^ [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

[quote_gentle_unquote]

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

[sporesprouter]

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

[quote_gentle_unquote]

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

[sporesprouter]

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

[quote_gentle_unquote]

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

[sporesprouter]

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

[quote_gentle_unquote]

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

[sporesprouter]

"I guess I've surprised myself before."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Sensing a story, Susan makes an encouraging noise.

[sporesprouter]

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

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"What did you do?"

[sporesprouter]

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."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

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

[sporesprouter]

"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."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Rain is predictable elsewhere?"

[sporesprouter]

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

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"A century! Truly?"

[sporesprouter]

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

[quote_gentle_unquote]

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

[sporesprouter]

She laughs. "That bad?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"It was often rather damp."

[sporesprouter]

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

[quote_gentle_unquote]

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

[sporesprouter]

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

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"I do beg your pardon?"