Accidentally Falling | Narnia

11 | flowers

Caspian brought Susan out to Cair Paravel's garden and the place didn't fail to take her breath away.

The garden was enormous and beautiful. There were flowers everywhere. Daisies, buttercups, lilacs, wild roses, rhododendrons- really, everything. There were also flowers that she couldn't name which easily meant that they are scarce in the world she came from (much less England.) Dryads and nymphs were drifting around the garden, sprinkling the flowers as they pass them by with glittery substances from the bucket they were holding. Susan could also see some fauns holding some strange-looking flutes to their lips (reed pipes, she realized) and doing some tap dance in front of some plants. And as they do it, Susan could see the plants growing.

"What--" she started to say but she was so tongue-tied that she couldn't continue.

"Nature magic," Caspian said. "Nature spirits use it to grow plants. You should see our orchard. It's amazing..."

Susan nodded, half-minded, her eyes still focused on the fauns. If only such creatures existed in England, she knew the garden back at the Professor's house wouldn't have been so dismal.

Then her blue eyes drifted to a group of white roses not far from her.

Again, Susan couldn't help but wonder how nature spirits didn't exist in her world. Those white roses were just so beautiful!

A faun- a young one by the looks him- saw the daughter of Eve staring at the roses. He picked one of the white roses and trotted to Caspian and Susan's direction. He bowed to Caspian slightly, and at Susan, then the faun offered her the white rose shyly.

Susan accepted the rose and smiled at the faun. "Thank you."

The faun bowed again, blushing furiously, then went back to tending a group of rhododendrons.

Susan inhaled the smell of the white rose and smiled in pleasure.

She looked at Caspian.

"It's so beautiful here," she said.

"I know," he smiled back. "It's my favorite go-to place. Well, aside from the courtyard."

"Where you practice fencing," Susan stated.

Caspian chuckled. "Yeah."

"Just double checking," she said.

Caspian led her to a path that spread out to the whole garden. As they followed it down, Susan could see dryads appearing and disappearing around the garden, murmuring some words in a strange language.

"You're so into nature, aren't you?" Susan asked.

"Yeah, I am," Caspian rove his eyes around the place. "After experiencing winter for a long time... it really changed my way with nature."

Susan nodded, impressed. She hadn't known a lot of people-- especially boys-- who cares about nature.

"How about you?" Caspian asked. "What do you like to do back in your world? "

Despite the fact that it was just a casual question in a casual conversation made by casual people, Susan couldn't stop her heart from beating a little faster. Why is a King of Narnia asking her about her habits? Is he interested in her? Because she was sure as hell that she's interested in him even though she knew it was silly being interested about a person who she had just met the day before. Or it was just what it was, a casual question? He was a King of Narnia, after all. Maybe one of his duties was to inquire about his people's habits. Her heart fell slightly with that thought.

"Staying the whole day in my room, mostly, reading a book," she replied, bending over to study a lilac. "Or heading out to the library to read a book."