well behaved women

Title: the fall on earth
Author: shiegra
Fandom: Chronicles of Narnia (obvious connotations of bookverse, but set movieverse)
Rating: PG13
Pairing: Caspian/Ramandu's daughter, mentions of Caspian/Susan
Summary: This new city is too loud.
A/N: Prompt from narniachronicle, (Ramandu's Daughter (pick a name for her, I usually call her Avaline <3) finding out about Caspian's old feelings for Susan Pevensie. (Book- and movie-verse.)) if a bit too late. Inspired after wildsky_sheri saw my post on Clémence Poésy and went "THAT'S RAMANDU'S DAUGHTER" and I went "OMG BRILLIANT" and was inspired to write her. This is my first try.



This new city is too loud.

It rushes and roars with the lives of its inhabitants, a chaotic mess that spills out through the air. It is glorious and bright and rich, but sometimes too much; she walks the walls of her new city and watches the sky spill to night, remembering the song of the fallen stars and feeling the eternity burn in her veins.

Before, she dwelt in the quiet of the end of the world. This is so different it staggers her, and she has no words left to hem in the multitude of feelings and thoughts and sensations that spill over the hush in her soul.

So she filters them through him.

She kisses him and tastes the sweat and the spice, listens to him and hears the echo of a multitude of voices, watches him and sees the strength that he will use to protect his kingdom. He makes a good King for them. He will make a good King for her. When she smiles at him, his dark eyes shine and though his touch is restrainted and chaste, it is enough; she glories in the warmth of it, the simple joy of the emotion, in the heat and the newness of her own hunger for him.

"Tell me," she asks him.

He doesn't ask why. He describes the docks, and the beginning of the journey, of an island where a boy shed his ill-suited boy skin for the avaricious mask of a dragon and then learnt to find that nature ill-suited in turn, of merfolk and nightmares and invisible wizards. He tells her of war, and of lions, and she traces patterns on his hand and sings of Aslan, soft and low, and the music pulses through them both. He is content to let his voice go silent as hers rises; they watch the sun rise as the power of her voice crescendoes to meet it, for it is but one more star, cousin to her, and this is her greeting to the dawn.

Later he speaks of kings and queens and tutors, those lost and gone, and she says to him, "tell me about her."

It surprises him. Caspian is not a creature of deception, but he is skilled enough at diplomacy, dancing around the words that lay truth bare and ugly. He has been nothing but open and kind to her, but he also has a proud reserve, a kingly composure, and he almost uses it now, on her. She sits up, her own pride--an arctic, shining thing--rising to mask her eyes, and they stare at each other for a long moment.

"Why?" He finally asks her.

The wind touches her, and she thinks of the sky. She touches his hand, trying to speak without words, and his eyes hold a warm, human darkness she finds herself preferring to the endless beauty in the veil of the night sky. "I want to know," she responds after a moment. "I want to know everything."

He looks away.

He doesn't meet her eyes as he begins to speak, and the air is crisp and clear, each word unsoftened and unmerciful.

He tells her the story of Queen Susan the Gentle's last days in Narnia, of a dark and beautiful Queen who fought as fiercely as she loved, who would lay down her life to protect her family's. And he tells her the story of the girl who wore the crown, the quiet one, the practical one, but the one who found some bittersweet shards of happiness, who had told him--him, a confession from her soul--that one last glimpse of paradise had been worth it after all.

When the story ended she took his face in her hands, but this time she was the one who did not look at him, instead gazing over all of Narnia's beauty and life, and she thought of the girl who had to abandon everything, the one who lost each magic-drenched dawn and deep glorious evening, the one who would never hear Reepicheep's call or the Great Cat's roar again. The girl who had walked away unflinching even as she must have broken inside, the one who found the strength to smile for him.

And she cried for her, soft hot whispering human tears, and his arms came around her, and they watched the day bloom over them together, no matter how chill the wind, because Susan Pevensie would never see it again.