kitchen_maid | Room 203

"As long as you want me to," he promises.

"All right," she says. "I'll try to sleep."

And she uncurls, climbs down out of the windowsill, and curls back up in her bed.

She looks far younger than seventeen.

Caspian sits, not too far away, in a chair, his gaze turned inward and thoughtful. He looks over now and again to see if she has relaxed into sleep, wishing she will, hoping for sweet dreams.

She falls asleep far more quickly than she expected to. And doesn't dream at all, which may be for the best.

Down in the bar, Gil takes one last look around, somehow misses the fact that Anne is there talking to a suit of armor, and decided to go upstairs and see if she is in her room.

So he knocks on the door to room 203 sharply, "Are you there?" he asks.

Lost in thought, Caspian jumps at the knock, and glares at the door as he swings himself swiftly up to go to it.

If whoever it is had just woken Amy, Caspian was going to be Not Pleased At All.

So he is polite, but his usual friendly smile is lacking when he opens the door.

"Hello," he says to the young man outside. "I'm sorry, who is it you are looking for, sir?"

Amy may stir slightly, but she doesn't wake.

Gil, expecting either Anne or the new roommate she mentioned, is a startled when Caspian opens the door.

So please forgive him the loss of manners.

"Who are you?"

Caspian raises an eyebrow.

"I'm Amy's brother. My name is Caspian."

He waits, clearly expecting an introduction from the other man. And if he looks a bit wary, well. Men he doesn't know, knocking on Amy's door in the evening? Very suspicious.

Yes, well, Gil finds handsome young men hanging around inside Anne's room downright unsettling. If the roommate has to have a brother at all, Gil would prefer he be fully forty-two,and more than usually plain for his age.

"Gilbert Blythe," he says, offering his hand. "I'm a friend of Anne's."

the_seafarer

"Ah," Caspian says, and relaxes in a way that likely unsettles Gilbert even further. "Here, one moment..."

He goes back into the room to check on Amy, who is sleeping soundly, and brushes a lock of hair gently out of her face before stepping out into the hall and closing the door softly behind him.

"I...apologize for my rudeness," he says, shaking Gilbert's hand finally with a small smile. "I was only just able to convince Amy to rest, and I was afraid she'd wake up. Now, sir, how may I help you? Anne is not here, at present, but she didn't think she'd be gone long."

"Oh. Is, um, is Amy all right? Anne mentioned she's Bound."

He gets some points for asking about Amy before bring the conversation back to Anne, doesn't he?

"Did Anne say where she was going?" He indicates the geometry book. "We going to study." It's true. Even if a specific date and time had not been specified.

He gets quite a few points, in fact.

Caspian looks rather pleased at Gilbert's concern, and his expression grows friendlier.

"She's...well, she's very upset," he says, quietly, and frowns slightly. "She's taken being Bound very hard, I think, and I'm grateful that Anne is here to help her."

He looks towards the stairs, thoughtfully. "She said she was going to down to the main room," he tells Gilbert, "and she was carrying some books. I can only assume she meant to study down there. Kind of her, to give Amy and I some time."

"If there's anything I can do, I live across the hall," he says, indicating room 204. "Anne is a very good friend and we're sort of in here together, so I wanted to be near her. But I'll keep an eye on your sister if you like. Anne speaks of her very warmly, but I haven't had the priviledge of meeting her yet."

Caspian's gaze flicks to the room across the hall, before giving Gilbert a very close look.

He seems to like what he sees, though, because he nods after a moment, and steps back to lean against the wall, looking at Amy's door thoughtfully.

"I'd appreciate that," he says, with a small smile. "I'll be in and out fairly often, but my job here takes up much of my day, and I don't live in the bar-provided rooms, but in the House of Arch, and it'd be a comfort to know there's someone close by I can trust."

Gilbert may not know just how critical that trust is, but Caspian's level gaze and straight shoulders may provide some of the answers. One can't truly hide one's true nature, after all, and Caspian was king for a very long time.

Gil may not understand all the details and the levels -- he hasn't had to interact with much royalty yet -- but he understands that point of the matter, and stands up a little bit straighter. "Of course. If I ever need to find you, what's the best way to do that?"

He's still not wild about the idea of this man being in and out of Anne's room, though.

"Leave me a note at the bar," Caspian says, with a smile, "or come out to the stables. That's where I work, and, truth be told, it gets a bit dull with no one but the horses to speak to. I'd appreciate the company, anyway."

He looks thoughtfully at Gilbert, and, in an attempt to move the conversation onto a topic the other is more familiar with, decides to ask about Anne.

"Your friend, now," he says, "Miss Shirley. I only met her last night, but she's a good friend to Amy, and I appreciate it. She seems..." he searches for a word, before soming up with "...exuberant?"

"Anne is . . . a dear friend," he says, and his tone is not hostile by any means, but not quite friendly, either.

"I need to find the stables at some point," he says, directing Caspian away from Anne. For now and forever, preferably. "I understand you have pegasus."

Caspian raises an eyebrow at Gilbert's tone, but drops the subject. For now.

"Aye, we do," he says. "One belongs to Helen of Troy, another to Valentine Wiggin. There are any number of creatures there that some find amazing, but mostly there are horses, like those that belong to my friend Susan Delgado and my lady, Lucy."

The last he adds almost casually, but watches to see if the other man relaxes. He's seen that look before, you see. In a mirror.

And Gil does relax. Because he really doesn't have any claim on Anne, and so he can't exactly say something, but knowing Caspian's affections are otherwise engaged is nice.

"Helen has been very kind to me, as I've been settling in. Do you know her?"

Caspian's expression does not change, but he relaxes a bit inside. After all, he's quite glad to know that this young man wouldn't be one he'd have to look out for about Amy. So the feeling is quite mutual.

"Only a nodding acquaintance, I'm afraid," he replies. "I think I know her pegasus a good deal better than I know her, but she seemed a gracious and kind lady, indeed."

It's all ever so much more relaxed.

"I'm sorry. I still find it odd, well, I'm not exactly from a world with Pegasuses," he says the last word uncertainly. Is that actually the plural?

"There was only ever one winged horse in Narnia," Caspian tells him, "that I know of, anyway, and he was a legend and long gone when I lived there. And yet the world that Lucy and her brothers and sister came from had no such creatures. Doubtless your world is one such as that."

"Plain old Earth, I'm afraid," he says, a little amused, and a little wistful. "Not very glamorous, by the standards of this place, but home. A little town called Avonlea, on Prince Edward Island, in Canada."

The wistfulness in Caspian's eyes might take Gilbert slightly by surprise, then. "I thought you might be from there," he says with an odd smile. "You have that look about you, even though you seem from a different time than Lucy and her family. You are Bound, I think? I am truly sorry. Yours is a world that I have always longed to see more of."

"Yes, Anne and I are Bound." The "Anne and I" is the important part, in Gil's opinion.

"Are you not from Earth, then?"

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject