Young at Heart {OPEN}

[Susan Pevensie]

^{And life gets more exciting with each passing day
And love is either in your heart or on its way
Don't you know that its worth every treasure on earth
To be young at heart}

The weather was positively perfect for an afternoon of reading in the orchards. Clothed simply in a pale blue gown with silver embroidery along the neckline and a thick silver belt around her slim waist that trailed down to the hemline of the dress, Queen Susan strolled barefoot through the grassy orchards. Her long, thick dark hair trailed loosely down her back as she walked, her unbound tresses blowing gently whenever the wind stirred. That was one of the reasons that today was so perfect. The warm Narnian sun shone brightly in the sky, but just enough clouds prevented the rays from being piercing. It wasn't too hot, nor was it too cold, and a gentle breeze fluttered through the leaves every so often, stirring the sweet scent of apples, pears, and other fruits. It was pretty safe to say that there was no where else in the world--Narnian world or Earth world--that Susan would rather have been that afternoon.

A rather thick book tucked in her arms, Susan reached her favorite part of the orchards and lay down on the grass unceremoniously. Stretched out on her stomach with the book open under her and a freshly fallen apple in her hand, Susan wasn't exactly the picture of royalty. Relaxed, comfortable, and fresh-faced, the young queen resembled more closely a wood nymph, or goddess of the orchards than a human Queen. That didn't bother her now, though. She was, after all, Queen Susan the Gentle, not 'Queen Susan the Stick-in-the-Mud,' and she was perfectly capable of relaxing and frolicking. Some people did seem to forget that, since Susan tended to be the most diplomatic of her siblings, and had tended to act as an ambassador in the Golden Age. She was younger now, though, than she had been, and she enjoyed a good sprawl in the grass as much as the next teenage girl.

Taking a bite of her apple, Susan closed her eyes momentarily, savoring the sweet fruit. Apples on earth never tasted as good as Narnian apples, and in Susan's own personal opinion, the apples in the orchards at Cair Paravel were the best apples in all of Narnia. Opening her eyes again, Susan chewed her apple slowly, brushing a strand of dark hair from her eyes and tucking it behind her ear. Looking down at her book, she began to read.

While some might have considered the book boring, Susan was thoroughly enjoying it. A history book, it was detailing part of what had occurred when the Pevensies had been back in England between the Golden Age and their return. As a queen of Narnia, Susan wanted to know every detail of what had happened while she had been away, and reading the history books cover to cover seemed a good idea as any. Several conferences and symposiums with Caspian's tutor, Doctor Cornelius (Susan thought the old Doctor was fascinating. He seemed to know everything, and any question she had he could direct her in the right direction) had given her several good ideas as to the best and most detailed history books. So here she was, lounging in the green grass in the apple orchard, pouring over a history book.

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[Arianna Douglas]

It started out as a normal day; up early, out to the market, breakfast, and a ride through an unfamiliar area on the outskirts of town for something to do. That had been Arianna Douglas’s morning schedule for the past few days, while she stayed with some friends of the family in Cair Paravel, just one of many stops she planned to make on her “journey to wherever-the-wind-takes-me” adventure, as she proudly called it. She wasn’t any good at making up names for important things. And it wasn't like that dratted Caspian would allow her to venture far, anyway.

Indeed, it was just a day like any other…until that blasted stray branch came along and scratched her horse’s leg. The incident was Arina’s fault, although she was not likely to admit it as she had unwisely steered her horse off the path and into the trees, after catching a glimpse of an interesting animal in a meadow left of the path. The floor of the forest in that particular area had been coated in dense, low underbrush, and the horse’s hooves were well hidden, submerged beneath the green ocean.

Ignoring the mud beneath her, Arianna had knelt down on the ground to inspect her horse’s legs for any damage. Sure enough, the fallen branch had left a scrape on the horse’s left foreleg. It wasn’t deep, but it had glistened with crimson ever so slightly. Taking her sleeve, she’d torn a piece off and wrapped it around the wound as a mock bandage, just to protect the cut until she could get to the nearest stable.

Until she saw her reflection in a pond along the path as she led her horse back into town, Arianna hadn’t cared what the mud and torn sleeve had done to her appearance. She hadn’t thought it would be that bad, since the mud hadn’t been too deep, and she hadn’t torn too much length off of her sleeve. But it had turned out to be far worse than she had expected. Her boots and the knees of her pants were caked in dark mud, and her hands were filthy. Her hair was tangled from the wind, and there was a large muddy palm print on her forehead above her right eyebrow. Arina had gotten that when she smacked her forehead after seeing the horse’s cut, realizing how careless she had been. She looked as if she had been out in the wilderness for weeks, when in fact she’d only been out for a few hours.

Arianna had taken the closest road into town, which, thankfully, was also a back road that led directly past the castle's orchards which she discovered several days back, leading to the stables. As she’d stepped inside the castle gate, her equine companion in tow, bracing for the gawking, she had been surprised at the apparent emptiness of the establishment. This however, had not been a good thing in Arianna’s opinion, for now she thought she’d have to call out loud for someone to hear her, which would attract more attention that she desired. But, as she had patted her horse gently on the nose, she decided that, to save herself any humiliation, she would simply peek inside each building until she found someone.

A figure laying back on the grass had Arianna frozen in her tracks, about half a second from making a run for it. Forcing her heart to stop thudding quite so loudly, Arianna tugged on her horse's rein to make it walk after her a few steps more, to learn the identity of her would be scolder. But strangely, instead of scarpering Arianna's mouth curled at the corner of her lips in a smile at the answer to her question, and she walked forwards to meet the older Queen of Old.

She was strangely more comfortable with bumping into them rather than a stuck-up upper staff man of the stables, of which she'd had more than one horrid encounter with. And anyway, it was hardly difficult to like, or at least respect the Kings and Queens of Old. Since meeting the Pevensies at Caspian's side, she had enjoyed each of their company at some point or another. Caspi, or King Caspian as she supposed she must think of him now, had insisted she kept the 'little sister' image she had worked up around him, and that meant tagging along from the most boring affairs to the most frivolous.

Rolling her eyes at herself, Arina stepped out from the shadows, sinking into a graceful curtsy despite the disrepair to her attire, than grinned at the Queen. While she followed most of the customs, she was hardly what you'd call orthodox. "Whatever could you possibly be reading now, my Queen?" she asked her teasingly, somehow managing to add the politeness at the end of her cavalier string of words.She was, as ever, amused to find yet another book by Queen Susan's side. She herself detested sitting still, so it was hardly like she'd understand.

[Susan Pevensie]

^{And life gets more exciting with each passing day
And love is either in your heart or on its way
Don't you know that its worth every treasure on earth
To be young at heart}

Thoroughly immersed in her reading, Susan had barely noticed the approaching footsteps. Only half-paying-attention to anything besides her [second] apple, and the chapter in her book about a war between Archenland and Calormen, the young Queen had only vaguely heard footsteps in the orchard. Not looking up from her book, she pretty quickly eliminated various people from the equation of who could be in the orchard. It wasn't Lucy--she would have come running before Susan had even heard her walking, and it wasn't Edmund (he would have called a greeting to her, or chucked an apple at her by this point). Nor was it Peter, since there wasn't any call of 'h'llo, Su!' And it couldn't have been Caspian either, because... Well, he didn't have any particularly typical way of greeting her, but the footsteps would probably have been louder if it had been his, and she assumed he, too, would have called a greeting to her.

There were horse's distinct footfalls, so it could have been a centaur...Well, no matter. Susan was quite engrossed in her reading, and figured that if it was someone she knew, they would either A: come and say hello, B: assume she was busy and leave, and say something later, or C: call a friendly hello and go about their own business. Options A, B, and C were all, of course, varying options as to how well the other person probably knew her (there also was option D, obviously, which was that the person didn't know her--know her personally, that was--and would therefore not make contact with her, but that wasn't as friendly an option as the other three). Turning the page in her book, Susan took another bite of her apple and continued reading while mildly waiting to see what sort of contact the approaching footsteps would make.

The light, jesting introduction of a familiar voice made Susan look up from her book. And then blink a moment to assure herself that the voice really did belong to the blonde girl she thought it did, who must have been hiding beneath a mile of mud and grime. "Arianna? Goodness you look a fright!" She replied, wondering what mess the girl could possibly have gotten herself into this time. She was quite familiar with the other girl, a runaway who lived with them in Cair Paravel. Just a year older than Lucy, Arianna appeared to have gotten into some scrape typical of young teenage girls. Susan herself couldn't remember ever having gotten into as much trouble and as many adventures as Lucy...or Arianna. She supposed it was because she had always been the older one, the one in charge of making sure everyone was alright, so she hadn't had as much time to run off and play...

"I'm reading history books." Susan explained, figuring that she ought to answer the younger girl's question, "When you're gone for a thousand years, a lot happens... I want to get caught up on everything, you know? Right now I'm reading about one of the wars between Archenland and Calormen. Doctor Cornelius recommended the book to me... See, when I left Narnia last time, Archenland and Calormen were quite peaceful with each other, since Archenland was being ruled by King Cor and his Calormene queen, Aravis. But down the line of kingship, the peace wasn't kept quite as readily, and they ended up fighting again, and...Well, I'm probably boring you, and you probably already know all of this; I'm assuming you didn't come here "looking for a history lesson", as Edmund puts it... What ever happened to you?" The brunette queen asked with interest, genuinely curious as to why the blonde girl was literally covered in mud.

((ooc: I don't know if you saw in the absence forum, but I'll be out of town for about a week-and-a-half, so I'm not ignoring you if you reply before I get back, I promise I'll reply when I'm home))

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[Arianna Douglas]

Susan, unsurprisingly, was still immersed in her book, at least until Arianna called out in greeting. She felt mildly guilty for interrupting the queen so-blame instinct for that, no matter how many times she had been told to just relax-but smiled back at her, rising out of her curtsy. Arianna petted her horse's face, smiling apologetically, before walking to Susan, letting go of the reins. The bleeding had stopped, anyway, and thanks to Arianna's quick movements the cut was clean. Her loyal steed just needed a good hosing down, as she admittedly needed herself. While having the gift of speech unable to her, Arina always found her horse unusually bright. Giving a loud harummph, she plodded off, seeming almost affronted. Arianna bit back a round of giggles, turning back to the young queen. Eh, a young thirteen hundred year old queen. Things just got stranger and stranger.

Hesitantly, and smiling almost shyly, Arianna moved to join the older girl on the grass, a little way away. Susan would probably not appreciate her stinking up the place-if such a thing was even possible. The lovely smell coming from the orchard itself dominated the entire area, covering just about everything else. It was questionable where the soothing smell of spring came from-the trees, flowers, apples? What did apples smell like anyway? Rolling her eyes at her inner rambling, flushing slightly, the girl combed her fingers through the grass, pulling some up to let them sprinkle down once more. She reddened ever so slightly once more as the queen commented on her unusual attire, but she grinned in acquiescence.

Oh, yeah, the difference between the hyper active teenager and the elegant queen was obvious, even when Arianna was dressed up in her monkey suits, as she never refrained from calling them. "Teeny tiny little accident with Sephy," she admitted, pulling a small face, guilt hitting her with a pang. It was typical of her to get in such scrapes, the idea of being so free making her unbelievably childish.

She offered Susan another small smile at her words, hardly surprised. There was a reason why she was normally with Edmund and Lucy, or even the two kings, rather than Susan. She was far shyer with the queen, more tongue tied and uncertain. Susan reminded of everything she had to be-all manners and elegance. She just wanted fun. Arianna propped her chin up on her knees, listening to the other girl. As a lady, her governess didn't deem it appropriate to have her know those kinds of things, despite how much Arina would love to. Telmar liked their royals stupid, apparently. "Hey, no, that was pretty cool stuff," she argued, grinning at the older girl. It was nice, if surprising, to have the girl to have the girl treat her so. She hesitated, before pulling another face, gaze down. "Not really. I mean, I know the basics but..." she trailed off weakly, flushing. She hated admitting her weaknesses. Especially that particular one-it brought to mind all the times her mother had described her as intelligent--but not too intelligent.

"This?" she asked in mild surprise, looking down at herself with a small frown. Arianna was, however, grately pleased for the change in subject. "Persephone was going after...something, and something scratched her." She explained lamely, biting her lip in thought. There was probably no more dangers in the woods-but she knew people would talk down to her if they knew she was insane enough to brave it alone. Arina realized her mistakes moments later. "Nothing got me, though. I just got all muddy trying to take care of her cut," she added quickly, not up for a worried check-over.

(its okay, but thanks for telling me XD I'll prob bring Caspi himself in later-I have no muse for a Susan-Arina thread*blinks* zomigosh, ari's a brunette now =p)