Plot-locked to Caspian

[livingintrinity]

The pool opened into a bower of sun streamers and green in the shades of fading new spring and the whisper of promised emerald summer. There was a rock formation which jutted upward for twenty feet in the Northern area just beyond them, trees crowning onward from it, and just beyond westerly was a worn path with rivets from cart wheels which wound its way through the dappled grove.

"This," Marian said, with an awe and love that was never, and would never, be tarnished by time. "Is Sherwood forest."

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[livingintrinity]

Oh, there was news. The look said that clear enough before she looked away. Her voice wasn't completely clear now.

"We are told that we are winning. They never say otherwise. The only news that comes truly direct though is the lists."

The names. Each month, the names. And the wailing.

Her shoulders stiffened, shaking her head. She focused on Lineave who stayed at the changed pace, but she knew might not be so keen to go faster again. The house wouldn't be terribly further.

Marion's voice was very still when she added, "The actions I take would bring any other to the noose long before now."

[fortuneoftarva.livejournal.com]

Winning. Caspian has been in enough battles to realize exactly what that might mean for the people here, and he has seen lists of his own all too often.

And the thought of Marian and the violent death she describes makes his hands clench against the reins, so that Sorely tosses his head and sidesteps in confusion. He glances down, and finds that his knuckles ar very pale.

"Then pray, do not get caught." His voice came out low, barely heard over the breeze that shuffles the new leaves around them. "I won't ask what those actions might be; not here. I'm sorry to have brought up sorrowful subjects, lady."

He'd sooner see her smile, but this is a part of Marian, as well, and he finds he admires it as much as he does all the others.

[livingintrinity]

"Tis truth, Lord Caspain," she replied, looking toward him, her face somewhat sad but there is an ironic something perked at the edge of her lips. "I do not regret truth."

Though she had no intention of being caught anytime soon. And she wasn't sure what of that she could say or quite why she felt compelled to.

"There is the house," Marian said, looking forward.

[fortuneoftarva.livejournal.com]

He follows the movement of her head, grateful for the interruption. "Aye. Do you think your father will be there by now?"

It isn't that he's worried, merely curious. Marian spoke of her father with a great deal of fondness, and he's sure that Ravenkeep's master is a fine man.

[livingintrinity]

The house slowly loomed at their pace, forming into shape and then the lines she could distinguish. She glanced at him for his question, seeing her gray eyes still far beyond, dappled in the streamers of the forest and yet blending to them in a way.

And no fear. Simply curiosity. Yes, this would be for a man who sought the edge of the world. No fear, just curiosity.

"I could inquire within if you'd like, this time."

[fortuneoftarva.livejournal.com]

The temptation is to say aye, I'd like that, for he would, dearly. It would be a pleasure to meet Marian's father and to tell the man how impressed he is by the way his lands are kept--but they have already been gone a long while and he is eager to return to Narnia and the preparations for his voyage.

"Perhaps another time," he says, though his voice is a little wistful. "I'd not want to disturb him, and this has already been a very pleasant visit." Nor put Marian in a nealrly unexplainable situation. "We ought to make our way back to the Wood, if you'd not mind."

[livingintrinity]

"Not at all." And, in fact, it was true.

She was quite grateful that fate had given her the chance to show him her world without the many garish things that bombarded her daily -- her father's wary protectiveness was the least of it when compared to the trails of the peasantry, the sheriff or his lackey's.

Putting the horses away, she led him to the main pool in the woods and they left the forest to the echoes of their laughter and talk once they'd gone back through.