In The Stables, Early Sunday

[kitchen_maid]

It's early. Very early even, perhaps, but Amy's awake. She hasn't seen Caspian in a day or two, so she's decided to try the stables. If he's been sleeping in there again, she's going to have to be a very indignant little sister.

"Caspian?" she calls, softly.

Comments

[sai_delgado]

Susan blinks, and then beams at them both, clasping her hands together under her chin. "Oh, and that's lovely, say true."

A beat.

"And so she has!"

[the_seafarer]

A bow, as well as he can make, while steering.

"Thank you, lady. And aye, she has! I've led her astray."

[kitchen_maid]

Amy looks at them both, clearly amused.

"Astray? Am I allowed to go astray?"

[sai_delgado]

"Allowed?" Susan echoes, a touch oddly, although she manages to keep her tone light.

(their protection is well-meant - too much of it keeps us weak)

But she's still smiling as she says,

"If ye want to, then aye--"

(you have to be able to stand)

"--I'd think ye could, say true-- if there's none to stop ye from doing so, aye."

[the_seafarer]

"Well, I know I won't lead you too far," Caspian replies, smiling.

"Perhaps 'astray' was the wrong word."

[kitchen_maid]

"Perhaps. And I don't think I'd want to go astray, anyway."

She smiles at him.

"At least, not very far."

She brushes the hair out of her face again.

"It's a lovely song, regardless."

[sai_delgado]

"That it is, say true," Susan agrees, even as she leans over the side of the boat to let the water splash against her fingertips.

"Sea-songs and stories-- yon Caspian's a man of many gifts indeed."

[kitchen_maid]

Amy steals the tag exchanges a look and a grin with Susan, and then turns to Caspian.

"You know, I think we might need a story, Caspian. Something suitable for a day on the water. Surely you know one."

[the_seafarer]

"A story?"

He frowns, thinking, and looses the mainsail, allow it to luff in the wind as he hoves the Hope too. His knee against the rudder to keep it hard over, the boat turns slowly into the wind and stops, sitting out in the very middle of the lake with the sun beaming down on them.

He tells them how three children had fallen into the waters of the Eastern Sea, and were picked up by a ship named the Dawn Treader, and how two of the children had been king and queen in Narnia, and how they came upon the last of the Lone Islands, and met a band of Men who sprang upon them and chained them to sell them as slaves.

He tells how a man stopped the slave band, and looked Caspian full in the face, and was reminded of his lord king, and so bought the boy for a hundred and fifty silver crescents, while Edmund and Lucy and Eustace and Reepicheep were taken to the market to be sold at auction. How he revealed his true self to the man, and together they plotted the over throw of the Governor of the Island, and how they, with the one ship and the one ship's company, managed to fool the Governor into thinking they had a fleet of ships of war, and a full army, and how the Lord Bern (for that was who the man had been) helped Caspian regain the Lone Island's from the tyranny of the Governor, and set the slaves free, and how that slave ring had been broken by his good work.

When he is done speaking, he is silent for a long moment, looking out over the water, and remembering.

[kitchen_maid]

For a person who likes to talk as much as Amy does, she's a surprisingly good audience. Especially when she cares both about the teller and the tale. And so she is both on this boat and another right now, swept along by both the waves and the words, eyes bright, or wide, or concerned by turn.

And she, too is silent for a long moment when he finished, before she says, "He was one of the seven lords you sought, wasn't he? The Lord Bern, who bought a king from a slaver, because you looked like your father?"

[the_seafarer]

"Aye, he was. He was one of the seven lords that my usurping uncle had exiled when he murdered my father and took the throne. Bern was a good man, afterwards I named him Duke and left him in charge of all the Lone Islands."

[sai_delgado]

"A good man indeed," she says quietly, looking out over the water as well, almost as if expecting to see some other place and time.

(time is a face on the water)

Murdering uncles, murdering aunts-- she remembers Caspian speaking of Miraz before, oh aye.

(Caspian's father - my father - the stories are true)

"As are thee."

[kitchen_maid]

"Of course he is," says Amy, fondly and happily, having no murderous relatives to be thinking of. She does have an uncle Aurelious, a slightly stiff and proper man, overly proud of his glossy black moustache, but capable of extraordinary kindess.

Amy named a crow after him.

[the_seafarer]

Caspian colors slightly at the compliments.

"Lord Bern was a man I could attempt to model myself after," he says, "and if I am anything like him at all, I shall count myself fortunate."

[sai_delgado]

"Be thy own self, my dear," Susan says, turning back from the water to look at him with a gentle smile, "And that'll be well enough, say true."

Not wishing to embarrass him further, however-- for oh, he is like Alain in this, she thinks -- Susan says to them both, brightly,

"And here we are, in the middle of the lake. Now, we could try to fish our dinner from the water, or..."

It seems she's not quite willing to trust to that skill, given the way she glances at the picnic basket.

[kitchen_maid]

"The picnic, I think," says Amy, who has never been fishing in her life since the mun has skipped that part of her canon.

She laughs.

"Unless you've another talent you've not shared with us, Caspian. Even so, I don't fancy a dinner of raw fish."

[the_seafarer]

"Nay," Caspian laughs. "I've no skill for fishing, and there's no tackle in the Hope anyway. She was built for movement, not for sitting about waiting for fish to bite."

He looks at the hamper with a smile.

"You two truly thought of everything, didn't you?"

[sai_delgado]

"We tried to," she admits cheerfully, and flips open the top of the basket.

Inside, neatly packed, there are sandwiches, some fruit, cheese, and part of a pie that Amy should recognize.

There's also a bottle of a light, delicate wine-- Susan had explained to the Bar at some length, in order to obtain this-- and a thermos of hot chocolate.

"I hope ye'll find it to suit."

[kitchen_maid]

Amy grins. "Of course we did," she says, smiling, being rather less humble about it than Susan was.

[the_seafarer]

Caspian's smile is brilliant.

"Lucky, I am, to have such fine girls as such good friends. Amy, maybe you'll pass things about, and we'll pour the wine--is that Archenland wine? Susan, how marvelous--and the hot chocolate. This boat isn't going anywhere until we want her to, so don't worry about spilling."

[kitchen_maid]

Amy cheerfully begins handing out sandwiches. "You chose very well," she tells Susan, finding the apples at the bottom of the basket.

Amy is fond of apples.

She gives Caspian an amused look as she hands him one. "I thought boats had minds of their own."

[the_seafarer]

He only winks at her, and accepts a sandwich cheerfully.

"Perhaps it depends on who is in the baot at the time," he suggests.

[sai_delgado]

"It may be," she tells Caspian as she pours him a glass of wine. "I explained to the lady Bar who it were for, and why, and this is what she gave me."

She pours herself a small glass as well, and after querying Amy, offers her hot chocolate, then settles back against the side of the Hope with a sandwich of her own.

"It's beautiful out here."

[kitchen_maid]

"It really and truly is," Amy agrees, though "beautiful" may be an understatement. It's peace and freedom and a warmth that has nothing to do with the bright sun glistering off the water around them.

"It's one of those rare, perfect days you just . . . keep as a treasure, isn't it?"

[the_seafarer]

"Aye, it is that."

He settles himself agains the side, looking up at the fluttering pennant, and out across the glittering water.

"I prefer the sea to lakes, generally, but you'd be hard pressed to find this kind of quiet on the open ocean."

White lilies, shot with gold, as far as the eye could see.

"...For the most part."