# [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

[onthewillowsthere]

"Yes, please."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

During Dark, Susan had relocated one of the electric kettles to her room, for the afternoons that felt too oppressive to go see just how few supplies were left in the cafe or kitchens or her favorite parlor. It's still there, with resupplied tea. She's found a small icebox to keep milk, too, and some small snacks.

The last time Galahad came by her room, Lancelot had a pair of shoes by the door and a few items of clothes in the closet. Now, there's much more of his stuff, neatly organized and interspersed with her things. There's a second reading chair by the window, and a few more mugs on the sideboard.

She deposits her armful of books on the desk and gestures for Galahad to do the same. As she bustles over to flip the kettle on, she says, "You may sit wherever is most comfortable." In addition to the bed and the reading chairs, there's a couch in a little alcove, and two dining chairs at the little table by the sideboard.

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad chooses one of the dining chairs and settles into it to watch her. He can tell that the room is, like his and Claudius', a room that contains two people now, and there's something pleasant about that, even besides the knowledge that Lancelot has settled into this place and made a home here, just as Galahad has.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan bustles around for a moment, gathering mugs and teabags and setting them next to the kettle so they'll be ready when the water is, and then she takes the seat across from Galahad. "Do you know what a microscope is?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"Yes. Claudius has one. He showed me how to use it."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Oh! Splendid. We've got one here, then?" Susan hadn't spotted any during her regular inventory searches of the Mansion and its grounds, but then again, she doesn't make a habit of looking into spaces claimed by individuals. She'd just been assured of her own ability to make the mansion generate the things she requires, now that it's not Dark anymore. "I was thinking we might look at some dirt once it warms up."

[onthewillowsthere]

"He doesn't mind when I borrow it. It's in our room."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Very good," says Susan, not bothering to blunt her pleasure at this news. The kettle is boiling, and she rises again to pour the water into the mugs. "Do you take milk or sugar?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"Sugar, please." He looks to see what form her sugar takes; he has different preferences for loose or lump.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan puts a splash of milk in her mug and then, in a careful balancing act, carries both over, along with a little dish of loose sugar and a packet of Jaffa cakes.

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad, with his usual studious precision, adds three spoonfuls of sugar to his cup of tea, and takes two of the Jaffa cakes.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan takes two spoonfuls of sugar, one of the cakes to start, and says, "I got so caught up in our conversation I do believe I forgot to ask how you've been."

[onthewillowsthere]

He touches the sword at his hip. "I'm beginning over."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Beginning over?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"It was a test, and I failed. God has no more use for me."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan frowns, leaning forward. If she stopped to think of what she knew of Galahad's story, she might put two and two together more quickly, but she's been remarkably successful at putting old legends out of her mind when talking to their sources, and all she sees before her is a young man she cares for - rather a lot, as it turns out - saying words that would be devastating from Edmund or Lucy. "Are you all right?"

[onthewillowsthere]

A long silence follows, before Galahad finally says, "I feel-- discarded."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan is a tactile woman; without thinking, she reaches to grasp Galahad's hand. His story is coming back to her now, overlaid with the things he's specifically told her during their conversations, and she can make some assumptions about what must have happened. "I've felt--" not precisely the same way "--similarly," she say, quietly.

[onthewillowsthere]

"I'm not sorry. But I'm angry." He doesn't pull his hands away. He likes being touched.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Yes," Susan agrees. "I'm often furious."

[onthewillowsthere]

"I told you I was angry before. I'm angrier now."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan gives him one of her sharp, piercing looks. "You hadn't truly been discarded before, had you? But you are now?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"Before-- I wasn't myself when I broke my vows. I thought it must have still counted, but I was wrong. This time He stripped me of the power He had given me." A silence. "He knew I would. That's why He sent the visions. He was trying to turn me back."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"He oughtn't have the right," says Susan, fiercely. "Oh, I get that He's God, but it's jolly cruel."

[onthewillowsthere]

"I am a cup He fashioned, and I have cracked open and He cannot use me."