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[It was a long walk to Caer Glaem. Fortunately, Susan was close enough that that the road to it was fairly safe. She would feel better about this whole thing if her brothers and sister were here, or if she had her bow, or even her horn. Instead she was wearing her school clothes, and they were none too clean at this point. Still, Susan was hoping for a better explanation, and from what the friendly fairies and townspeople had to say the castle was the place to get it.

She was hungry. Fruit trees and handouts didn't do much in the way of assuaging hunger when one was walking all day. She hoped there would at least be food in the castle; it was looming large in her vision now and she hoped to get there within the end of the day. It was a good thing, too. She'd bathed in a stream that morning, but--

"Lawkamercyme!" cried a high pitched voice, and Susan turned her head just in time to see a small, green-tinted fairy fall into a faint. A dark shadow globbed its way towards the fairy, Susan was sure it had foul intent. Dark shadows with gleam of teeth almost always did. She wished for her bow more than ever, but didn't hesitate to pick up a large stone at her feet. She was frightened - how did one fight a shadow? Oh, she hated to fight - but she wasn't about to just stand there and watch. She shouted, "You! There! Get away from that fairy!"

The shadow did not seem much impressed. And so Susan threw the stone with impressive aim, clipping the beast right in the mouth. It hissed and abandoned the fairy, heading towards her instead. She bent to pick up another rock.]

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[For a long moment, the locket shows a beautiful face with a furrowed brow, staring intently at its own reflection. Susan has never seen anything like this before. She is at the castle now, clean and clothed and fed, so her image doesn't look quite as dire as it had earlier that day, and her dark hair is swept back neatly in a braid.] Ah - so it does work! At least, I assume it does, and this is a message going out all over the lockets and not just some sort of fancy mirror.

[In either case, she's beginning to feel a little self-conscious. She reaches for easily remembered dignity.] I don't mean to intrude, but I have heard that this is something which happens often. And I wonder, is there anyone from England here? [She misses her family; two weeks of walking among strangers in a strange land was more than enough alone time for now, thanks.] Or even [marked hesitation] Narnia?

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She gave him a quick grin, "Well, I'd rather not be eaten by shadow beasts. And I am hungry."

Fruit and handouts gleaned along the way were not exactly filling when one was walking all day, and Susan had her priorities straight: Food. Not becoming food. New shoes. A longer bath. New clothes. Oh yes, she had a list.

As a point of fact, he realized he was getting rather hungry himself, because he had not eaten anything but a dried up roll that hadn't got any tastier from rolling around in his pouch. There had been crumbs in there, but the fairy would probably eat those now. He wasn't sure if the dog was hungry either, because it had sunk its teeth into a half dozen lawkamercymes, but he wasn't sure if shadows were particularly filling. "Then I'll show you the kitchens. If you've got a shard, you'll be living in the castle." A pause. "Do you think those shadows have any meat to them?"

"I would think that things with meat in them would respond a little better to being beaned in the eye with a rock," Susan said, not a little wryly. She was good at archery, good with her aim, and she hated having to fight; she shut down completely when she did. The fact that such a small creature hadn't been the slightest bit affected by her attack was a little - embarrassing, frustrating, frightening, take your pick.

She didn't understand why the hound's attack had such a more definite affect. It had to be magic.

"What's this about a shard?" The fairies had, of course, mentioned it. But it didn't make much sense to Susan, and she'd been a bit confused when she'd come through.

He nodded and decided that seemed sound logic to him. It would mean he would be sure to get the hound some sort of treat as reward for a job well done. Sausages, perhaps. Gendry liked sausages.

But not to be lost in the longings of his stomach, he fell into step beside her and tapped on his chest. "I don't really know, but we're said to have them. They belong to something bigger, I think. The Seelie and the Unseelie are fighting over who has the most. So they treat us nice like to keep us all on whichever side recruits us first." It was not a particularly glamorous situation or noble, but it was what it was. It seemed no stranger a reason for conflict than what was raging in Westeros. "I thought it was bollocks before, but I've felt my shard. I've felt it burn and I've even learned to use it a bit. I know it don't mean much to look at me, but I'm a bit stronger than I look."

Of course with his thick arms from hard labor, he looked strong already. Which was his point, because he'd already figured himself plenty strong enough already.

Susan was able to follow this relatively easily. It wasn't the first time she'd been magically recruited to fight in someone else's war. But Narnia was different - Narnia had very quickly become part of her blood, and even the air of Narnia did strange and wonderful things to her, making her feel as if she belonged, as if she was welcome and wiser and stronger and home. It had felt the same when she returned and she almost felt she still carried it with her. Susan of Finchley would have had a difficult time walking all day every day for two straight weeks. Susan of Narnia was only a little sore.

But there was a difference - or perhaps a similarity - there as well. He could 'feel' the shard? It made him stronger? Susan's gaze lingered on Gendry's arms in simple assessment. No, he wasn't one she'd like to fight up close.

"You felt it burn?" Magic. It had to be magic. "And what do you mean, 'learn how to use it?' It's not a... tool of some kind, right? I mean, they are inside us."

"I went to learn from another shardholder. One who had been in this world for many years already. Ser Reynard taught us how to draw strength and speed from our shards. There's power in them and it's not just for the kings and queens to use, but we can do the same." Gendry had admittedly learned it slower than the others, because he had been learning more about the sword than the shard inside him. But he'd picked up enough. "In the end, though, he tried to betray us. He near murdered us all just to get our shards. It's the only way to get them out of us. We have to die to lose them."

He frowned as he stared at his feet. "In any case... I think Ser Reynard lost his shard once. But he replaced them with others. He gutted other people to fill himself with as many as he could. When he showed us the scar, I felt my own shard inside me. It burned, like it wasn't supposed to be there, like it wanted to join all the other bits he'd already taken. I think it wanted to be whole. Or close to whole as it could be."

...that was a little frightening. Or more than a little frightening, really, to think that there was something inside her wanting to get out, longing to be with other parts of itself. Subconsciously, her hand went over her heart, as if to keep it in.

"That sounds... horrible."

Suddenly she was very glad that her sister and brothers were not here. She knew well what it meant to be used for someone else's advancement, although not as well as Edmund. She'd seen how it was when Peter had confronted Jadis. She remembered how special Rabadash had made her feel... when she was in Narnia.

He hadn't meant to frighten her, even if it was perhaps just as well that he did. Having learned all this now, he felt warier than he had been before when it came to being away from the castle. He was carrying the most important currency to be had in this world and the only way to be free of it was to lose his life. It was a poor exchange for being able to draw a little extra power from it.

"You just need to be careful, is all. The castle is as safe a place as you'll find, never minding the pests it has now and then."

That was the extent of comforting advice he had available.

Susan nods, her brow still furrowed. "I don't suppose anyone's mentioned... how the shards have managed to come inside us in the first place?"

If there was a 'why me' in there, it was at least mostly hidden under practicality. After all, there had to be a reason, a start to all of this. Her hand returned to her side with an effort of will, though the fingers flexed, as if plucking a bow string.

"I'm not sure. I didn't think to ask." Indeed, this lack of knowledge seemed to bother him little. There were lots of things he didn't know and this being another one of those things was of no great importance to him.

"Oh," she said, fingers flexing again. She paused for a moment, thinking. "Who would you ask, if you wanted to? And - how long have you been here?"

"The king and queen, of course. Only, you missed them. They were here two weeks ago and they don't make appearances too often. As for me, it's been four months since I first arrived." He scratched the back of his neck, only now having a thought he hadn't had before. "Might have been the first time they'd collected anyone like us. At least, for a while. There weren't any other shardholders at the castle who'd been there more than a day."

That was interesting. She wondered what had changed. Again, she wished Edmund or Peter were here, but this time she felt guilty about it immediately afterwards.

There was something there, she was sure of it, but she wasn't quite sure what. Best to let it simmer and focus on practical things. She was good with practical things.

"Are there a lot of - shardholders - in the castle?"

He nodded. "Aye. I couldn't tell you how many. There's plenty what have gone off to other places to explore or they're off on tasks for the king and queen."

Furthermore, there were so many natives in this castle that it was never completely obvious who belonged to this world or to another. At the feast it was the easiest to find those new to the world by their clothing or manner, but that changed once people started wearing the clothes made available to them. It did him no favors that he likewise made no special effort to make friends.

"The king and queen give out tasks?" That seemed to be the most important question to ask out of the myriad buzzing about in her mind. This place seemed more complicated by the minute. "What kind of tasks?"

"That's how I was invited to Ser Reynard's. I figure they do send out for other quests like that. Most of will be about the war." That was all something Gendry had no particular desire to throw himself into. He was no coward, but he was not eager to throw his life away either.

"The war that they want us to fight in," she said, nodding slowly. She had heard about that when she first arrived. She was not keen on it at all, to put it lightly.

"You agreed to it," he said dismissively. Like with others like her, he was not keen on offering sympathy to those who agreed to a fight only to back out of it. "So you're in it now. But unless it comes here, they won't make you fight."

"I agreed to help a bunch of fairies," Susan clarified. And she'd thought it had been something very different, she thought at least her brothers and sisters would be here as well. It had been a split second decision, an instinct to go and help, and one she had tried not to spend the past two weeks regretting. "For all I knew, they had a friend who was stuck in a tree. That's not a promise to kill someone for the sake of a war I don't understand."

"Ah. So you went along with them. That's decent of you." He grimaced, not entirely unsympathetic. "I wouldn't go with them. Not until they told me why they wanted me. Need my help, they said. Bugger that. Why should I listen to tiny people with wings? I came for the war, because they needed me. The war in my own land will only ever need me as a corpse."

...oh. That was certainly a significant piece of information. Susan glanced at Gendry with concerned assessment, but decided after a moment that she wasn't sure she wanted to ask about his world's war if it was bad enough that going to another world's war was an improvement. Though from what she's learned about the war in the year or so since it had ended, she probably would have preferred escaping into a Narnian war than dealing with Nazis.

"That was smart of you," she said. "I should have done that. I'm usually more cautious."

But. Well. Not when people were crying out for her help, really.

"I'm usually not. You're just nice, is all." It wasn't quite a compliment, but neither was it an insult. Being kind was not the sort of thing that earned anyone favors, but it was certainly better than the alternative. But in all their talking, they'd at least arrived at the gates of the city. The guard at the gate seemed to recognize Gendry and gave him a slight nod and made no special fuss about his company.

Susan paused before following Gendry. She took in the architecture with an expert eye... and this was a beautiful castle. Not only that, but it was streamlined and well-equipped for defense.

"Will you look at the size of it..." Surely, this was not strictly natural construction - not unless it had been made in the same way as the pyramids.

"Nice, ain't it?" But it was not the size Gendry appreciated. Indeed, having lived all his life in the shadow of the Red Keep, there were few castles that might impress him. But it was the state of the city, which did not seem to have the ugly underside that dominated Gendry's memories of King's Landing. It might have been built unnaturally, but it continued to thrive in an equally unnatural manner as well. "Do they have castles like this, where you're from?"

Did they have castles like this... She laughed a little. Cair Paravel had been like this, equally well-formed and shining, a diamond of a castle: flawless, well-cut, and unassailable. She could find no immediate advantage in Caer Glaem save for size, but perhaps that was because Cair Paravel would always be preeminent in her heart. When last she'd seen it, it had been a ruin and some part of her still ached over that, but she best remembered it has it had been.

"Yes and no," she said, moving to follow him into the courtyard. "None quite so large, I think."

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