^ [open post]

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan doesn't believe in the mansion spirits, but she is being followed by something in a way that makes little sense.

It begins when she wakes up. Opening the drawer to the sideboard in her room to retrieve tea, she finds another gold chess piece wrapped neatly in ribbon. Lancelot didn't put it there - it hadn't been there when she made her pre-sleep cuppa the night before, and she woke up when he did and sleepily saw him off to his training; he hadn't gone near the drawer. She shuts the chess piece firmly away, makes her tea, and dresses blearily for her own archery practice.

There's a new bow in the closet, too. To her pleasure, it's a heavier one that requires a stronger pull - she's quite got used to the draw of the ones the closet first supplied to her.

After her shooting routine, she finds a lipstick in the precise shade Ingrid used to wear on the bathroom vanity. When she's showered and dressed for the rest of her day, she finds her favorite pastry - a sort of breakfast roll she used to get from the shop by the tube station she'd walk past on her way to work, back in London - on a platter in the kitchen.

It's when she opens one of the closets in the hall off the library to return a pile of laundered wash-cloths that she receives both some clarity and a deepening of the mystery: a jumble of assembled balloons tumbles out, made of some queer material and filled with a gas that keeps them afloat. The writing on them reads: HAPPY BIRTHDAY SUSAN PEVENSIE.

She stares at them, perplexed.


Susan's birthday post! Three days (by our reckoning) and eight months (by her reckoning) early! Feel free to have your puppets run into her in any reasonable location at any point during the day; she's just going to be accumulating more Stuff she can't get rid of as the day goes on.

Comments

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad, cradling a stalk of phragmites with an ootheca glued to it, asks, "What is it?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"A puzzle," Susan murmurs, a suggestion of a frown etched onto her face.

[onthewillowsthere]

"What kind of puzzle?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan shows him the assembled balloons - and she is rather curious how they've all got to be so seamless! "This place seems to think it's my birthday."

[sporesprouter]

Tress comes across Susan a bit later, after the presents have accumulated a bit more. "Oh, hello, Susan! What do you have there?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Do you know, I'm not entirely certain," says Susan, tucking away the latest gift - a strange cylinder with no clear function - into her pocket. "I believe the calendar is off."

[sporesprouter]

"That's odd. Not that I could say one way or another, because I doubt our worlds have the same calendar anyway."

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji is not in the habit of stopping to interrupt people along the paths of his various errands. Still, the sight of Susan with those brightly-colored floating objects is so patently unusual that he comes to a halt in the hallway, midway through tucking a freshly-procured container of greens into his sleeve. He blinks, and then he reads the words. After a little pause, he says, "I wish you a happy birthday, young mistress Pevensie." And, of course, he bows.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Thank you," says Susan, politely, brow lightly furrowed. "I don't believe it is, though. My birthday, that is."

[lightbearinglord]

"No?" Lan Wangji frowns faintly. "The mansion marked Sir Sagramore's birthday, too."

[sorrowandsorrow]

"Hey," Janet calls as she sees Susan walk past the café, before she pauses as she takes in the balloons. "Sorry. I must have meant: hey, birthday girl." She flashes a grin over the rim of her coffee mug.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Janet," says Susan, rerouting into the cafe. By this point she's accumulated a truly ridiculous amount of additional... gifts? She supposes they must be gifts. She's not convinced of a single one of them.

...she's tired of explaining her confusion. She flips the switch on the electric kettle to start some tea, dropping a kiss to the top of Janet's head on her way over. "It must be December sixteenth somewhere."

[sorrowandsorrow]

Janet trails after her a little, grinning anew at the kiss. "Probably. I lost track of time between Fillory and Earth forever ago. What did you get? A pony and a new Lego set?"

[aflashbastard]

Crowley runs into her a bit later. "Hey," he greets her, frowning slightly at everything she has in her hands. Has Susan learned to ensorcell?

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Crowley, hello," warmly.

[aflashbastard]

"What's all this then?" he asks, with a wave at the collection of items.

[tallyyoungblood]

Tally's walking down an adjacent hallway when she hears the hollow bump of balloons against the ceiling, and turns the corner to investigate.

"What are you doing?" she asks, amused. "Are you using balloons for something?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"I am not," says Susan firmly. Every time she tries to leave them somewhere, the ribbons catch on something or another. This place truly wants her to carry them all day, it seems.

[tallyyoungblood]

Tally giggles helplessly. "The house gave them to you?" She comes closer and starts pulling them away. "Oh, these are totally weird." They're made of a strange Rusty plastic. "Is it your birthday?" she asks, reading the balloon.

[vineleaves]

It must surely feel to Susan as if she has been wandering around the hallways with the balloons for nearly forever at this point when Dionysus runs into her. "Oh hello my dea--" He stares at the balloons for a moment. "Oh goodness! Happy birthday! You should've told me, I could have planned a party for you!"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"I might've, if I thought it was coming up," Susan says, as the balloons rustle behind her.

[vineleaves]

"...So it's not your birthday then?" The thought of Susan not knowing what the Earth date is just feels so completely impossible that it's not even a consideration.

[lanselos_du_lac]

At lunchtime, Lancelot is waiting for her at their usual table in the café. He's got two sandwiches and a pot of tea set out already, and he is leafing through a book with many photographs. He's wearing a plain t-shirt, jeggings, and his usual boots, having just showered after his morning's drills and ride.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

When Susan comes in, she's left most of her gifts behind in varying spots about the Mansion, though she's retrieved the chess piece again, where it rests heavily in her pocket. Also - and this must not be underemphasized - there is one persistent balloon which she finds she cannot abandon. It bobbles along behind her, adhering in a variety of ways that spurn her attempts to leave it with the rest, and so she has ceased trying. Currently its ribbon is tangled in her bootlaces.

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot glances up and smiles brightly at her, as usual. But very quickly his expression registers confusion. "Hello, sweet. What-- what is that?"