bakerstreet | OTHERWORDLY.

The festivities well occupy Jeyne's time apart from Caspian. Despite being tired she enjoys learning of Narnia and its traditions, as well as meeting many of Caspian's most trusted advisors and friends. She chooses not to notice the glances and the whispers - she has happier things to think about. Like the way Caspian's eyes sparkle in moonlight.

The next night she sleeps well, and wakes just before dawn to prepare for the ceremony. She's had a special dress made by a Narnian dressmaker in the style of the land, in a gradation of colors reflecting all of the blooms of spring. Green at the top, changing to pink to red and purple, it has an especially long train to drape over the back of the horse.

She enlists the aid of her new 'handmaidens' in selecting a hairstyle appropriate for the occasion. Given them free reign, the final result is so perfect it brings tears to her eyes. A lovely braid with delicate flowers that makes her feel like a wood nymph. Checking herself in the mirror one final time before leaving her chambers, she has never looked so regal.

She is calming her horse with an apple when Caspian appears. She smiles wide and chuckles softly at his question.

"I've barely had time to breathe, your highness!" She gives the horse an affectionate pat and then leans closer so as to not be overheard.

"Yet you have never been far from my mind."

His breath can't help being knocked slightly from him when she turns and smiles. Appointed like this, he can't help seeing flashes of Susan and Lucy in her gentle attention, although her smile is clearly all her own. The court isn't wrong to murmur, he's certain, that the King could surely be brought to his knees by something as delicate as the lift of her lips.

His own fingers lift rather absently to smooth at the mare's neck in greeting, although he can't quite manage to bring his eyes away from Jeyne's features for anything more proper than that.

"I'm glad to hear it." That she had been busy enjoying herself, of course--and not insignificantly that she had thought of him. "And that you've had the chance to look-- so properly a daughter of Narnia. The dryads will be over the moon to meet you."

Particularly looking so much like an Old Queen of Narnia.

Edited (whoops icon) 2015-05-09 14:32 (UTC)

She blushes a soft pink at his compliment. She is beyond pleased that the dress had the desired effect - and if he likes it, surely his people will as well. But best of all, Jeyne feels comfortable and beautiful, and she can imagine herself dressed this way every day for the foreseeable future.

"You are looking especially handsome as well. I hope your duties have not left you too tired." The statement is a formality - he looks well rested and happy. She wonders how much of that happiness can be attributed to herself.

"So this ceremony is practiced every spring?"

"They most often leave me joyful, if I'm honest."

They didn't always, of course. In true honesty, having potential brides foisted on him usually fell into the category of less than joyful. He can't help thoroughly enjoying this marked difference with Jeyne--or the impulse, now that he's greeted the horse, to reach out and catch hold of the young lady's fingers.

"Every spring, yes, since the forest came back to itself."

Today isn't a day to dwell overly long on the way they had gotten Narnia back to itself again. Today is a day to celebrate what exists now. It's a little easier when he pulls her hand lightly to his lips for a firm kiss against her knuckles.

"The trees would do it on their own, but they're twice as glad when they're allowed to show off."

"That is good to know!" Especially if he chooses her as his queen, and leaves her to handle those duties while he goes on long sailing excursions, as he'd mentioned the night before last. When he took her hand she ran her thumb along his affectionately, butterflies turning circles in her stomach. She wonders if this is what it feels like to fall in love.

"The trees? Do they have life too, like the animals?" She's yet to have time to explore the forest but it is still high on her list of desires.

"Do they speak?"

"Not-- just like the Talking Beasts." Which is surely reason enough to keep lingering here beside her, calloused fingers clutching gently around her hand and smile directed solely at her despite the world around them. "The dryads aren't-- strictly the trees so much as-- the spirit which exists within each tree."

Which will hopefully make more sense when she properly sees the tall stately forms which solidify once the dryads burst in a flutter from their trunks and into the world. Surely their humanoid form would be easier to find comfort in than the Talking Beasts often were for visitors to adjust to.

"Some of them are quite chatty--particularly at this time of year. Many of them slumber through the winter and take this festival to return properly to the world."

"I think I understand." So the trees themselves did not move and speak, but a part of them took life in a visible form that did speak. She looks forward to seeing exactly how that works.

"In Westeros, our seasons last for years at a time. When I left, the end of the longest summer in recorded history was just coming to an end. All signs pointed toward an equally long and difficult winter. I do not think your dryads would like to have to slumber for years at a time. I believe I like Narnia's seasons much better." From all accounts they were much more predictable.

Footmen arrive with a small set of steps for her to use to mount her horse. Considering that Caspian already had her hand, she allowed him to help her up the stairs and into the saddle. As a lady she had to ride sidesaddle despite the discomfort, and her ladies stepped out from the shadows to drape her gown over the back and side of the mare. The butterflies brought on by his closeness multiplied, as the conversation she'd overheard earlier between her parents came to mind. They were hoping for an announcement as to the King's intentions during the celebration.

"Thank you, your highness."

The arrival of others certainly put a brief damper on their ability to have a quiet conversation. Helping Jeyne up onto her horse comes with a certain degree of resignation in his shoulders that they had far from found another moment of truly coming together, as they had the night before last.

His fingers squeeze hers tight once she's settled up on the horse, dropping away lightly to give his own cloak a neatening tug.

"Will you ride at the front with me? I would hear more of the seasons you're accustomed to."

His request, simple as it may be, sends her for a loop. To ride at the front, at his side - it will be her first true taste of what it would be like to be both his wife and the queen of Narnia. She finds herself speechless, only nodding in agreement as she searches for breath that seems to have escaped her.

"Of course, your highness" she manages to gasp out before breaking into possibly the widest smile she is capable of making. Jeyne is certain that when her mother sees her at the king's side, she will burst into tears.

"Would you lead us?" she asks, nodding to her mare's bridle, the reins held loosely in her hand.

After seeing her to bed the night before last, Caspian had been certain to ask the guards he had walked with about the symptoms of love. There had been a long spate of teasing, but after the chuckling, he had been given an affectionately thorough rundown.

Love, he was told, felt giddy, distracted, a little bit overwhelmed and a good deal captivated. Love felt, from the description, not a bit unlike the sensation growing in the pit of his stomach when Jeyne smiled brightly at him like this.

It takes a second to avert his eyes from her glowing features, to bring his attention back down to the horse as his own lips tug into a beaming little smile. "With me, then, Hwin."

The mare gives an accepting flick of her ears, although she politely refrains from properly answering--in the manner of most of the Talking Horses who had hidden in Archenland during the Telmarine dynasty. It doesn't take more than a word to get the horse following along at his side as he moves to find Destrier again, but his fingers rest lightly against the mare's neck all the same.

"It will-- be better, you know, for me to introduce you properly. The dryads aren't so bad, but the naiads can be-- a bit possessive around visitors."

Hwin. So her ride had a name. She realizes she should have asked, and intends to speak to the horse once the ride is over. That is an adjustment she needs to begin making immediately - to find out for each creature she encounters whether they contain Aslan's spark or not. Even without, she knows animals have spirits and personalities, especially horses.

Whispers begin to spread as they work their way to the head of the group awaiting the start of the ride, sparked not only by the change but by the completely smitten grins the two of them are wearing. The excitement they feel for one another is infectious, and shared by all around them.

"Possessive, or protective?" she asked, looking ahead to where Caspian's horse awaited them. "I will certainly feel more comfortable with you by my side, and not solely for the introductions." She suspects that he may be the key to earning the Narnians' acceptance. If they trust and respect him, then his judgement of her may be all they need to welcome her into the fold.

"A bit of both, I expect." With one last affectionate pat, he leaves off smoothing the mare's neck, attention focused forward on the tall dark warhorse fidgeting at the front of the line. "They're always rather cross with the idea of my being taken away from them by something so scandalous as a wife and family."

If there might have been a tinge of his own doubt in his voice, it's buried under the smile he has for Destrier. The large beast is of Calormene descent, but there's clearly a bright spark of intelligence in the mount's eyes as he notes his rider and gives a pleased shiver, head bucking against the stablemaster's grip. Caspian moves without reservation to catch Destrier's saddle and vault himself up onto the horse, bending quickly over the stallion's neck to tsk softly and affectionately in one large flicking ear.

That settled, he spares another bright smile for Jeyne as a pair of centaurs sound twin horns at the gate of the Cair. Destrier knows well enough to start trotting without his rider's urging; Hwin will undoubtedly follow suit.

She laughs at the idea of something so ordinary as marriage and family being considered salacious. She watches as he climbs into the saddle of his very handsome horse, and she's never seen anything so attractive. Some how being astride Destrier makes him appear even more handsome, more regal, more desirable.

The horns startle her out of her reverie, and thankfully her horse seems to know exactly where to go and when. The reins seem to be a formality to make her feel more comfortable, a token of what she is accustomed to. They move forward side by side, her and Caspian. She sits up taller and holds her head high, a residual smile on her lips that solidifies when she turns to look at Caspian.

Caspian had begun bonding with Destrier when he had still been merely a prince. The ease between man and beast is instantly easy to see, and certainly allows the young king to feel comfortable letting the horse set his own pace. Swiveling slightly in the saddle, he spares an encouraging click of his tongue for Hwin as well before returning his attention to Jeyne.

Her smile takes a moment to adjust to, bright and lovely as it is. Her smile absolutely sparks one onto his own lips.

"How do your years pass, without seasons to mark them?"

It feels strange, to continue a conversation in such a way, but she is happy to do it. There are times for quiet riding, and time for talking. She feels it likely it will be a while before they are comfortable being silent in one another's company.

"We use the cycles of the moon to count time. From full moon to full moon is a month; twelve months in each year. I have had eight name days since the last winter. I hardly remember it, but what I do remember makes me glad I may not not be there for the next one." The sun is bright and she blinks hard against it, raising a hand to shield her eyes. Hwin whinnies in response to Caspian's clicking and speeds up ever so slightly to keep pace with Destrier.

"The seasons are shorter here, yes? How long does each one last?"

It isn't such an unfathomable thing, of course. Lucy had been willing to share, after all, about the end of the Age of Winter in her time with him. It still brings a slight shake of his head as he leans back comfortably in the saddle.

"Apart from The Long Winter, they've always tended to-- divide the year fairly neatly into quarters. It keeps things running very smoothly with our farmers." He can't imagine how it would be to try and maintain crops through a winter lasting eight years. "It might seem-- incredibly abrupt to you."

If she stayed here longer. If she made her life here at his side.

"It would be a welcome change, I assure you. It is difficult to enjoy even the longest summer because of the preoccupation with filling your stores for the coming winter." Many unfortunate souls die during the winters of Westeros - if not from freezing then of starvation. But that is an unpleasant thing to share with him at such a time.

"So not only have I arrived under auspicious stars, but also as spring is bringing renewed life to the land. Another coincidence?" Hwin bobbed her head up, and Jeyne wondered if it was in response to her question. It seemed as if it were, and so she reached forward to scratch the mare affectionately between her ears.

"We'll have to ask the centaurs, I suppose."

He laughs as he says it, of course, but it's not a terrible idea. He's asked nearly everyone else in the court's opinion--which in and of itself Drinian had cited as a fair indicator of the direction the young king's heart was beginning to fall all of its own accord.

"That does seem a bit more easily planned, though, don't you think?"

The party from Westeros might not have been able to predict the patterns in the Narnian sky, but surely they could have counted the days well enough to arrive with the spring.

She finds herself disarmed by his laugh. It is a sounds he would like to hear more of, and she imagined he would have little opportunity for such mirth on an ordinary basis. That made her sad for him. She surmised that the centaurs he mentioned were the experts on mystical subjects. If so, that would make them similar to the maesters of the Citadel, who monitored the stars and other mysterious signs in order to predict the changing of the seasons.

"I would, were Westeros not so cut off from the other realms. Whether by chance or design, we have very little information on lands other than our own. I've learned about thousands of years of Westerosi history yet I've never seen a single book about another land. All I know of Narnia is what your envoy told me on the journey here." All valuable information, of course, but hardly the full breadth and depth of knowledge there was to be known.

"Were I not here for a purpose, I would likely be immersed in your library at this very moment."

His head cants in consideration, gaze drifting forward again as he gives Destrier a gentle tug on the reins. The warhorse enjoys much more to head out into the plains, after all; bringing him to the woods instead took a bit of coaxing.

"Would you?"

His tone remains thoughtful as he glances back toward Jeyne again. He's used to a court of women who had been trained after the fashion of Telmar and, now, of Queen Susan, after all.

"You shouldn't mind-- all that study to learn the history of the surrounding kingdoms?"

She nods enthusiastically.

"Definitely! There are few things I love more than learning. My father once said I should have been born a boy, so that I could have studied at the Citadel." As it were she'd pestered their maester constantly for knowledge she knew only he possessed. She would have been the most learned maester in history, she is certain.

"Some things, like history, can only be learned from books. Thankfully they are portable, so my love of reading has not hampered my love of exploring." She laughs lightly and takes in the scenery around them as it begins to change to forest.

"And you? Were you a dutiful student?"

"About some things."

His mind had been very wandering as a child, after all; a product of the environment his aunt and uncle had raised him in--uncertain and more than a little dangerous.

"I was lucky, really. My tutor was himself an Old Narnian, so I learned-- much more about the old ways than most Telmarine lords of my age."

Which, in turn, had served him quite well since becoming King in the new age he had helped to usher in these last few years.

An age in which the trees had life in them again, evidenced as they properly break the line into the forest and half the long leafy branches begin to quiver of their own accord.

Seeing the trees move of their own accord completely distracts Jeyne from the conversation. Her eyes grow wide with wonder and the tiniest bit of fear, hidden deep down. Being astride a horse does much to assuage how diminutive she feels in comparison to the trees, but the fact remains that some are so tall she cannot see their tops. The smaller ones, however, are just beginning to bloom and they are beautiful.

"That one, there, with the pink blossoms" she asks, pointing. "What kind of tree is that?" It looks similar to a dogwood but not quite the same.

Although his truest affection lay with the naiads of the rivers, there's an obvious affection in the way he sits a little taller in his seat to see Jeyne notice the waking trees.

The mount beneath him gives a soft snort, but follows the king's gentle directives to make toward the tree that's been pointed out. "She's a willow. Fairly young. Her arms haven't begun to droop the way her sisters do."

The words are barely off his lips before half the blossoms on the bending branches seem to burst into a flurry of petals. The blossoms themselves seem ultimately unharmed, but the maelstrom of pink continues, resolving first into a rather pleased swarm around the king with the hint of a humanoid face before the entire thing settles into the form of a young woman hovering playfully between their horses. "Not so young, your Grace. It isn't even my first spring."

It is magic, she thinks, in its purest form. To see the life within a tree burst forth in such a way is magnificent, and Jeyne can't help but chuckle softly at the willow's reaction to Caspian. She remembers his advice regarding allowing him to handle introductions, so she refrains from commenting at the moment.

Hwin brings her a few steps closer and Jeyne nods to the dryad respectfully. Other trees begin to wake, lovely ones with tiny purple blossoms, giant white and pink ones that look like tulips, even yellow and blue blooms as well. The forest looks as if it has been painted by a rainbow.

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