoration you'd most like to have."

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot laughs at those kisses, and is still grinning as he tries to answer her question. "A rug would serve well. Wall-hangings of some kind?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"What colors do you like?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Blue," he says right away.