^ [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]

"Dear heart," murmuring, "are you scrounging for compliments again? Very well." Susan uses the leverage of their close hold to pull him in for another kiss, unhurried and deep.

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot lets himself chuckle a little, delighted by her, and then sinks into the kiss, tangling fingers gently in her hair.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

When she pulls back, she's breathless, and she drops her head back onto his lap. "Very well," she says, trying to affect an airy tone and only partially succeeding. "You have my leave to feed me the choicest morsels in that basket of yours."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"That's well, since I only brought the choicest items."

He leans over and tugs the basket closer, opening the lid and making a show of considering options.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"How terribly thoughtful." She makes no move to sit up and investigate, but she is watching him closely. "What have you brought, incidentally?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

"I have grapes and strawberries, cheese and bread, some crisp beans from the garden, and Laertes and I baked handpies with lamb yesterday," brightly. "I also have tea and wine. And chocolate."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan does twist her head at that, obviously impressed. "You've been a busy little beaver, haven't you?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Aye, so I have," chuckling. "It was important to do this well."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"You've taken ever so much care," she says, softly, and then teases, "I've got a sneaking suspicion you should like me to feel cherished."

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot looks down at her, "I should. I owe the bulk of my happiness here to thee. I shall not forget that, nor would I let thee wonder if I have forgotten."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"I hope you know I feel the same way," says Susan, reaching to pat his chest. "Do you know, you already made me feel like a whole person again for the first time after - after everything, when we were just pursuing friendship? I like to think that if you never asked to kiss me, your mere friendship might still have made me miles happier than I ever thought I might be again. But," she adds, tone softening from conspiratorial to besotted, "I'm ever so grateful and glad, every day, that you did."

[lanselos_du_lac]

He clasps her hand, kisses her palm, and says softly, "As am I. I am glad I was so bold."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Surely you knew the reception to your question would be a favorable one," says Susan. "Even though I was striving terribly hard to ignore your good looks."

[lanselos_du_lac]

He flushes, "Is that so? I admit, I was not at all certain thou wouldst agree or feel the same way. I am unused to wooing anyone, let alone a dear friend I would not wish to lose."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"I seem to recall something about propositioning you within thirty minutes of meeting you," Susan points out. She's warm all over, and it hasn't got anything to do with the autumn breeze. She turns her hand in his and squeezes. "I suppose it doesn't matter how experienced one is when you've got the compatibility we've got." It's her turn to draw their joined hands to her mouth; she kisses his knuckles. "And the commitment. I'm so pleased we both took the chance despite our respective causes for hesitation."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"I am glad, too," softly. "The chance is turning out very well, I think. We suit one another, and I can speak well with thee. I trust thee. And now thou mayst proposition me whenever thou likest."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Yes," Susan agrees. She watches him for a moment, very visibly considering whether she might illustrate his point and proposition him immediately, before also visibly deciding to wait a little while longer. "I believe I should like to start with a strawberry," she says, "and I suppose I've also got a question."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"As my lady commands," lightly. He reaches into the basket to find the little box of fruit. "And I will answer any question thou dost have."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Well," starts Susan, eyes tracking the movement of his hands. "We've been at this for a little over a year."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Yes, that's true." He pulls out a strawberry, holding it up with a silly flourish. "Hence our outing today."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"And when we started out, we agreed to see how things might evolve, with little expectation but to be honest with each other." She pauses then, both to collect her thoughts and to await her strawberry.

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot hesitates, his expression not dimming too much, but definitely a touch wary. He works past that, though, and brings the strawberry to Susan's lips. "Aye, I recall that agreement."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan, who of course notices the flicker of Lancelot's expression, bites delicately into the strawberry, letting its tart-sweet juice spread over her tongue and licking a droplet away from the corner of her mouth. Her second bite finishes the berry, and she lets her lips drag against the pads of Lancelot's fingers with it.

Then she says, with a carefully-constructed blitheness, "I think we've done quite well on that front, don't you? Before I met you, I couldn't fathom wanting to live with anyone else, and now I can't imagine ever again wanting to live apart - I credit that, at least in part, to our arrangement; I'm so pleased you thought to ask whether we ought to keep on. I find--" she tilts her chin up, watching his expression "--When we started, I knew only that I liked you and wanted to see what might happen between us. I believe I might've been stumbling, at least a little." Possibly a lot. "You know how I'd not been in anything defined as a relationship before." If the phrasing on this last is unclear, it's because she's still not entirely certain how to characterize what Miriam was to her, back in London. "And now I find what we've got has surpassed my every expectation and then some. I'm so pleased you've got Laertes and Grantaire, and I've got Janet and my little flings, and most of all I'm pleased we've got each other."

She isn't being terribly successful at getting to the point, is she? She clears her throat and says, "I suppose what I'm trying to ask is, what would you like our future to hold?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

His first thought is to tell her that he is happy as they are. If she is happy, that's his only concern. But that would not be entirely true -- he wants himself to be happy, as well. More importantly, he wants them to be happy with one another.

Everything Susan has said is positive. There's no reason to placate or worry he might have the wrong response. He brushes the corner of her mouth, lightly, and strokes her hair, looking down at her and taking in the loveliness of her face, the warmth in her eyes even when she herself might be a little nervous about raising the question. She is telling him that he can choose -- that they can choose together.

"I think," he says, quietly and slowly, the caution now more of the sort that he wants to get his words just right. He pauses. "I have been terribly happy with thee. I would like for us to continue to come to know one another, and watch one another grow as we learn more of each other and ourselves. I suppose that isn't very... definitive, is it?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"No," says Susan. "But I expect it needn't be. I just--" She gazes up at him, and a thoughtful quiet descends as she takes in his expression and considers her own phrasing. "When we started out, I must admit that I wasn't certain how I might fare in a relationship. I'd never sought one before. You'll recall it took several months for me to even name it as such. I knew I shouldn't want to hurt you at all, but I also wasn't certain how long I might want to pursue things. But now..."

She catches his hand in her own and gives it a squeeze. "I haven't got those concerns any more. This place is ever so unpredictable, don't you think? It's hard to imagine what the future might hold. My sense of how I might like my life to unfold is so much less clear than it was in London. But I do know one thing: Whenever I envision what I should like my life to be like, a year from now, or five, or ten, I know that I want you to be part of it."