[Closed Post] ..the sky will come for you once..

[lanselos_du_lac]

The day is warm and bright -- it's lovely, in fact -- and so Lancelot is doing his best to ignore the strange tension that has been dogging him over the last few days. He is, of course, keeping to his usual routine, which helps, and now he is in the little clearing where he and Magnus meet for training. He's waiting for Magnus to arrive, checking the straps of Arthur's shield while he waits, and doing his best to clear his head and focus up on what he has determined they need to focus on today.

Comments

[lanselos_du_lac]

"I--" He stops himself, tries to refocus. He still feels off, in a very unpleasant way, but it is comforting that Susan is as deliberate and careful as ever. He takes a breath and starts again. "I have felt off, of late. It isn't anger, but it feels a little like that. I keep thinking about-- I don't know. I thought I had stopped thinking of Camelot as home, but it is like that... like missing home. Wishing I might somehow fix things. Thinking of... all the ways I might have had or done things differently."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan tries to parse this, but it's not easy to follow. "You've got regrets?" she summarizes.

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot considers this, then clarifies, "I do not so much regret what I did or did not do, but that -- had I but known better -- I could have had or made other choices. It stings. And, too, I... I think it has nearly been a year, since I left Camelot. That... I don't know how to feel about that. I don't wish to leave thee, I don't know that I wish to return, but it's complicated."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"It's different for you," Susan surmises. "You've got something you might be able to go back to." Susan hasn't, naturally. She misses Ingrid and sometimes Miriam, but apart from them, everyone she loves is dead and unreachable, off in Aslan's dreadful little world where they aren't even permitted to be themselves anymore. "I expect that would make things complicated. I suppose it's useless to say there isn't any point in dwelling in what-ifs." After all, Susan tries to avoid those as much as possible.

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot strokes her hair. He understands the difference she is highlighting, and it pains him to think that if something were to happen and they were all thrown back into their own worlds, Susan would no doubt be lonelier. But this does help slot something into place for him.

"It's not so much that I am dwelling on it, I suppose. But-- I have done my best not to think or feel much of it. After... after some of the things that have happened here, of late, I find it harder to set aside."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Ah," says Susan. "So you're cathecting to the what-ifs. Then I suppose you oughtn't shut those thoughts down," though she has no intention of thinking about how things might've been with her family if she'd remembered Narnia before they died - she's content to simply write it off as at least she's alive and not in Aslan's land. "And you ought instead explore your feelings." And she gives him an expectant look.

[lanselos_du_lac]

He has the urge to say that he does not wish to explore his feelings, but thankfully Susan's thinking aloud has raised a different question. "Cathecting?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

As always, it's easy to intellectualize her care - at least Susan is aware of her use of this defense mechanism. She says, "Yes. Freud spoke of cathexis. It's the investment of libido - one's emotional energies - into an object or idea. One must safely discharge such energy to prevent damage to one's psyche."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"And should one not do so...?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Then it becomes a complex, which is destabilizing and reduces inner balance and often leads to greater pain. Sweetheart," she says, stroking his hair back from his face. "Is it really so dreadful to confront your feelings?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

"I would--" He pauses, takes in Susan's presence, her nearness. He lets out a breath. "Yes. I would rather not. There is so much that is good here. It seems a shame to waste it in feeling poorly about things that are not so."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Would it be a waste?" Susan asks, startled. "If you felt better in the end?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

"It would change nothing," he says, evenly. It's possible he doesn't realize he's being stubborn about this. "I don't know that I would feel better, in the end."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Indulge me," Susan says, leaning forward, against him. "Do you not generally like when you've got clarity?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

"I suppose I do, yes."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"If you've got clarity on your feelings, perhaps they would trouble you less. Even if you mightn't do anything about them, there's less uncertainty."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Thou'rt... reasonable," he allows.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"To a fault!"

[lanselos_du_lac]

"It is thy worst trait," he says, with a note of wry humor.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"I suppose it must be," with a kiss to his cheek.

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot strokes her hair again, and says quietly, "It is only that it is painful. And--"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"And?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

"I don't know," his voice low. "I want to be happy, when I am with thee, and to make thee happy. I suppose I have been putting off untangling it."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan leans back a little then, trying to get a good look at the whole of him - his expression, his posture, the set of his mouth. "Lancelot," she says, voice soft and with the faintest edge of reproach. How ought she phrase this? "Does it bother you that I've got spells of being... rather unhappy," such as, most recently, her mixed-up feelings about the entire Aornis situation overlaid on top of her mixed-up feelings during Galahad and Claudius's wedding, when she started missing her family dreadfully, but there was also the whole of Dark, and her general mood when first they met, and-- "and that I often turn to you in those moments?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

Faintly surprised, but also with the good grace to be just a little abashed as her meaning strikes home, he says, "Of course not."