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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!

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"Or a good-morning story," lightly, "when we wake together."

He comes close to look at the rug. "Oh! I like that well-- 'tis like a tapestry, but more..." He considers, because he doesn't have the term abstract. "Well, less a pure picture. It's lovely."

"Abstract," Susan supplies - she does, after all, have that term. She's still flipping through the corners of more rugs, so that Lancelot might have choices. "I rather enjoy the patterning. Some can have quite elaborate designs. I believe there's a symbolism to them, though I'm afraid I don't know what it -"

A glimmer of gold thread, shot through a deep, rich blue. Stylized scimitars and birds, horses and curling-pointed shoes. The pile is thick and sumptuous, but the design is still crystal-clear. Susan freezes.

Lancelot looks over at her, "What is it, sweet?"

"Help me-" Susan says, trying to shove the rugs on top of it to the side so she can see it better.

He moves immediately to do so, clearing the other rugs off with either a shove or hauling aside, until she's free to unroll as much of this one as she likes.

The central insignia clinches it. She runs her fingers over the stylized vulture-headed man with four arms in the center, and then turns her gaze toward Lancelot, astonished. "This is Calormene," she breathes. "That - this is Tash. The false god of the Tisroc - the ruler of Calormen."

"It's Narnian?" He comes closer to look.

"Calormen was to the south, past Archenland," Susan says. "Ours was a complicated diplomacy. But essentially... yes."

He reaches out to touch it, his tone a little wondering. "It's nothing like anything I've seen."

"Tashbaan - their capitol - was like no city I've ever seen," Susan remembers. "Edmund and I went, once, while Peter was off fighting the giants in the North and Lucy was watching Cair Paravel." She's quiet for a moment, tracing the figure of Tash in the middle. "Lucy told me that the spread of continuing idolatry of Tash is part of what brought Narnia to its end."

Lancelot looks over at her, taking this in for a long, quiet moment. Eventually he says, "It is very striking, but-- I think not for my room."

"I shall take it," Susan says, firmly, and starts rolling it up. "There was one rather like it that I quite liked in the house we stayed at in Tashbaan, before the visit went sour. I was always sorry to have left it behind."

A little, searching look, "It doesn't cause thee grief?"

Susan, on her way to shrugging off the question, catches sight of Lancelot's expression, and turns instead to lean against him. With a sigh, she admits, "No more than anything else, I think."

He strokes her shoulder, says softly, "Ah. That is why I would think to... put it elsewhere."

She melts into the touch. "I just... can't believe that anything from Narnia could be here," she explains, and then straightens up so that she can continue rolling the rug into a tight cylinder. "Narnia's gone. And yet there's a Tarkaan rug?"

Lancelot considers his words for a moment, watching Susan roll up the rug. Eventually he says, "This place-- there are many doors or portals that bring... things, mostly. People, I suppose, sometimes. It seeks, for whatever reason, to answer what we would like most to have. I come from a time before... before Galahad was even born. Things may come from any time, it seems. I think it cannot give us who we want, but it can give us, sometimes, things we want, even when we know not that we want them."

A pause. "None of us knows how or why. But perhaps it can bring these things in, to help thee feel more..." He stops, because he knows she doesn't necessarily feel at ease, or perhaps even glad, about any of this.

Susan nods. "Very wise, sir," she says, setting the rug to the side once she's done rolling it. "It's rather queer, though, that after the dream I had last night, the rug should be here."

"When one... asks for something. It needn't be out loud, yes?"

"No, I don't believe so." Susan blinks at him. "Do you think -?"

Lancelot turns to reach for one of her hands, "Sweet-- If thy dreams are strong ones, then perhaps--"

Edited 2024-01-25 02:29 (UTC)

As she threads her fingers through Lancelot's, Susan runs her other hand over the edge of the rug, wonderingly. "Well!" she says. Part of her wonders what other Narnian things she might find tucked away here and there. Another part thinks she might tell Lancelot more: of Narnia, and Calormen, and particularly of the mess with Prince Rabadash.

She sets those parts aside. "Have you spotted any that look suitable for your rooms?" she asks.

His gaze on her holds for a moment more before he turns away to survey the other rugs, keeping her hand tight in his. There is one that is more of a blue and silver combination -- classically Persian with something that reads to Lancelot like a floral motif -- and he draws her nearer to it.

"This I like. It has liveliness, and the colors I like." His other hand reaches out to test the feel of it.

"It suits you."

"Mm," mildly, with a little smile, "but does it suit thee?"

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