# [closed post]

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan has devised another activity to occupy her days. By the calendar's reckoning, the start of spring is roughly a week away. Between her and Tress, they've got the outline of a plan for the next Dark, and Susan is happy to rely on people who've got greater interest in and skill for growing things insofar as agriculture goes. But the growing season here shall be longer than usual, and Susan should like to have some idea about what that might mean for the ecosystem,

This is her flimsy excuse to pardon the latest stack of books she's currently carrying out of the library. There is a marginal off-chance that preparatory reading on soil biota could, potentially, be useful. Perhaps she might even talk someone else into reading on the subject as well, so that they might discuss it.

Comments

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Oh yes. Very. Both literally and metaphorically, I believe."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Metaphorically?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"It was so wondrous, it would've felt magical even if it wasn't," Susan says. Her brow furrows lightly. "That sounds remarkably imprecise, doesn't it? I mean, there were elements of magic and myth everywhere you looked. But the magic was all there because of Aslan - the great Lion. And no one used magic, except Aslan and the Witch. Even Father Christmas and the river gods and Bacchus only had power because of Aslan. I suppose it's most accurate to say that magic was present, and part of the land itself, but actual workings of magic were vanishingly rare during our reign. So we didn't see it every day, except for where it was just part of the landscape. But compared to England..." She trails off. "I'm afraid I'm not making any sense."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Like here," Galahad says, simply.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"In many ways, yes. I would say - this place is queer and magical and unexpected. Shifting. Narnia was queer and magical, but predictable. Really the greatest similarity was - we left Narnia, you know, fifteen years into our reign. Not on purpose. We were called back a year later, in our time, and fund that over one thousand years had passed in Narnia. So the streams we'd played in had become canyons; our castle was in ruins and the peninsula it sat upon had become an island. Logical changes, but ones for which we were unprepared."

[onthewillowsthere]

He waits -- it feels like she's telling a story, one that she hasn't finished.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"The changes here are faster and less predictable."

[onthewillowsthere]

He thinks of the sheds and how they found Drosera, and nods. "Is that why you spoke to Drosera when you first met her?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Because of Narnia? Yes."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Did you grow up in Narnia and become a child again when you went back to your world?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan looks at him, surprised. "Yes," she says. "I was thirteen when we first arrived in Narnia. I was twenty-seven when we stumbled back through the wardrobe. Only a few minutes had passed, and we were all the same age we'd been when we left."

[onthewillowsthere]

"What did it feel like?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"To leave?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"To be a child again. Did you remember? Was it hard?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"It took some time. It helped that we were living with someone who understood. It was harder when we went back to living with our parents."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Who were you with?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"An old professor. I learned later that he'd been as well. He was actually there when Aslan created Narnia."

[onthewillowsthere]

"At the beginning of the world?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Yes." A faint look of regret crosses Susan's face. "I ought to have asked Lucy for more details when she was here."

[onthewillowsthere]

"About what?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"About what the professor saw and did, when he was a boy watching Narnia come into being. She's had the opportunity to speak with him about it in," the slightest suggestion of an eye-roll, "Heaven."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Would she have cared to ask?" since he is equally an unimpressed about heaven.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"I don't know," Susan sighs, and admits, "That's why I didn't ask."

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad nods.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"It's queer," Susan says then, "that he should be at the beginning of Narnia, and at its end. He died with the rest of them, you know."