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[quote_gentle_unquote]

Although she realizes almost immediately what's going on (she has, after all, been fearing it, and has the greatest measure of the general contents of each room in this place), the full weight of the situation takes a day or so to hit Susan, as she flits from closet to cupboard to store-room and finds them empty save for the items she's specifically handled in the past. Her emergency closets - the ones she's been appointing - are intact; the rest seem relatively barren.

And so, she thinks, grimly, the other shoe has dropped.

Certain residents would be forgiven for imagining that Susan Pevensie might gloat, to have her worst fears proven right. A Cassandra, vindicated, smugly telling others left and right that she told them so, and they ought to have been more interested in preparations. But they would have been wrong about this, too. Distracted and panicked enough to forget entirely about her standing lunch date with Lancelot, she instead walks steadily, smoothly to her room, where she shuts the door firmly (she means to latch it, but she's so caught up in her frenzy that it slips her mind) and paces, pulling at her hair until it's half-snarled, tugged partially free from its usual crown of braids. Her other hand she keeps firmly in her pocket, clutched tight around the very last cruel new thing the Mansion had given her, right before it stopped cooperating entirely.

Water, she thinks, abruptly, mid-step. Will the water run out? But there's a lake out there, and there are trees to boil it; it might be significantly less convenient but they shan't run out of water. The taps are still flowing, but will that last? And so she fills some of the vases she's been accumulating with whatever will come from the tap, just in case she needs it later.

Then, with the wind fully out of her sails, she sinks into a seat on the edge of her bed, despondent, with her head in her hands for a spell. It might be a good twenty minutes, it might be several hours - she couldn't say. She'd been ever so worried about this - she ought to have pushed harder. She ought to have been more organized, to have really impressed upon people that they oughtn't assume that just because they've got a good thing now, it'll be there forever. But she let herself get distracted. There were other, more pressing things - things that seem ridiculous now, in retrospect. Sorting through junk papers? Getting caught up with a man to the extent where she forsook her self-appointed responsibilities for days on end? Love - if that is indeed what she feels for him - is no excuse. She should have - she could have - she ought to have -

I mustn't fall into this trap again, she tells herself, firmly, springing from her bed as swiftly as she'd sat down and striding over to the desk she'd moved into her room when she started writing her letters. (She's now missed dinner, too. The light outside is already dwindling, and the electricity doesn't seem altogether forgiving - it's working, but it's dimmer. But she oughtn't waste the few candles she'd set aside. What if they're needed more later?) It is far too easy to get caught blaming oneself until all that's left is blame. I really mustn't go back there.

But that tiny knot of cold in the center of her - the one that she'd very nearly unpicked over the past few months - tightens and grows. Grimly, she takes out paper and a pen. Her mood is dire. It's only appropriate to start the next one:

Dear Peter, she writes. I hardly know what to say to you.

She sticks the end of her pen in her mouth and chews.

Comments

[lanselos_du_lac]

When Susan missed lunch, Lancelot was concerned but figured she must have been caught up with something elsewhere. Now that he hasn't seen her even once, all day, he has a bad feeling.

In truth, he's had something of a bad feeling since the appearance of the tower. That the tower seemed benign, that it offered supplies, did not particularly comfort him. The supplies seemed like a warning; in combination with the sudden appearance of the tower, the overall effect -- to his mind -- is a threat. So it's doubly unsettling that he hasn't seen Susan out and about, busy as she prefers to be.

It's nearly dinner time when he finally turns up at her door and knocks, calling softly, "Susan? Art thou at home?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan doesn't answer; she's too preoccupied with the weight of the item in her pocket digging into her hand and the sentence she's writing - I believe you must have hated me, but I cannot fathom why - to even hear it. But if Lancelot tries the door, it will open.

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot hesitates, listening at the door. It feels like an imposition but, hearing nothing, he opens the door enough to lean in and look.

When he sees her, he blinks a little -- something is off. He steps carefully into the room and says, "Sweet heart, how dost?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan blinks, too, as she glances up from her letter and then shoves it instinctively inside the book sitting on her desk - an anthology of poems that she doesn't particularly care for. "Oh," she says, sounding very distant indeed. "Is it lunch-time?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

He comes closer, peering at her with concern. "Nay-- well past. 'Tis nearly time for supper."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Oh." There's ink on her ring finger; she scrubs at it with the thumb of her other hand.

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot reaches for her hands. "Susan, what troubles thee?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

When Lancelot touches her, she shudders and looks up at him. "Oh," she says. "Lancelot. Hello."

[lanselos_du_lac]

His brow furrows -- nothing about her is like herself. It isn't even really like that night in the parlor. He draws her closer, saying, "Hello. What's happening?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

She opens her hand - slowly; she's been clutching it for hours - and a chess piece rolls out. It's a rook, solid gold, with rubies set into its crenelations. "I found this," she says. "It was the last thing the cupboards yielded before they stopped yielding anything at all."

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot takes the chess piece, but his gaze doesn't leave Susan's face. His voice is soft, but direct, "What does it mean to thee?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"It's part of our set from Cair Paravel. Look at its base. There's a nick. Mr. Tumnus dropped it during a game with Lucy."

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot frowns, and let's go of her long enough to examine the rook and ensure that it is as she says.

He has a feeling that this isn't the question he should ask, but it comes out almost automatically. "Why-- no. How would the mansion supply thee something so specific? And what does it mean to tell thee in doing so?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"I haven't the faintest idea." Susan still sounds distant, but she's starting to really register that Lancelot is here, and she turns to him, reaching for him.

[lanselos_du_lac]

He immediately gathers her in, though the chess piece remains clenched in one hand.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

She lets him pull her from her chair, and buries her face against his neck. "You've seen, haven't you?" she asks. "Things have changed."

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot holds her close, pressing his cheek to her hair, "I've seen some. I couldn't tell how much things have changed, but something is different."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Nothing is generating any more. I've checked all the rooms and closets. Only the ones I've specifically organized are intact."

[lanselos_du_lac]

He stills a little, as a realization comes to him, though he doesn't move or release Susan. "The supplies," he says quietly.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

She makes a questioning noise.

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot draws back enough to look at her, "In the tower-- it felt, to me, like a warning. The tower itself, I wondered about. But-- why provide us with... staples in a place of abundance?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan blinks, and her eyelids feel leaden - like dragging them open and regarding Lancelot is a Sisyphean task. She does not realize it, but she's trembling, even after she sways closer to Lancelot - Lancelot, who is sturdy; Lancelot, who has ever made her feel warm. "It's as I feared."

[lanselos_du_lac]

He refocuses his attention on her, sharp but warm. Her trembling is evident, and he draws her in a little, holds her a little more tightly. "Tell me, love."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"I've been worried," she says, leaning against him. "Waiting, I suppose. For the catch."

[lanselos_du_lac]

A quiet laugh, "Is that seductive?"