Disclaimer: I don't own Narnia or any characters you may recognize from the books or the movies, I wish I did but I don't... I also don't own the Narnian Calendar. It belongs to Elecktrum who was kind enough to let me borrow it for my story. Her own stories are awesome and you should go read them too.
Summary: 21 Yule 1006 will see the first lunar eclipse to occur on the Winter Solstice in four hundred years. Enemies of Narnia rejoice! For the time of the Golden Age will come to an end with the spilling of royal blood and Jadis will be revived!
A/N: If you have not read the first three stories in the A Light in the Darkness main story arc (Awakening, Shadowed, and Revealed), I highly recommend you do so. However, if you want to give this one a whirl on its own, you can.
Chapter Eight: A Snowy Ride, Part Two
Susan sighed as she rode further from the Cair with Lucy and Kat. She had been trying for the last two hours to find an opportunity to ask Kat about actually giving at least some of her suitors a chance. Most of their guard had fanned out into a larger circle allowing them a little more privacy with only Caia trotting next to them. She looked over at where Kat was now riding quietly, though she had caught her glancing toward the South in the precise direction of the pass to Anvard several times in the last two hours, and decided she would have no better time than that moment. "Kat, what about Soren?"
Lucy and Caia both looked from Susan to Kat in surprise, but Kat didn't even look away from where she was now staring intently at the space between her horse's ears. "He is happily married to a sweet baker's daughter as of two months ago."
Susan frowned briefly, wondering why she didn't have that information when she usually did, but she put it aside for the moment and focused on her present task as she shifted through her mental list of the potential suitors who she thought might possibly have a chance with Kat if she were just a tiny bit more open to the idea. "Well, what about Marrek? He is a scholar and you would be able to find something to talk about with him. You might find something in common with him."
Kat shook her head, "No."
"Why not?"
Kat seemed to shift a little in the saddle before she droned, "Marrek has the personality of dust, he doesn't talk to people, he talks at or down to them, and his voice sounds like a broken flute reed with dust in it. It drives me nuts when I have to listen to him for an hour. I would probably strangle him if I had to listen to him any longer than that torturous hour. Or I could just wait for a good stiff breeze to blow through and snap him...he's scrawny enough for that to happen."
Susan giggled at Kat's description. All right, definitely not Marrek...she didn't really like him herself either but had hoped maybe Kat had pulled his better side to the fore when she had occasionally been trying to avoid his interest. Shifting her list again, Susan tried to think of another potential suitor. "What about Cullen?"
Kat shook her head, "There was a report a couple weeks ago that he had been eaten by a Dragon far to the south of Calormen a few months back. Probably spent too much time prancing about in his sparkly outfits and was mistaken for a giant diamond which turned into lunch."
Susan, Caia, and Lucy all giggled at Kat's deadpan tone. It was rather amusing and soon Susan found herself mentioning some of the more ridiculous suitors who had unsuccessfully tried to court Kat just to get Kat's reaction. "Gruger?"
"The man who makes up five of me at last check? Really? No."
"Sebastian?"
"He smells like dead squid...even when he hasn't been to sea in months. You would actually try to torment me with him?"
Lucy suddenly chimed in with one of the better suggestions, "Dingwall?"
Kat just shook her head, "No. Just no. A rock would be a better conversationalist than him and when he does speak even I don't understand a word that comes out of his mouth. Nope, not going to happen."
Susan and Lucy exchanged a glance and then Susan teasingly asked, "What about Cassius?"
Kat laughed at that one, "The clueless wonder who spends too much time chasing every single Nymph he can even if they have rejected him multiple times and making bets on whether or not they'll go with him to any given event? Not if he was the last male in all the worlds. I do not respect the Faun Cassius, how could I ever consider an offer of courtship from him?"
Susan readily conceded the point about Cassius but then she wondered if a more Narnian scholar, one Kat would respect, would be the solution. She named the first bachelor scholar that came to mind even though he was rarely at the Cair, but he had been a student of Stonebrook in the past. "Have you ever considered Connell?"
Kat turned to look at her, "You mean the Centaur Connell?"
Susan nodded and then, to her surprise, Caia spoke up, "Connell would never ask Dame Sepphora to consider a personal relationship. He doesn't see her that way." Kat shrugged then she urged her horse to a slightly quicker trot, pulling ahead of their little knot. Caia fell back slightly so she was keeping pace with Susan, "Pardon my interruption, your majesty, but might I suggest we include the expert opinions of Alithia and Tuulea where Dame Sepphora's personal life is concerned? They probably know more than we do."
She nodded her agreement, while mentally scolding herself for being so silly as to not ask the matchmakers before leaving the Cair. Her only excuse was that she had been extremely preoccupied with leaving the orders for decorating the Cair with her most capable ladies-in-waiting, Deianeira and Marsalla leading them, so it actually slipped her mind that she wanted to talk to Tuulea about Kat and suitors. Looking at where Kat was checking with Lieutenant Alaois who was leading their guard...technically.
Of course, she wasn't given very long at all to ponder who would make the best match truly for Kat because Lucy suddenly laughed, "We're here! We're here! Come on, Susan, Kat."
Susan quickly called out, "Lucy, wait! Wait for us!" She grumbled as she swung down from her horse, "Not again." Lucy, of course, paid no heed to her as her excitement wrapped her into a warm, cheerful, and friendly blur of movement as she called out to the small community living in the shelter of the forest framing the southernmost end of the River Rush. Susan still found herself smiling as she watched Lucy happily chattering first with a family of Squirrels then with a pair of Robins then a young Faun and his grandfather. Caia and Kat had both stopped to talk to the lone Centaur family, carpenters by trade, though Susan noticed that Kat was standing at a slight angle so she could keep Lucy in her line of sight.
She smiled a little wider as she walked back to the packhorse and two archers helped her begin untying the bundles of food and toys they had brought with them. Officially, it was a gesture of thanks from the Royal household, but unofficially it was a way for the Queens to make sure their people were all being taken care of in a way that would not hurt anyone's pride. Susan loved being able to do something to help as she handed a small stuffed doll to a young Nymph who had been hiding behind her Naiad mother's blue, slightly watery looking skirts, which prompted the shy little darling to run out from behind her mother and throw her arms around Susan's legs just below her knees in a tight hug before scampering back to the safety of her mother's skirts with the doll clutched close. She looked at Lucy who was giggling and happily chattering with two young Squirrels, a Rabbit, and three young Fauns, and then she saw Kat cradling a very tiny Nymph who was only a few weeks old with the softest expression in her eyes Susan had ever seen even as she spoke with the babe's parents, a Satyr and Nymph. The sight just confirmed Susan's thoughts that Kat needed to settle down and have her own family. But, she wouldn't make any more suggestions, in jest or in sincerity, until she conferred with Alithia and Tuulea.
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A faint, sharp cry prompted Frome to turn from the still body of a Boar and look at the sky. He snarled in frustration as he spotted the outlines of two Gryphons coming fast toward the border outpost. He and his Werewolves had nearly broken the entire camp, wounding all and killing more than a few of the Narnians. But, that would mean nothing when the Gryphons summoned patrols to the outpost. He raised his muzzle, once grey but now stained completely red with the blood of his prey, and howled. His still living brethren immediately pulled away from their vicious attacks on the Narnians and followed him as he raced away from the carnage that was only a taste of what he would do once She was brought back.
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A/N: Please Read and Review! Leave a review and let me know what y'all thought about this one. I shall try to post another chapter tomorrow. Until then, Merry Christmas to all!