!!! [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

[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."

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot watches the cat as she moves, as she curls and resettles. When Susan finally speaks, he pays careful attention to her tone as well as her words. He sets a hand over hers. "These are things that bring thee joy -- I would have thought Heaven would be a place for joy, but I suppose that would only be joy found in God."

He frowns a little, thinking back to his conversation with Claudius at the party. "I never looked to God for joy to begin with. I think, for thee, there is joy in curiosity and difference and in striving for something. I can see how such a place would bring thee little joy."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Lucy says everything is perfect all the time and there's infinite time to explore," Susan says. She should like to curl up just like the cat. In lieu of that, she settles more heavily against Lancelot's chest. "But she also said she couldn't give news of anyone, because everything is just all right forever and everything is as it ought to be." Susan is fairly certain she's been over this with Lancelot before, but she's ruminating on it now, again; it's difficult to chew on, like so much gristle, and she can only work on it a little bit at a time. "I suppose it's all right for her and even Peter, but I hate to think of Edmund there." She does, in truth, hate to think of all of them there, but she is forced to admit that Peter and Lucy are at least somewhat suited to it. "They'd be so cross with me for saying so, I'm sure."

[lanselos_du_lac]

He resettles his arms around her to hold her tighter, kissing her temple. As ever, he feels inclined to show her that he will dote on her, given the chance.

"What matter," he says, in a tone of sincere asking, "if they might be cross? Thou'rt here. They are not. I am more interested in thine own thoughts and feelings."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Truthfully, I wish they could be cross with me," Susan tells him, after a moment. "As it would mean that they weren't--"

She sighs and cuts herself off. "We were talking about you, weren't we?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

"No, love," kissing her cheek, "we were sharing our experiences."

He lets a moment pass, kissing her cheek again and then her jaw. "Go on, sweet. I would hear thy thoughts."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Oh," Susan sighs again, mollified enough by his kisses to forge on a little longer. "It's nothing new, I just - miss them, I suppose."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Of course," softly.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Even Peter," she says, aiming for 'wry' and landing somewhere around 'lost.'

[lanselos_du_lac]

He kisses her temple, "Oh, love. As thou shouldst."