quote_gentle_unquote | ^ [open post]

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

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

"What kind of puzzle?"

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."

"It isn't?" If anyone is keeping track of the calendar besides him, it would be Susan.

"My birthday is December sixteenth. By my reckoning, based on when I left London and when I arrived here, today ought to be May twenty-first."

Edited 2024-12-14 20:48 (UTC)

"Today is December thirteenth in my calendar."

"So either way you slice it, it makes little sense," Susan frowns.

"Do you think the spirits are confused?"

"I don't believe there are any spirits," she admits. "I know it's the going hypothesis but I haven't seen sufficient evidence."

"What do you think it is? The house?"

"Yes, or some queer feature of the world. There's a power, certainly, but I don't expect it's any sort of entity." Susan is quite familiar with entities. This feels rather different.

Galahad nods. Everything time he has this conversation with someone it feels like collecting data and placing it into a file, where he can examine it when he wants.

"What do you think?" Obviously Susan trusts Galahad's observations more than most; she knows precisely how methodical he is.

As he said to Constance, he says, "I think they are gods. Small gods. Powerful, but limited in their scope, as God was in the Old Testament."

"Small gods," Susan repeats, picturing the river gods of Narnia. "Like Bacchus?"

"No. He is a god for everyone believes in him. I mean family gods."

"Family gods?"

"When God, in the Old Testament, says He is God of Abraham and Isaac, He means that He is their God, and no one else's. Their worship gives Him power. I think the spirits are like that. Gods of this house, with power here."

Susan looks thoughtful at that. "You think there's enough belief to sustain such a thing?"

"I believe there may be."

Coming from anyone else, Susan might reject this out of hand, but when she tilts her head and asks, "What evidence have you got?" it's yet another sign of her respect for Galahad's analysis and reasoning.

"It's anecdotal. I'm not sure how to measure it. But I believe they have different purposes. Some of us were taken before our deaths, and some after. Mine did not provide for my birthday; yours has. Some this are easily attained, and some must be strived for."

Susan isn't entirely certain that she understands. "Are there other analogues to the types of gods you're describing? In folklore, perhaps?"

Galahad thinks of the only folklore he knows, which are the Welsh stories Percival used to tell him, of Manawydan and Brân Fendigaidd, Lleu Llaw Gyffes, and his sister, Arianrhod, Taliesen the bard. These aren't what he means. There are house spirits, bwbachod and bwac, but these aren't what he means either -- he's thinking of something more powerful, though perhaps equally precise in scope.

He shakes his head, and then says, "Lan Wangji says there is a god here. He is sustained through belief, so Lan Wangji has made a shrine for him. I think the gods of this place must do the things they do here so we do not stop thinking about them."

It's not sufficient evidence for Susan. "Interesting," she says, meaning it, and makes a plan to speak to Lan Wangji about it later.

Edited 2024-12-18 01:52 (UTC)

"Lan Wangji says he is private," he adds, just so she goes in with reasonable expectations about how much Lan Wangji might tell her.

"Thank you," says Susan, and turns her mind toward questions with clearer answers. She nods at the grass in his hands. "What have you got there?"

Edited 2024-12-19 01:34 (UTC)

"It's an ootheca." The egg case is long, with a herringbone pattern on its surface. "I think it's a mantid and not a cockroach. The texture is like the other mantid oothecae we found. Cockroaches have smooth cases."

"Oh, tremendous," Susan breathes. She loops the ribbons attached to the balloons around a nearby door handle, where they bobble against the ceiling, and leans in to inspect it. "Yes, I concur. It's a mantid - though I think perhaps a species we've not seen yet."

"I would like to hatch it in the laboratory."

"I think that's a splendid idea. I should like to observe the process. I wonder..." Susan taps a finger to the side of her mouth. "I don't suppose there's a way to ensure we shall be there when it hatches."

Galahad is silent for several moments, thinking, and then says, "We could ask SecUnit whether it would allow us to watch with one of its drones." It's a fairly frivolous use of that technology, but what Galahad knows about mantids suggests that the ootheca could hatch at any time depending on how much consistent warmth it's received.

"Yes," Susan agrees. "We ought to." Refreshingly, SecUnit strikes her as the sort of person who will say plainly if that's too much to ask.

"There are too many variables to guess when it will hatch."

"There certainly are. It's simpler with more complex animals, don't you think?"

"I think perhaps they're easier to study, and so we understand the variables better. It's easier to candle the egg of a reptile than a mantid."

"Precisely," says Susan; she is, as ever, terribly pleased that Galahad takes her meaning with such frequency. Which does make one think...

"I don't suppose you'd like to go for a walk after we sort the ootheca out?"

"Yes." It's a pleasant day, and he'd only been planning to explore and draw until he'd found the ootheca. "I would like that."

"Lovely," says Susan. "I've been meaning to see if we haven't got any changes cropping up in that marshy bit past the sea-cliffs." She's also got several things she'd desperately like to speak about with a friend - particularly a friend she hasn't got any romantic entanglements with - but even though he's the best unentangled friend she's got, she hasn't decided yet whether Galahad ought to hear them. Perhaps by the time they've got the ootheca in the laboratory she will have decided.

As she starts walking in its direction, she says, "I suppose I'll have to find a place to store these queer balloons. They're terribly unwieldy."

Galahad finds that area to be productive for dragonflies -- and regular biting flies, as well -- and he also intends to take a few water samples for Constance there. Fortunately there are plenty of sampling flasks in the laboratory. He also just enjoy spending time with Susan, and considering whatever she decides to talk about.

"What are they?"

"I believe they're an evolution of a... toy, of sorts, from when I was a child," says Susan, tugging one down by its ribbon. "But it's filled with some sort of gas that's lighter than our atmosphere, and it's in one individual piece. The balloons I'm familiar with had to be constructed from two pieces of rubber."

"Do you know what chemicals are in the gas?"

"I haven't the faintest idea," says Susan, thoughtful. "Dirigibles - rigid airships - I believe used hydrogen or helium most frequently for the initial lift, but they were nothing like these balloons. They were vast enough to carry people and cargo long distances. These... I suppose they might have anything lighter than nitrogen and oxygen."

Edited 2024-12-29 05:51 (UTC)

"We could try to capture some of the gas in the laboratory. Perhaps there is a way to find its composition."

"I shall leave the balloons there until we find a way to extract the gas," says Susan, decisively. "I wonder if Constance mightn't know a good way to test it?"

"She's very knowledgeable." The kinds of science Constance studies are very different from the behavioral and life cycle observations that make up the majority of Galahad and Susan's work.

"She is, isn't she? I'm pleased you said she might use our laboratory space for her own projects."

"So am I. I like working with another scientist, and I like that her studies are different from ours."

Susan nods her agreement. "I believe it makes this place feel more expansive, to have breadth and variety to our science."

Exactly. Galahad nods.

Susan falls into companionable silence then as they make their way to the laboratory where, as promised, she ties off her balloons around a stool. In case Constance should stop by before Susan has a chance to speak with her, she starts jotting off a note explaining them.

Meanwhile, Galahad sets up a tent enclosure for the ootheca, and checks on the other habitats while they're there, misting where necessary and occasionally adding leaves or fruit.

"I'm ready," before too very long.

"As am I." There's another gift by the door to the laboratory - an pristine pair of sturdy gardening snips tucked next to work gloves in precisely her size - and she tucks these away in her pocket and straightens. "Shall we?"

"Yes." He doesn't offer her his hand, the way he would Magnus, but he feels the pleasure of walking with a friend nonetheless.

And Susan, who is in this moment viscerally remembering Galahad as a quiet, wide-eyed little boy who could not be touched by a woman, does not snag his arm. As they make their way out of the Mansion, she asks, "How is married life treating you?"

"I'm happy," he says, and then, "Claudius is happy. He calls me husband more than he uses my name." Galahad prefers this. His name, of course, is an ugly trick and a marker of his intended purpose. Husband is a title he has chosen and earned.

"And you like it that way," says Susan, reassuring herself that this is true even as she says it - she should hate to be called 'wife' over 'Susan.' "Good. I'm ever so pleased to hear it."

"I like it," he agrees. "Are you well?"

"I am." She is, however, still turning over whether she ought to bring up her current quandary to Galahad. He's her closest friend with whom she hasn't a single whiff of romantic entanglement, but then again, he is technically Lancelot's son.

Galahad has not observed Susan enough to know when she's not saying something, and he nods and continues in companionable silence. If she wants to speak, she will.

Perhaps if Galahad were to speak more of marriage, or to ask Susan any specific questions, she might easily open up. As it is, she holds the front door for him, squinting against the brightness of the sunlight.

His conversation with Magnus is still on his mind, and after walking a little further he asks, "Do you think I'm different now?"

Susan regards him for a long moment. She's not noticed any sort of tremendous change - Galahad is still as thoughtful and careful as ever, and she's not certain how best to answer the question. "Would you like to be different now?"

"Magnus believes that my marriage will change the nature of our friendship."

Magnus has queer ideas about the world. "Why on earth would it change your friendship?" Susan wonders. "Is he in love with you?"

"No." Galahad is quite confident about this. He remembers what Lan Wangji said about Magnus not always knowing his own feelings. "I think he's jealous," he says.

"Jealous! Is he in love with Claudius?"

"When Lan Wangji and I began training, he was jealous."

Everything slots into place. "Ah," says Susan. "He's possessive of your time. Is that why he solicited Lancelot into keeping pointless secrets?"

It must be said that she can't keep all of the rancor from her voice; it's clear she's still displeased by Magnus's conditions for training.

This particular tone, unfortunately, escapes Galahad. "I believe so. But I don't believe that marriage would change me in that way."

"No, I can't imagine that it would," says Susan firmly. "You married Claudius for love, yes?"

"Yes."

"And you haven't got to worry about any sort of loss of freedom with your marriage, so it isn't as if there's any sort of tremendous change that should affect you."

He tilts his head. Loss of freedom isn't something he'd consider at all. Claudius says that people never bring things up for no reason, and that if something ever seems unusual to him he should pursue it.

"Have you?"

"Have I what?" Susan asks, and then realizes just how the question sounds. "I don't know. I'd thought-- but--"

It's uncharacteristic for her to be at such a loss for words, so she stops attempting to produce them completely.

"Do you want to marry Lancelot?"

Susan remembers, with startling clarity, Lancelot saying Galahad is disarming. I can find no other way to deal with him than plainly. I dislike dishonesty in general, but he asked me outright and I did not even dissemble the day he told her he loved her.

So she doesn't say, I've not thought about it at all. She's thought about little else since he'd hinted marriage and children might be something he would want. She really ought to be speaking about this with Lancelot, but first she's got to find a way to school her comportment when she broaches the subject such that he doesn't feel wary and respond in a way he thinks she might want. She should like to know his true feelings on the subject.

"I'm happy as things are," she says instead. It's not a 'no,' though. "For a long time, I thought of marriage as duty I must fulfill for my country or my family, and a--" trap is an imprecise word-- "constraint which would prevent me from living my life in the way I prefer."

Galahad nods. There were nuns, he knows, who had come to the nunnery because a marriage to Christ was better or safer than a marriage to a man. And Susan has been a queen. He understands better now, because of Claudius, what it means to be royalty when it comes to marriage.

"Marriage seems to function differently here, though."

"The two marriages here have been between people who could not have married otherwise," he points out. "I don't believe it is a large enough sample size to draw many conclusions."

"Three - no, four," says Susan, who is counting both the ineffable and the one that pre-dates its members' arrival. "On the one hand, that's still a vanishingly small sample; on the other, it's nineteen percent of our population." Susan's mental math is good, but not that quick; it's clear she's been thinking about this quite a bit. "But none with any women."

It's clear she's been thinking about this quite a bit. Galahad waits.

"So I suppose it's impossible to predict, at the moment, with any degree of accuracy what might become of a marriage."

"I believe that is true of all marriages. Claudius and I may one day no longer love one another. We may choose to break our vows. Perhaps we can calculate the probability, but we can't know the future."

Susan shakes her head. "I mean - the social ramifications. The external pressures and expectations." In all of her thinking, she's come to the conclusion that internally, at least, Lancelot would want to ensure that a marital accord is shaped to Susan's liking. "While marriages between men are the norm here, I believe every resident comes from a place where they've built expectations about how a traditional heterosexual marriage ought to be, and intentionally or not, when one has expectations, one impresses those expectations upon others."

"I understand."

She regards Galahad for a long moment, then nods to herself. "I should like to talk about this with you," she says. "At greater length. But only if it shan't make you uncomfortable." After all, even though Galahad and Lancelot have decided not to proceed as father and son, it doesn't mean such things are necessarily easy to digest.

Galahad considers this seriously; Susan deserves a thoughtful answer. Despite his feelings for Lancelot -- like a long-lost cousin, whose wellbeing is somewhat Galahad's responsibility -- when he examines whether it matters to him that Susan and Lancelot marry, or don't marry, he finds nothing. Susan is his friend and fellow scientist. Her comfort and certainty are what matter. Love is not always enough for marriage.

"I'm not uncomfortable," he tells her, and he means it.

Susan nods once more, sharply, as they start to pick their way along softer ground. "I assumed it wasn't the sort of thing Lancelot might want," she admits.

"Why?"

Susan shakes her head, on the verge of a rueful laugh. "Because he hadn't one before," she says, meaning both when he was bound to the queen, and also in all the stories she used to read Edmund.

Galahad frowns at her. "He wasn't able to before." Susan certainly seems thoughtful enough to have figured this out; he's a little taken aback that she seems not to have considered it.

"I know," says Susan. "I thought it a convenient coincidence."

"But now he has said otherwise."

"Not... precisely." Susan fidgets with the hem of her sleeve, then carefully smooths the cloth again. "He's been in a... reflective mood, lately. Since the day all of us were children."

"Since I was a child," Galahad says, since this seems to be the heart of the matter.

"Since both of you were children, yes."

"Did you care for him also?'

Susan flashes a smile at Galahad. "Not in the way I cared for you. Lancelot and I were children together."

He absorbs this. "What was it like?"

"At the time, it seemed a grand adventure. I thought we must be destined to become fast friends. In retrospect..."

A strange look crosses Susan's face. "Galahad, will you keep a secret?"

"You don't want me to tell Claudius, either?" This is an important clarification, of course, because there are things he will tell no one, but he tells Claudius most of what he learns.

Susan hesitates. She shan't pull a Magnus; what she has to say is more embarrassing than anything. "You may use your own judgement," she allows. "I shouldn't want to ask you to avoid a subject with your husband."

"All right."

And while the relevant thread has not yet reached its stunning conclusions, disaster looms on the horizon. "I'm afraid we broke the telescope in the tower," Susan confides. "I've been trying to sort out how to fix it before anyone notices ever since."

Galahad blinks. It's not exactly what he was expecting. Immediately his thoughts go to the microscope on Claudius' desk. "The lens or some other part?"

"One of the internal mechanisms. We've been trying to sort out which without making matters worse." She grimaces lightly. "There's also a matter of... denting."

"What did you do?"

"We tried to sort out how to use it," Susan says, rueful. "It all happened terribly fast, especially to a child's understanding of things."

"You should ask Tress for help. She's an inventor."

"Oh, what a splendid idea!" Susan exclaims. "That hadn't occurred to me at all."

Quietly he feels the warmth of pride, at having done something Claudius could have done -- remembering the talents of the people he knows, and divining who might help whom. Claudius sometimes tells Galahad how he's arranged such partnerships, his fingers fluttering with words as he signs what he's saying. Of course Aleksander has the answer for that, he'll say. So I told Tally-wa to talk to him. Tonight Galahad will tell him about this, and Claudius will smirk, pausing in his evening ritual. Very good, he'll say.

"Regardless," Susan says, redirecting her attention back to the task at hand. "Lancelot has been contemplative since his own return to childhood, as well as seeing you as a child." She pauses, buying some time for thought as she skirts around a puddle, considering how much or how little she ought to divulge, then says, "I believe he's contemplating the sort of things he might want, absent the environment of Camelot."

This makes perfect sense to Galahad. He has, after all, gone through the same contemplations, deciding what he should be and do without Camelot and God, choosing his own purposes. It has been freeing, but frightening, too, strange and sometimes shameful. Lancelot, too, has been wronged by Camelot and by God. He has suffered because of a divine plan. Perhaps he is also struggling now with what life might hold.

"I understand."

Another, brief hesitation. Then: "Do you and Claudius want children?"

"No. Claudius likes being an uncle."

"And you?"

That same uncomfortable feeling he had when Tally asked him about children spills through him like molten metal. "No."

Edited (SORRY MAGNUS) 2025-01-07 22:49 (UTC)

This is an eminently reasonable and sufficiently detailed response. It's good that Galahad and Claudius are on the same page. Susan nods.

"You don't either."

Edited 2025-01-07 23:51 (UTC)

Susan's answer might be no, but she can't bring herself to say no outright. She stares out at the looming treeline and says, "Peter used to call me a little mother. That's my elder brother. I helped our mother with Edmund and Lucy their entire childhoods, and when we were sent from London, I essentially took over their care entirely."

Galahad is silent, thoughtful, considering the purpose of these words. Susan isn't someone who speaks just to speak; there's surely significance here. "Did you like it?"

"Do you know, that's not something I've ever truly considered. It's something I thought necessary at the time, and so I did it because it was expected. Edmund didn't often care for it. Lucy, who was littlest, did. At times I think I was as much a mother to her as our mother was." Susan presses her lips together. "Just as it was expected that I would one day marry and have children."

"You weren't given choices."

"No," agrees Susan, quietly relieved that Galahad has got it spot-on. "I suppose that's the distinction between Lancelot and I. He hadn't any real choices, either, because of an initial choice he made, but I hadn't any choices largely because of my sex and my position in society and my family. I suppose we're mostly alike, though; I expect we're both trying to sort out what we'd like with choice given - or returned - to us." They're nearly at the marshy area now, and Susan skirts another puddle. "I used to anticipate with such dread the day I'd need to settle down with some man."

Galahad nods again. "Does Lancelot understand?"

"He knows my longstanding feelings on the matter."

"What are you uncertain of?"

Susan sighs. "Several things," she says. "Primarily, I shouldn't want to prevent him from having choices, especially when--"

Galahad waits, patiently, and doesn't even look away at the dragonfly that buzzes past his peripheral vision.

"I can't sort out how much of my dread came from not being able to envision falling in love with a man."

"Because marriage and motherhood would have been yoked to loving a man."

"Yes."

"And now it's different. It's a choice."

"And I must sort out if it's the sort of thing I still shouldn't ever want, or if it's the sort of thing I might do if Lancelot wanted and come to resent, or if it's the sort of thing I might do if Lancelot wanted and come to cherish," says Susan with a sigh. "And then there is also Janet to consider."

Once again he waits for her to continue. He can imagine what she might be invoking, but it's better to hear her say it than to presume.

But this is one of the rare times where this is as complete a thought as Susan has on the matter, and she says no more.

Galahad gets out his notebook and begins making notes about the marsh plants -- marsh mallow and samphire, beach tea and glasswort: the number and pattern of their leaves and petals, what insects seem attracted to them. After a little while, he asks, "What about Queen Janet?"

Susan startles. "Oh," she says. "I suppose I shouldn't want to put her out."

"What does that mean?"

"It means -" Susan pauses to lean in close to a beetle ambling up a buttonbush stem, trying to decide if it's one they've already cataloged. "I mean, she and I are together, too. I can't imagine she'd be thrilled."

"If you married?"

"Precisely."

"Why?"

"I do suppose that when we spoke about it, it was in the context of finding out you've been seeing someone who went and got married without telling you about it, but she doesn't care to feel like the other woman, and I did assure her she needn't worry about such things in our relationship."

"You don't want to lose her by changing your mind about Lancelot."

"I don't want to lose her," Susan agrees. "More importantly, I shouldn't want to hurt her."

He nods. It was an easy decision, in this regard, to marry Claudius; there was no one else to think of. If Claudius worried that any of his relationships would change because of marriage, he's never said so to Galahad, and he didn't hesitate in accepting Galahad's proposal.

But Susan loves one man who might want to marry and one woman who does not want to be the person outside a marriage. At the same time, marriage is only something Lancelot might have wanted, if he had been afforded the choice, just as he might have wanted the choice to raise Galahad, whether or not he wanted children to begin with. It doesn't appear that Susan has been given any ultimatum, or even that Lancelot has expressed a desire to marry her.

Galahad processes this. It seems as if, perhaps, Susan is just worrying aloud, gathering her thoughts by speaking them.

"Mn," he says, in case she thinks he's not listening because he's not looking at her.

Susan nods, even though Galahad can't see her, and works in silence for a little while, inspecting some rotting leaf matter. Eventually, she says, "But you find it worthwhile."

"Yes. I'm very happy."

She files this away. "Might I ask - what's different now? If anything."

"Nothing has changed in the things we do every day. I have my schedule. Claudius does too. After I leave his breakfast we often don't see one another until evening. But we are married. I may call him husband. No one can doubt that I love him, and I have joined myself to him. Every day we defy God. We are an affront to the Church. He has what he might not have hoped to have." Galahad looks up at her, his gaze intent. This is a long speech, and it doesn't always come easily to him to arrange his thoughts into words, but every piece of it is important. "He knows that he is different in the way Lan Wangji is different. His sworn brother. They share a state. He is not an outsider. He's part of an exclusive fellowship. I can tell he's happy."

Susan perks up at the mention of defying God, and then does a very Susan Pevensie sort of slump (her shoulders lower infinitesimally) again. "Perhaps if a man marrying a woman were that sort of affront I'd have more clarity in my feelings," she muses. Living in sin seems more effective on that front, however. "I'm tremendously pleased for you, you know. It's lovely that you're both so happy." She might've had complicated feelings at the wedding itself, but she cherishes both Galahad and Claudius, and the feelings were unrelated to their relationship. "So the change is in the intangible, and certainly not in the programmatic."

"Yes." He feels a faint, fond glow at her warmth, and for a flash of a moment he smiles.

"I do so appreciate your candor and your counsel," she adds, withdrawing the telephone Crowley gave her from her pocket and taking a close-up photo of some ants at the edge of the leaf matter she's been inspecting.

"I like speaking with you. I like that you're direct. And I like the way you think about things." He pauses. "What is that?"

"It's ever so good we're friends," she says, visibly pleased, and pauses to take another photograph. "I'm documenting the ants."

"Is that a camera?"

"It has camera-like qualities. It hasn't got film though; I've got no idea how to turn the images into proper photographs. Crowley says it's a telephone."

"I don't know what a telephone is either," Galahad admits.

"No, of course you wouldn't. They're a fairly recent invention. Telephones are devices which enable you to speak to others with great distance between you - miles and miles and miles - and you haven't got to wait like you would with a letter. But," and she looks down at the object in her hands, "they look terribly different to this where I come from."

"May I look at it?"

"Yes, of course," says Susan, and then she stills. "Just one moment." She taps on the screen a few times, and then passes the telephone over. It's open to the albums screen of her photographs. "I recommend specifically looking at the 'Regina' and the 'Arthropods and Detrivores' albums rather than, ah, any other photographs." It is, of course, for his own sake that she's recommending this.

He nods. Considering the content of many of the Polaroids he and Claudius have taken for one another, he can at least imagine what Susan is sparing him. He touches the Regina folder, and is delighted when rows upon rows of photographs appear, each tiny square showing Regina engaged in some charming antic or sleeping in a particularly adorable pose. Indeed, his only complaint is, "They're so small."

"Ah! I can help with this," Susan says, pleased to have sorted out some of the less-obvious eccentricities of the device. "If you tap one, it shall take up the entire screen, and then you can make it larger by dragging two fingers apart on the surface."

Edited 2025-01-13 22:48 (UTC)

Oh, yes, that works quite well. Galahad flashes her a quick, brief smile when Regina, lying on her back with her tummy raised to the sunlight, paws tucked under her chin, becomes maximized.

"Isn't she so darling?" Susan sighs. "Just utterly delightful."

"She's very beautiful and very charming," solemnly.

"Isn't she just?" Susan sighs again, happily. "I'm ever so glad I found her. I say - are you going to turn into a cat again?"

"I have thought of asking. I enjoyed it. If it isn't too much trouble for Queen Janet to do it again, I may ask her."

"Between you and me, I believe she'd be thrilled," Susan says. "Now that she's sorted out how to do it in the first place, I imagine she'd rather like showing off her hard work and skill again. Next time we shall have to bring you to meet Regina whilst in your cat form."

Edited 2025-01-14 02:58 (UTC)

"I'd like that." He considers her comment. "She's very skilled."

"Isn't she?"

Galahad looks up at Susan, studying her face. "Do you love her?"

Somehow this takes Susan by total surprise. "What?"

"Queen Janet. You love her, I think." He shouldn't have been so imprecise with his question.

Edited 2025-01-14 15:17 (UTC)

"Do you?" she asks, still surprised. "I've not thought about it."

"I noticed when I was a cat."

With immense curiosity and a measure of trepidation, Susan asks, "What did you notice?"

"You called her sweetheart, and then you were surprised. And when you were sad, you were glad she was there, but you were different with her than you are with me. I think--" He hesitates, aware that he could easily be misunderstanding, and in doing so overstepping. "I believe that it matters to you what she thinks of you, because you love her."

Susan presses her lips together and hums. Galahad was right about Lancelot, even though it took her some time to see it. He's a very perceptive man. But is he right about Janet?

She shall have to reflect on this at length. "Thank you," she says.

"You're welcome."

"I suppose I shall have to reflect on this now." Her tone is either playful or resigned or shocked; she's aiming for the first, but her thoughts are in turmoil.

Galahad studies her. Her tone of voice is still largely opaque to him, but his beliefs about her feelings were clearly new information and he was, perhaps, presumptuous. Susan usually asks directly when she wants his opinion.

"I'm sorry if I overstepped," he says.

Susan blinks and then proceeds to wrestle herself into a better state of control. "Overstepped?" she says. "Of course you haven't overstepped."

He nods: he believes her.

"Truth be told, I cannot fathom you overstepping," she adds. "Is it something that you're concerned about generally?"

"Not with you," Galahad says. "I trust you."

"Good," says Susan. "I'm pleased to hear it. --And besides, I'm afraid I've got a tendency of making it immediately known if I feel someone has overstepped."

"I prefer that."

"As do I," Susan agrees. "Things are so much more straightforward when they're made clear, don't you think?"

"Yes." He hands the phone back to her. "Have you lied to someone about your feelings? Not purposefully, but because you didn't know how you felt?"

Susan slips it back into her pocket, considering the question. "What sort of lie?" she asks, brow lightly furrowed. "By omission, certainly."

"Whether you were all right. Whether something was wrong."

Susan tilts her head. "No," she decides, after a long few moments of reflection. "I have lied purposefully about my feelings, but I believe the only lies I've told about my feelings due to a lack of understanding have all been by omission rather than by explicit statements. Such as not telling Miriam - a friend of mine from London - that I loved her."

"Why did you choose not to tell her?" momentarily following this thread away from his main question.

"No." Susan shakes her head again and attempts for greater precision. "That was the lie of omission. I didn't come to understand my feelings until after I arrived here."

"I understand. Although you didn't understand your feelings, you didn't attempt to define them either, so she was not mislead by your words."

"Precisely. And the times I've lied about my feelings were primarily because I did not wish to discuss them. Many people don't care to confront the depths of one's grief, for example, and so I would often downplay the specifics after I lost my family." Susan tilts her head. "I do suppose in the years I forgot that Narnia was real, I was honest about my feelings, but my feelings were built on inaccurate data."

He nods. What Susan is describing -- the ability to pretend something matters less because other people would prefer it that way -- is an ability he's never had, but he sees it in Claudius, who reads the tenor of a conversation like reading the direction of the wind and adapts himself accordingly, regardless of his true feelings. Lately he's done better at not shaping himself into the most palatable version of him, but Galahad still worries.

"Why do you ask?"

He hesitates, then says, "Magnus lied to me about his feelings. But he also did not understand himself."

Before she can stop herself, Susan asks, "And did he bother to try to think about them first?"

"I don't know."

"My apologies," says Susan, immediately contrite. As has been soundly established, she never apologizes for anything unless she both truly, genuinely means it and is prepared to confront any underlying emotions or concerns. "I oughtn't speak poorly of your friend to you."

Galahad considers this. Magnus is someone who feels and speaks more than he thinks. That's what vibes are, isn't it? Is it speaking ill of Magnus to acknowledge that he didn't think about his feelings before he mislead Galahad? Magnus is Galahad's best friend, but that doesn't mean Galahad is ignorant of his faults.

"It's all right," he tells Susan.

Still, Susan shan't bring up her myriad issues with Galahad's friend, even though she's still infuriated that he asked so much of Lancelot. "Thank you," she says.

"Thank you," Galahad says, meaning for her input on the question of hidden feelings; he trusts her, as a friend and a fellow scientist, and he's grateful for her openness.

"You're terribly welcome, of course," says Susan, whipping her phone out to take another photograph, this time of a brightly-colored beetle. "I don't suppose you'd have any interest in helping me sort out some parts of a social calendar for when the weather gets much colder, would you? Just the parts that would be enjoyable to you, naturally, not the large-scale events." She's noticed, of course, that he can be a bit of a wallflower and prefers not to be the center of attention or stay overlong in large gatherings.

"I would like to help you." He's back to sketching a marsh plant he doesn't recognize.

"I'm terribly glad to hear it," says Susan, now leaning in to inspect the beetle in full. "I thought perhaps you might have opinions on the lecture series - I say! What a curiously-shaped carapace." She takes another photograph.

Galahad at once turns to look. "Is it a tortoise beetle?" It has the slight transparency and flared edges of a tortoise beetle, but they don't typically prefer this sort of habitat. "Have many people volunteered to lecture?"

"There's been a reasonable assortment," Susan says, now retrieving her notebook from her pocket to check her notes on other beetles they've found. "Grantaire has indicated a willingness to speak on any subject at any time, naturally. Do you suppose it's an Earth beetle or one from a different world? The patterning in the center seems quite queer."

"I have a collection jar," reaching into his messenger bag. It's difficult to determine whether the beetle is not of Earth simply because of the sheer number of possible species, and the best way to do further investigation is to bring it back to the laboratory. He can collect a plant sample as well.

"Oh, perfect!" says Susan, pleased that he's always so delightfully prepared. She sets her notebook and telephone to the side and moves to assist, easing a hand behind the beetle so she might urge it into the jar.

The beetle, thus hassled, scuttles into the jar, and Galahad, with the tiny pair of snippers Claudius gave him for clipping herbs from their garden or small-stemmed plant samples to bring home, cuts a sprig of the host plant before sealing both in the jar.

"I do wish we had a device that could detect soil information as effectively as Lan Wangji's counterpart did last spring," Susan says, as Galahad closes the jar. Her attention is split between the movement, and the marshy ground from which the plant is growing. "We hadn't the sea at all when he took his readings."

He nods; Lan Zhan had done in one afternoon work that could have taken weeks. "Perhaps he'll return."

"Perhaps!" Susan agrees. "Though I suppose we mustn't bank on it."

"No. But I would like to to see him again."

"Was he terribly different? I hadn't the opportunity to meet him."

"He wasn't, but..." A quiet moment. "I liked those differences, too."

"Oh?"

"I'm sorry. I don't have specific examples, only vibes."

"Vibes?"

"They are a kind of intuition or feeling. An impression. Unscientific," with the subtlest dry inflection.

"Ah." Susan turns the definition over in her mind. "What a tremendously useful word."

"Yes, it's very useful. I try to use evidence, but I often have vibes."

"I believe I might as well," says Susan (who despite her best intentions often makes her mind up about people with incredible rapidity) with a small measure of resignation.

Galahad looks over at her with a faint smile. "It's unfortunate."

"I do wonder at the etymology. I've only ever heard the term used in reference with a vibraphone... perhaps it's that vibrations might leave impressions?"

"Queen Janet may know." She is, after all, from the future, and has completed more school than Magnus.

"Perhaps," says Susan, thoughtfully. "I've only ever heard her use similar words in... rather different contexts."

A slight tilt of his head.

Matter-of-fact, Susan says, "A 'vibrator' is an electronic device used for sexual stimulation."

A slight flush warms the pale skin of his face. "I understand." He will ask Claudius for more information later.

If Susan's cheeks are also stained with a flush, she certainly isn't acknowledging it! "So you can see that there seems to be some degree of etymological disparity."

"Queen Janet may be able to explain that too."

"Oh, quite possibly," says Susan, fondly, before taking a look around the area. "I believe I might take some samples before we wrap up here."

Edited 2025-02-03 16:25 (UTC)

He nods. "How can I help?"

"You've got sample containers, yet? I've got ones appropriate for soil and leaf matter, but they won't hold the marshy bits at all, and I imagine water samples would be tremendously useful, now that Constance has got her studies going." It's not precisely how Constance is studying the water in the area, but it surely can't hurt.

With another nod, Galahad opens his messenger bag and begins to search for liquid sample containers.

And Susan pulls on the gloves the house has left her, settling in to take and label the samples they gather, warmed - as usual - by Galahad's attention to detail, preparedness, and friendship.

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

"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."

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

"By my count, my birthday is in seven months. By Galahad's, my birthday is in three days. And yet..." Susan twists the balloons - which she's still carrying - so Tress might see the message.

She looks at it. "Huh. Maybe it's going by Galahad's count and giving you a slightly early gift?"

"Perhaps I've bullied it too much and it's trying to appease me," Susan says, which is certainly some sort of attempt at a joke.

"Somehow I didn't even consider that option."

"Perhaps it's covering all of its bases." Susan doesn't believe this, naturally.

"You never know, I guess. I've been keeping track of my calendar too. I guess I can let you know if I get presents a few days earlier than my birthday?"

"Please do," says Susan. "What sort of calendar do they use in your home? Is it similar to the one here?"

"Not to the one here so much, no. I'm not sure the calendar here is similar to anyone's."

"But you've worked out when your birthday would be?"

"I've been keeping track of how long I've been here, and I know when I left home, so yes, I suppose so."

"When would your birthday be?" Susan wonders, and then, in quick succession, "How many days are in a year, where you're from? How do you divide time into smaller increments? Have you also got months and weeks?"

"In about a week. From what I've gathered, my calendar is actually pretty similar to the one on your world. Although I don't think it's for quite the same reason, because we have twelve months because we have twelve moons."

"The months on our calendar were originally based on how frequently our moon was full," Susan offers, when the other part of Tress's statement catches up to her. "A week! That's so close."

"Not as close as three days, if Galahad's calendar is correct," she says with a little smile.

Susan waves this off. "Have you got plans?"

She shrugs. "Not really. Maybe I'm just being a little superstitious, but it feels like it would be tempting fate a bit."

"Tempting fate! In what way?"

"I didn't have a very nice one last year, and there's still a week for the mansion to do something that might ruin any plans I make."

Susan flicks through her mental calendar, then nods. "How dreadful," she says. "A bad visitor, or no visitor at all?"

"A pretty awful one."

"Oh, how dreadful," says Susan, and then briskly adds, "I shan't compel you to revisit the memory any further. What sort of birthday traditions have you got in your world?"

"Oh, we always just had small family get-togethers. A sweet treat and a present or two."

"That's the sort of celebration I'm used to, as well," says Susan, giving the balloons a reproachful look.

"So all of this is a little much, I'm guessing?"

"I suppose so, yes. It's certainly unexpected."

"Unexpected isn't exactly uncommon here, at least."

Susan blinks. "Yes," she says. "That's true."

"At least as long as it's a good sort of unexpected, because moons know those can go either way."

Edited 2024-12-21 05:31 (UTC)

"I suppose it's not bad," says Susan, though if it's near her birthday, it's also near the anniversary of her family's deaths.

"Just think of them as early gifts, I suppose. How early they are can be debatable."

"Very wise," says Susan. "It's very nearly your birthday; would like one of these?" She proffers the balloons.

She reaches out to take the balloon. "Oh, thank you!"

"You're terribly welcome." Susan will absolutely be baking Tress a little treat for her birthday. In the meantime, though -- "Tress, have you considered involvement in the play?"

She blinks. "No, not really. I don't know that I'd be much use."

"Whyever not?"

"I don't know anything about helping with a play. I don't even know what I could do that would be useful."

"Why, there's all sorts of ways to be involved. They needn't involve acting; there's also set construction, choreography, lighting..."

"I'm sure there are tons of ways to help, yes, but I don't know how to do any of them."

"Why, you could learn, of course. I imagine some of your spores might be of great use, but even without them, you needn't know how to do anything up front. Part of the excitement is in learning, don't you think?"

She considers this. "You're right. I can do my best, anyway."

"You certainly can. I do think it will be terribly fun."

Tress nods. "All right. I'll help out."

"Oh! Lovely. I'm so pleased to hear it."

"I'll help out whatever needs it most."

"Nina and Bacchus shall be thrilled to hear it."

She laughs. "Here's hoping I'm actually helpful, then."

"Oh, you shall be. I'm certain of it."

"I guess I've surprised myself before."

Sensing a story, Susan makes an encouraging noise.

"Oh. Well, deciding to rescue Charlie myself, first of all. ... And then pretty much everything I ever did after that."

"What did you do?"

She starts ticking things off on her fingers, restarting from the beginning as she runs out of fingers. "Impersonated a royal inspector to get off the island I grew up on, stowed away on a ship, escaped the brig during a sea battle, walked across the spores during a stilling also during the sea battle, climbed on board a pirate ship, joined the crew, became a sprouter even if I was terrified of spores, let people think I was a secret assassin, helped in a mutiny attempt, made a deal with a dragon, became a ship's captain, sailed the Crimson and Midnight seas, managed to do it without getting anyone killed, confronted the Sorceress... there's a bit more but those are the main bits."

There's quite a lot to unpack there! Susan starts with the obvious. "The Crimson and Midnight seas?"

"Each sea has a different color of spores that falls from the moon over its center. Each color of spore has a different effect when water hits it. Those two are the most dangerous, not just because of what the spores do but because the rain, especially in the Crimson, is unpredictable."

"Rain is predictable elsewhere?"

She nods. "Very. You can map it out a century in advance."

"A century! Truly?"

"At least. Which is good for sailing, otherwise it would be even more treacherous than it already can be."

Edited 2024-12-27 17:17 (UTC)

"How truly phenomenal," Susan breathes. "The only truly predictable thing about the rain in London was that it came frequently."

She laughs. "That bad?"

"It was often rather damp."

"I imagine so! I'm sure there have to be some sort of advantages to that, at least?"

"Vanishingly few. I suppose it does make one grateful for the rare sunny day."

"Oh, right, you probably don't even have moonshadows every day."

"I do beg your pardon?"

"Because our moons are so big in the sky, the sun goes behind them for a little while every day and it gets darker out."

Susan recalls the spore pamphlet she's read several times. "You've got one for each sea, is that right?"

She nods. "They're spread evenly around the planet."

"And they don't move, or go through phases?"

"Not really. Well, not like the moons here, anyway. They move along with the planet as it spins, but they stay in the same place in the sky."

"Do they cause disruptions in the spores?" Susan wonders, thinking of how the moon affects the tides on Earth.

Tides aren't really a thing in Lumar as such, so she doesn't interpret the question quite correctly. "The spores fall from the moons, so the sea is higher when you get to the lunagrees. It's like sailing uphill."

How truly incredible! "But do they... churn more, I suppose... the closer you get?"

Tress thinks the question over a bit. "I don't think so. Not really, anyway. Which makes sense, though, because the Seethe comes from down at the seafloor."

"The Seethe?"

"It's how the seas... work, basically. There's a stream of air bubbles that rise up from the seafloor and let the spores move in a way that they can be sailed on. Sometimes it stops for a while. That's called a Stilling, and ships just freeze in place."

"Air bubbles from the sea floor," Susan murmurs. "I don't suppose there's any books about the geology of your home in the library here?"

"I don't know. I haven't looked for any."

"If you find any, I should very much like to read them."

"I'll keep an eye out, then. It's probably a better idea than whatever I can muster up to explain it."

"I suppose I might look, too, but I'm afraid I mightn't know where to start."

"I haven't looked too much for books from home, but I'll see what I can find. And if you stumble on something just from being lucky, that works too!"

"It's a plan, then."

"Agreed."

"Now," says Susan; since the queer oceanography of Tress's world has been addressed, she's got more questions about other topics. "What's this about a secret assassin?"

"It wasn't really my idea? It's just that a bunch of the crew thought I was, and... well, I told them I wasn't, but I knew there was one thing I could say that would make it certain, and I just... didn't."

"One thing?"

"It's kind of silly. If you're a King's Mask, you can't say you're a King's Mask, so when I just kept denying it, it kept reinforcing to them that I was just trying to hide it..."

"How tremendously odd," says Susan, frank.

"And a little bit frustrating, to be honest."

"I imagine it must be."

"It all got cleared up in the end, at least."

"How's that?"

"They ended up realizing it when I... really couldn't do what an actual King's Mask could have done."

"You mean when you infiltrated a pirate's ship, sailed dangerous seas, and defeated a sorceress?"

She pauses. "The Sorceress hadn't actually been defeated yet at that point."

"No?"

Tress nods. "They figured it out when our mutiny failed at the captain hauled me off the ship to try and sell me to a dragon."

Susan blinks. "Oh, naturally."

"Yeah. An actual King's Mask probably would have gotten through that a lot more easily."

"And they didn't think you were merely acting undercover?"

"Eventually, there comes a point where the girl from a little rock in the middle of the sea is just a girl from a little rock in the middle of the sea."

"Yes, I suppose that's true."

"It worked out all right in the end." She pauses, considering for a moment. "I think... I think on the day when some of us were replaced with other versions of ourselves, the other me was a King's Mask."

"My goodness! Have you got memories of that?"

"Only a handful. Scattered ones."

"Fascinating," says Susan, leaning forward. "I haven't got any memories of my - situation. It all seems so variable, don't you think? The memories people have."

"It is variable. I'm not sure there's much rhyme or reason to it."

"No, I've not been able to spot one," Susan sighs.

"Like rain in the Crimson," she says with a faint smile that shades in a vaguely wry direction.

"Precisely like," says Susan, with an equally-faint smile.

Tress nods to Susan's balloons. "Not that we didn't know this place was a little bit nonsensical sometimes."

"I suppose at least it's consistent, in its inconsistencies."

"True enough. It would be worse if we'd gotten used to it one way and then it just changed."

"Oh, tremendously."

"Although, really? I don't think I'd like it if it were too predictable either."

"No, we shouldn't want it to get dull," says Susan, though she wouldn't mind a lengthy break from all the upheaval. It does get in the way of her agendas.

Edited 2025-01-07 03:31 (UTC)

Tress thrives in upheaval a bit more than she realizes, her own plans and diligence notwithstanding, so if her responding nod is a bit emphatic, it's to be expected in a way.

"What do you suppose the next nonsense shall be?" Susan asks, and then, "Do you suppose it would be diverting to set up a betting pool for predicting its nonsense? The winner might... oh, I don't know. The winner might select the topic of Grantaire's next lecture - I mean to initiate the lectures soon. Or perhaps you and I might bake the winner a prize."

Edited 2025-01-07 05:26 (UTC)

"If nobody guesses it, would nobody get the prize? Or would we just decide who was the closest?"

Susan purses her lips. "Perhaps - nobody, but the next time the prize shall be doubled."

"Oh, I like it."

"Then we're in agreement," says Susan, pleased.

"It's easy enough to be in agreement about good ideas."

"And between you and me, we've got a vast array of them."

"More than a lot of people would in our place, anyway."

This startles a little laugh out of Susan. "Why, Tress," she says, delighted. "I do believe you're right."

Tress laughs in return. "I'd certainly hope so."

"I didn't realize you had a conspiratorial streak," Susan confesses.

"I did take part in a mutiny."

"Yes, I suppose you did mention something to that effect."

"That's at least a little bit conspiratorial, I think."

"Oh, rather," Susan laughs.

"It would have been better if it were a successful mutiny, probably..."

"I don't know, I believe becoming captain eventually speaks to some measure of success."

"That wasn't because of the mutiny, though, even if it happened pretty soon after."

"Tress," says Susan, in the same sort of counseling tones she might have, at one point, used to talk Lucy through a thorny situation with her school-mates, "I do hope you don't take this the wrong way, but - you really oughtn't diminish your presence."

"Oh. Yes, I suppose you're right. Old habit, really."

"I don't mean to chide you, but many men would believe a woman who minimizes her importance. You oughtn't give them the ammunition."

"I think," she says slowly after a bit of deliberation, "that I wouldn't care about the opinion of anyone who would think so anyway."

"No," Susan agrees, pleased to hear it. "Nor should you. But they can still make life tremendously difficult."

"I'll try to keep it in mind."

"Very good."

"At least, as far as I can tell, there aren't many people like that here."

"I would say they're in the minority, certainly."

"Thankfully."

"Yes, it's rather fortunate."

"I think they're probably in the minority everywhere. It's just that they're obnoxious enough to be especially noticeable."

A strange look crosses Susan's face. "That isn't my experience," she says. "but I'm pleased it's yours."

"I'm sorry it's not yours, too."

Businesslike, "It is what it is." She clears her throat. "Now then! I propose we go and see if this place has coughed up another birthday pastry for me in the kitchen. Interested?"

"That sounds like a perfect plan."

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.

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

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

"According to my count, my birthday is in just under seven months. According to Galahad's, it's in three days."

Such a minor, nearly inconsequential mystery. Lan Wangji considers it, but can make nothing of it. Claudius might have better insight. "I once offered to serve you tea once Dark had concluded. Although it is not your birthday, the offer stands."

"Oh! Yes, of course." Susan had, in truth, quite forgot. "I would love some tea, thank you."

Of course, Lan Wangji's face doesn't change whatsoever, but he is pleased. He is always pleased for the opportunity to serve tea to someone. He nods. "Come with me, then." And he turns to head directly back toward the kitchen he just left.

"Very well," says Susan. She's not a follower, but his legs are so long she's got to take two quick steps for every one of his to keep apace.

On the bright side, although Lan Wangji walks quickly, he does it with a certain air of unhurried calm, as if he is unconcerned about the time at which he might reach his destination. Additionally, the kitchen is not far -- of course it is the smaller one he nearly always uses, the one with a clean wok ready and waiting atop the stove and whose cabinets are well-stocked with all the ingredients he might first reach for. "You may sit," he offers as he crosses to the cupboard that contains the components of a modest tea service.

Susan doesn't. "Might I help?"

Thankfully, Lan Wangji recognizes readily the kind of person who needs a task. "You may set some water to heat on the stove, if you like."

"You don't use the kettle?"

"I predate electricity by at least a thousand years, and I am set in my ways." Lan Wangji is neatly arraying items on the kitchen table: tea caddy, tea tray, teapot and cups.

"I predate this sort of thing as well, but it's tremendously useful." But Lan Wangji had specified the stove, so Susan fills a traditional kettle and sets it on the flame.

"Mn." Lan Wangji has no doubt at all that it is useful; if he needed to make tea in the most efficient manner possible, he might concede to the use of electricity. But that is not why he likes to serve tea. "Thank you," he says, in any case, as he rifles tidily through the tea cakes in his caddy.

Susan usually prefers her tea as expediently as possible, but she's never opposed to a proper service. With the kettle heating on the stove, she steps back to watch.

It is a fairly modest setup, but Lan Wangji is fond of it: the cloud-patterned pot and cups, the bamboo tray, the faint but unmistakable scent of tea leaves in the air as he plucks a tightly-packed cake of oolong from the caddy with his tongs and sets it neatly within the teapot, awaiting the water.

"The patterning on that is lovely," Susan observes, mostly for the sake of saying something. She holds her hand near the side of the kettle. It's warming, but will still take a minute or two longer.

Lan Wangji glances toward her with a nearly imperceptible softening of his expression. "Claudius called these into being when he was in the body of Crowley's angel." Naturally, he kept them, and has used them often ever since.

"Claudius is ever so thoughtful," says Susan, her own expression also softening.

"He has been a steadfast friend and brother," Lan Wangji agrees. The depth of his fondness feels glaring to him, as if it must be shining forth from every nuance of his expression, but he knows by now that what he feels is obvious in him is rarely notable to others.

Susan, whose expressions are also often muted, can sense at least a fraction of that warmth. "Yes, he's lovely," she agrees, matching that affection. "He's always been good to me - oh!" The kettle has come to a boil; she switches off the stove and lifts it away, offering it to Lan Wangji.

"Thank you." Lan Wangji takes the kettle, plucks the lid from the teapot, and pours the hot water within in a careful stream. Almost immediately, the scent intensifies as the tea cake breaks up and the tea begins to steep.

Susan closes her eyes, inhaling happily. "Oh, that's lovely."

This infinitesimal twitch to Lan Wangji's mouth very well might herald a smile. "Mn. Tell me your opinion of the taste, too." For now, it must steep.

"Oh, I shall." Susan hesitates, hovering, and then says, "Ought I find some digestives?" There's likely some still lying around from the batch she made yesterday.

"Digestives?" Lan Wangji inquires, politely curious.

"Digestive biscuits," Susan clarifies. "The ones you take with tea. Have you got anything of the sort where you're from?"

"If I were to serve food alongside this tea, it might be dried fruits or nuts."

"Interesting. Any particular varieties?"

"Dates and pears, perhaps. Walnuts." Without admitting that he feels any particular way about this, Lan Wangji adds, "I have seen several fruits here that I had never seen before."

"There's ever so many, aren't there? And from such queer places," says Susan, thinking of the moment Laertes was first able to draw at toffee-tree fruit from the icebox.

"Mn. There is an entire continent I never knew existed."

"Which? One of the Americas? Africa? Australia?"

"I meant North America, but both Americas qualify." He had, of course, been thinking of Magnus asking him to learn Mexican food.

"And I imagine that even with the continents you did know of, the nature of trade routes and travel in your time would forbid genuine familiarity with many of their native species?" This is, of course, largely speculative; Susan is making a number of assumptions based on the timing of the discovery of the Americas.

"Mn," he says again, agreeing. "I believe I come from at least a thousand years before several of the residents here, and several hundred before most of the rest."

"So long ago!"

That comment seems to require no response, so Lan Wangji says nothing. Instead, he holds back his sleeve and pours them each a cup of tea, now-loose leaves swirling at the surface of each one before they begin to sink.

Susan closes her eyes and inhales deeply. "Positively scrumptious," she declares, and then her eyes fly open again. "Do you take cream or sugar?"

"No," Lan Wangji says, meeting Susan's gaze perhaps out of surprise more than anything else.

She blinks. "I take it that's not standard with your sort of tea service?"

"No," he says again, a little more gently this time. "I had that sort of tea once. With Detective Chief Inspector Nightingale."

"Ah! Thomas," says Susan, as fond as ever when her friend is mentioned. "He brews precisely the sort of cuppa I'm used to." It's ever so comforting. She does miss their little chats.

"You may try cream and sugar in my tea if you like, but it may alter the taste unfavorably."

"No, I shall drink it as intended."

The approval in his expression is almost entirely invisible, and so it may go unnoticed, but Lan Wangji nods. He takes a seat at the table, then; the portion of events wherein he prepares the tea has concluded, and they may sit in order to share it. He takes his cup, holding it in both hands, but waits for Susan before he drinks.

Susan sits across from him. He'll have to wait for a minute or two, because the important first step in any cuppa is, of course, wrapping your hands around it and inhaling the delicate scent. Her eyes drift closed as she breathes it in, and her face goes lax and soft. One must imagine she looks her age in a moment like this.

Lan Wangji doesn't mind the wait at all. The slow unfurling of the ritual is at least half of what he likes about serving tea: the enforced pauses, the intervals as he waits for the water to heat, for the leaves to steep, for the delicate little cups and their contents to cool to a tolerable temperature. He watches the slackening of Susan's face, and although he knows her very little, it seems as if he can see the accumulation of burdens and duties she has taken upon herself only in this moment, when she sets them briefly aside.

When she opens her eyes again, she gathers her consequence around her. "It smells lovely," she says, and takes a tiny sip.

Only now that Susan has tasted it does Lan Wangji take his own slow mouthful, a savoring one. The flavor is bright, grassy, almost sweet if not for its mild bitterness.

Susan sighs happily, secretly mildly shocked that this cuppa needs neither milk nor sugar. "I do so love a good cup of tea," she says.

Subtle it may be, but Lan Wangji's expression is one of sincere gladness at seeing that Susan is enjoying it, given what a departure it is from the tea she knows best. "As do I." He pauses, but he has been soothed by the tea and by the flash of quiet vulnerability from Susan, and he gathers himself to speak on rather than settling into only silence. "Brewing, pouring, and serving it is considered an art form in itself in Gusu."

"I've heard that it still is in my time, in several parts of Asia."

"If I understand the maps I have consulted from well in my future, Gusu later takes the name Suzhou, which is in a country called China."

"I'm familiar," says Susan, trying to recall her notes from the last political science class she took in London.

With simultaneous interest and trepidation, Lan Wangji takes a mouthful of tea and waits to see whether she volunteers further knowledge of his home and its fate.

"Would you like to hear of it? I'm afraid its present circumstance is... complicated."

This does not sound auspicious. "Gusu? Or all of China?"

"All of China, unless - have you any idea what province Suzhou might be in? Or the closest Yuan-controlled municipality? No," she shakes her head. "I believe they've just changed the term... province-administered city, perhaps? -I'm afraid my geographic knowledge is limited."

"I would have to consult the maps again," Lan Wangji admits. "I only knew it by its landmarks and its location along the coast."

"A moment," says Susan, half-rising so she can work her notebook and pencil out of her pocket. She turns it to an empty page, and does a credible sketch of the borders of China as she remembers it. "There, now we've got a starting point."

Lan Wangji examines it, intrigued and yet feeling some quiet trepidation at how much must have changed in more than a thousand years. The shape of its coastline is familiar, or familiar enough, but the idea that all these provinces and people came together under the heading of a single country is still an unusual one. Even so, he takes the pencil; his writing is not polished without a brush, but he can draw acceptable characters with some stubbornness. He writes 姑苏, perhaps midway down the portion of easternmost coast that protrudes after it dips in with the incursion of the Yellow Sea. It is slightly west of the coast itself, just beside Biling Lake, whose broad expanse he carefully draws in for reference.

Susan squints at it. "It seems to be near Nanking and Shanghai," she says; naturally, despite the limitations of her memory, she can easily recall both a recent capital city and one of the ten largest cities in the world.

"Neither name is familiar to me," Lan Wangji says. He is not quite apologetic -- he can do nothing about the inevitable fact of history altering the landscape and the map. But he is aware of how little this gives Susan.

"Then I shall speak in generalities. Do you know of Manchuria?" Susan taps the northeastern bit of her map. "Or Japan? The island nation off the coast of Manchuria and the Korean peninsula? - Or perhaps... I believe historically it has also been called the Chosen peninsula."

"I know it as Samhan," Lan Wangji says. He knows the term Korean now thanks to having discussed the Korean restaurant beneath Magnus' home with his mother before her death. "The island off that coast is called Dongying."

Susan nods, acknowledging that the existence of these areas is, at least, known to Lan Wangji. "Have you heard of the World Wars?"

"I have not," he admits. There is an incredible, dizzying volume of human history within the library, waiting for him to catch up on it.

"In the first half of the twentieth century, there were two. So-called because they spanned much of the globe. I arrived here from the aftermath of the second, which officially spanned from 1939 to 1945... though things were rather fraught in the lead-up, too, as you might imagine. From what I understand, things in Asia were already fraught." Susan takes a sip of her tea. She sees no reason to prevaricate, so she says, "Japan invaded Manchuria in 1931 - that's nineteen years ago, in my time. This complicated internal friction in China. A civil war was set temporarily aside to resist the invasion, and resumed at its culmination."

Wars that spanned most of the globe. Lan Wangji can feel his stomach sinking, soured at the thought, although his expression is unchanging and he takes a slow sip of his tea without difficulty. It does not quite surprise him to think that war, global and civil and petty and all-consuming, continues for hundreds of years past his own likely death, if he had stayed. But it does dismay him. He meant it when he told Magnus that he hoped and intended to create a kinder world for the children who came after him. If he succeeded, that success must have melted away under the deluge of history.

In any case, he only nods, quietly absorbing the new information. Susan is not at fault, naturally. "Understood."

Susan surveys him. "It's dreadful, isn't it?" she says, softly. "I imagine it's terrible to digest all at once."

"Mn," he agrees, matching her volume. "I fought in a single war, far from large enough to span the globe." And yet, his silence implies, even a small war, a short one, was enough for him.

"I've lived through several," says Susan, quietly. "The second World War, of course, and several in Narnia: the Winter Revolution, the Ettinsmoor War, the Archenland Conflict, the War of Deliverance... I can't say I truly fought in them, but I was... involved. I hate them."

"I hate them, too." It is a simple declaration, and a quiet one, but one buoyed by perfect sincerity.

"Then we are alike in this," says Susan. She's quiet for a moment and then, fiercely, says, "They're dreadful. I imagine some must be necessary, but I can't help but imagine there might be a different way. A better way."

That burst of idealism endears Susan to Lan Wangji instantly, a little tendril of warmth, one tempered by his own experiences and regrets, unfurling somewhere within him. "Some are, in my experience," he says, "but I find that they last too long and that their effects extend too far."

"Yes," she says, thinking of the White Witch. "Yes, precisely."

Lan Wangji doesn't ask her to elaborate. If she wants to speak on it, she may, but they are not well-acquainted. The knowledge of a small kernel of shared conviction seems like enough for this moment, enough to more than justify the shared pot of tea, too.

Susan clears her throat and savors a sip of her tea. By the times she sets the cup down again, she's decided she simply wants to say, "So in sum, I'm afraid the situation in China in my time is... complicated."

Quietly serious, Lan Wangji nods. He is nursing his own tea slowly. "Matters were complicated in mine, too. Within the cultivation world and without."

"I suppose the same could be said of any place, in a great many times."

"Mn. Even this one."

"Yes." Susan hesitates for a long moment, then nods to herself. "You and Claudius are very close."

Lan Wangji is unsure where she means to take this, but in any case, he nods. "He is my closest friend, and my sworn brother."

"So you must know," she murmurs, and then lifts her eyes and meets his gaze. "Bacchus told me some truly troubling news earlier, about the reprehensible way Claudius was treated by Luo Binghe." It might not sound like a question, but there is a question undergirding her words.

Edited 2025-01-22 23:55 (UTC)

Lan Wangji's expression flattens, an icing-over -- not, naturally, directed at Susan, but an outgrowth of his lingering anger. "Luo Binghe tortured him."

"Yes." Her own anger is steady. "That's what Bacchus said."

Carefully, Lan Wangji sets his teacup down. "I witnessed it."

Susan takes a delicate sip of her tea and sets her empty cup gently to the side. "I think it's dreadful. No - that's the politic thing to say. I think it's jolly unacceptable. If Bacchus hadn't pointed out the risk of confronting a man who can cause such harm, unprovoked and unannounced at a distance - whilst not even in the same room! Not even close enough to be confronted with the reality of the damage he's causing! - I swear I could've marched right up to him and boxed his ears." Her anger makes her bright, focused. "Was it dreadful? I keep picturing it. Bacchus wasn't clear on what precisely happened, besides some sort of - some sort of magical blood infection which caused tremendous pain?"

Lan Wangji is contrastingly very quiet, silent with the continued memory and the effort of controlling his reaction to it. He speaks slowly, wanting to remain calm. "Claudius and Luo Binghe shared a flirtation. Luo Binghe slipped Claudius his blood in the soup they were preparing together." It is almost precisely how he explained things to Magnus. "If another person ingests Luo Binghe's blood, it grants him control over that person's body. He may puppet his target, or he may cause intense pleasure or pain."

Susan's mind is already whirling. "Surely there's some sort of device we might use to determine if any further food has been tampered with," she says. "Some sort of technology or spell that one might touch to their food and see that it's all right. He oughtn't have that sort of power over anyone." She flicks her gaze up. "I take it that this wasn't some sort of sexual play to which Claudius initially agreed. It wouldn't matter if it was, of course; it clearly went beyond any sort of degree one might expect from such things. But if it wasn't, it's a double violation and mustn't be tolerated."

Edited 2025-01-28 05:55 (UTC)

"No." The whirlwind of Susan's thoughts is understandable, and Lan Wangji has a soft spot for people who think and talk this way, so it hardly bothers him, but his response is of a more methodical nature. "Such things do not exist in his world. He never knew he had been poisoned until Luo Binghe became angry days later."

The set of Susan's jaw is grim indeed. "This can't be allowed to stand, of course."

There is something almost sardonic in Lan Wangji's expression as he meets her gaze. He knows that she doesn't know him: of course she doesn't know that if Luo Binghe could have been expelled from this mansion, Lan Wangji would already have done it. "No. But Luo Binghe is powerful. Claudius came to me at the height of his pain. I could only block it for a time."

"Yes, Bacchus spoke about the difficulty posed by Luo Binghe's particular power set," says Susan grimly. "And its ability to function at any time from any distance. But surely we can at the very least establish a way of testing for contaminants to reduce the reach of his power. It shan't do a thing for the horrors Claudius has experienced, but it might prevent such things from happening a second time."

The usefulness of such a thing can't be denied; Lan Wangji nods. "Claudius has been working on something that will grant immunity to Luo Binghe's more demonic abilities, too."

"Yes. Bacchus told me that, too. I imagine that being able to reject food offered by Luo Binghe to his face because it has tripped some sort of sensor might carry more weight than a more subtle protection against his magics." It might be clear, even though Lan Wangji doesn't know Susan particularly well, that she's rankling at the fact that Bacchus has dissuaded her from confronting Luo Binghe. She understands the reasoning and will respect his advice, but she's deeply displeased that giving the man a piece of her mind is off the table.

Hesitant, almost overtly cautious, Lan Wangji continues to meet Susan's gaze. "It may carry weight, but the weight will be dangerous. He is easily provoked. Like a child."

Susan's brow furrows. "What can he do, absent first infecting others with his blood?" she asks. "I'm afraid I haven't got a clear sense of any other... abilities."

"He wields a dangerous blade," Lan Wangji says, recalling with distaste the poisonous intent that seemed to pour off the sword when he was in close quarters with Luo Binghe. "He is immortal, and he is faster and stronger than any mortal."

"But there are others here who are immortal, or particularly fast and strong, or who wield... queer blades," says Susan. "Are his abilities outsized even in those respects?"

"I believe he is the cruelest among them, and the least likely to regret his actions. He still refuses to apologize to Claudius." A little pause. "His sword is-- it has killing intent. I doubt I know all that he can do. I do know that he can manipulate dreams."

Like Aornis. Susan looks down at her cup of tea for a long moment, and then back up again. "What does that mean?" she asks. "'Killing intent?'"

"Like mine, his sword has a spirit. But his sword's spirit is... malevolent." To put it lightly.

"But what does that mean?"

"I am uncertain how better to explain it. The sword wants bloodshed."

"To what effect?" Susan asks, and then sighs. "I don't mean to press on with a topic you haven't got another way of describing, it's just I'm trying to get a sense of the threat at play here."

"I understand," Lan Wangji says, meaning it -- he is not bothered or offended. "I did not touch it, but Luo Binghe and I were trapped in a small space together. Do you know qi?"

Susan nods. After Shen Yuan explained it to her, she did some additional reading. "It's an Eastern philosophy regarding the circulation of energy through the meridians of the body, requisite for good health and tended-to by meditation, as well as external supports such as acupuncture. Do you mean to say the sword causes qi blockages?"

"I suspect this sword is more likely to cause qi deviation than blockage."

"Ah. I haven't heard of qi deviation."

"It is when one's cultivation goes awry. Qi does not flow correctly. It is often deadly, and can cause madness."

"Ah. And is your concern the sword causing a qi deviation in its user, or in the general populace?" Susan frowns. "Or do you suspect it already has caused such a deviation?"

"I fear it causing something in Luo Binghe. He is held in check by Shen Yuan, but I can't say how fragile that tether on him may be."

Susan's mouth thins at this mention. "That's an awful lot of pressure to put on one man," she says. She really hope Shen Yuan is all right. But if he is... then it does suggest he's not the man she thought he was. She ought to prepare herself for whatever the fallout may be, when she learns the truth of his relationship to Luo Binghe.

"It is." His expression is stony to match hers. Lan Wangji has very little respect for Shen Yuan, but he doesn't envy his position, either. "When Claudius and I were looking into the matter of Aornis, I could rule out Luo Binghe's involvement only because he will supposedly not harm those who are close to Shen Yuan."

"You mean Shen Yuan's death."

"I mean the nightmares Aornis sent Galahad."

"The..." Susan blinks. "My goodness."

Lan Wangji nods. "I nearly presumed they were Luo Binghe's doing, because of his dream manipulation ability. I hesitated in that only because Galahad is close with Peak Lord Shen." As ever, he is perfectly, icily neutral on the topic of Shen Yuan.

That's right, he had mentioned that, hadn't he? "Luo Binghe's dream manipulation ability." Susan presses her lips together. "We must find ways to minimize the threat he poses. Bacchus and I have already decided to exclude him from the play so that Claudius may participate unencumbered, but that does little to remove his access to power. I imagine restricting him to the use of one kitchen might present the same risks as rejecting his food, but this mustn't be allowed to stand on a larger scale. I hadn't any idea until Bacchus mentioned it to me¹ and it alarms me that there might be multiple people here unaware of the risk he poses. A tool which tests food and drink to see if it's been tampered with would be less confrontational, but perhaps more difficult to devise - I'm not certain even I can bully this place into providing a resource that's not been invented yet." She tilts her head. "Perhaps Constance might have some ideas."

¹About that...

Edited 2025-02-24 02:20 (UTC)

"Perhaps," Lan Wangji agrees. He might once have been more skeptical, but the combined knowledge of various arts and sciences in this mansion is, he knows, well beyond anything he could have ever anticipated or grasped before he spent a year here. "However we can protect people. I have asked both Dionysus and Master Asmodean to intervene in the event of an incident, but prevention would be preferable."

"I shall speak to Constance, then, but in the meantime, everyone ought to be warned of the risks. I suppose there's nothing to be done for the fact that the risks have existed for well over a year, but it's never too late to start being wary of prepared or opened food. I wonder - the immunity that you spoke of. Have you any sense if it will address prior exposure as well as future instance of exposure? Is the blood thing even a demonic ability? I'm afraid I haven't a good sense of the categorization."

"I'm not certain," Lan Wangji admits, "but it is a demonic ability. I can speak with Crowley about whether detection is possible by his abilities on those grounds."

Susan does appreciate having clear action items. She nods. "So you shall speak to Crowley and I shall speak to Constance, and hopefully we shall come to some greater clarity on the matter." It would be unacceptable to not reach greater clarity.

"Mn. Tell me what you discover."

Susan takes another sip of her tea. "I will," she promises. "And I trust you'll do the same."

"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.

"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."

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?"

"A chess piece, a new bow, these balloons, a personal massager... I haven't the faintest idea what might come next."

"A personal massager, or a..." Janet drops her voice and lifts her eyebrows. "Personal massager?"

Susan draws the queer little cylinder¹ from her pocket and holds it aloft.

¹It's a bullet vibrator

Janet's face cracks into a helpless grin again. "Oh, yeah. That's a personal massager. Talk about a generous gift. Or maybe someone's just a voyeur."

"It's one of the better gifts so far," says Susan, with delight at Janet's smile. "Though the bow is particularly nice as well."

That perks Janet right up, almost as effectively as the vibrator. "A new one? Is it cooler?"

"It's a heavier draw," Susan says, flicking a flirtatious glance at Janet. "My shoulders shall be tremendous."

Janet's next grin is more calculated, meant to make her pleasure at the prospect perfectly clear. "I like a woman who could beat me up a little."

Susan lifts an eyebrow, sliding into the seat next to Janet's. "The prospect, or the actuality?" she asks, carefully tying the balloon ribbons off at the back of the chair.

Janet plops back down into her seat, then, still cupping her mug in both hands. "Mostly the prospect. I don't want to lose a fight. But we could always come to a draw."

Susan hums, intrigued. "I suppose that's something to explore."

"Next time you have a birthday," Janet teases. "How old are you, anyway?"

"If it is in fact my birthday, then I must be twenty-four."

"Fuck," Janet says with a rueful laugh. "I'm a cradle robber."

"I beg your pardon!"

"I'm thirty. I think." She shrugs, sipping her coffee without concern. "Like I said, I lost track of time for a while."

"That hardly makes you a cradle robber."

"Let me have this," Janet tries. "I could go for being the sexy older woman."

"I like a sexy older woman," Susan allows, "but I should like to dispense with the implication that I am an infant."

"Oh, that's just a-- do they not say that when you're from?"

"Certainly not."

(Unfortunately, Susan's typist hasn't found a description of the phrase's origin more specific than 'first half of the 1900s,' but sources seem to agree that it's more of a US phrase than a UK phrase. And the film Cradle Robbers, which Susan is unlikely to know (but could possibly be aware of) is about literal infants. We must conclude that at the very least, no one as dared say it to Susan's face until now.)

"Yeah, that's just a thing people say. It doesn't mean you're a baby. Trust me, I know you're not a baby."

Susan relents. "Oh, I know you know."

Another little grin, then, sharp-edged over the remnants of her coffee. "Did you get anything else good?"

"Not yet," Susan says, emphatic about it. "But I do keep stumbling across new things, so I suppose there's still time."

Janet's mug is almost empty. She slams back the rest. "Let's keep walking. I want to see what else you get."

Susan rises. "So far everything seems to appear in regular intervals a I go about my daily schedule."

"How regular? Are we talking once an hour, once every two hours...?"

"Every fifty-seven minutes, plus or minus eighteen." This number is entirely made up; Susan is trying to make Janet laugh.

Success, or some of it: Janet laughs as she gets to her feet. "Pretty wide margin of error there, Your Majesty."

"Then I suppose you shall have to spend an indeterminate amount of time with me."

"Twist my arm," Janet says, dryly but with a little half-smile. She absolutely doesn't bus her dishes. The mansion'll take care of it. "Lead the way."

Susan eyes the dishes, then decides that perhaps by the time she returns someone else will have handled them. "Inside or outside, Majesty?"

"Outside," Janet decides. The turning of the seasons gives her a nostalgic feeling, just a little -- the memory of going back to school, or at least the excitement of anticipation, back when school was exciting.

"Perhaps the welters field might yield some treasure, then," Susan suggests, offering Janet her arm.

"Aw, that'd be cute." With a surprising amount of pep in her step, Janet takes Susan's arm. "It'd be like me getting you a present, since I'm a shitty girlfriend who forgot your birthday without ever remembering it." The word girlfriend still feels slightly risqué, which means Janet delivers it as casually as humanly possible.

"Yes, actually, how very dare you not use your Circumstances to foretell this," Susan says, mock-severe.

"Augury was a blow-off elective," Janet says, faking a sigh.

"I suppose there's only one possible solution, then," Susan says, faking a heavy sigh. "You shall have to fashion some sort of gift for me. You may use my new personal massager as a component."

"Ooh, talk about a generous and forgiving monarch." Janet slings a little smile slightly down at Susan. "I'll work harder than I did in Augury, promise."

"See that you do," primly, because Susan knows Janet likes it when she gets particularly prim about things.

That little smile grows, just like Susan must've known it would. "You won't be disappointed."

"By you? I've yet to see the day."

"And I'll be fucked if I'm going to make that day your birthday." Janet's fervor comes around to something dangerously genuine as they step out the door of the mansion and onto the front lawn.

Susan snags Janet then, tugging her arm and guiding her into a kiss that's far, far more intent than she usually goes for in public spaces.

Janet's very familiar with Susan's standards for public propriety, and the exception that's being made for her isn't going unnoticed. It may, however, go unremarked upon. Her mouth is occupied, and so is she, with returning the kiss, fervor melting into it.

Susan tangles a hand in Janet's growing hair, using the grip to deepen the kiss, long enough that when she pulls back she's breathless and smiling. "Just getting a little taste for what's to come," she says, visibly smug, and pats Janet's chest.

"Aw, you'll ruin the surprise," Janet deadpans around her own smile. She squeezes Susan's hip. "Welters field first, your target range second?"

"Lead on," says Susan, taking that hand and threading their fingers together, "and I shall keep a weather eye out for additional gifts."

"Aye-aye, Your Majesty," Janet says, probably mixing up nautical respect and royal respect in a way you're not really supposed to do. Whatever. She settles her fingers into the spaces between Susan's and pulls her onward, toward the welters field. It's actually made progress, slow and steady, as Janet has hacked her way through the stupid fishbowl-world Circumstances to turn one square into sand, another into continual fire, another into perfectly geometrical water, et cetera.

"Do you know," says Susan, crowding against her as they approach, murmuring her words close to Janet's ear. "I find your efforts here to be tremendously attractive."

The flattery turns Janet unabashedly smug, and the low warmth of Susan's voice in her ear turns her quietly thrilled. "I could've guessed," she says, a smile pulling at her lips, "but stop it some more."

"The determination," Susan murmurs. "The skill."

The smile slides into a full-fledged grin. "Yeah, I'm like a dog with a bone. And opposable thumbs."

"And your bone," Susan says, slipping her fingers through one of the belt-loops of Janet's trousers, "is intermittently your magic, this Welters field, and me."

"Well-spotted," Janet drawls, in a pretty reasonable impression of Susan's accent.

Susan gives her a droll look. "Ought I put you down for a lecture on Welters?" she asks, momentarily distracted by the idea. "I intend to get the series up and running now that it's starting to get chilly out again."

"Hell, why not?" Janet flashes a grin back at her. "A captive audience. Right up my alley."

"I shall slot you down in between Grantaire and Grantaire," says Susan, mock-thoughtful. "And perhaps right after Grantaire, but before Grantaire."

Janet snorts, startled into the completely genuine laugh. "Aw, but what about Grantaire?"

"He's already had to give up one of his slots for Grantaire; I imagine he'll be fine."

"Sounds like you're going to foment some serious resentment between Grantaire and Grantaire if you're not careful, Your Majesty."

"Oh dear, and how on earth might Grantaire react to such things?"

"I'll put him on the welters team versus Grantaire and they can sort it out that way," Janet suggests with a grin.

"I do love a clean solution to the Problem of Many Grantaires," remarks Susan.

"That's why welters was invented," Janet says fondly. "Not for Grantaire specifically. For students to fight each other without killing each other. Mostly."

"How... perfectly innovative."

"Yep." Janet grins again, broadly, surveying her handiwork. "See any birthday presents lying around?"

"One," says Susan, drawing Janet - and all of her well-earned pride - in for a thorough kiss."

"Oh my God," says Janet, but she's laughing, and then she's kissing Susan, so there's not a lot of heat in the attempted admonishment. "That was corny," she informs Susan, though -- when it's through, and not a goddamned second sooner.

"You like me corny," Susan tells her. She tucks a hand into the back pocket of Janet's trousers when she pulls away. "I imagine nearly as much as you like me when I'm complaining about the inadequacies of any number of men."

"Well, shit. You've got my number." Janet flashes her a smile anyway. "Next stop, target practice?"

"Yes. Let's."

"After you, Your Majesty," Janet says -- but that was pretty much just lip service, since she knows the way and she's not shy about starting off in that direction without waiting for Susan.

Susan keeps pace with Janet. It's a lovely day outside, and Janet is lovelier still, and ever since Susan's conversation with Galahad earlier that same day, queer thoughts have been entering her mind. Questions, really, probing at the nature of her feelings. It's difficult to set aside.

She reaches for Janet's hand and tangles their fingers together. "We ought to have another competition soon, don't you think?"

Janet slips her fingers into the spaces between Susan's without hesitation. She has a sure grip, as usual. "I'm in. What were you thinking?"

"You," says Susan, with a smile. "Me. A dartboard. The highest of stakes."

"Are the stakes sex?" Janet laughs again. "Sorry. You're trying to sound cool and mysterious."

"They certainly could be sex."

"Do you have other ideas? I'm all ears."

"I imagine a nonspecific blank check might be tremendously enticing."

Janet slings a flash of a grin sidelong at Susan, squeezing her hand. "You imagine correctly. Any parameters?"

"To the blank check, or to the competition?" Susan gives Janet a heated look. "I imagine 'winner take all' might suit both."

The grin lingers for a couple seconds longer. "I already said I'm in, but I'm in."

"I'm pleased to hear it," says Susan, and uses their joined hands to draw Janet in to seal the deal with a kiss.

Janet goes with it willingly, leaning in for a heated second or several to make it a really, really binding contract. When they part, she's still smiling just a little. "We're never going to find another present at this rate. Yeah, yeah, I'm the present, I know."

"Oh, very well." Susan draws back, with only a little reluctance. "Do you know, I've got a good feeling about Thomas's old office."

Janet fakes a dreamy little sigh. "God, he was hot. Let's check it out."

So Susan leads them around the side of the Mansion and off toward the lake. She doesn't, for once, walk with purpose: it's a gorgeous day out, and she has a beautiful woman on her arm.

Janet doesn't object to some meandering. It's Susan's not-birthday, right? If the mansion wants to give Susan something, it will. Or maybe it won't. That's none of her goddamn business, apparently. Maybe she'll never crack this stupid place. Maybe she's stuck here forever, like Laertes was saying. At least there's this.

Susan isn't particularly committed to finding new gifts on a day that she hadn't even expected to be her birthday, but as she walks, her earlier conversation with Galahad starts really plaguing her thoughts. That won't do at all. She glances sidelong at Janet, debating the best way to distract herself. Picking up her pace? Pulling Janet into a little copse of trees for a deeper series of kisses?

"Do I have something on my face?" Janet asks, eyeing Susan right back. She's not overly worried about whatever it is.

Susan startles, then smiles. "The sun," she says, airily. "I'm afraid you're a terribly striking woman."

"Tell me something I don't know," Janet drawls.

Susan would, at this point, consider Galahad one of her dearest friends. She's taking a page out of his book when she says, primly, "Roughly one-third of insect species are carnivorous, and a vast majority of those hunt."

"Whoa," Janet says. She didn't know that. Susan nailed the assignment. "One-third? They eat each other? Huh."

"A good many do, yes."

"Good for them," Janet says after a moment. "It's a bug-eat-bug world."

"In more ways than one."

"What do the ones who don't hunt do?"

"They might exist as parasites or decomposers. Carrion beetles, for example. One needn't hunt if one goes through one's larval stages on a carcass."

"Gross," Janet says, with a little laugh, "but I guess a beetle's gotta do what a beetle's gotta do."

"Indeed." This little aside about insects has, at least, given Susan an opportunity to get hold of her own thoughts again, thank goodness.

Janet's dating a nerd. This would be more surprising if she hadn't gone to an entire college for massive magic nerds, she guesses. Nightingale's old house is visible at the end of their path now.

"Do you know, I hadn't thought I'd develop a passion for insects," Susan adds, as they approach the little office. "Ethology generally deals with rather larger animals. I suppose Karl von Frisch did his study on honeybees, but... none of my professors dabbled in that side of things."

"I guess Galahad is rubbing off on you," Janet says, with genuine fondness for them both. She's a weirdo magnet. "Do you have a favorite bug? Is that a thing people have?"

"I imagine Galahad might. I haven't got one."

"I'll ask him next time we do an ice cream tasting."

They're at the lakehouse, and Susan asks, "How often do you have those?" before opening the door firmly. As usual, she calls out hopefully, in the off-chance Thomas has returned, but the room is just as she left it last time she checked: the tea service is fully-stocked and a bottle of Thomas's favorite whisky sits next to it; the furniture is arranged to his preferences. It's been a week or two since her last visit, and some dust has settled in the intervening time, but the light is bright through the windows, shining on the little shelf with its collection of what she assumes must be magical objects and books.

There is, however, one change: a package on the desk.

"Delivery for Queen Susan," Janet says, sotto voce because it feels appropriate, maybe even necessary. Into the quiet, frankly lovely room, she adds, at a more usual volume, "We taste ice cream once a week."

"Have you got any favorites?" Susan asks. She goes over to the package. Something about its shape unsettles her.

Janet follows a step or two behind Susan, suddenly wary, curious despite herself. "Salted caramel."

"I don't believe I've tried that." She's still not touching the package, just moving around, looking at it from different angles.

"Okay," Janet says -- half-wary, half-casual. The tone of the room is hard to read suddenly, as she watches Susan circle the package like it might lash out and bite her without warning. "What, do you think there's an explosive in there?"

"No, it's just - the shape. It reminds me of something. But I can't imagine it would find its way here."

"Okay," Janet repeats more slowly this time, okaaaay. "What does it remind you of?"

Susan glances up at her. "Do you suppose it looks as if it might have a horn inside?"

Janet, quiet again in deference to the atmosphere of the moment, examines the package. She frowns, sharp-eyed. "Yeah. I mean, I couldn't rule out a horn."

"I suppose there's no use delaying," says Susan, at long last and after considerable delay. She rips the package open.

It's small, made of ivory, and - despite being fully intact - clearly thousands of years old. She runs her fingers over the fine ridges, the familiar wear of it, the smudge of something she'd rather not think about too deeply from once when she bore it in battle.

"I see," she says, frowning.

Janet finds herself stepping closer, eyes on Susan's... present, she guesses. It has that air about it, like something portentous. "So," she says, "that's what a horn-shaped package looks like."

Susan is still running her hands over it. On one level, it feels like coming home. On another, it feels like it might be some sort of ill omen. "Father Christmas gave it to me," she says, brushing over the patina that's formed over the delicate, largely-decorative wire band near the horn's mouth. And when you put this horn to your lips; and blow it, then, wherever you are, I think help of some kind will come to you, he'd said. "This and my first bow, our first week in Narnia. When blown, it fetches the help you require. It brought the four of us back to Narnia from London when Caspian used it." And though she does not know it, it was the call of this very horn that also brought her to the Mansion.

Any artifact that can yank people across worlds like that is powerful. What the hell is it doing here? Janet watches as Susan turns it in her hands, tracing the contours of its shape that must mean it's something familiar. "Father Christmas?" she asks, just to be sure. "That Father Christmas?"

"Oh, yes, naturally." The chain she'd used to hang the horn on her belt in Narnia is tucked in the folds of the wrapping paper, and hooks easily onto the wire bands. Hm.

"Wow." It feels like an understatement. "I didn't think anyone got real gifts from Santa. Uh, what do you think will happen if you blow it here?"

"I haven't the faintest idea." Carefully, fingers trembling, Susan hooks the horn onto her belt. "I'm not particularly inclined to find out."

"What a weird birthday present." Janet shoots a sharp look at Susan. She can see the way her hands are shaking a little. "You know you don't have to take it."

"No? I rather feel as if I don't, it might be tempting fate."

"So what? Go ahead and tempt it, if you don't want this thing. Screw fate."

Susan would really rather not. "Perhaps later," she says, and reaches for Janet's hand. "Might I entice you into a birthday present at Thomas's desk?"

Janet's not going to push this one, not today. She grins, letting Susan catch her hand and then reeling herself in with it. "You might," she says, and she leans down to catch Susan's mouth in a very focused kiss.

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?

"Crowley, hello," warmly.

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

"Oh, more mischief," she says lightly. "It seems this place should like to throw me a birthday party."

"...Is it mischief because it's your birthday and you don't want to think about it¹ or because it isn't your birthday and it doesn't make sense²?"

¹A very human reaction to birthdays. Demons don't have that issue.
²A very Susan reaction.

"Why, it isn't my birthday, unless Galahad and I are both wrong about the calendar."

Crowley crosses his arms. Out of the various mansion residents, Susan and Galahad are among the least likely to be wrong. "Then it must be another trick. Just like them to try and bamboozle you like that."

"To what end, I wonder?"

Crowley wonders as well. Oh well. "How's Noo-boh doing?"

"Noo-boh?"

"The Furby," Crowley says, with a frown.

"The... oh! The queer little mechanical animal Lancelot showed me?"

His frown deepens. "He's not a mechanical animal. Well, not just a mechanical animal. Is Noo-boh why the divorce happened, though?"

Susan gives what can only be described as a severe blink. "I beg your pardon?"

"The divorce. Once, when we talked, you were all hashtag Lancelot who," spoken in the tones of a social media influencer, which is very far from what one would describe as a Susan Pevensie tone¹. "It's like you wouldn't even acknowledge that you're married. Er. Were."

¹But a deep, cellular level, Crowley technically is one.

"We're not married," Susan says, immediate and firm. "We've never been married. But I haven't got any memory of a conversation like that."

"Another memory thing?" Crowley asks, mostly musing to himself. How many times can they wipe someone's memory? Seems downright rude. "But — right. Not even married-but-not-but-actually-rather-ineffably-married? Not even that sort, like myself and Aziraphale?"

Sternly businesslike in the way that she gets when she's very specifically trying to gloss over an emotion, Susan says, "I haven't the faintest idea what that might mean."

Oh. Well. Not everyone can be like Aziraphale and Crowley. The important matter at hand is, if Susan and Lancelot aren't married and they aren't divorced, then the truly important question of the moment is— "So where did Noo-boh end up then?"

Presumably this has been resolved even though the thread in question is ongoing. Susan says, "Why, we thought SecUnit more equipped to care for a creature that's part-machine. What's an ineffable marriage, please?"

"I guess that makes sense," Crowley mutters. If he thought to tell Susan, she would most likely be fascinated that Noo-boh has become a multi-dimensional being, having gone off with an alternate universe version of Lan Wangji and somehow at the same time, stayed with SecUnit. It makes perfect sense to him, so he doesn't. "Well, ineffability means it can't be described by the human language. So an ineffable marriage is one that's sort of... er, written into the code. Incomprehensible for a thousand years until two idiots suddenly wise up. You know?¹"

¹She does not, that wasn't the best definition.

Susan wouldn't classify herself or Lancelot as 'idiots,' and she also would not classify what they have is incomprehensible, indescribable, or having lasted for thousands of years. It has lasted for one year and a handful of weeks. "Written into the code?"

"Yeah. Meant to be. Written in the stars. Fated. Anyway, it doesn't matter, since you're not married."

Susan considers protesting that Crowley had described himself as married-but-not-but-actually-rather-ineffably-married, and then wonders why she would protest. She is not, in fact, married. Nor has she got any particular intention to change that. "I see."

Good, because Crowley's going to pause for a second before executing a complete conversational 180. "Say, do you know anything about chore charts?"

Susan swallows the naturally brimming at her lips. "Yes, I do," she says instead. "Why do you ask?" If he wants to know where the chore chart is, she shall have to bluster. She mocked up a rough draft after her conversation with Sagramore, but hasn't put the entire thing together yet.

"Long story short... I did the dishes. 4 out of 10, I'd say?" Is this a rating of how well he did the dishes or a rating of how much he likes that chore? And what does he want Susan to do about it? Who knows.

"Did you! Well done," says Susan, and then, tremendously curious: "Where did you find the chore chart?"

"There isn't one. That's the problem, isn't it?¹ One of those children insisted that I needed one -- and that's when I thought to myself, who would know all about chore chores? Susan might -- and when I told Aziraphale, he said," affecting a stellar Aziraphale impression, "Crowley, it'd be ever-so dear if you could do the dishes for me-- get those hands back on the wheel, you scoundrel! ...And here we are."

¹Is it?

Susan isn't sure where to start - since obviously she was the child in question - but then she cocks her head to the side. "Then you shall be relieved to hear that I've spoken to Sagramore on this very matter and we shall finalize the chore chart shortly."

"Oh. Great. Er, just let me know." Secretly, and not just because it will become a source of great joy to some mansion spirits, he thinks that he should share his chores with Sunny and vice versa -- so he can show her the meaning of true responsibility, of course.

"I imagine we shall post it in several primary locations. I understand that you regularly frequent the Welcome Table, so doubtless you shall see it there."

"Fine. Great," Crowley says, repeating himself. He's not exactly sure how he's talked himself into more chores.

"Lovely. Have you got any preferences for your first assignment?"

"Not the dishes," emphatically. "Or anything to do with the horses."

"Very well, I shall slot you in for laundry in your first round."

Well, there's no way out of it now¹. "Sounds grand," he tells Susan.

¹You could just say no, Crowley.

"Oh, Crowley, I'm so pleased. This shall be ever so helpful, you know."

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?"

"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.

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.

"I suppose it must be."

"You don't seem thrilled. Are you sad about getting old, or something?"

"Not at all!" After all, she's been older than this before. "I suppose it just took me by surprise."

"I guess time is weird here," Tally says, thinking. "It was winter when I left and winter when I got here, so it didn't seem strange, but the year has been way too long. I guess it's supposed to be winter again already, but it's still pretty warm out."

"It was spring when I left and autumn when I arrived," says Susan. "I suppose it's autumn again, but it does make one feel as if one is off-set from the unfolding of the year."

It makes Tally feel lonely, briefly, to be cut off from even the normal passing of the seasons back home. She's been keeping loose track of the days, especially since she's started handwriting practice, but she has a sudden vision of losing track entirely, and not knowing what the real world is like any more.

"I guess we must be further from the sun here," she muses. "Or the tilt of this planet is different."

"Due to the length of the year?"

"Yeah. You knew about that in the 1950s, right?"

"Only for several millennia."

“So for like two really long mansion years.” Tally grins.

Susan gives a delicate snort. "Precisely like."

“I hope this is a planet, at least. Wouldn’t it be fucked up if it were flat, or something?”

"I imagine there's a way to find out," says Susan, thoughtfully. "There's any number of ways to measure the curvature of a planet, even in as small a space as we occupy."

“Totally. Something to do with gravity and the horizon?”

"Yes, something of the sort."

“It’s in a book, probably. Ugh. I miss interfaces.”

"Interfaces?"

"Like... um... computers?" Tally struggles to remember when exactly they were invented. "They make it totally easy to search for stuff."

Susan knows of computers, of course, from books and from conversation, but her knowledge is tremendously far off from what computers truly are. "The devices they use for complex calculations and photograph storage?"

"Yeah! They're also great for being databases. Like, you just say what you want to know and it finds it for you. No need to flip through paper books or anything."

"Hmmm," says Susan, who rather likes paper books. "I see. So you'd use one to establish the curvature of this slice of world?"

"Yeah. Since I can't remember the formulas or whatever off the top of my head."

"...I suppose that does sound tremendously useful."

"I totally respect paper books, though. They should just come with search functions."

"Such as, for example, an index?"

"An index doesn't find every single example of a word, though," Tally points out. She's familiar with them by this point, having leafed through lots of library books.

"No, but every individual instance is surely less helpful than a guide to the contextualized and pertinently useful applications of the words."

"You can have both," Tally counters.

"Perhaps," though perhaps not here, "but if I had to choose one."

"It's good you're a Rusty, then."

"Yes," says Susan, amused. "I suppose it is."

"Do you think I could make it as a Rusty?" Tally asks.

"I can't imagine that it would be terribly different from living here."

"Um, what about all the war? And the capitalism?"

"I suppose it is nice to not have everything rationed," Susan allows, "but I don't believe anyone else comes from a time of rationing. The, ah, 'Rusty times' had quite a bit of variation, you know."

"Did they?" Tally asks skeptically. "I mean, I guess they probably did. They just didn't really teach us that in school."

"You are from rather far in the future," Susan points out. "Things tend to get flattened in historical accountings over time."

"They do? I've never heard that." Tally's only beginning to realize that maybe her schooling wasn't as neutral as it seemed.

"Certainly! One of the first things I did after arriving - once I realized that many people here are ones I'd read of as historical figures, and that what I'd read was wildly inaccurate - was read several histories of the time I arrived from. They universally lacked appropriate detail and accuracy."

"What's an example?"

"What isn't an example? The accountings of the Blitz are surface-level at best. Speeches are misquoted, specifics are wrong. Entire lives are reduced to simple statistics. While I do understand why, it isn't as if they convey the true feeling and experience of, for example, being sent from one's home to live safely with a stranger, knowing that while you're gone, your home might be bombed."

"That happened to you?" Tally asks. "I'm so sorry. That sounds terrifying."

"It's in the past," briskly, with that businesslike tone she gets when she's having an emotion.

"Was your home bombed?"

"No. It wasn't."

"Thank goodness. It's awful, to lose your home. It was the worst day of my life when the Specials destroyed the Smoke."

"Yes. It's terrible to lose your home."

"At least the bombs weren't your fault. The Smoke being destroyed was mine," Tally says.

Susan had, in that last comment, been referring to Narnia, but she doesn't care to bring attention to that fact. "In what way?"

"I called the Specials. By accident, but I should have known."

"Ought you have done? How so?"

"I knew I was being tracked. I tried to destroy the tracker, but I should have just buried it or something. I was being dramatic."

"A tracker... how does that work, precisely?"

"Oh, geez. Um... well, satellites? In orbit around the planet? They're, like, right after your time, I think. They can communicate with computers on Earth and locate stuff. So, um, Special Circumstances gave me a position-finder I was supposed to activate when I found the Smoke, but I decided not to do it. But it turned out burning it made the computer send the signal anyway."

"And these devices only communicate with satellites if activated?"

"Most communicate with them all the time. That one only did when activated so that it wouldn't show up when I was scanned for trackers."

"And you're certain it didn't have the functionality of continual communication?"

"Yes. If it did, then they would have seen me stop somewhere for several weeks and come to destroy the Smoke right away." Tally's thought this through dozens of times. Sometimes it just feels easier to blame Shay for putting the thought in her head that she should pretend the locket was from a crush. But Shay wasn't even watching her with David that night. She'd never needed to destroy it. There's no way to get around the thought.

"How queer," says Susan, thoughtful. "It's rotten that there was an activation mechanism you hadn't been familiar with." She phrases it as a statement, but it's partly a question.

"I could have guessed, if I'd thought about it for more than, like, two seconds," Tally says bitterly.

"There's a saying I've heard - hindsight is 20/20."

Tally snorts. "Yeah. Especially since I totally have 20/20 vision now. You know, I'm really not mad at the operation for that."

"They've got an operation for perfect vision?" Susan asks, and then she shakes her head. "What am I asking, of course they have."

"Yeah, it's not all about being pretty. Some of it is health stuff."

"I should hope so!"

"I mean, being pretty is all about being healthy. The things we think are pretty are indicators of health. Um, probably."

At this, Susan looks thoughtful. "Is that so?"

“Yeah. People want partners who look free from disease. Childhood stress and illness causes asymmetry.”

Something about this seems rather off to Susan. "Is that so?"

“That’s what they told me, at least. I don’t know. Maybe it was all totally lies. But I feel like people generally agree on who’s pretty, right? There’s differences in taste, but everyone thinks I’m beautiful.”

"Is that so?" Susan repeats, with surprise. "Even homosexual men?"

“I’m not sure if I’ve ever met one,” Tally says. It’s an odd thought. Maybe there are men who are like Gideon and Georgia here, only interested in one gender, but it hardly seems likely. “But it’s not a conscious thing. We subconsciously see beauty in people who could make healthy children even if we don’t actually want to have littlies with them. There’s also the littlie factor itself. Evolutionarily, we want to mate and we want to protect our offspring. That’s why we like big eyes and clear skin, since they make people look young and vulnerable.”

"I'm not certain I care for that," says Susan thoughtfully. "And of course you've met homosexual men. There's any number here. Shen Yuan, for example, and Galahad."

“Really? I thought they were normal. I mean, into men and women, like most people.” Tally flushes at the slip-up. “Sorry. It’s, um, bubbly that they know who they are.”

"You think ambisexuality is the most common sort?"

"That's a fact, isn't it?" Tally asks, surprised. "Well... I guess I don't know? Ugh, it is so utterly bogus to realize your education might just be total lies."

Naturally Susan has read Kinsey's reports since arriving, even though their publication fell slightly after she departed London. "I believe heterosexuality comprises the majority, though perhaps things shift by your time."

"It can't. That just wouldn't be, like, logic-having."

"Logic is a matter of perception, though," says Susan, "and reality needn't adhere to your expectations to be true."

"I guess not," Tally says. "Sometimes my own brain is totally not trustworthy. Obviously."

"I don't expect anyone's is."

"But yours hasn't had anything done to it."

"Not externally, no. But the human mind is still fallible." Susan hesitates, then summons up all her courage, and says, "Freud spoke of repression and the unconscious, for example. I struggle with my memory."

Tally's instincts tell her to scoff and dismiss Freud, who she knows was a bogus sexist Rusty scientist, but she puts aside her fallible mind for a moment and pays attention to Susan's hesitation. "You do? Are you saying... you forgot something important?"

"Upon occasion, yes," wryly.

"But what do you mean specifically?"

"I mean that my memory is fallible," says Susan, with finality. She isn't interested in getting into the gritty details.

"Okay, fine, be mysterious, Susan-la."

Susan gives her a flash of a grateful smile at that. "I'm afraid I shall."

The smile makes Tally feel not totally disappointed about not getting to hear whatever Susan forgot. "Still, it's good to remember that I'm not the only one with a bogus brain sometimes."

"You certainly aren't. I'd wager any number of people here have got some issue or another."

"That's what happens when everyone's got ugly minds," Tally says. "I think I like it."

"I do wonder why you call it an 'ugly mind' when by your reckoning it seems to be the pretty minds that have got the bulk of the problems, where you're from," Susan muses. "Unless 'ugly' is a placeholder for 'organic,' I suppose."

"They are ugly, though. Anger and insecurity and jealousy can be ugly in a way pretty emotions aren't." Tally stops and thinks about it. "Ugly doesn't mean, like, problem-having. It means messy."

"Then why align 'ugly minds' with 'having some sort of issue?'" she asks, curious.

"Pretties have issues, but they don't think they do," Tally explains. "Or, you couldn't tell if they did, if you were a pretty."

"I see," thoughtfully. "Thank you for explaining."

"Any time, Susan-la. It's your birthday present." Tally grins, to show she's joking.

Susan gives her an amused look. "Well, then. I appreciate it."

Edited 2025-03-04 01:43 (UTC)

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!"

Edited 2024-12-27 02:53 (UTC)

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

"...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.

"It's the queerest thing," says Susan. "By my reckoning, today is May twenty-first. By Galahad's, it's December thirteenth. My birthday is December sixteenth."

"...Huh." He considers this. "Don't suppose this is their way of informing you there was a misprint on your birth certificate, do you?"

"I believe there might be some confusion afoot. Ambient effects from the latest nonsense, perhaps."

“Possibly,” he says, thinking this over. “I wonder if they’ll decide to give me a random birthday party at some point too. They did this to Sagramore a while back.”

A very careful nonexpression flits across Susan's face at that. "When is your birthday?"

"Great question. I don't know when either of 'em are."

"You've got two?"

“Oh, yeah, ah—“ if she doesn’t already know the story he doesn’t feel like getting into all of the specific details right now. “I was born — early. My mother passed away at the time. Luckily my father was there and he was able to sew me up in his — uh, his thigh, until I was ready to be born for realsies.”

It’s the version he tells when he’s feeling charitable towards Zeus, anyway. Technically not incorrect.

"Ah. Yes. I do recall something about that."

"Two birthdays, and I don't know when either of 'em are, aside from a vague idea of 'spring' and 'autumn'. In my defense though, ah, well. You saw me when I was a kid, I didn't even know what a building was, we definitely didn't have calendars to keep track of stuff like that. Not to mention how often calendars change, plus back then most cities had, y'know, their own wildly different calendars anyway."

"Then I suppose you ought to select days that feel right to you."

"Oh, I've done basically that in the past. Sometimes if I just feel like having a party and can't think of a decent enough excuse I tell people it's my birthday party. Not that you need an excuse for a party, but you know what I mean. It just, y'know, would be kind of fun to know when the actual days are. If the mansion spirits are aware of it themselves¹." Choosing random dates every year definitely feels like something that's easier to get away with when you're constantly traveling and rarely around the same people long enough and constant enough for them to get invited twice. He is aware that this is a distinct improvement in his life as a whole, but it does make pretending to have a birthday harder.

1. Nope.

"You might hold a birthday party every day and settle on your favorite one for regular celebration," Susan suggests. She still doesn't believe in mansion spirits, so she can't speak to their potential awareness of birth dates.

He laughs at that, loud and warm. "While having a party every day does sound like a lot of fun, I do think everyone else here would get pretty tired of it pretty quickly."

"Oh, I suppose," Susan allows. "Though I do think we might benefit from more social events, generally speaking."

"That's true! Maybe I should do -- y'know, a weekly thing. Or even a monthly thing. I don't throw nearly enough parties, come to think of it, not sure what's wrong with me."

"Bacchus," says Susan, a flash of that businesslike tone of hers, tinged with an edge of sternness, coming through in her voice. "You do a tremendous amount for our little community. You produce more social events than most. Though," she adds, thoughtfully. "We ought to get back to the play, soon."

He lights up, as he always does whenever mention is made of the play. "Are we up to enough people to form a cast list yet? Gonna be honest, I've lost track of who all has shown interest."

"We haven't, but we've had several new arrivals since our first attempt at auditions. Perhaps if we spread the word once again?"

"Maybe we can put up a new flyer about it!"

"Perhaps! I think inviting people to audition directly might be more effective this time around."

"We could also just post up a cast list," he says with a grin. "And if someone really doesn't want to be involved that badly we'll change tactics and let them off the hook." Is he joking? Great question.

"Bacchus," says Susan, her tone equally scandalized and delighted. "Oh, I do like the way you think. Have you got insight into aptitude because of your drama powers?"

That's a good question. "Probably," he settles on. Look, he can help just about anybody be a better actor, and he's fairly certain of his skill in casting, but whether or not that's because he's the god of Drama or just because he knows a lot about theatre is up for debate.

"Then," eyes gleaming, "perhaps we ought to do just that."

"Well, if you don't have any other, ah, birthday festivities to attend to," he says with a grin, "Shall we go find somewhere to sit and work this over?"

"I've always got time for you, Bacchus," says Susan. "...And for logistics."

“Perfect! Ah, I can hold some of that,” he means the copious amounts of Birthday Surprises she’s holding on to, “if you want, while we walk?”

"Oh, I've got it, thank you," says Susan quickly. "I've just perfected the balance, you see."

"Well, if you're sure," he shrugs.

Given that the mansion has, on an average day, roughly 83947 different parlors, it doesn't take them long to find a good room with some nice comfy chairs around a table, and even less time to find a pad of lined paper and some pencils. "I think we should first make a list of everyone we know has said they'd for sure be in the show, and then if we need to add anyone we can go from there."

Susan settles everything carefully down. "Goodness," she says, and takes her notebook out of her pocket. "One moment, I've got the list in here somewhere--"

Dionysus, meanwhile, starts jotting down a list of all the characters they'll need to fill roles for.

"Right," says Susan, once she's found the appropriate place in her notes. "More people indicated a willingness to participate than auditioned."

"I know," he says, clearly disappointed by this fact. "I wonder if they got nervous about it -- a lot of people are nervous about any sort of audition, you know." Which is why just posting up a cast list and hoping everyone agrees to show up to rehearsals is clearly the best option right now.

"Do you suppose we ought to consider smaller roles for those individuals? Might it correspond to stage fright?"

"It can, it doesn't always have to. Sometimes people are very nervous about an audition, but being in the actual play, doing rehearsals, having that safety net of other performers on stage with them, it can help them not be nearly as nervous. I do think we should give preference to those who did actually audition though, it seems only fair."

Here he pauses, not entirely certain how to go about this next topic of discussion. "There is -- ah, there's one particular exception to that though--"

"Oh?"

"Yeah, ah -- Luo Binghe," Dionysus says with a sigh. "He apparently used his powers to physically torture poor dear Claudius, over something incredibly petty. I think -- it'd probably be incredibly unfair to... several people, if we asked them to be so closely involved with someone who did something like that."

Not to mention the fact that Dionysus, as Claudius' god, doesn't think he could stand by and work with the man after learning about this.

Susan freezes. "I beg your pardon," she says, softly.

"I didn't know about it until a few months ago myself," he explains. "How I understand it is that Luo Binghe was able to somehow -- infect Claudius' blood with his magic? And in doing so he could cause Claudius to be in intense pain whenever he wanted, wherever he was. Which, I've been told he did, multiple times." The look on Dionysus' face as he says this is a mixture of worry, anger, and sadness.

"So, not to put too fine a point on it, but if he's involved, I won't be. I -- I can't do that to Claudius, even if I weren't his god."

"Months?" Susan asks, horrified, as a few thoughts war against each other. "No, of course you couldn't, of course Luo Binghe shan't be cast."

Susan doesn't much care if people like her or not, but she does crave respect. She does fear ostracization. She prefers that people who dislike her do so accurately. She dreads inaccurate gossip that might lead someone to choose to exclude her from the conversation, generally speaking. To that end, she's loathe to jump on rumors unless it's something she can substantiate with her own experiences. And she has vanishingly few with Luo Binghe: one when she first arrived, which she barely remembers, and one when she was mourning her friend, which was naturally affected by shared grief.

But Bacchus is one of the few people here she's certain would neither lie nor attempt to manipulate the social environment to his personal preferences. There's Lancelot, of course; he prefers honest, straightforward dealings, and if ever there's a situation where he seems evasive or indirect, it's because he hasn't processed his own feelings on the matter at hand. And he's willing to put up with far more social ills than he ought. There's Galahad, who is measured serious and thoughtful and scrupulously honest in all things. There's the useless angel, who Susan assumes mightn't lie about anything, but who she still mistrusts as the depths of his uselessness might lead to misleading behaviors. And there's Bacchus himself, who is far too earnest to be dishonest. His flair for the dramatics overlays a genuine spirit. And, importantly, it's never used at the expense of others. He wouldn't spread rumors for the sake of some misbegotten end.

But months! And she hasn't heard as much as a whisper or whimper about this sort of thing. If she'd known - why, if she'd known, at the very least she might've prepared some meals for Claudius and Galahad whilst they focused on Claudius's convalescence. Multiple times?! Her brow furrows. Surely the only reason Luo Binghe walks freely around must mean that only Claudius and Bacchus know what he's done. Ought Susan have been told? Ought everyone be told, that they can be aware? They'd spread the word about Aornis as best they could last spring.

Shen Yuan is dating Luo Binghe. Her heart drops. She can't jump to conclusions about what sort of petty reasons Bacchus speaks of, but - "Someone ought to tell Shen Yuan."

Dionysus hesitates for a moment before he says, "I believe he already knows."

Susan's blood runs cold and for the first time, she curses the size of this world. There's no recourse for hiding from a partner if a relationship should go awry. She hasn't the faintest idea how a blood spell might work - though perhaps Janet would? Susan ought to ask - but if there's any way to ameliorate the effects, surely that's a start. Certainly someone as compassionate as Shen Yuan wouldn't remain in a relationship with someone he knew to torture another person unless he had no choice in the matter. Fervently, she says, "Then we must help him."

"I think he's safe," from the blood magic, anyway, if there's any other sort of wrongdoing going on Dionysus doesn't know. "I don't have all of the details yet, but apparently the plant bodies can be made into a -- sort of a vaccine for it, from how Claudius was describing it. Since Shen Yuan's living in one of the plant bodies now I assume he's going to be alright. I've offered to help in the efforts to grow more of 'em, for -- you know, any future need."

Susan cannot fathom Shen Yuan willingly being with a man who would torture - anyone, really but especially Claudius, who has done so much for him. But she wrests her focus to what Bacchus is saying, letting her worry simmer in the background. "Future need," she repeats.

"Ah, preparing for --" the inevitable, he almost says, because people do have a tendency to die, but he instead chooses to say, "any other tragedies."

"You're referring, of course, to Luo Binghe choosing to aggress on another member of our community unprompted," surmises Susan, grimly. "Must the inoculation be repeated, or is once enough?"

That's not exactly what he was referring to, but it's a good enough point. "Ah -- I'm afraid I don't know. I don't have all of the information about the specifics of it and how it works yet, unfortunately. My contributions to the efforts are going to be mostly in the gardening side of things, I'm not nearly as skilled at the science-y stuff."

"Then I shall offer my services," says Susan firmly. "It's the least I can do. Is Claudius all right? What else might he need?"

"I think just simply knowing you're there for him in this will be a big deal. It's -- it's something he was keeping secret from most people for a while, I think he was -- maybe nervous about telling people, worried they wouldn't want to help him. I mean, I don't want to put words in his mouth, but that's -- that's kind of the sense I got while he was telling me about it all."

"Oh, naturally." Has Claudius got someone to speak to about any potential traumatic neuroses? He's Susan's friend, and she likes him a great deal, but they're not precisely close enough for her to help him the way she does Lancelot. Perhaps she might share some readings with Galahad on the subject? And prepare a delightful little aspic dinner for Claudius if ever he seems out of sorts. And of course she shall speak to Claudius at the first opportunity. At the very least, it's high time they touch base again about organizing a social calendar for their community, and she can determine then how they might contrive some way to prohibit Luo Binghe from attending any number of events.

"Thank you for telling me," she tells Bacchus seriously. "Torture for any reason is unacceptable; torture for petty reasons is unforgivable. We shall take every step to support Claudius's needs in this."

"Thank you," he says, giving her a relieved and grateful smile. "I wish there was some better solution for all of this."

"Yes," Susan agrees, fervently. "We've got very little recourse for someone violating the tenets of polite society and appropriate behavior."

"We're incredibly lucky that the vast majority of everyone here gets along, if not well, then at least enough to be civil to one another. But -- as we see, not everyone fits into that description. And considering the percentage of residents here who have, y'know, magic and shit, it's really -- just -- not a great situation, I suppose."

"I'm afraid I don't follow that last."

"Ah, I just mean... We're two for two when it comes to people wishing harm on others having extra powers with which to do so. I figure it's probably down to the fact that so many of us, an unusually high percentage, y'know, have powers in the first place. Not that someone needs magic in order to harm others, but as we can see, it can certainly make things much worse."

Susan nods, thoughtful. "And I imagine there's little recourse for addressing the ills wrought by someone with extra powers."

"Especially not if it's something they can do from far away." Like Luo Binghe causing Claudius pain from wherever he wanted, or Aornis's ability to just up and change the memories of nearly everyone in the mansion without even so much as touching them.

"How vexing," Susan says; it's an understatement, and she sounds thoughtful.

"You ain't kiddin'."

"I don't like it one bit."

"I don't either," he sighs. Maybe, if he were a more violent god, he would have already done something to... deal with this, before it becomes a problem for Claudius again. There's probably some people who would say he should. But ... that's not who he is, and he can't bring himself to do anything while there's -- maybe not no threat, but no active threat, at any rate. "I know this isn't exactly the conversation you were expecting us to have."

"No, but I'm glad you've brought it to my attention. I'd prefer to know of such things so I might respond accordingly."

"I think everyone should know, honestly, if for no other reason than to keep themselves safe."

"Do you have any sense of who does know? Besides, of course, Claudius. And presumably Galahad?"

"I don't, no. I can't imagine Galahad doesn't know though. I've warned Mercutio about him, but he doesn't know all of the details."

Susan nods. An action item! What a relief. "I shall spread the word to some people - Lancelot, naturally. Janet. Perhaps some others. Perhaps..." she purses her lips. "My focus shall be on the warning, rather than on airing Claudius's specific experience. I shouldn't want to let that slip to someone else he might feel vulnerable about."

"That's a good idea. Thank you. I would hate to make him feel -- upset, or anything like that, in our attempts to let everyone know."

"Yes. He oughtn't have his vulnerabilities disclosed unless he wants them to be shared."

"Exactly. Susan, I'm so happy you're here."

Susan looks up and directly at him at that. "Thank you, Bacchus. That's terribly kind of you."

"I mean it. I mean, in addition to all of the great things you do for, y'know, the community, you're just a really good friend."

"Why, Bacchus," says Susan, an unfettered smile spreading across her face, despite everything they've been discussing. "I feel the same way about you. I'm ever so pleased I've got to know you."

"Thank you, dear, that means a lot." He reaches for her hand and gives it a friendly squeeze. "Well, ah, where were we, before I brought all that up?"

Susan squeezes back. "I believe we were about to cast the play with little consideration for the auditions," she says, with a conspiratorial smile. Being Susan, it's also a little flirtatious.

"Ah! Yes, of course. Our plan to invite people to roles. Well, speaking of Claudius, I think he'd be really good as the wizard." Someone who deep down just wants to help people, who knows how to talk his way out of any situation (even one as absurd as trying to convince someone they already have a brain or whatever), and who often puts spectacle ahead of everything else? It's almost like it was written for him.

"Oh, I do think that's a good idea. He's got the right sort of showmanship to make the role sparkle."

"I agree! I'm really curious to see what he'd do with the role, you know?"

"Absolutely," says Susan. "And I think Nina ought to be the Wicked Witch, don't you? I imagine she'd have tremendous fun."

"Oh, she'll have a blast, I'm sure. ...We need to make little bone flying monkeys for her to control if she's the Wicked Witch."

"Surely she would be best-suited to creating her own, ah, bone flying monkeys?"

"Well, yes, I meant 'we' in, y'know, a group sort of sense. She'd probably be doing the actual making." He shrugs. He doubts there'd be much he could help with anyway, unless she wants her bone flying monkeys to be hot glued together.

"Ah. Then yes. I imagine it might take some work to get this place to cough up sufficient bones."

"I have every faith in your ability to get the mansion to cough up as many bones as Nina could ever need."

"Thank you, Bacchus," says Susan, honest-to-goodness preening. "That's ever so kind of you."

"Just telling the truth, is all." He grins. "Ah, so, did you have anyone in particular in mind for Dorothy?"

"I'm afraid I haven't. I don't know if any of the girls who tried out are suited to the role, and I'm not certain who else we might tap."

"Well -- it's theatre, we don't have to cast a girl just because Dorothy is a girl. That opens us up a bit with available actors."

Susan wants very much to ask are you certain? but feels as if that may be rude in a way she's not interested in behaving. "Have you any ideas?"

"Not particularly, no. Well -- ... hmm."

She makes a questioning noise!

"Did you already have a part in mind for Mercutio?"

"Nothing specific. I'd thought perhaps the Scarec-- oh. Oh, Bacchus. I do see where you're going with this."

He laughs. "You know, I'd been thinking Scarecrow too, mostly because I think he'd enjoy getting to walk around like he doesn't have bones -- but I mean... He picked up the monologue he did for the audition incredibly quickly, so I know he could handle the amount of lines--"

"I've seen him wearing dresses about, here and there, so if we kept the original costuming he wouldn't mind."

“He’d probably like it more than wearing a scarecrow costume, I think. I — I don’t want it to seem like I’m pushing for him to have this role just because he’s my — because he and I are close. But I do think he’d be a fun Dorothy. Very different from Judy’s Dorothy, but that’s half the fun of theatre. Getting to see different interpretations of characters.”

"Well, Bacchus, I believe you've convinced me of the idea," says Susan, thoughtfully. "If Mercutio is Dorothy, might I suggest... Tally as the Scarecrow?"

"Ooh, interesting! I like it!" He pauses, thinking for a moment. "D'you think we could get Gideon involved? Then their whole squad is in the play, which I'm sure they'd all appreciate."

"Gideon does like an axe..."

"Well, I think that settles it then! Gideon's the Tin Woodsman!"

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.

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.

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

"That," says Susan, kissing his cheek before sinking down into the seat across from his as the balloon drifts along in her orbit, "is a tremendously good question." She takes one of his hands in hers and squeezes his fingertips. "The toy is called a balloon, but it's like none I've seen before. There were," in tones of great resignation, "more of them, but I've managed to stow the rest of them away here and there."

"But not that one? Where did... it come from?"

"It would seem," says Susan, "our world believes that today is my birthday. Anytime I leave this one behind it... follows me."

He looks even more puzzled, "But it... is not thy birthday?"

Susan tilts her head. "What month do you suppose it is back home?"

Lancelot frowns slightly, "If I am honest, am not terribly good at keeping track, especially with the seasons differing as they seem to do. But I would suppose it must be... late November? December?"

"Galahad thought the thirteenth of December. My birthday is the sixteenth. But since I left London in April, it feels like late May to me."

He nods, thinking this over. "I trust Galahad's calendar-- but I know what thou dost mean. It was high summer when I left Britain and nearly autumn when I arrived here, and that was confusing."

"I trust my own calendar best," Susan admits, "but Galahad's is a close second. I've decided to accept today as my birthday, though; this place has been very insistent."

Lancelot smiles a little, "As I understand it, in thy time one receives gifts on one's birthday, and -- not knowing it was thy birthday, I have no gift for thee."

"Well then," says Susan, smiling back. "Let's use Galahad's calendar; now you have three days. Perhaps we might celebrate each of them, just to be safe."

"Oh, certainly we shall." He laughs. "That does rather remind me, in fact."

"Oh?"

"I have been planning something of a surprise," he says, flushing a little across the bridge of his nose. "Not a birthday surprise, but I suppose it could serve several purposes."

"A surprise!" Susan exclaims, pleased.

"Yes," pleased that she's so clearly pleased. "I mention it now only so that we can plan the day. I know how thou dost prefer to know thy schedule."

"I do, but I shall clear it whenever you should like."

"The weather has been generally good, so I think that any time we should like would suit us. We will need all afternoon and evening."

"A lengthy time out-of-doors," says Susan thoughtfully, and then shakes her head. "I shan't try to guess. You may surprise me whenever you like."

"Indeed," he looks incredibly pleased. "Very well. Let us plan for three days hence. That will give me time to prepare as I need to, and to have an additional gift for thy birthday."

"Splendid," says Susan. She rises to kiss his cheek, and then sits back to pour them both tea.

--

Three days hence, Susan dresses in an immensely flattering outfit suitable to all manner of outdoor activities - another gift from the Mansion for her birthday. It's akin to the rompers she used to wear as a child, but clearly meant for an adult woman with a phenomenal figure. Underneath it she's got on those clever two-legged nylons Janet calls tights; she's also got a cardigan in case it should get cold. Per Lancelot's suggestion, she waits for him in their room at the culmination of her morning routine. As she waits, she idly applies a deep red lipstick.

Lancelot has been preparing all morning -- in addition to the preparing he's already done. He secured Laertes' help the day before with preparing the food. They spent the afternoon cooking and packing, and so he has a collection of little handpies, good cold, fresh fruit and cut vegetables, hard cheeses and bread (much like he would have carried on his own outings, as a knight), and several other things. He also has packed a thermos of tea, a bottle of wine, and Susan's birthday gift.

He arrives back at their room with the picnic basket on his arm, and raps firmly on the door.

Susan finishes tying her cute-yet-sensible shoes, checks her hair, and goes to the door. "Good day," she says, opening it, and gestures to her cheek. "I'm afraid there's a door-opening tax."

Lancelot grins, helplessly, at her for a moment -- she looks so terribly good, and she knows him so well. Well enough to reference one of the moments he's been thinking of for months, since he first starting trying to figure out how he might surprise and treat her as they neared the mark of one year since they determined they would proceed with one another.

Then he steps in and kisses her cheek, murmuring, "I'll not complain. I am happy to pay it."

Edited 2025-01-09 03:25 (UTC)

Susan smiles up at him, already overcome. "I love you," she tells him, and then peers at the basket on his arm. "What have you got there?"

"A portion of our outing," he says, drawing himself up. Right now he's in a similar outfit as the other day, but with the addition of a cable-knit cardigan. The necklace from Laertes, which he's worn each day since he was gifted it, is at his throat. He is wearing his swordbelt in his usual way, free of his sword but carrying his Narnian dagger on the opposite side.

"I thought we would walk, for a while, but if thou wouldst rather not thou mayst say so."

"I love to walk," says Susan, immediately taking his arm the way she used to when they were first growing close. "Especially with you."

"Very good," he says, chuckling and pleased. He leads her down the corridor, the stairs, and out onto the grounds, as he has done many times before.

After they're a little ways from the mansion he says, "Thou'rt beautiful, I'm sure thou knowest. But I am glad we can do this."

"I do know," Susan agrees brightly. "I do so enjoy enabling you to show me off to our little world. And there is, of course, also the unparalleled company."

"Thy company is, indeed, unparalleled."

"I meant yours, of course, you sweet silly man."

"Didst thou? Of course."

"Do you know, I've been thinking," says Susan, as they walk. "We ought to find a new way to compete once it's too cold for swimming. I'm afraid checkers might be a lost cause."

"Is that because," teasingly, "thou dost not enjoy tactical thinking?"

"Oh, yes," Susan laughs. "I've met my match in the vast tactical landscape of draughts¹."

¹Pretend her typist remembered to use the British version last time too

"I am very pleased to hear thou dost think of me as thy match."

"In so very many things."

"I am also terribly grateful for that."

Susan smiles up at him, easy and warm. "It does sometimes feel miraculous, don't you think?"

He returns the smile with a similar one of his own, meeting her eyes. "It does. Often."

"Perhaps we ought to try some new hobbies together once the weather gets dreary again," Susan suggests.

"Oh! I should like that," he says, brightly. "What dost thou propose?"

"Oh, I hardly know where to start. There's ever so many pastimes, you know. We might learn a craft, or find new games to play, or seek a different sort of exercise..."

"Thou couldst learn to fence."

The reservations Susan had about tools of close combat a year ago are still reservations she holds. She dislikes violence, though she quite enjoys her archery training. (She's less likely now to insist that she's better at a distance - she no longer believes many the layers underlying this sort of claim.)

But more than that, she loves this man - this darling, wonderful man who has learned so many things just to be able to discuss her interests with her. "If you teach me," she says, eyes twinkling, "and turn it into a flirtation, then I suppose I could."

He glances over, a little surprised. "I can easily turn it into a flirtation, but I did not expect thee to agree."

"You love swordplay."

"That is true, but thou needst not."

"No," she agrees. "But you've done ever so much to familiarize yourself with my interests. I should like to try the same. If I find I don't enjoy it, I shan't persist, and we can find a different sort of activity that suits both of us." A new sort of dance, perhaps, or additional lovemaking.

"Very well," he looks pleased and lit up. "I shall find a suitable practice blade for thee."

She curls a hand over his cheek. Pleased, and a little smug, she says, "The look on your face right now makes giving it a shot more than worth it."

"Really, now. Is it such a good look?"

"Oh, yes. Rather."

He laughs and pauses long enough to kiss her cheek. "I am glad thou dost find me pleasing."

"Always," she says, smiling helplessly. "Speaking of pleasing... when shall I learn the nature of your surprise?"

Edited 2025-01-13 14:42 (UTC)

Lancelot leans in briefly to kiss her temple -- that smile is very, very good. He says, "In truth, thou hast already seen a portion. I would take thee picnicking, as we did when we first decided to proceed. I know I missed the date, but a year of happiness is worth celebrating."

"Oh!" she says, her expression soft and pleased. "Oh, Lancelot, that's lovely."

"I love thee," bumping her shoulder a little. "We can stay out as long as thou likest. Thou'lt see the rest coming up here in just a moment."

Indeed, they are coming close to the spot where they had taken that picnic, all those months ago. Lancelot has set up the blanket, carefully weighted it down, and there is a little spray of flowers besides. He has set things up a little closer to the treeline, in part because he has also set up a little shelter -- a makeshift tent and bedroll -- and prepared an area where they might have a fire, if they choose.

"My goodness!" Susan exclaims, leaning up to plant a firm kiss or three on his cheek. "Look at all of this. You've put ever so much work into this, haven't you? How tremendously lovely."

He laughs, looking very pleased indeed, "I have, I admit."

"You perfect darling." Susan kisses his cheek once more, then goes to settle on the blanket, arranging herself in an appealing sort of posture with her legs stretched out, twisting to look at Lancelot. "I'm so terribly fond of you."

"I am terribly glad of that." He pauses a moment to look at her, his expression all bright affection, then comes and sets the basket down and settles across from her. "Thou'rt beautiful."

"Yes," Susan agrees, striking another pose, tilting her head back so that her hair - which is mostly loose apart from being pinned back from her face, and carefully wrangled from its usual straightness into shining waves - cascades over her shoulder. She skims a hand down her side. "And isn't this outfit so marvelously flattering?"

Lancelot laughs, delighted, "It is. Know thou, it would cause a terrible scandal at court."

"Oh, I'm certain it would." Susan extends a leg, lifting it into the air like a dancer, really hamming it up. "The Narnians would also be shocked."

"I am honored," he says, with faux gravity, "that thou hast deployed such a sight for my benefit."

Susan lets her leg drop. "You're a tremendously lucky man," she says, reaching to pat his knee.

"This much is obvious."

"I believe I shall give you the honor of attending to my every need on this little excursion," she says, mock-thoughtful. "Right now I've got a strong need for a kiss."

Edited 2025-01-15 02:46 (UTC)

"I was hoping for just such an honor." He moves closer, leaning in and reaching for her. "And I would like nothing better than to kiss thee."

She straightens enough to cup his face in her hands and draw him to a hairs-breadth away - but since he's attending to her, she shall leave it to him to close the last bit of distance.

He lets the moment hang, for a breath or two, and then he's kissing her sweetly, one hand at the side of her neck.

Susan lingers in the kiss, content to let it spool out for a while, unhurried and sweet; when she draws back, she smooths her fingertips through his hair. Anticipating his yes, she asks, "Would you like to hear of my latest machinations?"

"Yes, of course," gazing at her with a look that is possibly best described as besotted.

She preens under the weight of this gaze, arranging herself comfortably so that she's reclining on her back with her head nestled on his lap, looking up at his face, her hair spilling over onto the blanket below. She props one leg up, knee crooked, and stretches the other one out. The pose is completed with a brief reach upward, just quick enough to boop his nose. "For starters," she says, "Bacchus and I are moving forth with the play. We've decided we shall cast who we think is most fitting rather than try and drum up interest in resumed auditions."

Lancelot draws his fingers through her hair, admiring it and hoping not to disarrange it too much. "So the two of thee will bully folk into performing?"

"Bully is so strong a word, don't you think?" says Susan, who has described her methods as 'bullying' to Lancelot on more than one occasion. "We shall cajole... entreat... everything short of begging, I imagine."

He laughs, "And am I on this list of those who would be cajoled?"

"Of course you are," she says, brightly. "You're to be in the ensemble. That means you shall have a few smaller lines, some background stage presence - and we thought you might enjoy participating in the swordplay interludes I've added to the script. You and," with a note of hope to her voice, "Laertes and Lan Wangji."

"Swordplay interludes -- I think they could be persuaded. But lines?"

"A word or two, really. Here and there."

He gives her a little half-smile. "Thinkest thou that I can manage such a thing? Without error?"

She reaches up and cups a hand around his cheek. "Why, of course I do, sweetheart."

"Well," the smile broadening (how could it not, when she is looking at him that way?). "An thou sayest, I shall believe thee."

"I expect it shall be terribly fun," says Susan. "Laertes is to help build the set, too, and," a teasing note enters her voice, "I imagine you'll be able to prevail upon him for a list of ways to assist him in that endeavor."

He laughs, flushing a little. "Laertes does like to issue me a task, yes."

"And you like it too, yes?"

"Yes. I like to be of use, as thou knowest, and it is good to do work together."

"Good," says Susan firmly. "I do so love when my machinations can be structured in such a way they create another space for your happiness." She lowers her hand from his face, catching his with it, and threading their fingers together. Then she rests their joined hands on her belly. "There is another matter."

He chuckles, "All my attention is thine."

"I should like your assistance in thinking of something we might do for Claudius. The tone ought to be one of support and care, ideally in a way that doesn't encourage painful memories to resurface."

"Why?" There is both concern and curiosity there. "Is he not well? Is something amiss between him and Galahad?"

"No, no, he and Galahad are fine; according to Galahad they're deliriously happy together. Bacchus told me--"

She pauses. Ought she be spreading this? But she trusts Lancelot completely, and it's far more important that he be aware of potential threats than remain circumspect about this sort of thing in the off-chance Claudius mightn't want Lancelot to know.

"When we were settling on the casting, Bacchus explained we oughtn't cast Luo Binghe, because he used his abilities to torture Claudius for no reason some months ago. Bacchus implied it might be a bad idea for me to, ah, upbraid the man," because surely that's what Bacchus meant when he spoke of magic and shit, "and I shall defer to his wisdom there, but I think it's dreadful Claudius has had to live with this for so long. I should like to send a stronger message than just roles in community theater."

Genuinely shocked, he says, "Tortured?"

Then he shakes his head and says, "No, Luo Binghe ought not be part of a production based on fellowship. I would like to help, but I don't know Claudius well at all. We are not exactly friends."

"Oh, sweetheart, I know, but--" Susan squeezes his hand. "You've still spoken. Perhaps you've got some insight. --And I imagine your support and care may carry different weight, specifically because you've not been close."

Dryly, he says, "A few of the times we've spoken have been a good demonstration of disdain." He considers for a moment, then goes on more gently. "The most recent, though... perhaps things have changed."

"If it shall cause problems for you, obviously you needn't be involved," says Susan immediately. "But perhaps they have, and even so..." She's not trying to sway him, just explain her meaning: "I think Claudius and I are alike in a number of ways. Of course I've not been tortured needlessly the way he was, but if someone with whom I had a complicated past came along and said they saw my pain and found it tremendously reasonable and should like to try and bring some ease - if Peter suddenly showed up one day, for example, or one of the people here... Sagramore, for instance, or perhaps the angel, or even Enjolras - I expect I would find it startlingly touching in a very different way to how it feels when it comes from an expected source. Do you see what I mean? And I think Claudius is like me in this."

He's about to answer, turning all of this over in his mind and thinking of how understood he had felt when speaking with Claudius the last time, when that percolates through and he says, "Sagramore?"

"Yes, of course Sagramore. I do know he's tremendously empathetic so it wouldn't necessarily be a surprise, but we didn't get on for long enough that it would still be striking."

"I suppose I didn't realize it was so difficult between the two of thee." He shakes his head a little, "But I see thy point. I am not opposed to helping, I only think I don't know Claudius well enough to be of much help."

"Oh, it's all right between us now, we've sorted out our differences," Susan reassures Lancelot, and hesitates. On the one hand, she's a little surprised this hasn't come up yet; on the other, she does suppose she hadn't wanted to mention it until she was confident she could say everything was in the past, out of respect for Lancelot's friendship.

She decides they can circle back around to this if Lancelot has got questions, but she might as well focus on her initial point for the time being. "That's fine - you needn't come up with the whole of the idea, of course. Primarily, I should like to hear your feedback on thoughts I've had. And perhaps as I walk through them, you might have an idea or two of your own."

"That I think I could do," he says, twining some of her hair around his fingers as he gazes down at her. "I should like to have things better between him and I. I think we could be friends."

Susan allows herself a moment of looking up at him, utterly smitten. "Yes, I believe you could be," she says, when that moment comes to an end. "Perhaps once you're close enough with him to be comfortable with it, we might invite him and Galahad to dinner. And in the meantime - one thought I had was food. That's classic, isn't it? To prepare a meal for someone when they've been having a difficult time? Claudius seems the sort to appreciate a proper jellied eel... though I expect if we were to offer that, we might need to think of additional dishes for Galahad. It does seem inconsiderate to prepare a meal for only half a family, even if it's the half that might need it most, don't you think?"

"I have not had jellied eel, though I have had eel. Does Galahad dislike it especially?"

"I'm not certain," Susan admits. He's never said so specifically to her. But she's tremendously observant, of course, and he's made a few comments here and there whilst they work together in their laboratory. Also: "I don't believe he cares for fish, and he avoided Claudius's aspic at the wedding. I shouldn't want to risk it."

"Perhaps, then, we could consider something to prepare that they both like-- so that they may dine together, no matter what it is."

"Very wise," says Susan, not bothering to hide a smile. "I'm afraid I haven't got a good idea what sort of foods they'd both care to eat. Do you?"

"I know nothing of this," almost cheerfully. "I know what I like, and I have some notion for some of thee, my friends, but anything for Claudius or Galahad would be a guess at best."

"My love," says Susan, with depths of fondness heretofore unknown to humankind. She pokes the shadow of the smile etched into his cheek. "You're so tremendously lucky to have me in your life. I suppose I'll do some digging and find something out."

Lancelot laughs, flushing and glad and equally fond. "Aye, I would be a lost cause, t'were not for thee."

"Utterly useless," Susan teases, curling her hand around the back of his neck and tugging him down - and herself up - for a kiss intended to underscore just how little she means that.

He, unusally, cups her face in both hands to kiss her. He is so happy, and he loves her so well, and this is going precisely as he planned.

Susan lets herself get lost in the kiss, focusing only on the feeling of Lancelot's lips on hers, and his hands on her face, and his hair at her fingertips. She brings her other hand up to his shoulder, clutching at it. Her heart feels too big for her chest, like Lancelot will be able to feel it pounding through the thin fabric of her outfit.

When he finally breaks the kiss, he doesn't draw back much. He strokes her cheek with a thumb. "Thou'rt perfect," he says softly.

"I'm ever so pleased you think so," she says, just as softly. Around them, a cacophony of early-autumn sounds arise. Birds and squirrels seek the growing seed-heads of the grasses surrounding the blanket. Crickets chirp; frogs croak. The breeze ruffles the leaves of the nearby trees.

Susan's attention is all on Lancelot. Distantly, she thinks she might've had more to say. But it can wait. Of greater relevance right now is the gladness written all over his face.

The setting is as he hoped it would be, as is the look on Susan's face. She's lovely, yes, but more than that she has come to feel essential to him in a way he would never have guessed when they first met. To see her happy, to see how she's opened up since that time, is a tremendous gift. He is not going to take it for granted.

"I suppose," he says softly, "that we should eat."

Edited 2025-01-21 14:26 (UTC)

"I could eat," Susan agrees, but she makes no move to sit up. Instead, she just shifts enough to stroke her knuckles against his cheek.

His smile is soft, warm. "I would not have thee starve."

"How could I starve, when you surfeit me so?"

He asks, as if this is novel information, "Do I really?"

"Dear heart," murmuring, "are you scrounging for compliments again? Very well." Susan uses the leverage of their close hold to pull him in for another kiss, unhurried and deep.

Lancelot lets himself chuckle a little, delighted by her, and then sinks into the kiss, tangling fingers gently in her hair.

When she pulls back, she's breathless, and she drops her head back onto his lap. "Very well," she says, trying to affect an airy tone and only partially succeeding. "You have my leave to feed me the choicest morsels in that basket of yours."

"That's well, since I only brought the choicest items."

He leans over and tugs the basket closer, opening the lid and making a show of considering options.

"How terribly thoughtful." She makes no move to sit up and investigate, but she is watching him closely. "What have you brought, incidentally?"

"I have grapes and strawberries, cheese and bread, some crisp beans from the garden, and Laertes and I baked handpies with lamb yesterday," brightly. "I also have tea and wine. And chocolate."

Susan does twist her head at that, obviously impressed. "You've been a busy little beaver, haven't you?"

"Aye, so I have," chuckling. "It was important to do this well."

"You've taken ever so much care," she says, softly, and then teases, "I've got a sneaking suspicion you should like me to feel cherished."

Lancelot looks down at her, "I should. I owe the bulk of my happiness here to thee. I shall not forget that, nor would I let thee wonder if I have forgotten."

"I hope you know I feel the same way," says Susan, reaching to pat his chest. "Do you know, you already made me feel like a whole person again for the first time after - after everything, when we were just pursuing friendship? I like to think that if you never asked to kiss me, your mere friendship might still have made me miles happier than I ever thought I might be again. But," she adds, tone softening from conspiratorial to besotted, "I'm ever so grateful and glad, every day, that you did."

He clasps her hand, kisses her palm, and says softly, "As am I. I am glad I was so bold."

"Surely you knew the reception to your question would be a favorable one," says Susan. "Even though I was striving terribly hard to ignore your good looks."

He flushes, "Is that so? I admit, I was not at all certain thou wouldst agree or feel the same way. I am unused to wooing anyone, let alone a dear friend I would not wish to lose."

"I seem to recall something about propositioning you within thirty minutes of meeting you," Susan points out. She's warm all over, and it hasn't got anything to do with the autumn breeze. She turns her hand in his and squeezes. "I suppose it doesn't matter how experienced one is when you've got the compatibility we've got." It's her turn to draw their joined hands to her mouth; she kisses his knuckles. "And the commitment. I'm so pleased we both took the chance despite our respective causes for hesitation."

"I am glad, too," softly. "The chance is turning out very well, I think. We suit one another, and I can speak well with thee. I trust thee. And now thou mayst proposition me whenever thou likest."

"Yes," Susan agrees. She watches him for a moment, very visibly considering whether she might illustrate his point and proposition him immediately, before also visibly deciding to wait a little while longer. "I believe I should like to start with a strawberry," she says, "and I suppose I've also got a question."

"As my lady commands," lightly. He reaches into the basket to find the little box of fruit. "And I will answer any question thou dost have."

"Well," starts Susan, eyes tracking the movement of his hands. "We've been at this for a little over a year."

"Yes, that's true." He pulls out a strawberry, holding it up with a silly flourish. "Hence our outing today."

"And when we started out, we agreed to see how things might evolve, with little expectation but to be honest with each other." She pauses then, both to collect her thoughts and to await her strawberry.

Lancelot hesitates, his expression not dimming too much, but definitely a touch wary. He works past that, though, and brings the strawberry to Susan's lips. "Aye, I recall that agreement."

Susan, who of course notices the flicker of Lancelot's expression, bites delicately into the strawberry, letting its tart-sweet juice spread over her tongue and licking a droplet away from the corner of her mouth. Her second bite finishes the berry, and she lets her lips drag against the pads of Lancelot's fingers with it.

Then she says, with a carefully-constructed blitheness, "I think we've done quite well on that front, don't you? Before I met you, I couldn't fathom wanting to live with anyone else, and now I can't imagine ever again wanting to live apart - I credit that, at least in part, to our arrangement; I'm so pleased you thought to ask whether we ought to keep on. I find--" she tilts her chin up, watching his expression "--When we started, I knew only that I liked you and wanted to see what might happen between us. I believe I might've been stumbling, at least a little." Possibly a lot. "You know how I'd not been in anything defined as a relationship before." If the phrasing on this last is unclear, it's because she's still not entirely certain how to characterize what Miriam was to her, back in London. "And now I find what we've got has surpassed my every expectation and then some. I'm so pleased you've got Laertes and Grantaire, and I've got Janet and my little flings, and most of all I'm pleased we've got each other."

She isn't being terribly successful at getting to the point, is she? She clears her throat and says, "I suppose what I'm trying to ask is, what would you like our future to hold?"

Edited 2025-01-25 02:34 (UTC)

His first thought is to tell her that he is happy as they are. If she is happy, that's his only concern. But that would not be entirely true -- he wants himself to be happy, as well. More importantly, he wants them to be happy with one another.

Everything Susan has said is positive. There's no reason to placate or worry he might have the wrong response. He brushes the corner of her mouth, lightly, and strokes her hair, looking down at her and taking in the loveliness of her face, the warmth in her eyes even when she herself might be a little nervous about raising the question. She is telling him that he can choose -- that they can choose together.

"I think," he says, quietly and slowly, the caution now more of the sort that he wants to get his words just right. He pauses. "I have been terribly happy with thee. I would like for us to continue to come to know one another, and watch one another grow as we learn more of each other and ourselves. I suppose that isn't very... definitive, is it?"

"No," says Susan. "But I expect it needn't be. I just--" She gazes up at him, and a thoughtful quiet descends as she takes in his expression and considers her own phrasing. "When we started out, I must admit that I wasn't certain how I might fare in a relationship. I'd never sought one before. You'll recall it took several months for me to even name it as such. I knew I shouldn't want to hurt you at all, but I also wasn't certain how long I might want to pursue things. But now..."

She catches his hand in her own and gives it a squeeze. "I haven't got those concerns any more. This place is ever so unpredictable, don't you think? It's hard to imagine what the future might hold. My sense of how I might like my life to unfold is so much less clear than it was in London. But I do know one thing: Whenever I envision what I should like my life to be like, a year from now, or five, or ten, I know that I want you to be part of it."

Lancelot smiles, lifts her hand to his mouth and kisses her knuckles. "Sweet, thou'rt so important to me, and I love thee so well. I promise that I ever shall be."

It's his turn to pause thoughtfully. Then, with only a little hesitation, he says, "Forgive me but-- I do not think this to be a test, but is there something else thou wast expecting to hear?"

"No," says Susan, also thoughtful. "No, I wouldn't say I was expecting any sort of answer in particular. Beyond, of course," with a soft smile that could easily also be described as sappy or affectionate or overwhelmingly pleased, "some sort of reference to your love. Why?"

Lancelot smiles softly at that look of hers. "I know," quietly, "that I was upset and unsettled after the day we were children. I had hoped I did not alarm thee, or make thee worry that I was unsatisfied."

At this, Susan sits up, rearranging herself so that her legs, rather than her head, are draped over Lancelot's lap. Then she takes his both of his hands in hers. The purpose of the shift is twofold: it takes a little time, and it allows her to meet his eyes more directly. "You mean when you spoke of the sort of future you set aside when you took up with Guinever." A pause; she runs her thumbs over his knuckles. "I didn't worry you were unsatisfied. I trust you to tell me if something isn't to your liking. I wouldn't necessarily say I was alarmed, either. ...Surprised, perhaps."

Ha chuckles, looking down, "As was I."

"Oh?"

"Surprised to find I felt so strongly," he admits.

"About the absence of choice you experienced?"

"Yes," he rubs her fingers gently, as if to soothe himself.

She leans in to kiss his cheek. "In retrospect, I do believe it makes a great deal of sense that you'd feel strongly about such things, particularly if you've been just made to confront certain elements of the feelings," she says.

He smiles at her, then leans in to kiss her properly.

She wraps her arms around him, shifting more squarely onto his lap as she returns the kiss.

He tugs her close, the fingers of one hand trailing through her hair, and deepens the kiss, leisurely.

It's always so shockingly easy to let herself get lost in Lancelot's mouth. Susan can vaguely remember their first kisses; how she spent so much of the time debating just how much to show off, how much control to take. She almost never thinks about such things with him anymore. Instead she lets him distract her from herself, gives in to the urge to just feel, and touch, and taste. This is no different. There's more she intends to say, but she lets it fall away as his hand slips through her hair.

Lancelot is happy to let the kiss go on. He is happy with Susan, happy that she has enjoyed the outing -- happy that he can make her happy. So his fingers move gently through her hair, and he lets her decide what is enough.

Nothing is ever enough, of course. Susan has her lengthy to-do lists and the jobs she's assigned herself, but she's never once minded when when her day gets waylaid by Lancelot, and honestly sometimes she seeks him out, seduction on her mind, because she likes the feeling of putting aside her self-appointed duties for a diverting afternoon with the man she loves. She likes to lose herself in him, to get carried away. Oh, she's got her sense of propriety, and they are in the middle of the outdoors, but - he did set up that tent. It would be so intoxicatingly easy to let herself get carried away right now, before they've eaten more than a single strawberry.

When she does eventually pull back, it's for a breath, and before she can catch it she breathlessly laughs. "I've got lipstick all over your face," she says, wiping away a smudge at the edge of his mouth with her thumb. "It's quite --" she kisses him again, briefly, firmly, joyously "--the look."

"It cannot be that bad," laughing. "It's happened before."

"No, but it's particularly striking in this light," she says, wiping another smudge away. With it she gives him a searching look. "I mean it, you know."

Edited 2025-01-28 14:48 (UTC)

His eyebrows go up, "Mean what? That thou wishest to keep me at thy side, ever and always?"

"That, too," says Susan earnestly, and with a bit of a searching look. "But also that - I trust you to tell me if something isn't to your liking. Or, I suppose, if what you want changes."

"I see. That, should I want for something different or a different shape to our arrangement, I will tell thee. Yes?"

"Yes," she says, curling a hand around the back of his neck. "Good." Then she reaches out with her other arm to snag a berry and hold it up, an offering.

He smiles at her and leans in to take a bite -- carefully, though (it must be said) with a little less deliberate grace than Susan.

"If it truly is my birthday today," Susan says, watching him, warmed, "and it's not still half a year off, then I must say that so far it's a good one."

"I am glad," warmly, once he swallows the strawberry. "That was my wish. And thou'rt radiant."

"You always think I'm radiant."

"That's true," frankly.

"I should like to find a way to truly leave you speechless."

"I feel certain thou'rt capable of it."

"Oh, I'm certain I am. I shall just have to consider precisely how to ensure it."

He gives her a bright, slightly crooked grin, "I look forward to it."

Susan tucks herself in close against his side then, leaning against him, and draws the picnic basket closer to the both of them. "You said you made the hand pies?"

He nods, looking slightly proud in a way he rarely does when he's praised for his martial skill. "Laertes and I baked them together, yes."

"What part did you prepare?"

"My strong suit is chopping ingredients." Is he downplaying his efforts? Almost certainly.

Susan, who is keen to his tricks, just raises her eyebrows.

"Very well," laughing, "I also learned how to... saute? And make a sauce. The pastry I left to Laertes, who is a much stronger hand at baking."

"Well, I'm very excited to try it," says Susan, reaching for one and breaking it in half. She gives the contents a delicate sniff, and then tastes it.

He might be watching with trepidation, except he's already eaten a few. So let's call it 'expectation' instead. He says nothing, only watches her with a warm smile.

Susan chews and swallows. "Hm," maintaining a thoughtful expression. "Have you tasted them already?"

"Of course," chuckling, "I'd not give thee something I wouldn't eat myself."

Susan takes another, bigger bite. After swallowing, she says, "Then I suppose I needn't tell you how scrumptious they are?"

Lancelot beams at her. "Perhaps though needst not, but I'll hear thee anyhow."

Susan wipes her mouth neatly with a napkin, then presses a kiss to Lancelot's cheek. "They're delicious, sweetheart. I particularly enjoy - what's the seasoning you've used?"

Another laugh, as he slips his arm tight around her waist. "I know not. Thyme? Laertes will know."

"You ought to make note of such things, you know. So that you've got more of a basis for bragging."

"I need not brag to thee," lightly. "Thou hast taken me as I am."

"I suppose I have, but you've still got my leave to show off," she says, impishly, eating more of the pie.

"Do I not show off enough? I never thought I'd hear such a thing."

"Some might consider it to be enough, but I believe you're well within your rights to do more."

"Mm," chuckling, "I shall keep it in mind."

"Are you not hungry?"

"I am, but I am enjoying thine enjoyment too much."

"You ought to eat," she advises him. "When I'm done I shall want to investigate that tent you've got set up."

"I shall consider my strength, then," with a bright look. He reaches past her to grab a pie of his own. "Very well."

"This really all is ever so lovely," says Susan, after she's mostly finished her pie. "And thoughtful. Do you know, I've got the sneaking suspicion that I might be cherished."

"What needs must I do to make thee certain of it?"

"Oh, goodness. I could hardly pinpoint any one thing."

"Lady, for thee I will quest to the ends of the earth."

"Ah," says Susan, so desperately fond that she can't help but preen. "There's the confirmation, then." She finishes off her pie, then starts sorting through the basket to investigate the cheese, and then abandons that particular quest in order to open the bottle of wine. Once it's uncorked, she considers the bottle, and then takes a swing directly from it before holding it out, an offering.

Lancelot grins at her, bright and so obviously in love that it's almost ridiculous. He takes the bottle, takes a drink, and then offers it back.

Susan takes another swig. "I'm afraid I've been utterly derailed from any conversational topic I might've had in mind," she confesses. "All I can think of to say is variations on this is ever so lovely."

"Then I have done my work well."

"What shall become of my numerous machinations?" Susan asks, utterly unconcerned, with another pull of wine. She offers the bottle back to Lancelot and goes back to rummaging through the picnic basket.

"I do not doubt that thou'lt remember them well enough," chuckling. He sits up a bit. "Here, now. An thou'rt determined to empty the basket thyself, thou shouldst be wary of missing the last gift."

Susan immediately stops and looks up. "The last gift?"

"I am told that, in thy time, it is customary to give a birthday gift to one's loved ones. Yes."

"It is customary," says Susan. "I thought the picnic was the gift."

"I was already planning the picnic when I learned of the birthday. So it is, but a separate gift."

The look she gives him is perhaps overly soft and fond. "You truly are my favorite person."

Lancelot flashes a delighted smile at her, "That is very fortunate indeed, for thou art mine."

She shan't clamber into his lap and kiss him the way she wants to, as there's food arrayed between them and she isn't interested in crumbs getting ground into these nylons. Her expression, though, makes her desire clear, even as she reaches for some cheese and bread instead of for him. "When is your birthday?" she asks, frankly a little surprised that it's not come up yet, and then, "If it's genuinely my birthday, Christmas mustn't be terribly far off. Had you a custom of exchanging gifts on Christmas yet, back in Camelot, or is that a newer invention?"

"My birthday is in the start of June," he leans over to tug the basket a bit closer so that he can better dig around in it. "We did exchange gifts in Yuletide, though that wasn't as much the point as feasting was."

Susan makes a little sandwich, takes a happy bite, chews, and swallows. Then she says, "I suppose I shall double up on gifts for you in two weeks, then, as somehow I missed your birthday."

Lancelot laughs, "Thou needst not. And everyone has missed it, as I've mentioned it to none that I can think of."

Primly, Susan says, "I hold myself to a different standard."

"Of course thou dost."

"Surely I might've sussed it out somehow," she teases. "And by my internal calendar, it's nearly June anyway." She smiles brightly at him. "All the more reason, then."

"I see I cannot stop thee," light and amused.

"You absolutely cannot. Though be warned: I haven't the faintest idea how I might surpass this, so perhaps I shan't even attempt it." Surpassing, that is; Lancelot shall get multiple gifts.

"I am pleased to know I have exceeded thy expectations," grinning. He pulls a small velvet bag from the basket. "Perhaps I should keep this in reserve for some time that I have erred."

"No!" says Susan, who does (it must be said) make grabby hands toward the bag. "I should like my birthday gift, please and thank you."

Because he can't resist, he dangles it out of her reach for a moment. But then he takes her hand and places it there gently. "I am not very good at getting the spirits to give me what I am asking for -- nowhere near so capable as thou art. But I thought on thee, and tried... a few times. And I hope that this is to thy liking."

In the velvet bag, Susan will find a necklace¹. It is understated, and just the right length to provide a good accent should she be wearing a dress with the appropriate neckline.

^{1: The key difference is that the primary gem is not a garnet, but a star sapphire. This is because the typist could not find an example that matched the desired necklace closely enough.}

Susan studies the necklace for a long few moments, turning it over in her hands, holding it up and judging its length and its suitability for most of her clothes. It's lovely, precisely the style she prefers, and she's tremendously touched.

Then she decides, to Hell with the food between them. She moves the picnic basket out of the way, setting her cheese-and-bread sandwich on its lid and propping the open bottle of wine carefully against it, and then climbs into Lancelot's lap, wrapping arms and legs alike around him, drawing him in for a deep, delighted kiss. "Go on then," she says, when she finally breaks it, pressing the necklace into his hand. "Put it on me."

He smiles at her, bright and some sort of relieved and very happy. "Of course, lady."

Difficult as it is to not simply kiss her, he takes the necklace and very deliberately, very carefully, places it, working the clasp with a little bit of effort.

When the pendant rests against her cleavage, Susan glances down. "I believe that's very becoming," she says, unlatching one of her arms from behind him just long enough to touch the stone. "I love it. Thank you."

"Thou'rt welcome," he's flushed and beaming. "It suits thee just as I had hoped."

"A great many things suit me, but I do believe you've got an eye for what might look best." Susan touches the stone again, and then leans in for another kiss. Her hand gets trapped between their bodies with the movement, but she shan't let that stop her.

Edited 2025-02-06 02:18 (UTC)

"Everything looks well on thee," he murmurs, then returns the kiss, sweet and elated.

It's a terrible line, the kind that would absolutely make Janet cackle out loud. Susan knows this before she says it. But she doesn't mind. Against Lancelot's lips, she murmurs, "You look best on me."

His fingertips drift along the back of her neck, "Lady, thou givest me too much glory."

"I disagree."

Lancelot smiles at her, then draws her in for another kiss.

And Susan falls in, clutching at him, pulling him as close as he physically can get. She may have satiated some of her physical hunger with the pie and the berries and the cheese, but she feels ravenous just the same. Ravenous, and buoyantly light. Outside of family exchanges and the clumsy attempts of the odd one-time assignation attempting to make a case for a repeat experience back in London, she's not been on the receiving end of a great many gifts before, and as it turns out, she rather likes the combination of an experience and a physical token. She's so tremendously, tremulously happy in a way she once thought would be impossible forevermore.

And she hadn't realized, back when she was so studiously trying to determine the nature of her feelings for him, that the decision she did, in fact, love him wouldn't be the end of it. She hadn't realized that feeling would grow in intensity, or would age like a fine wine, with new flavors to discover over time. Perhaps she ought to have known, but in truth she's a little overwhelmed by it - by the ferocity of her care for this wonderful, thoughtful, gorgeous man.

The tent and its bedroll is just a few paces away. Susan does not suggest they move to it. She's far too preoccupied with the kiss, and with working her hands under his cardigan so she can feel the bare skin of his back.

Lancelot slides one arm tight around her waist, keeping her close, and sets his other hand lightly at the side of her neck. He is so glad he has gotten this right; he has wished he can somehow show her exactly how much he appreciates all that she does for him, despite the fact that he isn't good with words. He knows how smaller gestures can convey some of the depth of that care, love, gratitude. She has given him so much, has helped him so much -- to understand himself, to begin to heal, to let down his guard a bit and learn how to be close with people.

Since he isn't sure he can say it well enough, he instead pours all of that into the kiss, into his attention and focus on her nearness.

If she knew Lancelot's thoughts in this moment, Susan would laugh, incredulous. He gives her so much every day, and the only times she finds his communication murky is when he doesn't know, himself, what he's feeling.

Still, she does feel particularly treasured today. His hold on her is firm, the way she likes it, but his touch is gentle, like she's something precious. In some of their points of contact, she can feel his racing heartbeat; it's pounding nearly as hard as her own. He tastes like the pies he made her, and he's solid under her hands, the skin of his back warm and soft. The necklace he got her presses between their chests as she draws him closer still. Into the kiss, she smiles.

"So," he murmurs, after quite a long while. He is flushed and smiling and just a little bit mussed. "I believe thou'rt pleased with thy birthday?"

"Oh, thoroughly," she says, breathlessly, still peppering his face with little kisses. "You've truly made me come around on the idea."

He laughs, "Well then, we shall continue to observe thy feast day."

"Right now, for example," suggests Susan. "In that lovely tent you've set up."

He flushes and his smile crooks into a grin. "Aye, lady, that we may."

Susan pulls away just far enough to grab at the open of bottle of wine and drink deeply from it, maintaining eye contact with Lancelot the entire time. "One more for the road?" she says, eyes sparkling, offering him the bottle.

"Of course," accepting it. He takes a healthy pull, then carefully sets it aside. "Shall we?"

For this, she can bear the horrid few moments of separation when she climbs off his lap and into the tent. Once inside, she arrays herself into an appealing position, and then gestures for him to follow. "You have my leave to undress me," she says, faux-prim, as he closes the flap. "But leave the necklace on."

He smiles at her, moving close. "An thou canst be sure to guide me, I shall."

"And if I should like to see your best efforts without my guidance?"

Edited 2025-02-10 05:27 (UTC)

"Lady, as thou knowest I always put in my best efforts for thee."

"Oh, I do know," she says, drawing him to her.

--

After, she climbs off of him and curls up at his side, pressed in close, her head resting on his shoulder. The bedroll is a little uncomfortable, but she doesn't mind, instead focusing on the feeling of his arm around her waist. "We ought to have brought the picnic in with us," she says, unbothered. "Now one of us shall have to get dressed if we want more of it."

"Oh, I am brave enough to manage," he says, lightly.

"My valiant knight," she smiles, but the smile is (admittedly) a little shaky, as the warmth suffusing the tent starts to contend with the chill on the air outside. It's already become quite clear that this is one of their couplings that has resulted in her feeling particularly clingy, loathe to be apart from him. It's a reaction to sex that she would have considered uncharacteristic a year ago, and she's still not entirely certain what to make of the shift toward this sort of response.

Perhaps, in this moment, it's that she's overwhelmed by the counterpoint of the clarity and depth of her feelings for him and the muddled complexity of her feelings about this time of the year. She takes a deep breath and snuggles closer.

Lancelot shifts to wrap both arms around her, kissing her hair. "Brave enough," he says, "for anything thou dost bid me."

She manages an impish smile at that. "Anything, eh?"

"Aye, Susan," kissing her forehead. "Anything. I love thee so well."

"Oh," she says, breath catching, eyelashes fluttering. It's not a surprise, of course; he says such things often. But it still takes her aback sometimes. She tilts her face towards his. "Then perhaps I might bid one more kiss?"

"That, my lady, is simple," pulling her closer yet, kissing her with focused intent.

"I love you," she sighs, when she finally breaks the kiss and settles back against his chest. "You make everything so much better."

Lancelot keeps her close, shamelessly cuddling her. "I am glad. That is my dearest wish."

"It occurs to me," she starts, and then stops - it's a thought tonally inconsistent with their date.

Softly, as he runs a hand along her back, "Say on, sweet."

"It's only... I'm older than Peter, now. And I'm very nearly older than Edmund ever got to be, even in Narnia." Lucy goes without saying, but Lancelot was there when Susan aged past Lucy's oldest point; he read the letters she wrote.

He presses a kiss to her hair, holding her close and rubbing her arm. "I imagine that not thinking on it is not possible," quietly, "but with me thou mayest say anything that is on thy heart."

"Oh, my heart, I know I may." She tucks her arm across his chest. "This is something I do try not to dwell upon."

"I agree thou shouldst not dwell on it," nuzzling her again, "but thou shouldst not ignore it. That is the advice thou wouldst give to me."

"It is," she allows, turning her face up again for another kiss.

He kisses her sweetly, deeply, then when at last it breaks he kisses her forehead, her eyelids, her cheeks.

She captures his mouth in another kiss when his kisses approach her lips, shifting closer. It's intent, heartfelt, and slow; when she pulls back, she presses a kiss to his cheek, too, and then says, "I miss them, I suppose."

"Of course thou dost," brushing back a few stray wisps of her hair, "they are thy family."

"Yes, of course. I mean," she says, and sighs. "I don't know what I mean."

"Thou needst not know," giving her a little squeeze. "It is complicated. It is a difficult time of year. I understand."

This has Susan smiling at him helplessly. "You sound like me a month ago, my love," she says.

"Perhaps I learned well from thee."

Her smile broadens. "As I learn from you," she says, some of her wistful air evaporating, supplanted by immense satisfaction.

He smiles back, similarly satisfied, and kisses her forehead. "Then we are well suited."

^ [open post]

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject