song for Luna

[suncolors]

☾ And we aren't all that we seem, but we are more than we know.
(Caspian)
☾ Is that who you are? To think we never needed to say hello.
(Caspian)
☾ Man-made never made our dreams collide.
(Edmund)
☾ Reconcile.
(Edmund)
☾ You don't need eyes to see.
(Kay)
☾ Where was my head when I needed it most?
(Caspian)
☾ Don't keep appointments with disappointment.
(Aslan)
☾

Comments

I left my soul there, down by the sea

[treadingdawn]

Before the others could wake, besides Edmund who he left before the Just could stop him for whatever reason (by then maybe Ed had already gone back to sleep), a Telmarine left the house to keep his date with one Ravenclaw witch. Who knew one could buy flowers so early in the day too, but this is the City after all. No one seems to sleep. So Caspian doesn't take long to reach the shoreline, white lilies in tow. He crosses the soft sand, brown eyes looking this way and that for who he presumes will probably be the only other person on the beach at this hour. The sky is changing colors, close to the shade of dawn and he doesn't want to miss the sunrise as he had promised to share it with Luna Lovegood.

I left my soul there, down by the sea

[suncolors]

Even if he was late, for any reason, she would still be there, during and after the sunrise, because Luna is never really in a hurry to be anywhere, or to not be anywhere, even when, perhaps, she ought to be. All things have a time and a place, and if this particular morning finds her in the good company of her friend, Caspian X of the House of Telmar, then that would be nice. And if it doesn't, or didn't, she is sure she would see him eventually, and apologetically too. He is that sort of person

I left my soul there, down by the sea

[treadingdawn]

It doesn't occur to Caspian either that she should come to meet him because he doesn't think she should do much of anything at all that isn't of her own will. This sort of thinking is a given with him, with or without that memory and the way it severely changed him. His boots make moderate impressions in the sand and the bird doesn't stray too far from its spot when he approaches, flowers held in one hand while the other hand moves to the small of his back. He nods to Luna and bows in the royal manner he has always been taught.

"These are for you, my friend," Caspian smiles.

A friend is far more honest and true to what she is than a lady, even though in his opinion she is still both. But a lady to a gentleman has several connotations that simply do not apply to their friendship.

"Aren't your feet going to get cold?"

I left my soul there, down by the sea

[suncolors]

This form of courtesy, a bend from the waist so cleanly executed, is not unexpected, and she returns it with a modest nod of her head, eyes following the stillness of the winged thing that seems so fearless despite two such larger beings in its presence. When she raises her gaze again she lets her smile relax, the weight of it remaining ever in her eyes, she also shakes her head, shrugging once

I left my soul there, down by the sea

[treadingdawn]

He thinks about her answer for a moment then takes a seat beside her, flowers leaving his hand to hers. Like spring? What is the gold etching on Peter's sword again... when Aslan shakes his mane we shall have spring again. A friend in all seasons, yes, that's about right. But each year needs its winter too, how else would Father Christmas visit? Caspian has yet to hear tale of him visiting in the middle of summer and although he is still relatively new to the concept of Christmas he would think a visit during the hottest day in July would be absurd.

"Here," Caspian says while removing his coat and offering it to Luna, "not for your shoulders, but for your feet."

They can still settle in the water, but there would be something to cover her insteps.

"You're welcome," he smiles to her then looks out to the horizon where the sun begins to peek out. "Have you ever wondered if the sunrise on this side of the City looks the same on the other side," he asks her while watching.

I left my soul there, down by the sea

[suncolors]

"I am now," she replies as simultaneously forthcoming and non-forthcoming as she ever is, and this would be very. Adjusting the coat over her knees, the farthest edges of it barely brushes her ankles this way, the fingers of her unoccupied hand finding mild purchase in the folds. "And I have before," she admits, some degree of whimsicality there, as if it is no different than wondering if the shadow of blue she sees on the face of the wavelets is the same blue that he does.

"But I do think even if it does look the same, it would look different to someone," she glances over at him. "There is always some way to make things separate, even if we don't set out meaning to." Her next pause is filled with the activity of the sandpiper making its way to stand not an inch away from Caspian X. It seems to like him.

I truly am glad you're feeling better, is the passing thought, the hand grasping the flowers with light care turning slightly to lay them across her lap, taking a petal absently between thumb and forefinger. Her wand yet tucked

I left my soul there, down by the sea

[treadingdawn]

"I have too," he nods, but means it in a more practical sense.

Where is north in this world? Where is east? In Narnia the light of dawn first shines on Cair Paravel before moving westward to the river and the lands beyond. It isn't like that in this world, and in other worlds he has heard their lands are round. That's even more peculiar and exciting all at once. In his mind it more or less implies that sailing the ocean any which way can still take you to your destination, whatever that is. Endless in its circular nature. But Narnia's Eastern Sea is reported to have an end. Does the water simply flow off into space there or does it fall onto something? Does the seawater from Narnia give England its rain? That's a nice thought, if a little impossible. He smiles, keeping such fantastical things to himself

I left my soul there, down by the sea

[suncolors]

Moving back a bit more again, she buries her feet this time in the dry sand, as one does both to keep feet warm and also to dry them off without dirtying anything else, still paying the flowers attention however idly, appreciative of them more because of the ease with which they were given than the idea of a gift alone. Though she does not know, still, all that much about Caspian as far as history goes, she has made some minor guesses at it anyway, of the way brown eyes have looked displaced before, as if the bearer is not sure he belongs, is part of a family. Morning's gold and peach hues threading cross the water now like the softness of a kind look or the gentleness of a kind word, she thinks, even without knowing as much as others do of him, that he must make a very good family member indeed.

"You are up very early, and you were up a bit late too," she observes both, one for the second time and the other for the first, not quite asking why, but telling him she noticed. She won't apologize for Draco, but the mild tone of you did

I left my soul there, down by the sea

[treadingdawn]

He has always wanted to be a good family member. A good son, a good nephew, now perhaps a good brother, and eventually a good father. Perhaps it's easier to say he has always wanted to be a good person and a friend to many, family or otherwise. Having grown up without many of these things there is no standard by which he can abide, but these things are never really about standards at all anyway. To give the most he can, that is what helps him to achieve his goal, even when he isn't completely conscious of trying, of wanting that approval and acceptance from those around him who he holds very dear. Luna has fast become one of them. This newcomer whose name Caspian hasn't formally received will not likely fast become one of them

I left my soul there, down by the sea

[suncolors]

Draco Malfoy will not likely fast become anyone's friend. Even the Dark Lord favors him not, nor his family, constantly in his most unforgiving path of temper and discontent, but even Luna is not aware of this in any distinct reality. She only intuits, and at least as far as she is concerned he is worth keeping from freezing, because it isn't his future to be trapped here forever. In a way, she thinks with no small amount of regret for him, that he might be trapped already, and in a way far worse than death or this City will allow for in kind

I left my soul there, down by the sea

[treadingdawn]

Caspian takes another silent moment to think about her question

I left my soul there, down by the sea

[suncolors]

Ah to be with one's friends. It is an interesting thing, an idea that Luna has for all her years been very much aware of, contrary to what is probably a popular belief to the likelihood of otherwise both at her school and in her world as a whole. As her father is well known as a man of questionably sane repute, it is no wonder that some of that light colors her too, but she doesn't mind and really she does nothing to dissuade it all, because she follows in equal steps of both father and mother. They are, or were, in the latter's case, both quite extraordinary sorts, but eccentric too, bordering on what many people see as unsettling and unfamiliar, something just outside of understanding.

Luna understands this, as it happens.

People do not gravitate to oddness, and oddness is not romantic in spite of what many books or films of the day might say about Daring to be Different and so forth and so on. When it is not daring so much as just being that becomes an entirely new level of strange, and most people simply aren't very comfortable

I left my soul there, down by the sea

[suncolors]

Caspian is different, she thinks not for the first or last time and as she finishes braiding stem and leaf in the kindest of ways, she focuses then on a tiny nudge to a bloom, a turn here or there, biting at her lower lip absently in this mild concentration. To break any part of it would be a true shame and she would not want to ruin a gift from such a good friend who does not seem to mind her tendency to dream more than wake, even when she is looking right at him. It occurs to her, as her tapered fingers add a tiny adjustment to one last part, unfurling a leaf that became somehow mistakenly tucked in at some point, letting it lay open and soft, that more than like the brunette to her left, she trusts him. And that makes her happy

I left my soul there, down by the sea

[treadingdawn]

Draco's history is beyond him but if he knew a little bit about it he might be able to sympathize with the bad tempered bigot. Caspian knows a thing or two about pure blood being bad blood, perhaps not to the extent of a Dark Lord, but the concept of purity and extermination is not foreign to his own heritage. He forgets if he's ever told Luna these things or how much he's told her at all compared to what she can read from him. He is, after all, a bit of a transparent person. It doesn't surprise the Telmarine that some can read him better than others. And yet there is a part of him that simply never tells unless asked. Call it a way of keeping himself reserved from others but Caspian will always be willing to listen and learn. Is that selfish? Probably, but it's something he's only half aware of, even with the Pevensies at times. Maybe that's why he likes spending time with Luna who seems to know this and still not mind his company

I left my soul there, down by the sea

[suncolors]

The circlet of white and green balances on one hand absently, she uses her other to pick up her wand again, raising it to the air and murmuring words that mean just enough of the right thing to create a bubble, iridescent in the morning's glow, and then another, and another, until they are all but surrounded, bubbles dotting the air like so many spheres of light and glass. She doesn't think for a moment that Caspian would become disenchanted with these charms, because he seems the sort of person who appreciates good things, simple and not. These are simple, but lovely, will disappear as normal ones do, but provide for something endearing that is extra about the peach and pink dawn cresting over the water.

"It's just what I see," she tells him, not quite a you're welcome, but a bit better than that perhaps, and, tucking the wand behind her ear, the opposite one of the one with the flower, she smiles at him again. The truth is the truth is the truth, and one does not need to have the sight of future to sometimes just know.