My Mirror, The Second: The Happier One
Prompt: milliways_bar DE Challenge
Recipient: Alemara
Summary: Marian & Caspian; My Mirror
Disclaimer: Marian belongs to mythos and BBC, while Caspian belongs to C.S. Lewis, and these beautiful two belong to both Laura and I. This takes place in the wonderful, beautiful
milliways_bar.
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She knew, instantly, he hadn't meant to.
It had started out simply. Terrible and wonderful and entirely simple. Earlier that morning, hours ago, they'd been in Ambergeldar, laden with toys from the bar. Including something called silly string. Which Susan and Merry absolutely loved. To the end of all three cans. So had a great deal of The Garden and Caspian's hair.
Unlike hers, which somehow the universe had intuited to her needing to coil up today. Which meant all she had to do pull it off in strange, sticky, gooey, but not dying color lumps. Whereas Caspian had ended up having to just lay down on the couch, after she rolled her eyes, and threw a pillow at him, to get the rest of it out.
What was it about his hair, sun bright and brown in turns, depending on weather and wind and day and season, that it loved to eat things? Whether hay or truly awful, amusing things like silly string. All of these tiniest pieces getting matted into it, even the large ones had come out easily. A strange, hilarious rainbow she'd tried not to laugh at every time she caught a bright blue or sudden pink or startling green in his hair through the day.
Once they'd reached Milliways, were through tea and still on couches and the rainbow colors still pervaded him laughing and shaking his head, she'd drug him down by a shoulder, with no more willingness to listen than to Susan or Merry during their clean-up times, telling him to 'Grow up' even as there was a laugh to it.
For all that she complained of needle work and handled her own wounds for years, she actually had a great acuity at tiny things and dedicated tasks. Especially with the children, now. So that Marian really hadn't noticed at first so set on her task. She hadn't actually noticed until she sat back, saying, "You should be done."
Followed by, "Caspian?"
Only to lean over, her long since stopped complaining companion, and realize he'd fallen asleep.
There on her lap. Completely asleep. For all the world lost, except for the grip of his hand.
Marian hadn't really even noticed when it had curled around her knee over the skirt. It's somewhere between the faintest, very specific grip, that he frets about and tightens when she tries make him move, in the first impulse to vacate the couch for him, and the way his face has gone slack, released of all care.
He never would have done it on purpose, she was sure of that, and she has to wonder how long it took, looking between his hair and the rainbow assortment of the smallest pieces of gooey string on the couch arm. She found herself leaning over to look at him another time or two, somehow unable not to smile. He probably wouldn't sleep too long here, knowing him, the way she did, the way she knew her own self.
But it didn't appear to be just yet. So, Marian found herself slowly relaxing against the couch, shifting slow enough that he only shifted in return, like the bar's magnets. Not absolutely hating being caught and stuck here, at the edge of a new task, and perhaps a great compliment to comfort.
Until she was letting her head rest on the back of the couch, and after a few long minutes, letting her fingers brush over his hair, for no reasons other than it was soft and unmatted, than it was what she was doing when he fell asleep, and let the soft din of the bar lull her, for however long this surprisingly quiet peaceful moment might last.