well behaved women

Buried Queens
Chpt. 6

Susan Pevensie has been living alone in London since her siblings died, alone with her grief and determination. She's long since abandoned childish fantasies, but her recent dreams of a great lion give her comfort where nothing else does. And then she is catapulted into Narnia again; but a very, very different Narnia indeed.

The last chapter was basically where my detail-planning ended; I have plot lines basically ironed out from the beginning, but specifics peter off from here on out. So! Enjoy: the speed of the chapter will also be more trickle-ish, especially since school is starting up soon.

Further chapter will also hopefully be longer.



He took her hand like he would escort a lady, and guided her carefully through the dark sentry shapes of the trees.

Susan followed him, anchored only by the warmth of his fingers, struggling to keep from tripping over roots or even simply her own rapidly-numbing toes. All around her moved men, human figures in the dying light, potentially unfriendly and certainly less welcome than the faces of Narnian folk--even a minotaur's fearsome head would be far more welcome, though she had dreamed for a long time after that fateful first battle of the beasts that served the White Witch.

She was too weary and sore and surrounded to make a break for it, and either way courteous on the surface or no, there wasn't even the illusion of an opportunity to escape in Caspian's grip.

Pushing inside the pavilion, he released her, flaps swinging shut behind her, and lit a lamp. That seemed dangerous--the walls to this place were only cloth or tarp, after all--but she kept her mouth shut, watching him hang it from one of the posts and then turned back to her.

"Situate yourself where you please," he said, gliding back a step like a panther when she took a stumbling one forward.

She didn't know if this was a test or a taunt or what, but she did know she didn't have the energy to parse out the mystery. She sank onto the edge of the fur-covered bed, weariness pulling her shoulders down, and watched him, smoothing her skirt over her knees with an out-of-place but habitual primness.

The whisper of steel snapped her head up; Caspian plunged the sword into the sumptuous rug between them before alarm could blossom into fear, and then dropped into a crouch.

HIs stillness, incongruously, reminded her of Maugrim--oh god, an age and a day away--preparing to leap for Peter's throat in a streamlined lunge of muscle and pure power. But this time the sword between them was not hers, and she harbored no illusions as to what would happen if she tried to capture it.

He thought she was dangerous. That was the reason for this poised tenseness, his readiness to spring. It gratified her, even though she should have been alarmed; foolish to tip her hand so soon.

"Who are you?" He breathed, eyes nearly black in the gloom. "You are not a Narnian--"

"I am--" She spat in sudden fury, overriding him however unwise it may have been.

He smiled, and that too was the wolf's smile. "You are as human as I," he said, and leaned forward, reaching beyond the hilt of the sword.

Susan froze, knowing it was stupid even as her muscles locked up. She was no stranger to the advances of men, and equally familiar with refuting them. But this was Caspian, darker and harder or no, and memories welled up with unwelcome and downright embarrassing ease of the dreams she'd had of his touch.

His bare fingers touched her shoulder, and then slid up to her throat. Even stretched out like this, he looked absurdly comfortable, and he touched the dark hair that slid over her shoulder, drawing his hand down its length. His hand ended up on the upper curve of her breast; he'd stopped before following it to the end--it had grown nearly to her waist--apparently not yet willing to turn the touch so blatant.

Or maybe he's taunting me. Susan gave a small but definitive shift backwards, shifting her shoulders just right, and he was touching only empty air--and flinched, involuntary, as her feet scraped over the rug. Like the predator he was, he noticed the sign of weakness instantly, and his eyes dropped.

In an instant he was up; instinct overrode common sense and Susan twisted up off the furs, hands rising to camouflage her movement for the sword--

But then he caught her ankle in his grip and tugged, and she was on her back in an undignified sprawl, struggling to get her elbows under her and stare down at him. "What," she began.

"You are wounded," he said, examining the sole of her foot with a clinical eye, effortlessly curtailing all her efforts at movement.

"Caspian--" She said, startled, and his head jerked up.

She'd only said his name once, she recalled, and no doubt that had been lost in the shock of her appearance. And he was, undoubtedly, unused to such familiarity. A Telmarine Prince indeed, she thought as they stared at each other.

He rose, close enough to touch. Susan leaned backward, startled enough to show her unease, and a smile touched his mouth, curving his lips. "Who," he repeated, voice perfectly even, "are you?"

For a second there was a strange ripple of anger, of pure steel-spined offense. Who are you to demand my name? But no, because she knew who he was, and her answer would give him nothing, which was all Susan felt inclined to surrender.

"Susan Pevensie," she replied, watched him take that in, turn it over, find it unhelpful. Rude of her to want to laugh; immature, even. Certainly dangerous.

He sank back on his heels against and took her leg, hand running almost caressingly down the back of her calf, tipping her muddy foot up towards him and the gentle warmth of lamp light. He was expressionless for several long moments, and then he released her, stood, and turned away.

He returned in a moment, before she'd had time to do more than awkwardly hitch her legs up, trying to ignore the pain enough to actually fold them under her. With a casualty approaching arrogance, he jerked the first one out from under her again, nearly knocking her back onto her elbows.

He'd come back carrying the tin pitcher of water, a cup and a shallow basin. He poured out the water in the cup first, into the basin, and she remembered watching him pour it. Then he took a hold of her foot again, hand curving against her heel, and poured a thin stream of water over it.

She flinched, she couldn't help it, and his head came up to look at her. "Hold still," he ordered, lips curling, and then set the pitcher down and reached for a worn piece of cloth that sat by his bed. It looked clean, but it also looked like something that might be used to clean a sword in a pinch, and that unnerved her.

With alarming patience, he cleaned her feet. Cuts and scrapes stung viciously, and once she nearly bit through her tongue, but finally he set aside the pitcher, dropping the bloody, muddy cloth in the basin, and rose again.

This time he leaned over her. Susan kept perfectly still, not twisting around nervously to look for what he was retrieving by pure force of will. His chest, covered by mail, nearly brushed her cheek. When he settled back, he held a roll of bandages and wore a blankly unreadable expression, and he dropped down again before her--like the supplicants she had seen so many of an age before--and began wrapping her feet.

It was such an absurd image--this dark man, crouching with an animal's grace at her feet with his danger not the slightest bit reduced and an absurd amount of concentration leveled at the slow careful movements of his hands--Susan was almost lulled into a laughter that was drunk on her own exhaustion.

"Familiar with the habits of harpies?" He asked, and the words jolted her like a trickle of ice water down the back of her neck. The steady--near lazy--movements of his hands didn't pause and his head didn't raise, but his attention was focused no longer solely on what he bandaged, cataloguing her reactions instead.

"They're dangerous," she said after a long moment of frozen silence. There was no way he could have missed the way her muscles tensed against his hand. "It is best to understand the habits of dangerous animals."

"And you have had cause to learn these habits? They are legends--"

"--nothing more?" She finished, an involuntary note of mocking slipping into her voice. "Legends dashed one of your men to death on the rocks. Don't you think it might be a bit foolhardy to dismiss them so?"

"And you, my lady," he said, voice low, too intimate in the low light of the tent, "are you a legend I must learn to believe in?"

"I am a Narnian," she said firmly, "but I'm human, too." And always will be. She bit her lip, lifting her chin, feeling a giddy rush. Yes, Prince Caspian, I am the rightful High Queen of Narnia, Susan the Gentle, and you are on your knees as you should be to greet me. Except he was crouched, instead--like an animal ready to pounce.

He looked up at her, and there was a feral focus in those eyes that thrilled a bone deep alarm of recognition in her. The mellow low light cast shadows against them both, drawing the curve of his cheekbones into stark relief. His fingers suddenly bit into her ankle.

"I know you," he said to her. "I should not. I have never met you before, I am sure of it, but your face is familiar."

"Perhaps you are mistaken."

"You knew me."

"You are a prince," she reminded him tartly. "Your face is not a private one."

"You knew me," he repeated, too softly to be safe. There--in the touch of his fingers and the deliberate, controlled movement of his mouth, tautly pronounced as though restraining himself--was danger. "I was told to attend to this feeling."

That startled her; Susan blinked, tipping back minutely. "By who?"

A pause, like perhaps she'd failed some test. "Professor Cornelius."

"Corne--"

Had he known? Had he had some clue? Caspian recognized her, Cornelius had warned him not to dismiss such recognition--this wasn't a different time she had fallen into, it couldn't be. No, she had not entered a Narnia that had never gone through their rescue, she had entered a rewound Narnia.

He rose to his feet, bandaging completed, and took a step back. His expression was challenging. "You know something."

"No," she replied automatically, and when his eyes hardened added, "truly. I do not even understand why I--" Susan snapped her mouth shut, dragging in a deep breath, and struggled to catch her breath. I don't even know what I'm saying. I don't understand why I'm here? Why I'm alone? Why I was ever turned away in the first place? The need for sleep clouded the corners of her vision, misting insidiously with drained tears.

Caspian leaned over again, and his hand slid into her hair, cupping her skull.

"Sleep," he whispered to her, breath stirring her hair and over her ear. She shivered, too far gone to control the reaction. "I watch you."

There was nothing particularly comforting in his tone, or even in his touch, but the words themselves made her sigh, a gentle sleepy sound, and sink back against the furs.

The world fades, and this time it is gentle.