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[called_lioness]

Some days Lucy can't deal with her husband.

It's not a fault on either of their parts, and it's not to imply that she's angry with him, because she's certainly not.

There are just certain times when she doesn't want to be with Caspian because she doesn't know how to voice what's bothering her. Where she aches and wants to cry and doesn't want to explain to him, because Caspian's life and worries and fears and pains aren't quite hers in some ways.

And sometimes it's worth explaining because of that, and sometimes she can't bring herself to try to make sense of the mess of things she feels and translate them into words for her husband who she loves and doesn't always understand herself.

After talking with Archibald Craven, it became one of those days.

She has to go home, of course. She knows that, and that he'll be in their room, and that it will be better when she curls up next to him simple because she is next to him, and she also knows she's not quite ready to yet.

So she curls up in the corner of one of the living rooms, teacup held tightly, and keeps the lights mostly off.

It makes it a good place to be alone, and right now, as she's trying not to cry

(If she cares for you, and you are leaving, you shall.)

and let herself be lost in her thoughts.

Comments

[iustus_rex]

Edmund steps out of his painting

(a young boy (Arch) holds a baby (Ingress), his opal-colored eyes round and green with astonishment. "I was never this small," he declares firmly to his mother. "Or smelly."

She only laughs, and smooths a hand over his hair.)

and (only blinking a little) into the kitchen. He left a book here, on the table -- well, maybe on the counter -- okay, somewhere in this room, he's pretty certain, except --

Oh, dash it all, no, he left it in the living room instead.

[called_lioness]

He did.

Lucy's tears stop the moment she hears the first footstep and her breathing steadies the next moment as she bends a bit more over her tea and wipes at her eyes.

[iustus_rex]

She's left the lights mostly off, but that's not entirely, and Edmund hesitates just inside the painting.

"I say--" he starts, and then his tone changes abruptly to something both sharper and quieter with, "Lu?"

[called_lioness]

"Hullo, Ed."

Even voice. Even, and focusing on tea.

"Would you like tea?"

[iustus_rex]

"Ta," he says, after only a brief moment.

"I'd love some, if you've another cup."

They've done this before, many a time -- more often with him the one sitting in darkness or staying out half the night, but not always. The first trick is always to figure out just what sort of night it is.

[called_lioness]

"I've that and biscuits, even."

She hasn't touched the latter, and she's careful, when she pours for Edmund, not to let him see her face too clearly.

She's certain her eyes are red.

[iustus_rex]

He doesn't really need to see her face to guess, though in this light it's hard to be certain.

"Ta," he says again when she lifts the teapot from pouring, and settles onto the couch next to her to accept his cup.

There's silence as he takes a careful sip of the tea, slurping a little against the heat of it in a bad habit he only lets slip around siblings, and lowers his cup again to the saucer.

Softly, "All right there, Lu?"

[called_lioness]

"Not really," she says after a minute.

She's silent as she shifts and rests her head on his arm, just sitting for a few minutes.

"I quarreled with someone. I think it was a quarrel, at any rate. It didn't go very well."

[iustus_rex]

Edmund slips his arm around her shoulders in a loose half-hug.

Softly, "Wouldst speak of it, sister?"

Narnian courtliness can signal many things, among the Pevensies. Formality. Gravity. Exercise of authority.

Or, after so many years as children in England: it's just us. Nobody else is listening.

[called_lioness]

"I find myself questioning things, brother," she says after a pause, "I once simply knew. Or thought I did."

She sets the cup down enough to curl more against him.

Sometimes Lucy looks much younger than others.

"Can love be wrong?" is what she finally asks.

[iustus_rex]

Edmund breathes in, and out, and says nothing for a few moments.

"It hurts, sometimes," he says finally. "Afterwards, or what's done with it or for it. But I don't think it's ever wrong."

"Love is Aslan's."

[called_lioness]

"I know."

Only that, as her fingers trace around her neck for a moment.

"A man asked me tonight what right I had to make someone love me here. And I thought I knew the answers to give him, but now I wonder if I was wrong."

[iustus_rex]

"Thou, fair sister," Edmund says softly, "hast never made any love thee. It comes naturally."

"It's no question of rights. You forced no one to feel anything but what he felt in his heart."

He's guessing wrong about who this loving person might be, but knowing that Archibald meant Mary wouldn't change Edmund's cold contempt for him right now.

(Edmund is the tiniest bit protective of his sisters.)

[called_lioness]

"Thou, dear brother," she says with a small smile, "hast ever been biased."

She sighs and turns her cup a few times anyway.

"I know. And I ache anyway. And wonder if I was wrong to not leave when I first thought of it."

It's slow as she speaks, and thoughtful.

"Love is so simple and makes so much sense. It's everything else that confuses me."

[iustus_rex]

Edmund acknowledges his bias with a faint smile, but no more. (He admits he's biased; he also considers himself correct.)

"What else is it?"

Not clearly phrased, but his tone helps that.

[called_lioness]

"I--Milliways. All the in-betweens. Selfishness and taking care of self and where the difference lies. Why I'm sad and why I want. I don't know," Lucy shrugs, lifting a hand to absently bite at the thumbnail.

"I don't want to hurt anyone, and I will anyway when I leave."

[iustus_rex]

Edmund considers that in silence.

There were times not so very long ago when he wished he'd never met Kitty, never loved her -- and yet.

In the past few months he's been surprised, just a little, to realize that that's not true any more. He still loves her, still misses her, but the sharp misery has faded gradually away.

"It hurt us to leave Narnia," he says finally, and quietly. "And all our dear friends there. Every time, it was miserable to leave."

"But I'll never wish we'd not lived in Narnia and loved it so, no matter how much that hurt."

"I should think the same is true here at Milliways."

[called_lioness]

"But here I'll choose to leave where there I never could."

She's quiet for a minute before saying, "I miss home."

[iustus_rex]

"It's still true," Edmund says softly.

He's thinking of many things.

And then he breathes out, closing his eyes for a moment, and rests his head against his sister's.

"I know."

Then, much softer, "Me too."

[called_lioness]

Lucy doesn't answer that.

There's really not much to say.

She just holds his hand and closes her eyes and tries not to think of home, because she can't go there just yet.






"You're a good brother."

[iustus_rex]

He wasn't, for a while, this year. He remembers, with some guilt, but tonight's not a night to brood or harp on it. Only to remember, and to kiss his little sister's hair after a moment.

"Buck up, Lu," he says softly. "It'll turn out all right in the end."

"Whatever blighter quarreled with you's an idiot anyway."

[called_lioness]

"Archibald Craven. I think I rather upset him."

Lucy is gifted in understatement.

"He asked me--oh, it doesn't matter, it was all rot anyway." She shrugs and tilts her head to look up at him with a half smile.

Do you ever think the end is almost here, and all you can be is grateful for it? she thinks and doesn't ask.

"I'm fine."

[iustus_rex]

Archibald Craven, then, is a name Edmund will remember.

Did we mention that he's protective?

He studies Lucy's forced smile. After a moment, his own mouth quirks slightly, and he breathes out in a sigh.

"You don't need to be," he says quietly, and it means, no you're not, and we both know it.

[called_lioness]

"...Let me pretend," she says after a pause, "that I am for a little while longer, please?"

[iustus_rex]

"'Course," Edmund says, with an internal sigh but only a crooked ghost of a smile for Lucy, and tightens his arm around her for a moment.

[called_lioness]

"But I know," she whispers after biting her lip, "that it's pretend."

Because she'll admit that much, before closing her eyes and pulling her legs up as she leans into her brother's shoulder.

"Thank you."

[iustus_rex]

Edmund cradles his half-forgotten teacup against his knee with one hand, leaving the other arm around his sister.

"You're welcome, silly." His tone is only affectionate, and just a little sad.

Softer, "Any time."