The wind was cool but Susan welcomed it. Alone, on the Splendour Hyaline's deck, hands braced on the bannister, with a yellow silken shawl wrapped around her hair and the taste of the sea in her lips she looked at the dark waves illuminated only now and then when the clouds parted enough to let the moon shine through.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, embracing the smell of the ocean, the sound of the waves, and the flapping of the sails and flags. It brought welcomed memories of home and pleasant times. Of trips to the Lone Islands with Peter; of swimming in the caves under Cair Paravel with Lucy, Imira, and the mermaids; of riding on the beach before sunset with—

Susan gasped, "No," for the wind had stripped her shawl away and left her head and shoulders exposed to the stiff breeze.

She reached out a hand after it but all she managed to grasp were the ends and watch as it slipped from her fingers. Watch as it flew across the deck until it was intercepted halfway across the deck stairs by a hand.

With a slightly crooked smile, Peridan descended the stairs, shawl in hand. "It's a bit late to be out here,"

"Are you following me?" Susan asked, head high, shoulders back, a brow raised in question.

Peridan halted. "I—"

"Because that was perfect timing," a smile spread across her lips and Peridan released a breath he didn't realize he had been holding with a nervous chuckle.

Susan took a couple of steps towards him and he descended the last step and continued forward until he stood no more than a meter away from her.

"I needed some fresh air," Susan looked up, for he was a head taller than her. An answer to his unspoken question and an unspoken question of her own.

"I couldn't sleep until I was certain we are not being followed," Peridan explained, holding up the shawl wrapped around his hand.

She slipped it off his fingers without taking her eyes off his.

"You're worried?" she frowned.

"I'm cautious,"

She looked down and swallowed before meeting his eyes again. "Do you think they know?"

Peridan looked south. "If they don't already, they will very soon,"

Susan wrapped the scarf around her and sighed through her nose. "I should have never agreed to visit Calormen," she stared at the dark ocean, arms crossed as they walked towards the bannister. There was a stack of wooden crate boxes and some fishing nets and rope resting on top of a few of them. What was loaded in those boxes, only the sailors knew.

He rested his forearms against the polished wood. "You couldn't have known,"

She looked at him. "That he was awful? I should have. Everyone else knew. I can already hear the I told you so's,"

"No one blames you for not seeing through the facade,"

"I do," she looked at him. "I blame myself. I should have realized,"

"He put on a good show. How were you to know he was a cruel tyrant when he was purposefully hiding that part of himself?"

"But you knew. Didn't you?" She forced herself to look into his eyes.

Peridan's lips pursed.

"Spare me with white lies,"

"We all agreed he was... rather unpleasant," he put it in the kindest terms possible. Although an ass, a prick, and an arrogant petulant bastard crossed his mind.

"Then why didn't you tell me?" she turned to face him fully.

"It wasn't my place to intervene," he said, unflinching from where he stood, gazing into the darkness.

"Well, I wish you had," Susan said, almost putting, and took a seat on one of the boxes.

That made him turn.

He chuckled dryly. "And you would have listened to me?" he asked, brow raised, left forearm leaning casually on the railing.

"Peter never wants to interfere, Edmund always tries to interfere, Imira is too judgmental, and Lucy believes the best of everyone. You're the only one with perspective. Your word would have been the one I'd most valued,"

Peridan tried his best to mask his surprise and pleasure at those words, as false as they were. If anything, he was the most biased of them all. Still...

She valued his word. Highly. His objection to the prince would have gone noticed. Would have mattered. He wondered in what other ways she might value his opinion. In what other regards would she value him. Would she care at all if he told her what he really thought? What he really felt? Would it matter, or would he just make a fool of himself?

"Sit," she slid over and patted the wooden surface. "I'm going to hurt my neck if I keep having to look up," she offered in explanation and Peridan obliged. She could have asked him to jump off-board and he would have done it happily.

He had never sat so close to her. Not that he remembered. His left shoulder and knee almost touched hers. She'd Edmund's sister, he reminded himself. King Edmund's sister. She's the Queen.

He cleared his throat. "It was just a hunch,"

She just looked at him. Looked at him with those dark captivating eyes that, sitting under the moonlight, alone in the deck of the Splendour Hyaline, compelled him to reveal the truth. She was a siren and he was at her mercy.

There were two reasons Peridan had never told Susan about how he felt: his friendship with Edmund and Susan's Queenly status.

But as he sat there next to her he realized they were both obstacles he had fabricated. They were rubbish. Everything he had told himself was rubbish.

He knew that look. It was the look Lady Roselynn had given him many winters ago, it was the look the mermaids of Cair Paravel gave him when he walked past, the look Lord Henry gave Lady Phoebe, the look Lady Thea gave King Edmund: she liked him back. Susan liked him back.

Queen, Empress, Goddess, her title didn't matter, she liked him back.

Only one reason was stopping him now from coming clean to her. One powerful, armed reason lurking somewhere around the ship that would surely toss him off the cliffs if he knew what was going through his mind. But what did it matter if she liked him back? If she... if she loved him back. He'd just have to risk it.

He'd simply have to risk it because going another day without telling her, enduring another state visit whilst a different man tried his best to enamour her and marry her... he could not. He would not. He'd sooner jump off the cliffs himself.

"I was also jealous," Peridan began.

Peridan was jealous?

"Why?" Susan asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

"Because I wanted it to be me," He said and pushed himself up the wooden crates.

Susan stood after him as if in a trance.

Peridan continued. "I wanted to be the one who got your undivided attention. I wanted to be the one you walked with and danced with and dined with and smiled at. I wanted to be the one who got to court you." He took a step towards her so she was within reaching distance if she chose to do anything about it. "Because I love you."

Four words. Four words with the power to change everything.

She crossed the distance between them, reached up on her tiptoes and kissed him. 

A shadow of a kiss, that's what that was.

Too shocked to react, Peridan just stood there.

"I love you too," Susan stepped back and whispered, a smile grazing her lips.

"You do?"

"I do," she looked at him like there was no one else, and before it all turned out to be a dream, he kissed her. Lightly, tentatively, gently. As if afraid he might scare her off. But she wasn't afraid, not with him. Never with him.

He wanted to go slow. Wanted to enjoy every moment of it, every new experience with her. There was no one else for him but her. There never had been and there never would be.

The limits were unknown and he did not want to push them, so after a few moments that felt like both forever and nothing, he pulled back.

"I've been wanting to do that for the longest of times," he admitted.

She placed a hand on his cheek and smiled. "Then don't stop,"

He kissed her again.

Their lips moved in perfect synchrony, her hands slid around his neck and his snaked around her waist. And there, on the deck of the Splendour Hyaline, under the moonlight, sailing the Great Easter Ocean in utter bliss, Lord Peridan and Queen Susan kissed.