!!! [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]

"Do you know," Susan says, "I never felt all that close to my parents after the Blitz. I couldn't place it for the longest time, but... they were really only a few years older than I'd been when I'd left Narnia, and I think - I felt I could no longer look to them to take care of us the way they had before we went off and grew up with no-one back home any the wiser." She's quiet for a long, long moment. "I wonder how Mum felt about that shift."

[lanselos_du_lac]

With quiet curiosity, he asks, "What was she like? Very much like thee?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Oh, perhaps," Susan says, horrified to find that she doesn't actually have an easy answer to the question. "Or at least, I was like a little mother to my siblings for ever so long, and I must have learned it by watching her."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Even when thou were small, thyself?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Oh, since I was eight at least."

[lanselos_du_lac]

He nods a little, "Did that trouble thee?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"No, I was happy to help. There were four of us, after all, and Father had work, and Mum had her hands full with the babies. And it was useful, when we had to leave London. I already knew how to soothe them, because I'd been doing it for years."

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot smiles a little, his arm tightening around her waist. "I had only my cousins, and we were mostly of an age."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Bors and Lionel, yes?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Just so," the smile settling in, if a little wistful. "I suppose they were like brothers to me. Bors was my closest friend."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Tell me about him?" Susan asks. "I'm afraid I lost some of the details when we were, ah, practicing my French."

[lanselos_du_lac]

He grins, "That was a good day."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Oh?" Susan asks, in a way that invites him to expand on that claim, particularly if the expansion is complimentary.

[lanselos_du_lac]

"I found thee and thy French very charming, as thou well know'st."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Yes," Susan says, smiling at last. "I do so love to charm you."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"It seems very simple, for thee."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Then you, my love, must be easy."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Oh? Does it take thee a great effort with everyone else?" This in a tone of sincere disbelief; he kisses her cheek.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan laughs. "I'm better-suited to being off-putting, I think," she says. Better at a distance, she thinks. "You're rather a special case."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Well, I shall take that as a compliment."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"As you ought to," she says, happily.

[lanselos_du_lac]

He laughs and kisses her properly.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan twists in his arms, responding eagerly, when something occurs to her. She draws back, pressing her forehead against his. "Sweetheart," she ventures. "Ought we do something with the cat when you make love to me?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Oh," a little surprised, "I don't know. Perhaps we shall have to see what happens?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Miriam's flatmate had a cat," Susan remembers, tone thoughtful. "I can't recall what she did with it when I was over."