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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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Susan gave a surprised laugh at that thought. Oh, the dwarves would have loved a hunt like that. "I have to say, I'm not surprised. But I wonder..."

Well, she wondered the sort of things she always wondered: What did the worms do? How did their bellies get filled with treasure? Was the treasure undigested, or was it partially gnawed away by stomach acid - that is, was it food? If it wasn't, why would they eat it?

"...were they all killed off? Or was it some sort of... seasonal thing?"

"Bit of both, I think. I figure they came here because they were hungry for more treasure. I don't know how many we killed, but they stopped attacking before long. Either we killed them all or they were smart enough to let up."

And so he ascribed that same behavior to these shadows. There was only so many of them that could be killed before they would eventually wise up and let up on becoming canine crunchies.

She glanced over the grounds, trying to see any sign of whether or not they had breached the castle - or indeed, come up through the ground. "What did you need to kill them? A giant bird?"

This is said with a bit of sarcasm, but she is also still feeling out her ground here.

There had been long enough that signs of the worm invasion were few, save for the deepest parts of the castle where little priority had been placed on patching up tunnels that had inevitably collapsed on themselves anyway. The dungeons were a sight.

"Bloody hell, but that would have been hard. No, a blade was enough to cut them open."

"Well, there's that, at least," she said with a certain amount of relief. It was good to know that everything didn't depend on magic here in order to defend yourself.

"The attacks on the castle - have they all been magical creatures? Or have the Unseelie made it through the walls here as well?"

He grimaced and shook his head. "There was an attack, three months ago. Both courts were made to fight one another. I was at the other court. We were trying to steal a weapon from them. Only, they came here to do the same. In the end, both sides stole one another's weapons, so it seemed a bloody waste of time."

He was bitter for more reason than that, though. He'd been stranded in enemy territory and it had taken him a month on horseback to make it back.

"...funny that they got the same idea to do that sort of thing at the same time," Susan said. 'Made' to fight each other? Were they... driven by something? Or was it just... war.

This whole thing was very strange. Susan felt that she'd never known a war quite like this one.

"It weren't so funny to be caught in the middle of it," he muttered bitterly. "They tried to attack again, only a month ago. They made it as close as Cothromach before they were driven off."

"No, I'm sure it wasn't funny at all." She tugged a piece of flyaway hair behind her ear. "I didn't mean funny as in - 'haha' but as in - curious. War isn't funny at all."

If she hadn't been so tired, she was sure she'd have nightmares. Walking all day, however, didn't give you much luxury for interrupted sleep, however hard or cold the ground happened to be.

"I know that." He didn't quite grin, but there was clear amusement at her effort to clarify herself. He'd understood the meaning well enough, but his aptitude for cynicism meant ignoring that. "So where is it you're from?"

Susan eyed him, not sure whether or not he was having her on and frowning a bit at the thought of it. But then... while the question should be simple enough... her frown deepened for a moment, then she said decisively, "I'm from England."

After all, she was never going back to Narnia again. She would always remember it, it would always be part of her, but she was not from Narnia, even if she was in some indefinable way of Narnia.

Once a king or queen...

"London, actually. That's our capital."

They were beginning to exit the courtyard now, coming up on the second entrance.

Gendry seemed to consider the name for a moment, before at last shrugging. "Never heard of it."

Before he could announce his own home, one of the castle servants approached. Dressed in a waistcoat and a delicately trimmed pencil mustache, he was very much an important member of the serving staff and did not likely lower himself to cleaning things. He was an organizer and he greeted them both with a thin smile. "Ah, Prince Gendry. Fighting the good fight again, I see! Aha, so very clever of you... and ah!" He seemed to pause and his expression flickered with a childish giddiness. "Oh my my my my, you must be Queen Susan. We were wondering if you'd ever show up! I'm afraid you are late. The feast was two weeks ago."

Gendry ignored the servant, which he almost always did. Instead, he gaped at Susan. "Queen?

Susan eyed the man as he came towards them: punctilious was the word which came to mind. 'Steward' was the second. He carried himself as a man used to some authority and Susan subconsciously stood a little straighter. Servants at this level, she always felt, were almost more like guides and schedule-keepers and--

"Prince?" she turned to gape at Gendry, in a most un-queenlike way. And then there was her shock at being addressed in this strange and foreign land as queen. She turned her only slightly less surprised gaze to the steward. "Queen?"

The man looked taken aback, as if he'd come upon a table where the napkins had been set crookedly. "Well - are you not Queen Susan, high queen of Narnia? The fairies said you accepted their offer almost two weeks ago." A hint of disapproval in his tone. "We set a place of honor for you at the feast."

Doubtless her absence had thrown off his seating arrangement, she thought, frowning.

High Queen at that. Gendry's expression had changed to something more suspicious. She was doing little to object to the title. In any case, it was one thing to be an accidental son of a king. But a queen was a queen, no matter how one looked at it. She was high born. She didn't seem it now, but a little mud would do that to anyone.

He leveled a steely gaze at the servant. "I told you I ain't no prince. Call me Ser if you like, but you can bugger off about princes."

The servant exhaled loudly and did little to disguise his rolling eyes. "Yes yes, of course, Ser Gendry. I don't suppose you'll find time to want a bath drawn, hm?"

Gendry snorted derisively. "Draw one for her Grace over there. I had one last week already."

Edited 2014-08-23 03:24 (UTC)

The steward's attitude toward Gendry bothered Susan - and his attitude towards her - as if she was at fault for being late, of all the ridiculous things - wasn't doing him any favors.

But queens, if that was what she was here, were supposed to be gracious. They also didn't need to take bother from servants.

"I believe there's a bit of confusion here," Susan said, achieving a tone that was decidedly more 'older sister: annoyed' than 'regal and warm' but she'd had a long two weeks. "What is your name?"

"Reginald, Your Majesty," and he affected a bow worthy of her station. It felt starched at the corners.

"Thank you, Reginald," Susan said. "Now if you will withdraw for a moment, I believe Prince Gendry and I have something to discuss."

The reminder was just as much for the steward as it was for Gendry - if he was going to 'your Grace' her, she could very well serve that dish right back - but the steward should know better than to linger when two royals needed to converse. Stewards should also know better than to publicly inquire after someone else's bathing habits - it was rude with the potential to be humiliating, even if she agreed that bathing once a week was hardly sufficient.

The steward was nothing if not obedient. He sniffed and stepped far enough away to be out of earshot, but not so far away that he could not be called on when needed. He managed a perfect exterior of patient impatience.

Gendry instead looked unhappy and did nothing to look patient at all. Fortunately he didn't seem particularly humiliated either. He was now simply in his natural state of being where he seemed particularly displeased with the world at large. The hound, oblivious, began to sniff at Reginald's feet while the servant, unwilling to truly react, began to quietly hiss and try to shoo the dog away.

"So, High Queen of Narnia, eh? Is that in England or the other way 'round?"

"It's completely different than England, just like this place is completely different than Narnia," Susan said. She moved a hand at her side, a touch of impatience, or rather: emphasis. It was completely different, and precious, and impossible and... "Narnia is not something I talk of easily. Back home, in England, no one would believe it. They would think me quite mad."

She frowned a little, "And if you were going to tell me you were a knight, you could have told me you were a prince."

He could make no sense of what she was describing. Or at least, he could not quite grasp how she could claim to be of two worlds and now even in a third. It made no sense to him that one could go from being a queen to being a nothing. But it made just as little sense to go from nothing to being a prince.

"I'm not a prince," He muttered. "My mother was a tavern girl. My father was a king, but I never met him. He fu--" He paused and censored his language, a courtesy offered to a highborn lady. "He had his way with my mother and that was it. He never knew I existed, nor would he have been like to care. Bastards ain't princes, just bastards. The fairies here just have the wrong of it."

Meanwhile, poor Reginald was having a time of it. Apparently he had decided simply walking away from the dog Would Not Do, since Susan had only asked him to withdraw for the moment, and one did not disobey the wishes of a high queen, even if she was entirely grubby and looked as though she'd been on the road for two weeks. So he kept shuffling back and forth, ever so slightly, in hopes of avoiding dog hair on his impeccable black pants.

For Susan, however, what Gendry said did make a certain amount of horrible sense. She knew her history and her fairy stories.

"Oh. I'm sorry you didn't know your father," she said, sensing she was swimming in deep waters. "I don't know quite how royalty works in your world, but in mine - in England - well. I'm glad you're alive." Illegitimate children of royalty were often killed so they couldn't make claims on the throne - then again, so were legitimate children. She felt that things were getting tangled up. "Anyway, what I mean to say is that I'm sorry that came out as an accusation. That wasn't fair of me."

She held out her hand then paused for a moment and added awkwardly, "I don't suppose they shake hands where you're from?"

Edited 2014-08-23 04:17 (UTC)

The apology somehow made it worse, because he had never liked to be pitied. But then, he was ever stubborn about what he was and how it was so often used to define him. His uncle and Lady Lucrezia used his father as a means to elevate his station. Others pitied him for simply being born on the wrong side of the sheets. Only a few were altogether indifferent.

He grimaced as he looked at her hand. "Not with a lady. Or queen. Anyway, there ain't no need to apologize. I know what I am."

"That's not what I'm apologizing for," Susan said, leaving her hand out stubbornly. "I'm apologizing for - well, almost yelling at you. I might be a queen in Narnia, but in England I'm just a girl. And I can never go back to Narnia again."

And there was a sadness in her tone at that last sentence, despite how business-like she was trying to be. She realized suddenly that she liked Gendry. He had been informative and kind, and she didn't want the stupid steward to separate her from the most consistently friendly(ish) face she'd seen since she'd arrived.

Few were ever as stubborn as Gendry, but it did not take much to make him relent on this matter. He grasped her hand, but only briefly and only lightly. His were working hands that were thick and calloused from a lifetime of labor and dirty from a few day's hard work. Just as quickly, he pulled his hand back and buried it as he crossed his arms.

"Why not? Were you exiled?" His father was a usurper who had done just that to the Targaryen. He'd known a Targaryen queen who could not return to Westeros because of his father's deeds.

Susan might have bathed briefly in the stream that morning, but that didn't mean she was exactly clean from being on the road. Her hand would feel soft in comparison to Gendry's - soft, but strong. There were thick callouses on her fingertips that might have come from a harp but were from nothing so gentle.

She was glad he'd taken her hand; she felt indescribably lighter and that made the word 'exile' strike more deeply - her defenses were down. She paled in a way that meant 'yes' even as she qualified it.

"In a manner of speaking," Susan said. "Only, it wasn't meant to be quite so harsh as that. I think in closing that door he meant to open another one, but - it was when I was between worlds, you see, that the fairies came to me. I thought I was ready to say goodbye and just go - be in England, and go to boarding school. When the fairies asked for my help, I wanted to help them, but... maybe I wasn't as ready to go back to England as I thought."

Edited 2014-08-23 04:43 (UTC)

"Not meaning it to be harsh don't change what it is." Things like going between worlds or even boarding schools wasn't within his experience. But having your home taken from you was only too familiar. Just because it had been for his own good, it hadn't made it any easier to forgive his old master and teacher for sending him off to the Watch and be an exile to everything he ever knew. "But how is it you can be a queen in one world and not in another?"

Once a king or queen of Narnia...

Susan smiled, her heart singing with the sting of it. There was some truth here that she felt she didn't wholly understand, didn't completely remember. Maybe she would, if she was Lucy. Maybe she would be able to look at Gendry's face and say 'But I am a queen. I'm just not royalty in England, but I will always be a queen of Narnia.'

But she wasn't Lucy, and Susan said, "That's a long story. I'll tell you if you like, I think you deserve that. But is there a place we can sit down first? And maybe get something to eat?"

If Reginald was still near enough to hear, no doubt he'd offer to take Susan up to her rooms where she would have a quite nice audience chamber... if, of course, he approved of the company she was keeping. All shardholders were to be honored, and those of royal blood most certainly, but Susan was a high queen, and whether or not his insistence had merit, in all the ways that mattered most to Reginald Gendry certainly acted like a bastard.

Edited 2014-08-23 04:52 (UTC)

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