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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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Gendry did not make his business to find out other people's stories, especially the ones that seemed especially complicated. More than that, he felt no particular reason to get to know this stranger more than he needed to. He weighed going back to patrol or simply going back to his forge. But he was hungry.

"I'll take you to the dining hall. It's not like to be full at this hour." It would not be private, but he preferred to be in a more familiar setting. In a queen's chamber, he would eat cake and drink wine, but in a dining hall he could have a tankard of ale and a plate of sausages instead. He'd much prefer the latter.

"All right," Susan said. Her stomach growled and she blushed faintly. "Oh - excuse me."

She hadn't had much beside what she could glean on the road and what she could occasionally earn or ask for along the way.

She glanced back at Reginald and noticed his predicament with the dog and sighed a little. "Just a minute, let me take care of him." She called out, "Reginald!"

The servant seemed relieved to finally have an excuse to walk away from Gendry's dog. He headed toward them.

Gendry nodded and waited as he watched with a frown. When the hound bounded back to him, he crouched to scratch behind its ears and watch Susan's exchange with the servant.

"Queen Susan," Reginald announced deferentially. He intently did all he could to ignore the hound and its master. "How may I be of service?"

"Ser Gendry and I are going to the dining hall." She inclined her head slightly in Gendry's direction. "Am I to understand that you are the one I should see about living arrangements here when we are finished?"

As a matter of fact, there were any number of other servants that Susan could probably see about this, and Reginald knew this very well. But it didn't have to be a particularly subtle attempt at flattery to get him to puff out his chest. "I believe that would be best, Your Majesty."

"Then where shall I find you?"

"If you like, I will wait outside the dining hall," he gave her another short bow, intending to put out that he was entirely at her service. Susan was a shardholder and such a high royal as well, he certainly was at her service. He still did not glance at Gendry.

Susan found the idea of him waiting outside rather intrusive, to say the least. "No, that won't be necessary. I wouldn't want to keep you from your other duties."

"Then perhaps Your Majesty would be so kind as to come to the courtyard when you are finished? Although of course, if Your Majesty would prefer to dine in your royal chambers, arrangements could easily be made."

Susan's stomach growled again. Reginald attempted not to look scandalized and pulled it off rather well.

"The dining hall will be quite sufficient," Susan said. Chambers? Goodness. She wanted to walk right toward the dining hall, but she didn't know where it was. She gave Reginald a kind smile, "Don't let me detain you further."

And Reginald knew a dismissal when he heard one.

Gendry was relieved when they were left alone. Through the exchange, he had watched with a keen interest. It had become clear that Susan, in spite of her ragged appearance, was no stranger to dealing with people of this sort. Whilst Gendry had no issue handling people like this either, he did so gruffly and with insult. She had dealt with the servant just as swiftly, but without insult. There was perhaps something to this method, though he had no keen interest in learning it.

"You got rid of him in a hurry," he said with a grudging hint of praise.

"I'm hungry," she said, gesturing slightly in an invitation for Gendry to lead the way. "I didn't want him hanging about and watching us eat."

People of Reginald's sort, Susan had found, were genuine in their desire to serve, as long as it was for the right person and they received the appreciation they thought they deserved. You had to carefully guard your boundaries with such people, or else they would end up being the ones running you. None of the Narnian servants had really been like that, but all courts had their side of politics and personal agenda. While Peter had been off securing the borders, she and Edmund had often dealt with interior squabbles. Sometimes Edmund would join Peter, if the battle was particularly fierce, and Lucy would go as well, and she would remain in Cair Paravel, confident that her brothers and sister would be well but also needing to deal with the lords and ladies, the supply chain, and general governance. It worked out quite well, since she hated the wars.

"Suits me." Still relieved to be freed of extra company, he took to leading them again. The dog followed, even though it probably had no business being at the dining hall. It was just as well, because Reginald probably thought the same of Gendry. But his thoughts of food was mingled with this notion of how he should be treating her. Which meant, unfortunately, an apology. "I should have minded my tongue before, with me going on saying all those words I did."

"Yes, I gathered you two didn't have the most - congenial - of relationships," Susan said wryly, moving to follow along. That had been another factor in her wanting to be rid of Reginald.

Then he continued and her brow furrowed slightly. At first she wasn't sure what he meant, but since he was already apologizing she tried to puzzle it out - and then it dawned on her. "It was a little awkward," Susan said, still in good cheer. After all, she was about to eat, and soon she would sit, and then hopefully there would be a bath and new clothes and sleep on a real bed. "I'm not used to hearing words like that. But... am I to understand you're thinking you need to talk differently around me now?"

"You're a queen, your grace. I'm not so stupid that I can't change the words I use." It was an effort, certainly, because he lacked any real courtly graces. But he knew what was appropriate and what wasn't, regardless of spending a lifetime living one other way. But highborn ladies always expected men to be better than they really were. And so Gendry intended to do just that.

Prickly indeed. Susan wasn't sure exactly what she'd done to turn the conversation from easy and open to 'I'm only walking with you because we're going in the same direction,' but even if she felt a lonely pang at it, she wasn't in the habit of going where she wasn't wanted.

"Well, I can't say I won't appreciate it," Susan said, her tone light and easy, as if she hadn't noticed the sudden drop in temperature. Maybe they could breeze through it, or maybe not. She'd see. "I can't imagine changing the way one speaks would be an easy thing to do, so it's considerate of you. Mind, if you slip up and I faint, I hope you'll be good enough to splash some water on my face."

She gave him a cheeky smile.

He snorted and made a valiant effort to not grin. A sense of humor changed nothing. His uncle seemed to have an endless supply of clever quips and easy smiles. But it did not change his uncle being a king as well. Even if Gendry did regularly tell his uncle exactly what he thought of him.

But they were inside the castle now and out of the sun and all the usual bustle of castle life carried on around them as he took them down the corridor to the dining hall. "I'd expect you'd want something finer than water. Some red wine, mayhaps."

Ah-ha, an almost smile. She'd seen that out of her periphery vision. So it was the title, then? Goodness.

She'd probably feel empathetic or try to later. After all, he was an illegitimate child of royalty, and that couldn't be easy for him. She little doubted that there was a severe class divide where he was from. Right now, however, she was hungry and footsore and just empathetic enough not to feel annoyed.

Something finer, pah.

"I'd rather have a good cup of tea," Susan said. "Oooh, and a sandwich, though I should probably start with a soup."

The dining hall was vast as they entered it and meant to hold a great number of people in audience. But for now, it was largely empty and only one of the long tables was presently set up to be sat at for eating. A group of natives occupied one end of it, so Gendry chose the opposite end for the both of them. He steadied his scabbard as he sat, then gave the dog a pat along the head as it came up beside him. He paid no mind as it licked at his fingers.

"It'll be ale and sausage for me. But they'll make whatever it is you like. There's no end to what sort of foods they make."

Susan sat herself on the side opposite Gendry and sighed a little just out of pure physical relief. She'd been walking for such a long time. "Do they come here or do we have to go someplace to order?"

"They'll be along to see what we want." If she had any problem with being served food, he didn't show it. The fact of the matter was, he worked the forge without payment. He put his work into the castle, same as the servants did.

"Oh, all right," Susan said.

And sure enough, they were. She smiled politely and asked for soup and a sandwich and a cup of tea.

Once the servant had left to go fetch their food, Gendry was left to wait with a queen. He tried to imagine all the sorts of things a queen might be interested in, but could come up with none at all. Certainly she'd care little for smithing. So he prompted her for the talking instead.

"So how long have you been queen?"

She seemed young, after all. He couldn't imagine it had been long.

Susan was mostly wishing she had asked for something fast and quick - bread, maybe, any bits of vegetables they had lying about, some sort of appetizer - and wondering if there was a place where she could wash her hands when Gendry spoke.

"Oh, hundreds of years, apparently," she answered truthfully, absently. It was all so very odd, so very strange and it was still very real in her mind. Though then she realized what she was saying and shook her head. "We reigned in Narnia for years and years. It's all a bit confusing when you ask it like that. On the one hand, we first entered Narnia a year ago. We lived there, and when we fell back through to England, no time had passed and we were years and years younger. But while just one year passed in England, hundreds and hundreds of years passed in Narnia - without us. It sounds impossible, I know."

There was a point in her story where he began to had difficulty putting it altogether. There came a point, not so long after the first, where he decided it was no use trying. This talk of becoming younger again and time and all this other nonsense was a bit too much. He frowned and hid none of his skepticism.

"You could have just told me it wasn't my business to know." Better she refuse an answer than give him one like this.

"I could have," Susan agreed. "If I hadn't already told you that I'd tell you."

She shrugged a little. "I told you it was hard to believe. But it might help if I started at the beginning."

And suddenly she grasped onto some of his assumptions - at least, she thought she did, "I wasn't born royalty, you know."

"Aye, you married into it." That seemed obvious to him. Much like Lady Margaery, he assumed her to be some highborn lady who simply married into royalty. It meant status, but no real power.

Susan laughed a little - she couldn't help it. Married into royalty? "No, not hardly."

This was not the time to talk about her suitors from long ago, or the pang she still felt when she thought of Caspian. And very well, if he wasn't going to let her tell it from the beginning, she might as well at least get to the point of it.

"We were appointed kings and queens of Narnia, my brothers, my sister, and I. We were awarded our thrones by the highest of all high kings after winning a terrible battle."

"Ah," he said in an unusual understanding. "That's how it was the Seven Kingdoms were made. It was Aegon, his two sisters, and his bastard brother what united the different kingdoms together. With their dragons, none could resist them."

As it was, Gendry had blood from all four of them. The Kings and Queens of Westeros...

"So you married one of your brothers then," he continued, concluding the story easily for her. That was the Targaryen way and he showed no particular surprise or shame that he assumed the same for her.

Wait, hold. Dragons and uniting and it wasn't exactly like that at all, but-- "I did not marry my brother!" Susan recoiled. "Either of them!"

She said it a little too loudly and just at the wrong moment. Several curious heads inclined in their direction and Susan lowered her voice.

"I understand that such things are not necessarily entirely uncommon in some royal lines, but certainly not such a close relation and - no."

Their drinks came first, even as the servant did the polite thing in not saying anything about sibling marriages. Gendry simply stared at her over his tankard of ale. He downed the liquid and at last shrugged.

"So who was in charge?"

Edited 2014-08-30 02:04 (UTC)

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his eyes look really freaky in that icon >>

wow that's just rude!

excuse the vagueness; Su would be more specific but I haven't done all the research yet

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