^ [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

[sorrowandsorrow]

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

[quote_gentle_unquote]

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

[sorrowandsorrow]

"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.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"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."

[sorrowandsorrow]

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."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

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

[sorrowandsorrow]

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

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"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."

[sorrowandsorrow]

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

[quote_gentle_unquote]

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."

[sorrowandsorrow]

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

[quote_gentle_unquote]

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

[sorrowandsorrow]

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

[quote_gentle_unquote]

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

[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]

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

[sorrowandsorrow]

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

[quote_gentle_unquote]

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

[sorrowandsorrow]

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

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"How... perfectly innovative."

[sorrowandsorrow]

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

[quote_gentle_unquote]

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

[sorrowandsorrow]

"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.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"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."

[sorrowandsorrow]

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