Title: Revels
Day/Theme: hiccup
Series: Chronicles of Narnia
Character/Pairing: Susan/Caspian
Rating: PG13



Lucy was hiccuping, Susan was gaining the beginnings of a headache, and in about five minutes she really would be driven to the point where she'd gladly bash Peter on the head for this.

The mead was sweet, golden, and packed a punch. Lucy had taken three sips before she started flushing and giggling, and Trumpkin was watching over her keenly, unaffected by his own drink. Dwarfs always had possessed the hardest heads for drinking that Susan had ever known. Peter was laughing with a faun and encouraging rounds and Edmund, sipping his mug quietly, looked sardonic.

She really might throttle Peter for this. Whisking a refill out of Lucy's reach, she pressed water into her hands again, direcing a dagger stare at her oldest brother that he didn't even notice.

"You're such...such a...wet blanket, Susan," Lucy said plaintively, swaying in her seat. "Getting as bad as you were befff--" She stuttered, stopped, and with a dreamy smile slid gently off her chair.

Susan and Trumpkin caught her as a group effort, alarmed.

"Might have a headache in the morning," he rumbled, scowling. Susan lifted Lucy in her arms; much more awkward, now, than it had been once but still manageable.

"I'll take her to her rooms," she said.

"I could--"

"No, that's all right. I'm unlikely to enjoy the festivities anyway." She took a narrower hall out of the great light-filled room, following the trail of torches. She might not carry a map in her head, but she did have a good sense for directions, and she'd been careful to acquaint herself with the castle.

The new castle, she thought, even though she'd made herself promise to not think about Cair Paravel now that it was gone in much the same way she'd made herself promise not to think of Narnia when it had been gone.

Both efforts were markedly unsuccessful.

Lucy clung to Susan when she tried to put her down but when dislodged curled into her bed with barely a murmur of protest. Susan knelt beside her, smoothing her hair back and smiling helplessly down into her peaceful face. Oh, little sister.....

For a second love swelled inside her so intensely it hurt, and then she kissed Lucy's forehead, stood, and left the room.

Outside it was dark--the spiraling hallway to bedrooms carrying less torches--and a window blew cool air across her face. She crossed the hall to it and braced her palms against the sill, craning her neck to gaze at the stars, scattered in shimmering drifts across the sky.

"You are not returning?"

Caspian's velvet-soft voice startled her, making her spin; for a second she was keenly away of her lack of weapons, and then her shoulders loosened.

"No," she said, and felt the smile come, for once tonight not stiff and forced but blooming over her mouth. "No, I'm...not in the mood to be boisterous tonight, it seems."

When she had been Queen she had enjoyed them more, hadn't she? The memory seemed hard to grasp. Her dignity had always been important to her, as their face of diplomacy. But it seemed...it seemed things had weighed on her less, then, when she had never been afraid of Narnia's end.

He approached her with a panther's silent tread, and she saw that he carried her horn at his hip, and in his hand he carried a flask.

"I don't--" She began, raising a hand.

"Just a sip," he coaxed softly, a smile hooking up the corners of his mouth. "To victory."

Half-laughing, Susan shook her head slowly and stepped closer, reaching out. Their fingers touched, a contact that sent a thrill of pure heat down her spine, and she lifted it to her lips, touching the edge to her mouth and drinking.

He did not let go, and she did not move her hand, and his eyes were dark and yet full of fire.

It flowed through her like liquid sunshine, fiery in her belly, making her cough; she released the flask to cover her mouth, laughing again. He grinned at her like a boy and lifted the flask to his own lips, rotating it in a quick twist of his wrist--subtle and almost unnoticeable--to put his lips where hers had been.

It should have been childish, an indirect kiss straight from playground. Instead, her heart skipped a beat.

"To victory," she echoed after a long moment, her throat suddenly dry again.

He bowed, short but graceful, and she swept a curtsey before she could stop herself, red skirts fanning around her legs.

"To the Gentle Queen," he said softly, and this time when he offered she did not hesitate.