^ [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]

"Between you and me, I believe she'd be thrilled," Susan says. "Now that she's sorted out how to do it in the first place, I imagine she'd rather like showing off her hard work and skill again. Next time we shall have to bring you to meet Regina whilst in your cat form."

[onthewillowsthere]

"I'd like that." He considers her comment. "She's very skilled."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Isn't she?"

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad looks up at Susan, studying her face. "Do you love her?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Somehow this takes Susan by total surprise. "What?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"Queen Janet. You love her, I think." He shouldn't have been so imprecise with his question.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Do you?" she asks, still surprised. "I've not thought about it."

[onthewillowsthere]

"I noticed when I was a cat."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

With immense curiosity and a measure of trepidation, Susan asks, "What did you notice?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"You called her sweetheart, and then you were surprised. And when you were sad, you were glad she was there, but you were different with her than you are with me. I think--" He hesitates, aware that he could easily be misunderstanding, and in doing so overstepping. "I believe that it matters to you what she thinks of you, because you love her."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan presses her lips together and hums. Galahad was right about Lancelot, even though it took her some time to see it. He's a very perceptive man. But is he right about Janet?

She shall have to reflect on this at length. "Thank you," she says.

[onthewillowsthere]

"You're welcome."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"I suppose I shall have to reflect on this now." Her tone is either playful or resigned or shocked; she's aiming for the first, but her thoughts are in turmoil.

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad studies her. Her tone of voice is still largely opaque to him, but his beliefs about her feelings were clearly new information and he was, perhaps, presumptuous. Susan usually asks directly when she wants his opinion.

"I'm sorry if I overstepped," he says.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan blinks and then proceeds to wrestle herself into a better state of control. "Overstepped?" she says. "Of course you haven't overstepped."

[onthewillowsthere]

He nods: he believes her.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Truth be told, I cannot fathom you overstepping," she adds. "Is it something that you're concerned about generally?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"Not with you," Galahad says. "I trust you."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Good," says Susan. "I'm pleased to hear it. --And besides, I'm afraid I've got a tendency of making it immediately known if I feel someone has overstepped."

[onthewillowsthere]

"I prefer that."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"As do I," Susan agrees. "Things are so much more straightforward when they're made clear, don't you think?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"Yes." He hands the phone back to her. "Have you lied to someone about your feelings? Not purposefully, but because you didn't know how you felt?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan slips it back into her pocket, considering the question. "What sort of lie?" she asks, brow lightly furrowed. "By omission, certainly."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Whether you were all right. Whether something was wrong."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan tilts her head. "No," she decides, after a long few moments of reflection. "I have lied purposefully about my feelings, but I believe the only lies I've told about my feelings due to a lack of understanding have all been by omission rather than by explicit statements. Such as not telling Miriam - a friend of mine from London - that I loved her."