Where Have All the Flowers Gone?

SunshineRose

SunshineRose

Member
Summary: Tumnus, his father, and his grandfather experience, in a series of vignettes, the arrival, the duration, and ultimately the end of the Hundred Year Winter.

Author’s Note: This story will be divided into three chapters. This first chapter deals with the experiences of Tumnus’ grandfather and grandmother when the Hundred Year Winter first begins. The next two chapters will actually feature Tumnus (and his father). I hope that you will enjoy this story, even if it does not start with canon characters, and that you will find that these vignettes cohere in a manner that is, ultimately meaningful.

Disclaimer: I don’t own the world of Narnia (since I’m not the White Witch, even though I do have pale skin) and the lyrics to “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” are not my property. That being said, I do own the original faun characters who appear in this fic, so, should you happen to have the urge to use any of them, please ask before borrowing them.

Where Have All the Flowers Gone?

Where have all the flowers gone?
Long time passing.
Where have all the flowers gone?
Long time ago.
Where have all the flowers gone?
Young girls picked them every one.
When will they ever learn?

Snow

“See you tomorrow,” shouted the mixed group of young fauns and satyrs who had been accompanying Cirius and his best friend Nanaia down the woodland lane home from the school that held them captive for far too many hours a week in Cirius’ not-so-humble opinion.

“Goodbye,” Cirius and Nanaia called out in unison, turning down a small, dirt path that led to both their families’ stone abodes, which neighbored each other. That was probably why Cirius’ and Nanaia’s mothers had begun to have them play together from the time they were first born twelve years ago.

“So, how did you do on that algebra exam, anyway?” asked Cirius, shooting his friend a sidelong glance. “You were very quiet when the rest of us were discussing our marks.”

“If someone attempts to keep a dignified and careful silence on a subject, it’s extremely rude to press them to speak.” Wrinkling her nose, which was splotched with freckles, at him, she elbowed him in the ribs. “Anyway, I got a sixty-five. Are you happy now?”

“No.” Cirius shook his head, suddenly grateful for his solidly satisfactory seventy-eight. Seventy-eight wasn’t anything a reasonably intelligent person would have cause to celebrate, but it wasn’t a grade a fair parent could punish a child over—or so Cirius hoped his parents would think. You could hardly punish somebody for being satisfactory, could you? “That’s horrible, Nanaia.”

“I know.” Nanaia tugged anxiously at one of her long auburn braids that nearly reached her waist. Her clover eyes snapping, she added frigidly, planting her hands on her hips, “You don’t need to scold. My parents can lecture me enough without you helping them.”

“Not if you can convince them that D stands for ‘delightful.’” With a sly grin, Cirius hooked his arm through one of the circles Nanaia’s arms made, resting as they were on her hips.


“Don’t be ridiculous,” Nanaia scoffed, but her eyes had softened. “That’s the oldest lie in the book. If my parents fall for it, they don’t deserve to be parents at all.”

Nanaia sighed, removed the arm that Cirius’ wasn’t linked to from her hip, used it to tap nervously on one of the horns poking out of her head, and went on in a quieter, subdued voice, “I’m not going to be able to sit for a week once Father knows how poorly I did.”

“Can’t you try to convince him that you did your best?” said Cirius, biting his lower lip.

“I can try.” Doubt shaded Nanaia’s eyes as she, too, chomped on her lip. “But he might not believe it, seeing as we spent the day before the exam picking apples, not studying, and, of course, he won’t believe me when I say that, given how hopeless I am with mathematics of any sort, it wouldn’t have made any difference. Stupid algebra and stupid me. What a horrid combination!”

Cirius opened his mouth to say something soothing and sympathetic, but was distracted when several cold, wet droplets landed on his hair, cheeks, and nose.

“Snow!” Nanaia exclaimed, her misery replaced entirely by merriment as she pointed excitedly at the white, crystalline flakes drifting gently toward the ground like powdered sugar sprinkled onto fudge cake. “The first snowfall is always so magical, isn’t it? Oh, and it came so early this year!”

“And look how it’s sticking!” Laughing, Cirius beat a joyful caper in the snow, his hooves leaving marks in the banks already beginning to accumulate beneath their feet.

“Maybe we won’t have school tomorrow at all!” Giggling giddily, Nanaia clapped her hands. “Perhaps we’ll have enough snow overnight that school will be cancelled and tomorrow night we’ll have the first dance of the winter. Maybe Father and Mother will be so distracted by the snowfall that they won’t even think to ask me how I did on the wretched algebra exam.”

“I can think of someone who is distracted by the snow.” His hazelnut eyes glinting mischievously, Cirius swiftly bent to scoop up a snowball, which he lobbed at Nanaia’s shoulder, prompting her to shriek when it made cold, hard, and wet contact with her cloak.

“I hope you are turned into an icicle for the rest of your life,” screamed Nanaia, hurling a snowball at Cirius’ cheek.

“I hope you are buried so deep in snow that even the mining dwarfs won’t be able to find you,” retorted Cirius, trying and failing to dodge the wet missile she tossed at his face, and then throwing one of his own at her.
 
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Dance

It was the following night, and snow blanketed the ground in the forest clearing where fauns, satyrs, tree spirits, dwarfs, and an assortment of talking woodland creatures had assembled for the Great Snow Dance, which occurred every year on the first moonlit night when snow covered the ground. Yellow pinpricks of stars shone in the obsidian sky above and the full moon glistened like a diamond in the heavens, while, on earth, fauns and wood spirits whirled around in a circle in a complex dance designed centuries ago by their ancestors, and dwarfs, sitting in a scarlet-cloaked rim outside the ever-winding circle, launched snowballs through the weaving arms and legs of the dancers.

Cirius, who had been making snowballs for the dwarfs to throw because he wouldn’t be permitted to partake in the actual dance until next year, smiled as he crossed over to a table on which hot drinks and desserts had been placed. He had been planning to grab a ginger biscuit or a slice of caramel-apple teacake, but all thoughts of dessert vanished when he saw that his father and several other fauns had their heads bent close together over the table, their voices soft and fervid, and their faces flushed crimson with more than just the cold.

Deciding that eavesdropping couldn’t wait and dessert could, Cirius swerved behind the trunk of a towering elm and strained his ears towed the conversation in which his father was currently engaged.

“The first snowfall came so strong and so early this year that my family and I didn’t even have a chance to gather all our crops in,” Cirius’ father was saying, clutching his goblet of mulled cider tightly in his gloved hand. “I just hope that we harvested enough food to last us until spring. We certainly didn’t gather enough to sell in the market.”

“It’s a bad year all around, Belenus,” commented Nanaia’s father, Consus, shaking his head grimly. “My ears have been to the ground like a rabbit’s, and from what I’ve heard, this early winter is caused by nothing other than the White Witch’s spells. I’ve even heard it on the grapevine that she intends to make it always winter and never spring.”

Cirius, who may not have been the sharpest faun in his class, but who still knew enough to realize that there were four seasons in a year in Narnia and that it couldn’t remain one season forever, was about to snort, but remembered just in time that this would reveal his presence to his father. He didn’t want to lose a wonderful eavesdropping opportunity, so he contented himself with an internal derisive noise at the low quality of contemporary Narnian gossip.

“In the spring, I can use that rumor to fertilize my wife’s vegetable garden,” grunted Cirius’ father. “You know quite well, Consus, that I don’t believe in crazy rumors or weather predictions, both of which are always wrong, unless, of course, the latter are made by centaurs.”

“Belenus, she’s already taken over the country,” Nanaia’s father pointed out heavily. “If anyone can make it always winter, she can. I mean, who is to say what horrible magic she can work with that dreadful wand of hers?”

“It’s the very fact that she’s conquered the country that makes me confident that she won’t make it always winter and never spring,” argued Cirius’ father, his lips pressing together into a grave line. “People take over countries in order to increase their wealth, and it isn’t profitable to have a land where it is forever winter, so no crops can grow or be harvested. Even the dumbest of the giants could figure out that.”

“From what I’ve heard, the White Witch is interested in power, not wealth,” Nanaia’s father said, his forehead furrowing like a field before spring planting. “She’ll be able to control Narnia a lot more effectively if she controls the food supply entirely, and I’ll bet everything I inherited from my dear parents that she has a spell that allows her to grow crops in this cold weather.”

Cirius’ father opened his mouth to respond, seemed to recognize that his son was eavesdropping, and remarked, shooting a burning glance in Cirius’ direction, “I’ve heard that she has spies everywhere, even in the trees, so perhaps we ought to continue this discussion in a more private location.”

His cheeks flaming, Cirius edged away from the elm, trying to drift back into the knot of children making snowballs for the dwarfs, rather than running the risk of attracting more attention to himself by snatching up a dessert from the snack table. However, his plan was foiled when he tripped over Nanaia, who was wrapped up in a woolen blanket, her spine pressed against the bark of the most ancient oak in this primeval glade.

“Graceful as a swan as always,” she grumbled acerbically, glaring up at him as she rubbed her ankle.

“Pleasant as a wasp as usual,” he snapped back, scowling down at her as he massaged his toe, wondering why his boot couldn’t have provided more protection.

“Well, there isn’t any permanent damage done, I suppose,” Nanaia observed in an exaggeratedly magnanimous tone, patting the ground beside her. “Have a seat, oaf, and wear your welcome out, as if you haven’t already done so.”

Smiling slightly, Cirius slipped down beside her, and she pulled the blanket over both of them. Now their arms and elbows touched, sharing warmth, and only their faces felt the chilly winter wind, which beat cherries into their cheeks.

“Have a ginger biscuit.” Under the blanket, Nanaia thrust the dessert into Cirius’ palm, and, for a second, as their fingers were entwined, he felt a weird heat that he had never experienced before surging through his veins. “I know that you wanted one earlier, but you couldn’t get it without running the risk of being punished for eavesdropping.”

“Thanks.” Ducking his head in the hope that Nanaia would not be able to see or suspect that his blush might stem from more than just the weather, Cirius bit into the biscuit. As soon as he did so, he discovered that it was a perfect ginger biscuit—warm, soft, sweet, and spicy all at once and without contradiction. “It’s delicious.”

“After Mother and I slaved over them for hours this morning, they better be, or I’m not picking up another cooking utensil in my life,” Nanaia said, sounding as if this were a joke meant to be taken seriously.

“They’re so good I should have my mother get your mother’s recipe,” Cirius told her, grinning at her, and taking advantage of the chance to watch her curl into the tree as if it were the most comfortable of cushions. The moon overhead was so large that he could see her profile illuminated: the crystal clarity of her gleaming green eyes, and the shimmer of her auburn hair.

“You don’t have to do that.” She leaned closer to him to whisper this directly into his ear. He felt her leg against his and her breath tickle the tender skin beneath his ear, tantalizing him so much that he almost didn’t hear her murmur, “I could always give you the recipe myself, because we’re going to be friends forever, aren’t we?”

“Friends forever,” he agreed, sliding his palm into hers and winding his fingers around hers. He knew the shape of her hands and the texture of her flesh almost as well as he did his own, but he had never been as conscious of her or her body as he was now. He didn’t like this feeling of extreme awareness of her, but he liked it, too, and that bewildered him more than anything else in his life ever had.

Somehow, it was as if he had never really touched her before now. As their hands folded together, something moved between them—a current that felt alive. Something had broken free inside him, and he choked out, “Nanaia.”

“I feel it, too.” Her voice was little more than a breath.“Isn’t this funny? Isn’t this the strangest thing?”

“No,” he said, feeling as if his own words and emotions were strangling him. “Nothing could be more serious.”

“You’re always so serious.” Tightening her grip on his hand, she put her lips against his cheek, but she didn’t kiss him—she just rested there, her lips like butterflies on his skin. In that instant, he felt a connection that bound him to her forever, no matter what. He wanted to scream her name. He wanted to never move from under this warm blanket in the cold snow. He wanted to stroke the ends of her glowing hair and inhale the scent that wafted from her skin. “You need to lighten up.”

“I’ll always lighten up,” he whispered, “when I remember this night.”

“No snowfall was ever as magical as this,” she answered, her lips warmer and softer than he could have possibly imagined. “What a merry dance we’ve had tonight.”
 
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Where have all the young girls gone?
Long time passing.
Where have all the young girls gone?
Long time ago.
Where have all the young girls gone?
Gone to young men every one.
When will they ever learn?

Spring

“What’s the capital of Archenland?” Nanaia asked Cirius. They were huddled onto a sofa beside the hearth in Cirius’ home, even though it should have been spring now, and they shouldn’t have needed to hunch around the fire for warmth. School was coming to an end for the year, but it didn’t feel like it at all—it still felt like the middle of winter-- which made it difficult to study for the final geography exam they would be subjected to tomorrow afternoon. Nothing hurt academic motivation like a seemingly eternal winter, thought Cirius.

“Come on, Cirius, you know this,” Nanaia said, rolling her eyes impatiently when he had been silent for too long.

“Sorry,” he mumbled. “Could you repeat the question?”

“What’s the capital of Archenland?” Nanaia replied. “I can write the question in big block letters for you, too, if you’re deaf.”

“I’m not deaf,” Cirius informed her haughtily. “It’s Tashbaan.”

“You may not be deaf, but you sure are dumb.” Nanaia smirked at him. “Tashbaan is the capital of Calormen, not Archenland.”

“It doesn’t matter.” Cirius made a dismissive gesture. “Nobody will be traveling to Archenland or Calormen any time soon in this terrible weather. You wouldn’t believe it was Greenleaf, would you, with that blizzard we had yesterday?”

“Spring should have arrived weeks ago.” Nanaia sighed and tilted her head back against the sofa cushions. “I don’t understand how it can be as cold as it was three months ago.”

“Spring should be here,” Cirius agreed, “but there is more snow and ice on the ground than there was at the start of winter. That just isn’t right.”

Then, remembering the conversation he had overhead at the first winter dance, which had been hovering on his mind more and more recently as winter obstinately refused to thaw into any semblance of spring, he craned his neck to ask his father, who was carving a tool at the kitchen table, “Will spring ever come again, Father?”

“I’ve never heard of a year without spring.” Belenus shrugged. “Then again, I’ve never heard of creatures being turned to stone, either, so, if the Witch can turn creatures to stone, what is to stop her from taking away winter?”

“She can turn creatures to stone?” echoed Cirius, horrified. He couldn’t imagine having to stand still forever, when having to remain seated without excessive wriggling in school for several hours was torture enough. He couldn’t picture what it would be like to spend eternity unable to talk when it was hard enough to resist the temptation to whisper to Nanaia, who sat beside him in school, whenever lessons got dull. He couldn’t envision what it would be like to be unable to sneeze or scratch himself when the urge struck. He couldn’t imagine what it would be like to be unable to laugh, smile, shout, or cry. He couldn’t imagine what it would be like to not breathe when he could barely hold his breath for a minute in a contest with Nanaia. He couldn’t understand what it would be like to stare into space forever when he could only force himself to do such a thing for a moment or two.

“Your father is just speaking a load of nonsense in a foolish attempt to give you gooseflesh,” Cirius’ mother Phaedra said, glaring at her husband as she stirred a pot of carrot soup that was sizzling over the stove, filling the room with its appetizing, pungent aroma. Her fury and fervor alerting Cirius to the fact that his father wasn’t speaking a load of nonsense more effectively than anything else could have, she added heatedly, “He ought to be too old for such cruel sport at the expense of children, but he insists that remaining young at heart involves retaining the very worst characteristics of childhood.”

Nanaia, after gaping, appalled, at Cirius for a moment that would be etched forever in his memory, burst into tears, saying, “I w-w-wanted a spring wedding with daises braided into my hair like ribbons, and now no flowers will ever bloom come any spring.”

As Phaedra abandoned her cooking and bustled over to wrap Nanaia in the comforting embrace she had enfolded Cirius in whenever his nightmares were too vivid or too real, Cirius swallowed hard. The way Nanaia had glanced at him before talking about her wedding surely meant that she had always wanted to be married to him, and that idea made him feel warm. With Nanaia by his side, it would always be spring in his heart, he told himself, even if it remained always winter in Narnia. That was especially true, he realized, because Nanaia made his head swim with seasons—her hair contained all the rich colors of autumn leaves; her eyes were the bright green of verdant spring grass; her smile was as wide as any summer sun.
 
It is when reading a good Narnian fanfic that I am reminded of HOW MUCH Mr. Lewis left blank in his imagined history of the Narnian world. Your description of daily life just before the winter curse descended reminds me of Evening Star's Narnian fiction, which is a compliment, believe me.

In the discussion of Jadis' motives, one line stood out for me, as having relevance to real-world history:

“People take over countries in order to increase their wealth, and it isn’t profitable to have a land where it is forever winter...."

The character who said this was underestimating the depth of Jadis' wickedness -- just as too many real-world people will underestimate the depth of wickedness in real-world evildoers. Money, luxury and pleasure ARE NOT the only motivators for tyrants. There is also SHEER DEMONIC MALICE. Deeply-depraved souls will sink so far as to defile and ruin things just because they ENJOY doing so -- like a spoiled brat spraying graffiti on a building just because he feels like it.

No doubt your characters will grasp all too soon just how monstrously bad Jadis really is.
 
Copperfox said:
It is when reading a good Narnian fanfic that I am reminded of HOW MUCH Mr. Lewis left blank in his imagined history of the Narnian world. Your description of daily life just before the winter curse descended reminds me of Evening Star's Narnian fiction, which is a compliment, believe me.

In the discussion of Jadis' motives, one line stood out for me, as having relevance to real-world history:

“People take over countries in order to increase their wealth, and it isn’t profitable to have a land where it is forever winter...."

The character who said this was underestimating the depth of Jadis' wickedness -- just as too many real-world people will underestimate the depth of wickedness in real-world evildoers. Money, luxury and pleasure ARE NOT the only motivators for tyrants. There is also SHEER DEMONIC MALICE. Deeply-depraved souls will sink so far as to defile and ruin things just because they ENJOY doing so -- like a spoiled brat spraying graffiti on a building just because he feels like it.

No doubt your characters will grasp all too soon just how monstrously bad Jadis really is.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the review, Copperfox. I aspire to write good Narnia fanfiction out of respect for the wonderful world Lewis created.

One of the things I love most about the Narnia series is that there are a lot of time periods (sometimes entire centuries) that Lewis provides only the barest details about, such as the centuries where Jadis or the Telmarines conquered Narnia, and we are free to fill in the blanks however much we would like to do so. It gives us a great opportunity to be creative, and, since I normally enjoy writing fanfiction about less explored characters or time periods, I appreciate that fact a lot.

The inspiration for this fic came from me wondering how it would feel to live through the Hundred Year Winter and what it would be like to realize for the first time that spring wouldn't be coming. I also realized that, at first, people, at least young ones, might rejoice as many children do for the first snowfall, because the people might not really understand what was going on. (I mean, who immediately assumes that their land is going to go through a Hundred Year Winter? Only a crazy pessimist, surely.)

You are right that there are a horrible number of people who do evil just because it pleases them to do evil (and that there isn't any "rational" reason, such as a desire for wealth or even power, that motivates them). I think a lot of essentially good-hearted people find it hard to understand the depths of that sort of depravity and want to assume that evil is motivated by some sort of "rational" reason rather than only out of a twisted desire to do evil.

I think that, as the winter continues, my characters will have no choice but to acknowledge the terrible, cold depths of Jadis' evil nature.
 
Where have all the young men gone?
Long time passing.
Where have all the young men gone?
Long time ago.
Where have all the young men gone?
Gone to become soldiers every one.
When will they ever learn?


Order

Eight-year-old Erebus, only son of Cirius and Nanaia, huddled under a mound of thick woolen blankets that weren’t quite heavy enough to block out the chill that seeped in through the canvas tent that he had erected with his father. The wind howling down the river made him fear that the tent might collapse upon their heads, but, he consoled himself, in the past two years he had accompanied his father on these ice-fishing expeditions, the tent had yet to fold in upon them. Trying to distract himself from his cold bones and the blood that felt as if it had frozen in his veins, he burrowed even deeper into his blankets, and said through chattering teeth, “Da, I’m not complaining but—“

“Go on,” his father told him wryly when he paused to gather his thoughts and figure out the best way to express the question that had been hovering in the back of his mind more and more recently. Cirius reached out from a second mountain of blankets to pat Erebus on the head. “I know that whatever you’re going to say will be bad if you feel the need to preface it with a warning that you aren’t complaining. Consider me braced.”

“Da, don’t you ever get tired of the cold, the snow, and the ice?” Erebus burst out before he could lose his courage. “Don’t you ever get bored with ice-fishing every two or three weekends? Don’t you ever wish you could do something—anything—else with that time?”

As soon as the last word poured out of his lips, Erebus ducked his head, ashamed. He knew that he shouldn’t even be thinking such things, nevertheless saying them aloud to his father. After all, it wasn’t an issue of wanting to go ice-fishing all the time; it was a matter of having to go ice-fishing frequently if the family wished to survive. They couldn’t live off the scant vegetables and fruits that the White Witch’s government agents, mostly dwarfs, provided them every month as rations. Nor could they survive off the food (mostly other family’s rations) that they traded for in the marketplace. They had to supplement those meager sources of food with fish and any game that happened to leave hibernation long enough to be hunted.

His cheeks flaming, he opened his mouth to apologize, but, before he could speak, his father answered softly, “Yes, yes, I do.”

When his son stared at him in astonishment, Cirius sighed and went on grimly, “I hoped to never have to explain this to you, Erebus. I thought that I only missed the other seasons because I knew what they were like, and I hoped that if you didn’t know what the other seasons were like, you wouldn’t feel their absence, but your question proves that this eternal winter is plain unnatural and that creatures instinctively long for the changes that the seasons bring.”

“Seasons?” His forehead knotting, Erebus repeated the unfamiliar word. “What were the seasons called and what were they like, Da?”

“Winter was cold, snowy, and icy as it is now, but it was filled with dances in the snow, skating on ponds and rivers, and sledding down hills.” A ghost of a smile flickered across Cirius’ face. “As impossible as it might be for you to imagine, when I was a lad, the first snowfall was a great delight for everyone, especially children. In fact, when the first flakes of this endless winter came, your mother and I celebrated, because it was a rare treat to have such an early snowfall, and we were excited by the prospect of school being cancelled the next day.”

“I can’t imagine that.” Not sure whether his father was pulling his leg, Erebus shook his head and wrinkled his nose.

“Well, then you’ll have an even harder time believing in a season called spring.” The rapturous expression that slid across his father’s features made it impossible for Erebus to doubt his honesty. “Spring meant the melting of snow, the blooming of flowers in every color, the sowing of plants, the eating of picnics in glades, the hunting of non-Talking animals, and spring dances celebrating rebirth. Oh, and you definitely wouldn’t believe in a season called summer. Summer meant swimming in gloriously cool rivers, running through the woods, laying in the meadows and feeling the sun—much warmer and brighter than in the winter—heating the skin, and eating juicy fruit with sunburned lips. You probably wouldn’t believe in autumn either, but autumn meant harvesting crops, watching green leaves change into every color, raking up fallen leaves, jumping in leaf piles, and making fresh apple cider. There were so many different colors, tastes, and textures that defined each season. I can’t even describe them to you. It would be like trying to explain daylight to a mole.”

“Seasons sound nice.” Wistfully, Erebus sighed, and then buried himself still more deeply in his blankets, trying to pretend that he was lying in a meadow with the summer sun blazing into his back and feeling fresh berries—fruit he had never tasted because trading for them was prohibitively expensive—burst against lips chaped from heat, not cold. “I wish they still came to Narnia.”

“So do I, Erebus.” With a callused palm, his father patted his cheek. “I haven’t experienced anything but winter since I was twelve, and that’s a very long time to live without springtime, summertime, or autumn.”

Determined to do anything to erase the wrinkles of sorrow creasing around his father’s eyes and to give himself the chance to bask in a sunny field filled with bright flowers, Erebus said, “Da, I’ll do everything that I can to bring the seasons back.”

“Don’t do anything foolish, son,” Cirius said sharply, shaking Erebus by the shoulder. “Promise me that you won’t get yourself killed fighting a battle that you can’t win against the White Witch.”

“I want to fight the White Witch.” Rebelliously, Erebus lifted his chin. “She’s evil.”

“You don’t understand how evil she is.” His father eyed him sternly. “She turns her enemies into stone, and she placed the curse of eternal winter upon this land because doing a cruel thing like that brings her pleasure. She derives joy from the suffering of others. Her greatest delight is to commit terrible crimes. She likes the power of controlling the seasons and the market, but being able to do evil is her ultimate goal. We can’t even begin to understand the blackness inside her, so we cannot even begin to fight against her. We can refuse to cooperate with her in small ways, but we cannot battle her when she has every advantage. We’d just get ourselves killed achieving nothing.”

“I hate her,” Erebus snarled, pummeling his knee with his fist and wishing that his knee were the White Witch, who was surely the vilest creature in Narnian history. “She’s a monster, and I hate her every gut.”

“Don’t talk like that, Erebus, or I’ll wash your mouth out with soap,” his father scolded. Then, seeing Erebus’ striken expression, he went on in a voice that was more sympathetic but still uncompromising, “Hating the White Witch damages your own soul and doesn’t hurt her at all. When you loathe her, you make her victory more complete. Hatred doesn’t drive out hatred; only love can do that. Fight her in your heart and your mind. Carry around the memory of the seasons she has tried to erase in the core of your being. Hold onto the hope of spring, the freedom of summer, and the plenty of autumn in your heart. Then she will never be able to defeat you. Fight the battle on your terms, not hers.”

“But, Da, I thought I wasn’t allowed to fight her?” Bewildered, Erebus cocked his head inquiringly.

“Physically, no; metaphysically, use every weapon at your disposal.” Smiling slightly at his son’s consternation, Cirius tapped the boy’s nose with his finger. “Now, son, promise me that you won’t get yourself killed doing anything foolish.”

“I promise,” Erebus whispered, his eyes big and solemn, and his mouth as dry as the desert dividing Calormen and Archenland. He could feel the weight of the words shaping his life already, and he couldn’t help but wonder if he would crush beneath them like a house built on an unstable foundation would crumble in a blizzard.
 
Restoration

Humming a nonsense tune to himself, Erebus sat at the kitchen table, salting fish, while in the chair opposite him, his girlfriend of three years, Theia, worked on her patchwork quilt. She was making the blanket in the hope that it would provide Erebus’ ailing father, who was always cold now, with some warmth.

Since Cirius was presumably asleep in the next room, and Nanaia had left to battle the snow down to the marketplace, where she wanted to trade some candlesticks for a few vegetables, Theia, whom Erebus knew to be involved in the underground resistance movement against the White Witch, dared to broach the topic and question that was taboo in Erebus’ house.

“Erebus,” she said, managing to keep her stitches perfect, even as she locked her gaze on his, “why don’t you involve yourself in the rebellion when I know that you hate the Witch and the perpetual winter as much as I do?”

“I promised Da long ago that I wouldn’t do anything foolish in an attempt to bring an end to the White Witch’s tyranny and to restore the seasons,” answered Erebus softly, remembering how wonderful it had been to hear his father describe the other seasons so many years ago when they were on one of their many ice-fishing expeditions. Sometimes he had gotten bored with the frequent ice-fishing trips they had been forced to make to sustain their family, but now he wished that they could huddle together in a tent assaulted by icy gales just one more time.

“You’re a grown faun, Erebus.” Sighing, Theia shook her head. “You’re ready to make your own decisions, and you’re father is hardly in a position to thrash you for being too much of a risk-taker.”

“So, you suggest that a real faun should just disobey his father and break his promises to the faun who raised him—who taught him everything he needs to know to live and act morally-- because that faun isn’t strong enough to knock him into shape?” Erebus hissed, his eyes blazing at the very implication that he should show such blatant irreverence to the dying faun in the next room. Spraying too much salt on a fish he was preserving in his vehemence and temper, he finished in a tone laced with bitter irony, “That sounds like a great way to honor my father. Instead of trying to comfort him in his last days, I should be doing everything in my power to distress him. Thank you for pointing that out to me.”

“Don’t take offense so easily,” Theia huffed, sticking her snub nose in the air. “I was just saying—“
“Well, next time you’re just saying something you can remember that Da was never much for thrashing—it was always a last resort with him and he preferred washing my mouth out with soap or assigning me extra chores or just giving me a stern lecture—and he raised me right,” snapped Erebus. “He taught me that real fauns keep their words and don’t get killed accomplishing nothing.”

“Dying in the fight to end oppression and endless winter isn’t achieving nothing,” Theia retorted, her cheeks burning as hot as her voice. “I hate to say it, but the reason that evil has been able to maintain its icy grip on Narnia for all these decades is because good fauns—like you and your father—sit safely around your hearths and refuse to fight the Witch and her terrible winter. Now that your father is old and sickly, he has an excuse not to join the battle, but what’s your excuse—young and fit as you are—for not participating in the resistance? Are you really such a coward that fear of dying prevents you from doing everything you can to restore a free Narnia?”
 
“If you think me a coward, I suggest that you court a different young faun brave enough and strong enough to meet your exacting tastes,” snarled Erebus, pounding his fist on the table, so that the salt shaker toppled over, scattering white grains all over the table that would be a nightmare to clean up before his mother came home and lamented the disarray her kitchen had fallen into during her brief absence.

“Lucky for you, I believe that, buried inside you, is the young faun brave enough and strong enough to meet my exacting tastes,” Theia replied with a wry smirk.

An acerbic comment that questioned just how fortunate he was that Theia harbored under this delusion was cut off before it could even begin to leave Erebus’ lips when his father called in a rasp from the next room, “Erebus!”

Rising and hurrying into his parents’ bedroom, Erebus tried not to think about how he had once obeyed that same implicit order to come to his father’s side when he was a rambunctious faun whose greatest skill had been finding trouble wherever it could possibly be located. It was hard to reconcile the full-throated shout his father had once been capable of with the choked voice that represented the man’s incredible struggle to speak. It was even more difficult to accept that the giant of Erebus’ childhood—whose knee had been large enough to accommodate his son, whose arms had been strong enough to bend a crossbow, and who had towered over Erebus for so many years—was now a hunched, frail creature with bones too weak to allow him to move out of bed without assistance.

“Son, would you carry me over to the chair by the fire?” whispered Cirius, and Erebus could see, in the tightening of the wrinkles lining his father’s cheeks, how much energy and effort each syllable cost the elderly faun.

“Of course, Father. Anything for you.” Gently and firmly, Erebus lifted his father--who was now so light that it seemed like a strong gust of wind could carry him all the way to Calormen without any strain—and carried him over to the seat by the roaring fire.

Tears welled up in Erebus’ eyes as he thought of how, so many years ago now, it had been his father who carried him into bed when he was a toddler who had probably weighed no more than Cirius did now. Blinking the moisture out of his eyes, because his father didn’t need to see him upset when he should be filling the old faun’s last days with as much joy as possible, Erebus busied himself with grabbing some blankets from his parents’ bed and arranging them around his father. Not permitting himself to recall how it had once been Cirus who had done the tucking in, he observed with as much cheeriness as he could muster, “Theia is making you a new quilt, you know. Won’t it be wonderfully warm when it is done?”

Nodding with an oddly content and serene expression on his face, Cirius closed his eyes and whispered, “The heat of the fire reminds me of what it was like to feel the sun on my cheeks in the summer.”

Watching his father’s face—aged and wrinkled by the winter that had been his entire adult life—turning to the fire as a weak imitation of a mighty summer sun, and hearing the dreadful yearning for warmth that winter could never give that was etched into the elderly faun’s tone, Erebus swore to himself that he would not allow himself to spend his whole life as his father had—waiting for seasons that would never return unless he acted to bring them back. It would be better, he resolved, to die fighting for the return of the seasons than to die waiting in the vain hope that they would come back of their own accord or through the sacrifice and valor of others.
 
CORIN THUNDERFIST II said:
This is excellent! You bring out the full horror of life in Narnia during the reign of Jadis. I am very much looking forward to reading about what happens next.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the review, Corin:D I'm happy to hear that you like this fic so much, and I hope that you'll continue to enjoy it. It is interesting (and scary) for me to explore what Narnia might have been like during Jadis' reign, though I do promise that there will be a happy ending in the last installment when Aslan returns to save the day...
 
Prophecy

Huddled in a quilt on a sofa before his cackling fire with his five-year-old son, Tumnus, balanced on his knee, and the sounds of his wife of seven years, Theia, washing the supper dishes as a pleasant background music, Erebus tried to pretend that everything was right in his world. That was so hard to do, though, when his little boy was shivering against his chest.

“I’m freezing, Da,” said Tumnus, rubbing his hands along his legs in what was probably a vain attempt to warm himself. He didn’t phrase it as if it were a complaint, but rather as though it were an unalterable fact and an unchangeable reality of his existence.

The defeatism infused in his son’s words hurting him more than any mutinous grumble or shrill whine could have, Erebus felt, once again, the burning shame that came from the terrible realization that all the fire, blankets, and warmth he could provide were not enough to keep Tumnus moderately comfortable.

Thanking Aslan that at least the heart broke so quietly that nobody could hear because he didn’t need any more of his child’s innocence shattered by that sound, Erebus hugged Tumnus still more tightly and promised, “Son, one day Narnia will be warm again because your mother and I are fighting to make it so.”

“How do you know that winter will ever end?” Tumnus bit his lip, and Erebus wondered what would happen to the next generation if spring and the seasons didn’t return soon. The only memory of good plentiful, and free times they would have were stories told to them second-hand by tellers who couldn’t imagine what it would be like to feel so hot that jumping into a cold, babbling brook would be a glorious relief and couldn’t imagine the wonderful crunch made when a young faun leaped into a pile of crisp, colorful leave. That had to be comparable to being weaned on poisoned milk.

“Centaurs, who are never wrong in their predictions, have prophesied that at the sound of Aslan’s roar, winter will be no more, and when Aslan shakes His mane, it shall be spring again,” murmured Erebus, sharing with his son the prophecies he had first heard when he joined the resistance. He held these predictions close to his heart as assurance that the war he fought would eventually be won even if he didn’t live to see the victory.

“When Aslan comes will it be spring for those the Witch has turned to stone?” asked Tumnus, sounding as if he believed this to be as impossible as raising the dead.

“It’s said that those the Witch has made statues are only asleep, and when Aslan returns to Narnia, He will breathe upon them, they will awaken, and they will join Him in His battle against the White Witch, in which He will emerge triumphant.” Smiling, Erebus tapped his son on the nose. “Speaking of sleep, it’s time for young fauns to go to bed.”

“I’m not young, and I’m not tired, either, Da,” Tumnus protested, trying and failing to conceal a massive yawn behind his hand.

“You’re going to bed, anyway, Tumnus,” countered Erebus firmly, sliding his child off his knee. “Good night, son.”

“Good night, Da.” Admitting defeat, Tumnus bent over to give his father a hug and a swift kiss on the cheek.

Watching his son walk over to say good night to Theia, who was still scrubbing the supper dishes, Erebus prayed silently and fervently, Come, Great Lion, free Your beloved creatures from the Witch’s tyranny. Come cheer our spirits by Your arrival here. Destroy the cold of winter, and bring the statues to life. Fulfill every prophecy about You sooner than we could hope and more deeply than we could possibly imagine. Save my son, Aslan, because I can’t even keep him warm.
 
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