^ [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]

"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.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"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.

[vineleaves]

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."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

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

[vineleaves]

"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."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"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."

[vineleaves]

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."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

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

[vineleaves]

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

[quote_gentle_unquote]

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

[vineleaves]

"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.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"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?"

[vineleaves]

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.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

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

[vineleaves]

"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?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

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

[vineleaves]

“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?”

[quote_gentle_unquote]

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

[vineleaves]

"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."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

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--"

[vineleaves]

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

[quote_gentle_unquote]

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

[vineleaves]

"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.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

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

[vineleaves]

"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--"