!!! [interlude]

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan carefully wipes the mud from her boots before coming in from her morning archery practice. It's not warm out, but it's wet, and she's got rather mucked up whilst retrieving arrows. Her first stop is to deposit her dirty clothes in the hamper in her closet - which has seemed to expand even further since Lancelot moved in - to be washed immediately after she washes herself. Before she can shower, though, she must first wipe the arrows down, and then her bow. Then, to stay on the safe side, she sets about unstringing the bow so she can hang it and her coil of string with her other bows.

When she goes to start coiling the string, however, there's a tug on the other end. She frowns and kneels down. There's a flash of color, and then a flare of pain. She stares at her hand and the scratch across the back of it, and then at the culprit.

"Oh, aren't you a beauty," she breathes, reaching out to the Siamese cat tucked away between Lancelot's shoes. "Wherever did you come from?"

It takes her a good ten minutes to coax the cat out, and another ten to coax it into her arms. It's a girl, and not a kitten, though she does have a whiff of kittenhood still about her. "Do you belong to anyone?" Susan asks, but the cat isn't a Talking Beast, and doesn't answer.

Right. The first order of business shall be getting the cat some food. The second order of business shall be inventorying the residents to see if anyone has lost a cat she somehow hadn't caught wind of. She's nearly out the door when she realizes she's largely nude and still covered in streaks of mud, and carefully eases the cat onto the bed, instead. her actual first order of business ought to be washing quickly and getting dressed again. Then onto the rest of it.


Typist note: This is technically being posted as an interlude, given that Enjolras is doing an open post on the same topic at the same time, but if anyone wants to thread meeting Susan's new cat, I am MORE than happy to... I just don't want to overwhelm anyone!

Comments

[quote_gentle_unquote]

She shifts again so that she can look at him more easily, stroking the cat with her free hand when the cat shoots her a baleful look. "It is?" She's pleased to hear it.

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Yes," he looks down at the cat. "Some days are better than others, I suppose, but it has gone easier for me."

His gaze shifts back to meet Susan's, "That is down, in part, to thee. Thou knowest."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"I do know," she says, softly, sweetly.

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Thou'rt wise," flashing her a teasing little smile.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"I listen," with a squeeze to his hand.

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Which is wise."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Very well," says Susan, hoisting herself off the floor so she might perch on his lap. "I'm eminently wise."

[lanselos_du_lac]

He is careful not to disturb the cat from his foot, but he adjusts so Susan can be comfortable. "There's good. I'll have no argument on this."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan snuggles up against his chest. "I think I'm still furious," she says, quietly. "After Lucy."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"At this place, or at Lucy?" He rubs her back lightly.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

But she shakes her head, and watches the way the cat stretches and then curls up again, still mostly on Lancelot's foot. "At Aslan, primarily."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Ah," quietly, "yes. I can understand."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Of course you can," with a there-and-gone smile. She's quiet for another moment, ruminative. Then, as it occurs to her: "Perhaps a little bit at Lucy as well."

[lanselos_du_lac]

As he often does when all of his focus is on her, he reaches up to brush back the wisps of hair from her temple. "Yes?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Well," Susan hedges, trying to sort out her feelings. "You've read my letters."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Aye," pulling her a fraction closer. He has read them, and one afternoon when Susan was out he read them again, because it was important to understand her as precisely as he could. He gives her the space to think.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"I believe I might be angry that she's happy," Susan says, eventually, leaning against him. "I want her to be happy, of course, but she's happy about being dead. About being in Aslan's horrid country."

[lanselos_du_lac]

He nods, and after a moment says, "I cannot imagine being happy about being dead."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"She loves Aslan, I suppose," Susan says, staring down at the cat. How fortunate that a domestic housecat is nothing like a lion!

[lanselos_du_lac]

He hesitates, "Is that the same as loving God, in Narnia?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"I believe so, yes."

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot frowns a little, trying to sort this; when he finds he can't, he suppresses something like a shudder and settles both arms around Susan.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"I believe Aslan might just be God," Susan admits. "I keep coming 'round to it as the most reasonable conclusion." She snorts, humorlessly. "If you can call that reasonable."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"I suppose if that's true, then there are those who would say that Lucy and the others have been rewarded," he sounds rather doubtful.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Oh, Lucy certainly thinks so." Susan is quiet for a long, long time, long enough that the cat jolts off of Lancelot's foot and leaps onto the bed, where she curls up again. "It seems to me that Aslan's country - Heaven - isn't as nice as all that, though, if all it does is strip people of their curiosity and compassion and every other interesting thing about them and just gives them unflagging perfection every day."