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[called_lioness]

She doesn't, actually, want to tell him this.

But she is, because--well.

Wives do things like that, she's certain, tell their husbands about magic compasses.

...Maybe. There isn't a book. She rather wishes there were.

But there isn't, and it's been a week, and it's harder to make herself dream apart from the woman she knows is waiting for her, and so she pulls the silver object out of its drawer and sighs as she goes to find her husband.

Lucy supposes the honeymoon had to end sooner or later.

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[the_seafarer]

He tilts his head over his shoulder to kiss her lightly, smiling as he walks back to the tea.

"You already have me to yourself, Lu. Suppose those worse fates will have to be rethought."

[called_lioness]

"I'll worry on it later," she promises as they sit again, and she looks at him for a long moment before it's the cup she's focusing on again.

"I dreamed the other night."

Lucy dreams every night, and he knows it, but...

But you have to start somehow.

[the_seafarer]

"You dream," he says, quietly, "every night."

And--he knows this is wrong, he knows this is his weakness, but--he remains...

Perhaps jealous is not the right word. Perhaps envious is. Still, it is easy enough to hide. After all, she has been dreaming for months; far long enough for him to perfect an easy sort of tone.

[called_lioness]

"Aye," and it's a little bit of a short laugh he's given, "whether I prefer to or not."

She looks at him for a moment and then the tea again, because maybe the tea will have answers she knows he won't.

"Su asked me where I wanted to go."

[the_seafarer]

"Did she?"

It ins't the first time he's used this careful tone, but it marks, perhaps the beginning of his using it rather more often than not.

"And what did you say?"

[called_lioness]

She flinches, and it's visible, at that tone, and then her own face smooths into something schooled as she looks up at him.

"Home," is the simple answer.

[the_seafarer]

"Aye, well," he rises, goes to the table and pours himself a cup of tea as well.

The fact that his face is now hidden from her is likely an oversight.

"Did she have an answer for you?"

[called_lioness]

"No. She helped me find a guide. But it's--it's not very easy to understand," she says, softly, and watches him with sad eyes, twisting the ring on her finger.

She wishes she'd never started to tell him, honestly.

[the_seafarer]

"A guide?" he asks, a little curiously, and turns to face her but makes no move to walk back from the tea table.

"What sort of guide?"

[called_lioness]

She doesn't answer in words, only takes the compass out and places it on the tea table.

[the_seafarer]

He looks at it, but doesn't reach out to touch it, to pick it up, to handle it in any way.

(so enchanted you are with shining things)

"Has it worked?" he asks, gently.

[called_lioness]

It's a snort of a laugh, as her fingers trace over the metal.

"In its own way. It points two directions."

[the_seafarer]

Perhaps he already knows the answer.

"Which directions?"

He asks anyway.

[called_lioness]

It's just barely sing-song as she says, "North and east. It had to be, I suppose."

[the_seafarer]

He frowns, slightly, at that, but says nothing. Instead, he only brings his teacup to his mouth to take a sip.

He could say, nothing has to be. He could say any number of things. Instead, he waits.

[called_lioness]

It has to be in one sense.

In the way where the other options were already taken away.

"So it works, a little," she says finally, quietly, and looks at him.

"But not as easily," and it's a bit wry, "as one might hope, and won't you sit with me again?"

[the_seafarer]

"What are you hoping for?" he asks, as he comes back to sit by her, tea left behind and steaming slightly.

"Are you really so lost that you need a compass to guide you, Lu?"

[called_lioness]

"There's no one who can but myself, so why not a compass to help?" she asks with a crooked sort of smile, and she has to sigh as she looks at him and thinks on the first question.

"I don't think I can answer that."

[the_seafarer]

"No one but yourself and Susan in a dream," he says, and for just the smallest fraction of a second, there is terrible, sharp pain in his voice, but then he looks at her as steadily as ever and that smile (just a quirk, really, with no amusement or joy behind it) still there, curving his mouth.

[called_lioness]

"Oh, love," Lucy murmurs and he's too far away now. A great deal too far away, and her fingers move to cradle his face, and for the moment, she doesn't care at all where a compass might point.

"I don't know how to make it different," she says, finally, and hates it.

[the_seafarer]

He wants to believe her, and so he leans into her touch, and smiles a little more convincingly.

He wants to believe her, but he doesn't.

"What do you think will happen now?" he asks, instead, because it is easier than saying what he would otherwise.

[called_lioness]

And it's a little more convincing, aye, but it's not very much, and it makes her hands drop after a moment as she shifts a little away and pulls a leg up to her chest, shrugging a little.

"I walk, I suppose, and sooner or later I choose one way or another."

[the_seafarer]

"In the dream?"

He watches her steadily, and doesn't want to continue, but after a moment, he does anyway.

"Or here?"

[called_lioness]

"I don't know."

She stops, then, because--because she's not been told, but she finds saying she doesn't know isn't quite true.

"I think both," Lu admits after a moment.

[the_seafarer]

"Ah," he says, and it's really more of an exhalation than a comment, and he sits back, puts his hands helplessly on his knees.

"And when you find the way?" Still quiet, still calm.