and sometimes when you fall...

[called_lioness]

She dreams.

She's been walking a long time, she knows (and sometimes she's a girl, and sometimes she's a woman, and sometimes she's a lioness, and, most the time, she's a little of all three) when she reaches the beach

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[sai_delgado]

She's been here before, say true, in dream as well as otherwise. Mayhap in a way she's always here, now-- or near enough.

It's not as far down to go this time

(further up and further in)

and it doesn't take as long to get there

(time has no real meaning here)

and when Susan Delgado-that-was comes up beside Lucy, her gentle smile is bright. She slips her hand into the other girl's, and as she does the sea-breeze picks up, tossing their golden hair into a brightness on the wind.

"Long days and pleasant nights, Lu."

[sai_delgado]

A cloud passes across the sky above, dimming the sunlight, and oh, but Susan's hair seems suddenly to darken in its shade.

(Queen Susan the Gentle)

"I kennit more than thee know," she murmurs, so softly. "The stories are true, ye see, all of them -- and I've more in common with yer Narnian sister than ye know, Lu. Would'ee have the answer, truly? Would'ee hear the tale?"

And as the sky darkens further, it's not only Susan's hair but her skin that grows darker, too, and yet she is not unlike herself, not really.

(Susan Susannah - the Lady of Shadows)

Fog-gray eyes are shining like steel in the dim light as she turns back to Lucy.

"It's the ones left that hurt, ye're right about that. There's a cost to fight ka, greedy old ka -- easier to go alley-o, say true."

And then the moment passes, and the sunlight returns, and it's Susan Delgado standing there once more, golden hair gleaming. Her smile is gentle and warm, and somehow knowing.

"We're both walking."

And oh, but her soft voice is kind.

[called_lioness]

"I would, yes," and Lucy watches, and she's only nineteen again.

And she grins, a little, after a moment. "I know about ka. And I know about costs. And I know about fighting."

(She's not like the Queen Susan)

She had a life ruled by ka, and the thing about Lucy is she could accept that, because she had no choice, and it blew her where it would, breath through a horn, wind in a sail, snow into her face, and she couldn't fight it if she wanted to

[sai_delgado]

"Ka like a wind," Susan tells her, and it's story and answer and question and more all together as one, and somehow there's no need to say more.

For this is a dream, surely this is only a dream, but it's as real as anything has ever been anywhere. They're there, the two of them, there together by the ocean, and the cliff (the Drop) behind them slopes down like a green grassy tide and then soars up along a ridge into the distance--

(further up and further in)

--rising up toward the mountains, and what lies beyond them.

The breeze whips their hair into a golden cloud as they stand, each a bright and shining mirror of the other, with now only a single evening star above them in the sky.

Susan smiles back at Lucy, and takes her once more by the hand.

"Will'ee have it so? Aye, then come with me!"

[called_lioness]

It's a long way to go. And they've still, for all it's farther than she thought, barely started.

But they walk, and then they run

(faster, up the waterfall)

and you shouldn't be able to run this fast, you shouldn't, it's not possible, and they do it anyway, and it's too fast to talk, for all the mountains look no closer yet, but somehow--

somehow, that doesn't matter.

And then she wakes up.

And if there's a grain or two of sand in the bed, it's chance, and from the lake.

Just remember; it was only a dream.

And the next one will only be one too.