In a bower of green

[queenofmay]

Marian had decided to take Guinan up on her advice from the first day finally. Even if talking to the computer was a strange thing, that still made her wince too much. Having a voice shoutout at her from nowhere was going to take a lot of getting used to. But she managed to ask for where she wanted to go, and get directions.

Which did get her to the doors of the Arboretum.

The fingers of one hand curled tight into the fabric of her skirts.

The holodeck might be an endless wonder, but it came and went, while there was something deep and true about honest green and growing things. The smell of them and the look of them, that rang a bell in her heart nothing else could. It takes only the breath of another second before she's gone, too.



Walking inward, fingers reaching out to brush through the lush greenness.

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[queenofmay]

Marian was a little uncertain about the whole notion of those still. The creation of worlds. It seems at once greatly intriguing and a little profane all at once. Not real, but real. Possibly a little bit of dozens on dozens of things, while not truly being any of them either.

It was compounded likely, even she assumed, but the fact everything she knew about it so far was hearsay. Either from an uniformed officer, or another of the people stolen like them. Which does make her consider him a beat longer before asking, "Have you gotten to seeing one yet?"

It wasn't like she could assume entirely on what he had or hadn't done outside of her presence. It wasn't the same as Ambergeldar where she knew all the places to find him, and all the likely places he, and several others would be. Along with the places to avoid to remain circumspect of courtiers and ladies in waiting.

Here there were a million different new things, and either of them could be finding things the other wasn't yet.

This room, and his turning up in it shortly after she'd located it finally, was quite the example to that.

[the_seafarer]

"Not yet."

The idea makes him uneasy, and has ever since the crewmember they'd met in the library explained the concept: hollow images of light tricking you into thinking they're real.

Too much like the Island of Dreams, mayhaps. Magic, or science -- he can't distinguish between them in cases like these, and isn't sure he should.

Thus, unease. "Projections that feel, sound, and look real --"

He shakes his head. Marian, of all people, would understand, even if he were not able to find the words to express his misgivings, but he attempts it anyway. "'Tis a strange thing to consider desirable. It sounds all too like dreams come to life, or misleading enchantments."

Both of which he has experienced, and would not care to again.

"And yet I wonder if even false sunshine and open skies would ease my mind."

[queenofmay]

Things she has not been, but knows just barely enough about to know why Caspian wouldn't want to be revisited by them, and yet. He still says the last part. Even surrounded by this place, green and growing, flowers and grasses, it is a pale shard next to the worlds they have come from. Even if it were to become a favorite, it's a favorite by contrast, not by exclusive merit.

Which she understands. More than words can ever tell. It isn't like the hasn't compartment so much of her life for years.

"Do you want to see one?" If it's direct, and assumptive, it's years past when Marian thought she had to hedge her translations of his words, or his of her own. She might be leery, but she's never been one to let fear stand in her way of things both wise and un-so. She'd stand by Caspian side for so much worse if he wanted it of her. She owed him more than she could ever put into words or deeds, but it never came down to being about that either.

[the_seafarer]

"Not just now."

But it's said with a smile. It might mean not today or perhaps later, but the only thing he really means it to convey is that he's not about to head off to try them out immediately.

He does want to see them. It's the same aspect of himself that had called him to the open Eastern Sea even before he decided to seek his father's friends there, the same one that sent him back to Narnia with Eustace and Tirian, the same that has led him into so many adventures since the day he woke on the mountainside and found a door that led to the end of the universe. "But I hope you'll come with me when I do."

He doesn't doubt it, but he won't make any assumptions. Not if he can help it. Not with Marian.

[queenofmay]

"Onward and upward," Marian said softly, a little deprecated and a little amused all at once.

Definitely, also, in words that are not hers. But then that's another of those things she doesn't really think of. Rather like she doesn't quite reach up to touch the ring hanging behind the front of her dress, even if she considers it. There are worlds, and there are worlds. Words. Choices. Daring to be brave, whether you are ready or not. Because the world is born to and continued of those who dare.

Gesturing with a hand for him to come join her, at her side, so she can keep walking around the room, seeing everything that these people have gathered. "It would be amiss for us to not see one before any chance of The Door made it only a figment we'd considered and not dared."

[the_seafarer]

Further up. Further in.

Within this new ship and across this new universe. They may be adrift now, but he and Marian have both seen and lived far worse, and, besides -- they're together. He could never have thought to even ask for such a favor.

So when she gestures to him, he comes without pause, measured, easy steps to reach her side, and tailoring them to hers as they walk further into the room. "Truly," he agrees, and when he looks down, there's a twinkle in calm grey eyes. "To imagine Lady Marian shrinking from any such challenge would be folly, indeed."

She might not be headstrong as Lucy, but the years and her life have done nothing to temper the fearlessness of her spirit, no matter what the world tried to crush her with, and even here, in this floating, sealed city, she is free as a raven in flight. "If we could see some of these worlds, with our own eyes, walk on them and breathe their air --"

He pauses, glances over at her. "I admit, there is some part of me that still thrills to exploration and adventure."

[queenofmay]

Marian, not to be outdone by any censure to her name, even one that comes so sweetly on laughing grey eyes, totally takes a step to one side, just enough to knock into his shoulder. She even almost manages it without her smile escaping her control entirely. "As though you would know how to turn away from the horizon of a new adventure, either, My Lord Caspian."

That one, titled, with just the hint of matching teasing to his own.

Even though she doesn't completely step away after that either, simply continues her steps onward, next to him at the same pace and nearness. "I have to admit there is a part of me that wonders about it. About the idea of million worlds kept safe and close for the use of so many people when they find themselves in time of trying. It should be impossible to miss a marvel that brings so much comfort to so many people of this time."

The way she lists for herself the things that seemed foreign, profane, impossible when she arrived in Milliways. Before everything there became normal, and suddenly things she hardly even thought about except when she wasn't there.

"At least as much as I think," she went on gamely, as though maybe if she said the words she'd stop feeling them lip around the quiet, dark spaces of her heart. "It would be impossible to simply walk away from this place, now, if The Door did appear."

[the_seafarer]

It's such a little thing.

Such a small thing, the bump of a shoulder; hardly a touch at all, just a lean in and out of the space next to him, with enough force to knock his arm without pushing him off balance or lingering.

It's such a small thing.

But so is the strike of a match, which lights a campfire. So is the nail which holds together the frame of a door. So is the first far-off flash of lightning, before a storm sweeps its thundering curtain over the world. The touch of her shoulder is only a touch, there and gone again, but her warmth lingers, spreads from that small square inch of space across his chest, through his veins.

Without thinking too much of it, he lifts a hand, rubs idly at a spot just below his collarbone, where something throbs with a dull itch, and drops it again to swing easily at his side. "Aye," he agrees, "I feel the same. Now that this door has been opened to us, loathe would I be to leave with it unexplored and unquestioned. This ship, I feel, must have some thing or place or person it has yet to show us, some adventure that is yet to be revealed."

[queenofmay]

"And these people," Marian added right on his words. Layered right under with something akin to deadly seriousness.

But little less could really be expected of the girl who chose her people over herself for more than half a decade. Or the one who chose the work of helping to guard and vouchsafe those of Milliways even before she could really get used to hot running water.

"We could not leave them here and simply return to whence we came, while they were bereft of the same ability to leave." It might be the way of Milliways, and The Door. People got stuck places. Other places that weren't there. For a short time. Much shorter than this. But the doors always came back. And she couldn't imagine leaving this many people in this situation, and just going back to her own make-shift new home because it was offered. Even if her heart did so long for Ambergeldar, and Milliways.

She'd never be able to sleep. She'd get there only to want to come back. To feel she had should have never left. That she needed to find out if they could come through, too. If she could help find them ways home, through other doors in Milliways, and the marvels of the several there who knew of other magic of the same type. Moving between places. Opening Doors. Owning space-faring crafts that could travel great distances through the stars.

[the_seafarer]

"You believe that, were we to be released, the others would not be, also?"

It's a strange thing to consider. Responsibility. Whether they have any, and how they could possibly act on it if they do. Would they need to take strangers through the door to Milliways? If they did, would a new door open to lead them back home again? "I wonder if a door will open here for us, once we've returned. I admit, I would be loathe to leave this place for good. If we could journey back and forth, I would consider it a great boon."

Their doors open only to Ambergeldar, now: their lives, lived between the two worlds of Milliways and Amy's kingdom, but to have a third, filled with glorious new worlds and skies, full of new adventures and lessons...?

Truly, he would never have thought such a blessing could exist.

[queenofmay]

The look she passes in his direction is more complicated than a simple disagreement. But then she had to come to terms, and keep coming to terms, with being just one of too many who should have. Of Nottingham, it was just her. Whose needs she would never claim was as desperate as so many of her people. Even the men who came, for them it had been briefly, then never again. Just her.

Where it came to her escaping her end, it was just her, too. She lived. Of her father. Robin. Even Vasey.

The only other person to make it out resided as a shade of his once self, and someone she could still hardly look at.

It's a fast, too deep set of answers, that really only touch her eyes, before she's looking away to the greenery at her side and not answering at all. She might like The Door. She might be grateful to The Door, somewhere just under the surface, in a twist that still called its self selfishness, too, that it have given her the means to survive both situations. But she would never call The Door or Fate or God, or whatever you wanted to call it, fair to all those who were in need.

"It would be, wouldn't it?" Marian said, a beat late, looking at a flower to her side, answering the rest of his words instead. A swirl of red petals and a purple-yellow interior that likes of which her world, and the end of the universe, had never seen. All the new things that were still in the universe to be seen.