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[Click.]

[Is this for real?]

[Why yes. Yes it is.]




Hello. Um, this is Caspian--

[BEEEEEEEEEEEP. Sultry woman's voice:]

Hola. Caspian del buzón de voz está roto. Esta es su refrigerador.
Por favor, hable muy despacio y voy a mantener su mensaje a mi mismo con un imán!
Gracias.


[BEEP. End automated message.]

LABEL MESSAGES AS TEXT, TXT MSG, OR AUDIO. EVERYTHING IS PRIVATE, NO PARTY LINES.
Action for Narnia crew, anytime, anywhere, or pre-arranged with anyone else.

Dirge

Date: 2008-12-27 07:52 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] treadingdawn.livejournal.com
The Telmarine King wakes to find himself on a bench in a moving train. It isn't the most comfortable of benches but that's the least of his problems. Idly Caspian wonders why he has a habit of waking up in strange places. He doesn't recognize any of these people any more than he once didn't recognize a certain badger. None of them pay him any mind, as if lost in their own worlds or just in understanding of what it all means. Caspian sits up, looking up and down the car for someone he knows. Peter? Susan? Edmund? Lucy?

Aslan?

No one he recognizes. Not even the beautiful pale-haired lady sitting by herself in the corner, as familiar as she seems. He doesn't know her. It must be a curse. Caspian moves to stand despite the sign that cautions travelers from standing while the car continues to travel quickly down an unknown tunnel to an unknown destination.

Dirge

Date: 2008-12-27 07:58 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] highcost-living.livejournal.com
She's not invisible. In fact she's always closer than people believe her to be. They don't take time to notice usually. And that's alright. They'll notice each other soon enough.

Oh, hello. She notices that the Telmarine King is awake. She gives him a wave. "Looking for someone?"

Dirge

Date: 2008-12-27 08:03 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] treadingdawn.livejournal.com
Well make that one person who pays attention. He vaguely remembers her from some time ago, something about hats, except he can't remember how long ago that was. A year? Fifty? It all seems meshed together. But at least she is speaking, unlike the others. It's strange and disconcerting how they don't acknowledge each other. The vacancy is evident in their eyes, except for the woman in the corner who actively appears to not pay attention, as if she wishes to be left alone.

"It would be nice to know why I am on this strange..."

What is it, a wagon? A car? He isn't familiar with the concept of trains except for what he's heard from the Pevensies.

"Where am I?"

Dirge

Date: 2008-12-27 08:12 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] highcost-living.livejournal.com
Alone is how things start. Often that is how they end. Given that everyone has their own destiny and all the adventures that entails, when held out to examine it's not so awful as people are lead to believe in life. The railway car is full of stories with all manner of endings.

"You're on a train. They call these things," she vaguely motions around them, "a car. Right now? You're not quite in one place, but you're on your way."

Dirge

Date: 2008-12-27 08:17 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] treadingdawn.livejournal.com
Oh there it is, the look of distress on his face. On your way. Is it over already? Has destiny reached the final word on this chapter? Everything falls through like sand between his fingers. The dream is over, he'll wake up as if nothing had happened when truly everything had been left behind. But no, he remembers who he is and he must ask her. This strangely familiar and foreign woman in black.

"To where?"

Dirge

Date: 2008-12-27 08:29 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] highcost-living.livejournal.com
The risk of taking a journey is reaching the destination before you're ready. Who ever is?

"You know, Caspian. The train is going to make two more stops. One for a few more passengers and then we're on our way to the end," her voice is calm, a little matter of fact, as though he's a friend who forgot what was on the agenda. Around them the train clicks and clacks on the iron tracks as sure as time itself.

Dirge

Date: 2008-12-27 08:35 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] treadingdawn.livejournal.com
"I don't want to be on this train," he says like a friend who is staunchly defending what he thinks is supposed to be on the agenda.

I'm not ready.

Dirge

Date: 2008-12-27 08:43 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] highcost-living.livejournal.com
"You've done so very much. Where would you be now?" She scoots closer to the window and pats the bench next to her. He'll fall down if he isn't careful. And bruising an ego is the last thing the Telmarine needs.

"You've done so much living that you can say that."

Dirge

Date: 2008-12-27 09:00 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] treadingdawn.livejournal.com
He turns away from her because her eyes, as friendly as they seem, make him feel as if he's transparent. That's what Peter would say isn't it? It's her very friendliness that makes it so very difficult to look at her and he thinks maybe, once, he saw her as a child on two terrible days. Is that who you are? But if it were so then it wouldn't make any sense at all because Caspian is still young and has done nothing to bring this about. The truth of it would have to be that he has died in his sleep, and that's closer to home than he can even imagine. He wonders if it would be better to be on his way back to Narnia instead.

Despite all these conflicting thoughts he notices her gesture and reluctantly accepts. It's better to sit than to stand in this odd moving vehicle.

"How long will it be," Caspian asks, unsure why these words come to his mouth. It's as if there are several hundred years between his waking in this train and their destination. He was not hoping for such a long trip.

Dirge

Date: 2008-12-27 09:11 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] highcost-living.livejournal.com
He's not the first king to turn the issue over and again in his head like a smooth stone. But he's the only Caspian X to do so, and is treated with the same amount of patience. She doesn't force her point. It's out and in the air reverberating.

"Not long at all. Maybe four or five shakes of a lamb's tail because this is a steam train." His sitting down is most welcome. Reluctance is the best she can expect right now. And he's so polite!

Dirge

Date: 2008-12-27 09:18 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] treadingdawn.livejournal.com
He is thinking about something, about longing and about living, about how he has supposedly done so much living, and for all that living he is still here alone. Well, alone with her. She knows much but says so little. But it isn't in Caspian's nature to hesitate from questioning. Brown eyes turn to her, downcast for a brief moment, then curiously.

"What is a steam train?"

Dirge

Date: 2008-12-27 09:45 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] highcost-living.livejournal.com
"Some time in the future they find out that the use of fire, coals and water to move machinery. Pretty ingenious if you ask me." There's going to be an awful lot of trains to come.

The billowing smoke takes shapes. She thinks that one of them could be a rabbit.

Dirge

Date: 2008-12-27 09:59 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] treadingdawn.livejournal.com
"Oh," Caspian sounds, unsure of how that works and yet knowing it does or will work, because of the Pevensies and what he's seen in a far away world. There is something strange here, beyond her and their company and the scenery-yet-not-scenery that passes the windows. He thinks he spots a green serpent under someone's seat, then it's gone again.

"I'm going to fight, you know," he says to her only because he's almost quite sure that she already knows this. Caspian has no sword at his side, nothing to wield as a weapon, but he has his tenacity and his will to oppose whatever this is. He just doesn't know when yet.

Dirge

Date: 2008-12-28 07:24 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] highcost-living.livejournal.com
That blur outside the window looks like the lovechild of Pollock and Monet works. Splattered, obscured and in need of focus to enjoy. She likes it because she's hat the time to study it standing still. Someone else is bound to enjoy it in their way. Or not.

"I won't turn down a challenge if that's what you really want," Death answers. She leans closer and rests her elbow on her knee in order to prop up her head. All the better to study his face at an angle. The Telmarine is such the courtly sort. A king through and through, not the begging sort. "Fight here though?"

Death has let enough people go. They call it cheating or having a near experience. She calls it a change of plans. Or a change of priority. Something akin to waiting for an appointment. Whenever it is.

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King Caspian X

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