Aching Rears and Sues
Claimer: Mwahahahahaha, I own Prince Falan Veslar! He's all mine, to throw around as I will. Hee hee hee! Silverdon the Unicorn is also my creation. And if you really want to know the Disclaimers, look back at Chapter 1 again. I find Disclaimers to be depressing.
Chapter Two: Fallacious Falan.
Lucy flung down her quill and let out a tremendous, relieved sigh. It left a large stain of ink on the finished paper, but the young queen wasn't around to notice. The moment the last punctuation point was done, she rushed out of her chamber and down into the gardens adjoining the main courtyard. She found Susan there, walking slowly down one of the stone-paved paths and taking an inordinately long amount of time to smell each of the flowers. Her blue skirt trailed out behind her, and Lucy thought briefly of stepping on it as she came up behind her sister. But two months ago, upon passing her fifteenth year, Lucy had been told that she could no longer indulge in such childish pleasures and pranks as she once had. So she tucked the delicious thought away in her 'For Later' file and said instead, "Greetings, sister."
Susan looked up from smelling an indigo primrose and returned the greeting before asking, "Has the report been finished?"
Lucy nodded, grimacing slightly as she pushed back her blue silk veil in order to see Susan better. "Yes, it is done now. But did you know that this," she pointed to an herb growing in the nearby rock garden, "can be used to cure bladder problems?"
Susan emitted a horrified gasp. "Lucy!" she cried, forgetting for a moment her sister's royal title. "By the Lion, you did not put that in your report, did you?"
Lucy was saved from an awkward discussion by the appearance of a large band of horsemen that came charging suddenly into the courtyard. The foremost rider was a young man greatly bejeweled and overly dressed, followed by trumpeters, bodyguards, a young woman who seemed to be his sister, and a cage on wheels that contained two greyhounds. Most likely the young man was a prince—or someone claiming to be a prince—from a remote country who had come to seek Queen Susan's hand in marriage. Faugh, not another! Lucy thought to herself. Will they never learn? She turned to her sister, but found that Susan had conveniently withdrawn. The young queen chuckled to herself.
"Little girl! I am Falan Veslar, come to seek the fair hand of Queen Susan the Ever-Gentle in marriage. Tell me, when may I have an audience with the lady?"
Lucy drew herself up to her full four-feet-nine-inches and replied coldly, "First of all, my good sir, I am not a little girl. I am Queen Lucy the Valiant, sister of the High King Peter and also of the queen of which you so admiringly speak." Hmm, not bad. That ought to impress him.
Stunned might have been a better word to use to describe Prince Falan's reaction. "Forgive me, my lady," he amended penitently. "I am truly sorry; if I might show how grieved I am over this mistake…"
"You are pardoned," Lucy said hastily. "Now, as for the audience. If his royal personage is not too overcome with the burdensof state," she paused to stress the point, "I am sure he will deign to see you. Speak you to the guard at the door there, and your message shall be taken to the High King as soon as is convenient for him." Leaving a flabbergasted Prince Falan standing with his entourage, Lucy swept off grandly.
As the young queen walked over the castle grounds, she counted off how many suitors had come and gone during the past month. "Stars above!" she cried aloud after having reached the eighth. She shook her head as she absentmindedly fingered the moss growing up the stones of the kitchen wall, enjoying the plush-soft feel of it. "It's time I took matters into my own hands," she decided. "Susan will thank me. Well, maybe in time she'll learn to forgive me, at least. It's for her own good, and that's what really matters."
"Lucy!"
Lucy looked up at the urgently hissed voice and saw Susan leaning cautiously out a doorway. The young queen laughed merrily. "The coast is clear, sister."
Susan stepped gingerly into the sunlight and dusted off her skirt. "Ugh, look at the layers of dust!" she exclaimed. "Who is that man, any road?"
"He says he is Prince Falan Veslar," Lucy informed her, exaggerating the masculine tone of voice. "With-nine-hundred-slaves-on-five-thousand-acres-of-land-who-tend-eighty-peach-trees-and-sixty-horses. Really, though, I think he's just a noble from Calormen who likes to make himself believe he's a prince."
"You sent him away, I hope?"
Lucy looked aghast. "And just how should I accomplish that, might I ask? Tell him he's got the wrong Cair Paravel? Lion's Mane, sister, you know I couldn't do that."
Susan muttered something under her breath as the two walked down the path, pausing occasionally to watch a sword-fight going on, or to see someone picking fruit from the apple trees in the orchard. The sisters were quiet for a long time, and when the silence was broken, it was by both at once.
"Don't you think—" Lucy began hesitantly, but was overruled by Susan, who had begun to speak at the same time.
"Perhaps I should move the Mice out of the way for a little while. The last suitor was frightened into fits by them, do you remember? We had to call Silverdon the Unicorn from Lantern Waste to heal him. I'm sorry, Lu: what were you saying?"
Lucy, who had been going to say, "Wouldn't it be funny if we frightened a suitor out of his pants?" decided against it and instead finished with a simple, "That's what I was thinking."