called_lioness | (no subject)

(no subject)

The hike to the castle is easy enough. It would likely have taken less time if Mary hadn’t been curious and wanted to stop and look at some of the older trees.

But that’s what holidays are about, really.

The plan is to ride to Port Caynn tomorrow and swim in the sea before spending the night at an inn of…slightly dubious reputation. (Alanna assures her it’s safe now. Lucy makes a note not to mention any former smugglers to Archibald Craven.)

But tonight is for camping, and as the evening approaching Lucy heads out to stroke her borrowed mare’s neck and make sure the supplies are all ready.

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Mary will never accept anything blindly.

Not even from Lucy, not even now.

"What would you like to give?"

"My love. My promise that if you need me I'll come."

She breathes for a minute.

"The things I own that are dearest to me and you'd take.."

"I already have the first two," Mary says, reasonably enough. "I could not give them back - and I would not."

She frowns. "What is it that you own that you wish me to have?"

They've already been over the tree.

"My cordial," she says after a moment. "My knife. A dragon."

It's her will, in a way.

"I don't know beyond that. I'd need to think on it more."

"A dragon -"

Mary shifts around to gape at Lucy, forgetting to act as if she cannot be surprised by anything further.

"You want me to take care of one of the dragons?"

She wonders briefly how Angel will feel about that. But: DRAGON.

And that gets a small smile.

"Who better?"

"I should take very good care of it - the best care," Mary says, wide-eyed.

"But can the dragons not take care of themselves? They seem awfully clever. Of course I should still care for them regardless."

"I think they could," she says with a half smile that's a bit sad.

"I think they like having a human, though."

"Then they may have me if they like," Mary says, with great determination.

"They may always have me."

"We'll ask them," she whispers and closes her eyes for just a moment.

"I'm sure they will. Anyone who doesn't want you is a fool."

"I do not think that is true. But I am better with creatures than with people - I always have been," Mary says, and it is small and very matter-of-fact, because it is true.

"So I hope they shall all the same."

"I think it's true," she says fiercely and pulls Mary a bit closer.

"And I know they shall be."

"Do they know yet?" Mary asks, after a moment.

"That you are going?"

"No."
There's a sigh in that.

"Caspian must agree first."

"Agree to what?"

Mary sits up, straight and suddenly edgy; will Lucy not leave if Caspian asks her?

"To leave with me."

"And what shall you do if he does not?"

Lucy doesn't want to think on that.

It's not fair not to answer.

"I think," she whispers finally, "I'll tell him that I've stayed for those very dear to me for a long time and I've need of my rest. And that I'll miss him dearly, but I won't stay. And I'll give him his ring back."

There's a stab of satisfaction at that.

If Mary isn't going to get to keep her, no one else is getting to keep her either.

"And if he stays," she says, putting pieces together, "you think that the dragons may choose to stay with him instead."

"No. No, it just--it would be unfair to tell them before my husband, I think," she says after a moment.

There's a pause.

"But . . . you told me first."

"Aye."

Just that, as she closes her eyes.

Another pause.

And then Mary says, very very small, "I am glad that you did."

"I am too," Lucy says back quietly and doesn't open her eyes.

Just presses her face to Mary's hair.

"So glad. If--"

If I could stay

If I could be more

If I could have a daughter she'd be like you

If I could bear it I would

If is a thousand million statements of not-is, and so Lucy kisses Mary again and cradles her close and doesn't make herself not cry for the moment.

"Lady Mary. Lioness to be if ever I knew one," she whispers and it's some of the ifs that make her do so.

Mary remembers telling Lucy that she wanted to be a Lioness - a Lioness because she wanted to be like Lucy.

"I am yellow," she says, aloud, "and I am fierce. Though I hit instead of biting. I will be some kind of Lioness, I think."

But not, perhaps, quite exactly the same kind as Lucy. The same kind in a lot of ways, she thinks, but not exactly the same.

Because Mary has a garden and a tree, and a cousin, and best friends, and she is not going to leave them until she is pulled away kicking and screaming.

(She thinks this, not yet understanding - accepting more, but not understanding - that Lucy essentially is.)