^ [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]

"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."

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad nods again. "Does Lancelot understand?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"He knows my longstanding feelings on the matter."

[onthewillowsthere]

"What are you uncertain of?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

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

[onthewillowsthere]

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

[quote_gentle_unquote]

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

[onthewillowsthere]

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

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Yes."

[onthewillowsthere]

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

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"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."

[onthewillowsthere]

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.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

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.

[onthewillowsthere]

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?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

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

[onthewillowsthere]

"What does that mean?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"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."

[onthewillowsthere]

"If you married?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Precisely."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Why?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"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."

[onthewillowsthere]

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

[quote_gentle_unquote]

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

[onthewillowsthere]

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.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

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."