cribellate | narnia au;

He's not used to this kind of attention. Alec wasn't one for public displays of affection, except when the moment called for it. (There were a lot of close calls, after all, and one can be expected to hug/hold/kiss one's boyfriend/husband in those moments.) But here he is being tugged along by a bright and shining girl and he feels old and rusty for it, in the moment.

"What would you have of me?" he asks. "Ask any question, and I might just answer."

She considers him. "I would ask a great deal of you," she says, her nose wrinkling up a little. "But I think I will start small," she tells him, and spins him. "You can come here, however, to make mischief with me. What could I do for you?"

He spins and tries not to feel it in any part of his body, other than an ever so slight dizziness.

Magnus pauses with his bottom lip between his teeth, his hands settling politely above her hips.

"Another dance," he says. "You haven't any foreign dignitaries around that expect something of you, do you? We could refuse them and dance together all night."

She comes in close to him, so they're almost scandalously close - another inch and the rumors would reach Calormen tonight - and she smiles, her hands on his shoulders. "Of course," she says. "I always have ambassadors and princes and diplomats from across the world after me."

She lets him tip them into the dance floor. "Tonight my eyes are only for you. Let them wonder who is this mysterious man."

"I can see why," he says in a low voice, just for her. It's the truth, even if it is a touch flirtatious. She's captivating, easy to get lost in, and any one would be happy to be in her presence, scandal or no.

He's grateful for it now. Because it's every distraction he's needed over these past several months that he's ever needed.

They dance through the night. Every time they pause, for drink or a breath, which is infrequent, someone tries to approach. But Magnus is quick to pull her away, act a touch possessively, and when he's not quick enough, she politely but laughingly declines.

The night draws on. People start to leave. The musicians play their final notes and Lucy and Magnus are still left on the dance floor.

He doesn't stop dancing, but hums a soft rendition of Beyonce's "Halo" as he leads her.

She could ask them to keep playing, but she won't. There is something comforting about this, about being the last; Edmund, even, has found his way back to his room. It is deeply late, and they keep dancing.

She doesn't recognize the song, but she is just tired enough that she presses her head against his chest, then, a scandalous embrace for the beginning of the night but at the end of it easily excused with tiredness and lack of witnesses.

"You are an excellent person to have beside me on a night like this one," she tells him, pleased beyond measure.

"Mm, is that because I enchanted your shoes to be more comfortable after song eight?" Not that Magnus was counting. But at a certain point, he had wanted to make sure that Lucy had no excuse to stop dancing, period.

Not that he's sure it was necessary. There's such deep magic here, in everything. He wouldn't be surprised if the very stones in the hall wouldn't have softened themselves beneath her feet if she asked them to.

She looks up at him, her eyebrows going straight up, and the surprise on her face is crystalline; she didn't expect that. "Did you really?" she asks, her smile wide and her laugh coming from the very pit of her belly, taking up every part of her.

"Why, I thought it was magic, but I thought it was the kind of magic that came from dancing with a handsome man, where you forget your discomforts!" she announces, and she pitches forward to kiss him. This time it is right at the corner of his mouth, a sweet sort of invitation for more.

He's smiling broadly now, delighted by her delight, so the kiss catches more of his lips than perhaps she even intended. Definitely more than he wants, however.

The smile doesn't fade exactly, but freezes, and he stills. Obviously he's uncomfortable, but obviously too he's trying to hide it, trying to move on, trying not to make her uncomfortable.

He turns his head away.

"Even a man as handsome as me has to cheat a little sometimes," he says, trying to play it off. "We were having fun and I wanted to keep it that way."

She knows, then.

His heart belongs to someone else. Well. That is just fine, for Lucy; she is not one to be bothered by that, and she knows she is the one who overstepped. Her smile softens, and it's still warm. "Yes," she agrees, carefully. "It should just be fun, and nothing more," she tells him.

"Depending on how long I'm here though, I'm going to need friends," Magnus reasons. He doesn't want Lucy to get the wrong idea, that this is just him playing with her, that he's only flighty and fun and nothing more. He needs something more in his life just... not what she had just offered.

He doesn't think. His heart hurts so much and for a little while there, it hadn't. He wants that, without strings. Perhaps that's selfish, but that's the way of it.

"Maybe a little more than fun, in that sense."

She laughs a little, and takes him by the hand again. “Well, then, what manner of fun should you like? I think I owe you a favor, sir.”

She means for him coming here, taking her time from others, for teasing her and laughing with her and dancing with her.

He did not have to. But he did it.

"You owe me nothing. I owe you for a beautiful night."

Magnus is gracious, sometimes to a fault, but he won't let Lucy think that he's done anything but enjoy himself tonight. He has. Even if he stumbled over that kiss, the whole evening has been near perfect.

"Show me something beautiful. Your favorite place, if it's near."

Something beautiful.

She takes him and slips him out the side door, and then they’re going through the castle, down the sides and through the gardens, until suddenly they’re at the beach. The water is to but blue and clear, and the sand is fine and soft.

She leaves her slippers. “Here. We are going to the end of the beach.”

It isn’t terribly long, but it’s long enough. She takes his hand. “From there I will show you the best thing in all the world.”

There's a giddy sense of adventure building inside of him as they pass through the halls and exterior of the castle, the moon and stars lighting their paths. He ditches his shoes as well -- though they're not slippers and take a minute to untie -- and follows her, hand in hers.

"All of this world or all of them?"

“You will make me show my bias,” she tells him.

The sand is getting caught in her skirts but she doesn’t care. Everyone who knows Lucy, who has ever spent more than five minutes with her knows that her skirts get messy and her dresses get muddy, and it never matters.

She doesn’t have a single regret.

At the end of the beach is an arcing rock, that goes well over the ocean. She ties her skirt up into her bodice, and starts climbing up. At the top they can look right into the crystalline water, and even in the dark the moon and starlight shine down and show right to the bottom.

Down there there are ripples of blue and green light. Lucy takes a pebble. “Here. When you throw a pebble, and give the ocean a bit of Narnia, the ocean will tell you a secret.”

narnia au;

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