^ [open post]

[quote_gentle_unquote]

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

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

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

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

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

She stares at them, perplexed.


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

Comments

[vineleaves]

"Just telling the truth, is all." He grins. "Ah, so, did you have anyone in particular in mind for Dorothy?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

He smiles at her, moving close. "An thou canst be sure to guide me, I shall."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"And if I should like to see your best efforts without my guidance?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"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."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Lady, as thou knowest I always put in my best efforts for thee."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"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."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Oh, I am brave enough to manage," he says, lightly.

[sorrowandsorrow]

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

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"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.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

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

[vineleaves]

"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."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

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?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot shifts to wrap both arms around her, kissing her hair. "Brave enough," he says, "for anything thou dost bid me."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

She manages an impish smile at that. "Anything, eh?"

[vineleaves]

"Not particularly, no. Well -- ... hmm."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

She makes a questioning noise!

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Aye, Susan," kissing her forehead. "Anything. I love thee so well."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"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?"

[vineleaves]

"Did you already have a part in mind for Mercutio?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Nothing specific. I'd thought perhaps the Scarec-- oh. Oh, Bacchus. I do see where you're going with this."

[vineleaves]

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--"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"I've seen him wearing dresses about, here and there, so if we kept the original costuming he wouldn't mind."

[lightbearinglord]

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

[sorrowandsorrow]

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

[vineleaves]

“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.”