@ [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

[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.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Blue suits you," she says, definitively. "Do you like your furniture?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

"I could do with a slightly larger bed."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"I believe you could," Susan teases, though she doesn't mind that the narrowness of Lancelot's bed encourages her to be half-on top of him in their post-coital glow. She's never been the sort of woman to spurn physical touch the moment after sex ends, but she's also never really been the sort to linger overlong.

Which brings her back to the thought she'd just swallowed down. They have what she would describe as a fairly active sex life, but he's only spent the night once or twice since that first time. Susan hasn't minded it (it's what she's used to), but since he's already defied so many of her preconceptions, she thinks she might want to try something a little different. "I should like," she says, this time barreling busily through the thought instead of changing the subject again, "To sleep with you more often."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Oh? As in-- all night, asleep? Not just to lie together?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan refuses to blush. She tells her face this firmly. "Yes," she says. "That's what I mean."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"I would like that very much," a smile. "I think I often don't want to impose upon you."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"You can, you know. If you'd like," Susan says. "Impose, that is. I shouldn't think I'd mind."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Then perhaps I shall," he brushes back her hair, "And if thou wish't to sleep, you may sleep in my arms whenever you like."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Ah, there's the blush Susan so sternly warned off her face. With a vengeance, it spreads from her cheeks all the way down her chest. "Very well then," she says - businesslike again, as if that can distract him from her flush! She hides her smile, and the pink suffusing her, against his neck. "Perhaps when it's not barely yet mid-morning."

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot laughs, cuddling her a little, kissing her hair, "Aye, what would everyone think, an we were abed all day?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"I mean, I shouldn't complain," says Susan. "But they might start spreading rumors. 'Sir Lancelot du Lac,' they might say. 'Slacking off. Barely even training anymore.' And what would Laertes think when he brings you your dinner!" It's clear, from her tone and the way she squeezes his bicep as she says slacking off, that she's teasing.

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Laertes would have sense enough to bring dinner for two."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan isn't so sure of that - she had, after all, told Laertes not to cook for her, and it's not like he would know that she was here with Lancelot! - but she indulges the thought. "Ah, so he would simply intuit that I am here with you, and that we were both in need of nourishment."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Perhaps, perhaps," chuckling. "But thy point is strong, an I am not out and about, it draws concern. We would have others at the door, no doubt. Aye, 'tis a poor plan."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"It does sound terribly indulgent," reflectively. Susan shall add 'spend an entire day in bed' to her to-do list.

[lanselos_du_lac]

"However, an thy wish was to bed abed at night-- that I would grant."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"At night," Susan confirms, leaning in to kiss him swiftly. "And perhaps one very indulgent day, sometime, when we've had a chance to adequately prepare your friends for your absence."