tampered | (no subject)

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When; Wednesday, August 5th, evening
Rating; PG
Characters; [Bad username or site: lionesscouchant title=Lucy_Pevensie @ livejournal.com] and [Bad username or site: thefutureking title=Arthur_Pendragon @ livejournal.com]
Summary; Lucy loves the moonlight.
Log;

Lucy Pevensie loves the moonlight; it is bright and it's warm against her skin. August is one of the best months of the year; still warm enough to go barefoot, even at night, and she's spinning, spinning, like a top, her hair going around with her.

It's bright, then, this little slice of Xanadu that she's found for herself, and she's spinning on the top of the hill, and the world is right.

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Arthur needed to clear his head, he had far too much going on right now and he was tired of the inside of his apartment and decided that a walk would do him good. Specifically, a walk in Xanadu. He would never admit it to anyone but he rather enjoyed the gardens.

When he was walking through, he couldn't help but notice someone standing on one of the hills, their silhouette against the moonlight, spinning around. His curiosity piqued, he hiked up towards the hill and it didn't take him long to figure out who it was up there spinning.

"Honestly, you look completely mad," he said, although he couldn't help but smile as he said it.

Lucy heard Arthur and slowed down, then spun to the ground to sit. She knew that he had been having a difficult time, and she had wanted to go see him, but then sometimes she worried terribly that after not getting along with Merlin for so long that he wouldn't want to speak to her.

Her feet stuck out from under her dress, and she brushed her hair away from her face as she dug her toes between the grass.

"Hullo, Arthur," she said, laughing. "Sometimes being mad is fantastic, didn't you know?"

"I'll have to take your word for it," Arthur said, shaking his head. Madness of any kind was not the sort of thing that Uther would have tolerated nor was it anything he really wanted to experience. Although she did look very happy. Of course, Lucy almost always looked very happy.

"I haven't seen you in a while," he added, almost as an afterthought.

Lucy was, in general, happy most of the time. She didn't really see many reasons to be upset, and things that made her upset (like Jadis) she either confronted or avoided. It was why people called her Valiant, although to be honest she never thought of herself as particularly brave. Lucy didn't stand when Arthur looked over her, and instead she reached out a hand, to signal she wanted him to sit next to her.

"No, I suppose you haven't," she said with a slight nod. "I've been a bit busy, my apologies. Have you been well?"

Arthur took her hand and sat down next to her, he couldn't ever refuse a request from Lucy. He settled himself next to her, sure to keep an appropriate distance between them.

"It's alright, you don't have to apologize," he told her, drawing up his knees and resting his arms on them. "And I'm perfectly fine."

Lucy doubted that he was perfectly fine, but she wasn't going to press the issue, either. Instead she leaned her head on her knees and looked over at Arthur. "Well, I thought an apology might be appropriate, in any case." She smiled, and wrinkled her nose a little.

"Oh!" she said, remembering, suddenly. "Peter's birthday is next week, but we're unlikely to be our real ages. Will you come anyway? I know you're not precisely his best friend, but I'm sure that he would enjoy your company." It wasn't exactly the truth, but it wasn't a lie, either. At least Peter could be civil.

"Of course I'll come," Arthur said, giving her a smile. It was absolutely ridiculous how cute she looked when she wrinkled her nose like that. It was almost unfair.

"I enjoy talking to Peter," he said. It was the other brother that Arthur couldn't stand, but Edmund hadn't been here for a long time. "What sort of gift should I get him?"

Only Lucy could manage to charm anyone out of any kind of mood. She thought about it for a moment. Peter was not an easy person to shop for, even in the best of situations. She shrugged. "I think he'll be pleased if you simply show up," she said, completely comfortable with that idea.

She leaned forward a little more. "Would you spin with me, Arthur?"

Arthur glanced over at Lucy and scowled just a bit. That was cheating, asking him to spin with her. Of course he was going to spin with her, he suspected that she knew he wouldn't be able to say no.

"You're a horrible person for asking me to do that," he told her. "But of course I will. Just don't tell anyone I did."

She laughed. Of course she knew that he wouldn't be able to say no, but then, she also thought that he would benefit from it. Spinning, arms out, inhibitions gone was ridiculously fun, and it made everything else fall away. She stood, brushing the grass and the dirt away from her skirts.

"I am not a horrible person," she laughed, trying to sound indignant, but unable to pull it off. "It'll be terrific, Arthur, I promise."

She reached her hands out and spun, laughing.

"Yes, you are," he said, unable to help himself from chuckling as he stood up and stepped a ways away from her so that he wouldn't run into her. He watched her spin and then gave a sigh, holding his arms out at his side.

Slowly, Arthur started to turn around, arms still out at the side. Honestly, he didn't see what the big deal was. It wasn't that fun.

"How long should I do this for?" he asked.

Oh, bother. Clearly Arthur was doing this completely wrong. Lucy reached out and grabbed his hand and pulled him into her orbit, as if that would help. "You have to loosen up, let the worries of your day fly away."

She would pull and tug until she got a result. It was the only way to deal with the men in her life, sometimes, Caspian not included. The Telmarine had a good sense of how to have fun, unlike her brothers. Sometimes she wondered if it was because of the war, because of their father, because of the bombs. But other days she simply assumed that they had forgotten that it was all right to have fun.

Arthur wished he could say his poor spinning performance was a clever ploy to get Lucy to hold his hand, but it really wasn't. The hold idea of just spinning to let yourself go wasn't one he was grasping.

He started to spin a bit faster with her. Honestly, he already felt ridiculous so he supposed going a little bit faster wouldn't really hurt.

Abruptly, Lucy let go and shook her head, tumbling away. "Honestly, Arthur," she said after she had finished falling head over heels on the ground, "You have no concept of how to have fun."

She pretended to pout - she had been told that she was good at that - but it was clear that she wasn't really pouting. At least, Peter would have been able to see through it, but then Peter knew her better than almost anyone, except for maybe Aslan.

Arthur stopped and crossed his arms at her, giving her a mock glare. The pout was incredibly unfair, every bit as effective now as it was when she was a little girl. Maybe even more so.

"I'm perfectly capable of having fun," he told her. "It's just entirely different from how you have fun."

He paused another moment, thinking.

"Alright, then I'll race you down the hill," he told her. "By rolling."

Lucy automatically brightened, raising her arms up. "Finally," she said, "A man who understands the true joy of rolling down a hill!" She moved up to sit. "My hero," she added, batting her eyelashes, then laughed.

"What does the winner get," she wondered, briefly, looking up at Arthur.

Arthur understood no such thing, but it seemed like the sort of thing that Lucy or Anne would suggest doing. And maybe it would be fun, at least you could make a competition of it.

"When I win, I think I'd like..." Arthur paused for a moment, think. "A dance."

Lucy's head perked up a bit. "A dance? Tonight? Here? Without music?" The words might suggest that she wasn't interested, but that wasn't what the tone implied. She really did like the idea. For once, it was more about the people than it was about the ceremony.

Lucy liked it when things were about people and not ceremony.

"Alright, I suppose if you don't have enough of an imagination I can think of something else," Arthur said, giving a bit of a shrug. He was obviously baiting her but since it was all in the spirit of fun, he figured that it was okay.

What a terrible idea, baiting the Queen of Narnia. Lucy reached out to hit him on the arm. "What kind of gentleman are you?" she demanded, indignant. "Honestly, I'm shocked! I should ask that one of my brothers demand satisfaction from you!"

She pushed him a little, but then grinned and tipped over to roll down the hill. "Head start!" she crowed just before she fell.

"Oh that is just unfair!" Arthur cried out, quickly falling to the ground and rolling after her.

It was interesting that while the hill looked relatively smooth and even as your rolled down it you were made aware of each and every single bump of the earth. Arthur was determined to beat Lucy though and rolled as fast as he could.

Lucy laughed, especially about his complaint that it was unfair. Of all things, this was perfectly legitimate. He was heavier than she was!

But halfway down the hill, her skirt begins to tangle and move up her legs and so she tumbles away, rolling slightly away and standing to help her skirt fall back around her knees. "Arthur!" she cried, her hands cupped over her mouth, "Come back!"

There was grass in her hair, but she didn't notice.

Arthur slowed to a stop when he heard his name called. Sitting up, he noticed her Royal Highness Queen Lucy the Valiant standing a ways up the hill with grass in her hair. Standing up, he began to trudge back up the hill towards her.

"You can't call a stop just because you were losing!" he complained.

She crossed her arms over her chest. "Well, of course not," she said, her tone smart.

"I stopped, I'll have you know, because my skirt was going to quite soon end up over my head, and I don't think that's proper at all," she pointed out a half a second later. Honestly, Arthur.

"Oh, well, of course," Arthur said, coughing a bit and looking away. While the modern ways of the City might have influenced him some, he would never consider it proper to stand around with Lucy and discuss how her skirt nearly went over her head.

"Ahh, after you then?" he said, gesturing for her to continue.

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Curse you Lucy, for alluding to your bare legs.