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[called_lioness]

It's easier, now, in a way. Or something like it.

When she closes her eyes, she doesn't think of it as sleeping any more.

It's more like being totally, completely awake.

---

The beach again. No Susan, yet.

But she knows (she knows without questioning how) that Susan will show up in time.

It takes her a moment to realize she's sitting on the sand, and the water's soaking her and rushing around her skirts, and the knowledge makes her laugh as another wave hits her. She turns around, a little, to face the land, and her body serves as a shelter as, without thinking, her hands start to play with the wet sand.

She knows she could never make a castle like this with just her fingers and sand and water.

She does anyway, and as she hears the silent-sound (and somehow she hears it anyway, and that too makes her smile) of footsteps, she's adding the last tiny window, and thinking she can (almost) see a girl through it, sleeping on a bed.

Probably it's just almost, anyway.

Comments

[sai_delgado]

Susan drops easily into a crouch beside Lucy, looking curiously at the castle.

"Wèi, Lu. Long days and pleasant nights." She's smiling, oh, so brightly, as she says this. "Thee've made a pretty thing."

[called_lioness]

"And twice the number to thee, Su," Lucy grins up at her. "Tis home. Or was, once. I hadn't realized til I finished that was what I was making. That was my room," she adds, pointing at the window she'd finished a bit ago.

[sai_delgado]

"When Adam's flesh and Adam's bone
Sits in Cair Paravel at throne,
The evil time will be over and done."

She smiles at Lucy.

"Aye, I kennit. Caspian showed me, thee knows."

[called_lioness]

"Susan," she murmurs, as she lets her fingers slowly drift around the window and smoothe the wet wall, "always did think it was a horrible rhyme. I always wondered who wrote it. Prophecy and destiny, I suppose, are beyond things like rhyme," Lucy finishes, standing and letting the water pass her.

The castle is washed over, and still there, for a moment, before another wave hits and wipes it away.

It's okay.

You can always build another.

Her skirts are soaking about her legs as she offers Susan a hand. "I'd wondered if I'd see you tonight."

[sai_delgado]

"I always were fond of rhymes," she murmurs, the words soft and gently said. "Bird and bear and hare and fish, that were one, of course. But I got my fondest wish, say true."

She takes Lucy's hand -- still damp with sea-foam and rough with sand-grain -- and the two girls stand together on the beach while the waves lap at their feet, stealing away their footprints in a silvery line.

"Of course," Susan tells her, fog-gray eyes meeting Lucy's with clear sight. "I'm never far, and thee are closer now, do'ee ken?"

[called_lioness]

"Aye. I do. And now--it's so strange," she says after stopping for a moment, "but for now, it's wonderful. When I wake up..."

Then it's almost terrifying.

"Sometimes I'm here, and you're not. Not here, actually. I think I'm there," Lucy starts again, looking at the mountains. "Or closer. Or maybe it's just a dream. It could be this all is."

And then she laughs.

"That's what I'll say in the morning, anyway. Walk with me, Susan? There's a long way to go yet."

She doesn't know, quite yet, what's at the top of the mountain, but she knows she'll get there soon enough.

[sai_delgado]

"Aye, it's a dream," she says. "Of course it is. But it's real, too. Am I not real to thee, Lu?"

She laces her fingers together with Lucy's and lightly swings their hands back and forth.

"Over the mountains," Susan chants, laughing as she recites the old twin-skip rhyme, "under the sea, fly to the edge of the world with me."

[called_lioness]

"As real to me as myself," she says readily, "and realer than some things when I'm awake now."

Lucy smiles, and ducks her head, half-singing back, "The grand old Duke of York, he had ten thousand men, he marched them up the mountain and he marched them down again. And when you're up, you're up, and when you're down, you're down, and when you're only half-way up, you're neither up nor down. That's me," tone no longer quite so sing-song. "Neither up nor down, and I have to head one way or the other."

She's not sad. You can't be sad, not here, not really. (Though sometimes she thinks every step takes them a little closer to a place where you can be sad again, and she wonders if that's true or just a dream within the dream.)

But she knows. Whether she wants to or not. You can't not-know here, either.

[sai_delgado]

"One way or the other," she agrees, and oh, but there's a strange solemnity to this mirror-girl, the Girl in the Window, as she looks at Lucy.

"Which way would'ee have us go, then?"

[called_lioness]

"Oh, lady-sai," she gives back what was offered her once in courtesy, "I've never been good at going backwards. Even when it would have been wise, I never could turn back."

(it seems to me we should be shamed if for any fearing or foreboding we turned back)

Susan's hand is squeezed, after a moment, and it's Lucy who starts to walk towards the mountains. "Further on and up and in, it's all I've ever been able to do. For better or worse."

And again she wonders, as they step forward, if she's getting closer to a place where sadness is easier, because forbetterorworsericherorpoorer and she thinks on Amy's words again, and here--here her eyes shut off, a little, and her jaw tightens, a bit, even as she listens to the sea.

She doesn't think she should be able to be cross here, but it's a dream, and maybe that makes it a little different.

[sai_delgado]

"Shhhhhh."

It's a soft sound, the sound of wind or sea or both together, and it's the sound Susan makes as she holds a finger to her lips, turning to Lucy quickly with her golden hair swinging around her as she does.

"Don't thee worry yerself so, Lu. Mayhap it's naught but that the moon got into yer blood, or mayhap it's something else entire-- but don't let it hurt thee, not here. Come with me as far as thee will, and I'll walk with thee as I did before and will again, say true."

[called_lioness]

"It's not pain, Susan. Not pain, just..."

She wonders if she can swim to the bottom of the ocean, here, and for a moment it's hard to remember what it was or could be at all even possibly that could make her stomach feel like a stone's in it, and then she does remember.

"I've not told anyone of this," Lucy says finally. "Because when I wake up, as real as you are, I'll want it to be just a dream, and I'll want the bar to seem real again instead of like it's the dream, as often as not. But I've not told anyone, and sometimes, Su--sometimes I wonder if I wanted to, if I could just not wake up. And stay here. And I rather think I could. I almost think it would be easy. Or that when I get to the top of the mountain, whatever's waiting will ask or tell or offer to let me stay, and Susan, Aslan help me if I don't know if that's what I should do. You can't--"

And she stops, because even in a dream, she knows a falsehood on her tongue when she's about to speak it, and Lucy was ever honest, and here it's impossible not to be.

"Perhaps you can understand," she says finally, and then looks over at Susan with all solemnity gone, eyes laughing and not looking old or young at all, for once, because--it's silly, and she knows it, and it's a valid fear, and she knows it, and for all that there's joy in looking at the other blonde girl and almost going, Oh. I didn't realize. But oh. If any could understand this in me, it's you. "I spoke with Amy, and she mentioned she didn't think I was good enough for Caspian, and...I suppose I've always felt," thoughtfully, "much the same myself. They called me valiant, Susan, and through it all, the only thing I ever tried to do was what felt right in my heart and what was best for those I loved. If the valiant do that, then perhaps they were right. But it's funny how someone can say one sentence, and I feel more like mouse than lioness." There's a pause. "Understanding that most Mice are rather valiant in themselves."

[sai_delgado]

She doesn't say anything at first, but after a moment, Susan glances up under long lashes, looking at the girl beside her as they walk along the beach, leaving silvery footprints in the sand behind them.

"Will'ee turn aside, and bide with me for a bit? For just a bit? There's something I'd show thee."

Her steps slow as she speaks, just slightly, but Susan makes no true move to draw Lucy aside-- not yet.

[called_lioness]

"For a bit and longer, if you'd like. There's time enough for it, however long it takes," she answers--and it's not without thought, because words matter, but there's no pause, either.

[sai_delgado]

"Come with me, then, an'ye would--"

Susan pulls gently at Lucy's hand, drawing her from the beach and up the grassy slope that leads down to the water. As they climb higher, and then higher still, the land around them changes.

Here the grass smells sweet and green and somehow golden, although there's still a touch of salt to the air, carried on the breeze from the sea. In the distance there are horses, grazing far-off and contented. Wildflowers dot the grass at their feet -- dusky pink wild roses and blue silkflowers among them. Susan pauses long enough to pluck one from the grass, putting it in Lucy's hair before she leads the other girl on.

Eventually, they come to a small creek that runs into and through a grove of willow-trees, and it's there that Susan brings her friend. It's cool there, and the summer-green moss is springy and soft. Susan sits down on the moss, drawing her knees up and wrapping her arms about them as she looks out at the rippling brook.

"This were ever a secret place of mine," she says at last. "Do'ee kennit? Do'ee see?"

[called_lioness]

Willows, she thinks, for a moment, are patient, and the thought flits away as she sits next to Susan and tilts her head back against the bark.

And thinks that, as young as she is now, Mary Lennox might understand her--and Susan--if she tried better than most others, for some reason, before answering, "Aye," and looking at the other girl. "I see well enough. And thou art kind, Susan, to show, and still I'd ask if thee'd tell, as well."

Her speech she rarely uses any longer but flows easily without a thought and Susan's speech and she can see in her head where it mixes (objective for thee, not nominative, says the old faun who taught her) but it's still right; it still works.

[sai_delgado]

"I'd not have brought thee here else," Susan says softly.

There's a moment's quiet, while she runs her hand over the soft green of the ground beside her.

"I've been lucky. I've loved two men in life, and been loved by both in return."

[called_lioness]

Lucy doesn't nod, just listens to the other girl and the sound of water running and is silent.

She lets her fingers trace at bark and waits for her to go on.

[sai_delgado]

"Thee are a Queen," she says, turning now to Lucy-- and oh, but the look in the fog-gray eyes is clear and near-compelling. "And Caspian is a king."

"Roland were his da's son, and a gunslinger, and 'Bert were a gunslinger, and I-- well." She laughs, a high rippling sound of amusement. "No lady, naught but a drover's daughter from the edge of nowhere, and one who were to be a gilly-girl at that."

"It didn't matter, though -- it were all as ka would have it, and I'd not regret a moment. They loved me, and I loved them, and that's what was most important, oh Lucy, do ye not see it?"

[called_lioness]

"I know here," she says wryly, tapping her temple, "that it's true. And I know here," putting her hand over her heart, before letting it rest over her stomach. "It's here that worries and twists and always has."

She shrugs, a little, and looks up through the green toward the sky above.

"I love him. I know he loves me. But--but there's always the wonder. Do you see? If she's right and I'm not enough, and what if his wife was. Not because it's true or likely. Just because...it's there, anyway. Fear rarely stopped me, but it's still there. And--and if it were true, if he deserved someone better really truly, I'd want him to find her. I don't really think it's true. But it doesn't make me feel better," looking down again, "or stop wondering a little. Or stop feeling like I'm loving someone else's husband," with a quiet laugh, "even if he's to be mine soon, too."

[sai_delgado]

"Thee silly," she says, soft and warm and gentle. Susan reaches out to take Lucy's hand in her own, squeezing it tightly. "The Lion himself said it, do'ee not ken?"

(it is always right to love)

"It's like with Deborah, I wot." Susan shrugs, and a gentle breeze tousles the golden hair, whispering between trees and over the noise of the little stream.

"I met her, did'ee kennit? Caspian introduced us, before. She's very dear."

[called_lioness]

"I know." She smiles as she says it and shrugs and means she knows to every statement made, playing with the chain at her neck as she does so. "Knowing, Su, and fearing, still. It's just harder there. You see that, too? It's harder to tell what's shadows and what's real, sometimes. And..." Lucy stops and looks at Susan, shruggin a little back with a faint smile. "I know," again. "I liked her, when I met her. Quite a bit. Jealous as could be, on a level, too, but she was quite nice."

[sai_delgado]

"Everything's harder there, oh aye," she replies, and oh, but it's soft and knowing.

(no peace but the clearing - no secrets between souls)

"Here it doesn't matter." And here, perhaps especially here in this clearing-- for a moment there's something about her, just for a moment, as fog-gray eyes are somehow shadowed--

(bird and bear and hare and fish - I remember, I do)

--something less dream and more memory, more Susan and less the Girl in the Window who in some ways could be and is the mirror of Lucy's own self.

She glances up, catching the other girl's gaze.

"Mayhap if thee talked with her...?"

[called_lioness]

A few dozen universes apart, the name can be different and the essential still the same, really.

(And there's that question again, when she sees the shadow in the grey eyes; she knows where she is, but she isn't at all sure what she's walking towards, and she has to wonder.)

"Mayhap," she allows when the grey eyes meet green. "I don't know. But mayhap. Not...yet. There's too far to walk yet."

But there's time, too, and neither needs to say it by now.

"I thank thee for showing me this place," she adds, softly, after a moment.

[sai_delgado]

"Thee're welcome, say true," Susan answers, just as softly.

And then she smiles, and stands once more with the native grace of a rider.

"Shall we go on, then?"

(there are other worlds than these)?

With a sweet, half-wistful smile, she holds out her hand to Lucy.

[called_lioness]

"Aye. At least a while longer. I sleep hard of late, and the dream won't be over for a while yet," with a half-smile as she takes the hand and stands.

[sai_delgado]

"Then come with me, an'ye would," she says, "and we'll walk on together, say true."

With that, Susan draws Lucy gently onward through the screen of the willows and away from the stream. Together, the two of them move across the sweet-smelling grass of the Drop and back down the gentle slope to the seashore.

Their silver footprints are still there, and it's easy to pick where they left off before.

[called_lioness]

She looks back, and for all the waves continue to crash, she can see the footprints back into the distance.

It's farther than she'd thought.

And they'll go farther yet.

It's not intimidating at all, really, for all there's that edge that's a little bit sharper at moments, a little more real--a little more This can't be possible, this isn't the way it works, if she listens to it, and a little harder not to, a little more like the waking world.

For now, though, there's just the waves, and Susan's hand in hers, until there's that moment when she murmurs for them to stop and lets the hand go as she sits on the beach and closes her eyes

---

and opens her eyes, slowly, to the familiar ceiling and room.

It's a moment as Lucy says, "It's only a dream," softly, hoping Caspian won't hear in his sleep, and tries the way the words taste in her mouth, grimacing a bit.

Lying never sat with her well.