Narnia: When Children Cry

My first phanphic, so be merciful, I beg of you!

SUMMARY:

Part One: Basically, Tumnus' story of his friendship with Lucy.

Part Two: Their friendship after Lucy becomes Queen Lucy the Valiant of Narnia.

Part Three: Lucy and Tumnus reunite many years later, and how their friendship progresses into something more (let's all guess what that is, shall we?)

Disclaimer: I don't own Lucy, Tumnus, or anything, really, in Part One. I get to own more stuff as the book progresses... but for now, I own nothing; I am simply a phanphiction hobo.

Chapter One:

No Cakes!

The truth is this: the whole thing might not have ever happened if Tumnus had cakes in his pantry. Lucy, the human girl, would not have ever met the faun. For you see, it was because of her friendship with Tumnus that she returned each time to Narnia. If she had not gone back, her brothers and sisters would have not entered the wardrobe, thus the White Witch would be left undefeated, and Narnia would have never again known the joys of summer, Narnia would have always had four empty thrones at Cair Paravel. So, I suppose it was Aslan's will that on that day in the Long Winter, the faun Tumnus was frightfully hungry, but at a loss for cakes.

Tumnus frowned at the barren cupboard. There wasn't a speck of food visible, and a fat grey rodent in the corner. Tumnus shooed the mouse away, closing the pantry door with a sigh of resent. He should've bought something earlier, when it wasn't quite so bitingly frigid out-of-doors.

But it is always cold now, thought the faun with more than a trace of bitterness. For it is always winter. It's because of HER. The White Witch. Jadis. A wave of sad, quiet guilt gushed over his soul. And I? I can't say I'm any better.

For he had taken service under her.

It wasn't as though he'd had much choice in the matter. At first, he'd seen only the spray of snow, only heard the silvery echo of bells. Like a flash, he'd found himself curled into a fetal position against a snow-crested birch, and the Witch's wand in a perpendicular path to his harshly breathing chest.

"Spare me," he'd moaned. "Give me my life, and I'll do what you want, whatever it may be!" Oh, he regretted it later, even regretted it in that moment. His father, his noble faun father, would never have shown such cowardice and shame.

The Witch then smirked with all the coldness she'd bestowed upon Narnia. "I knew you'd see things my way." Jadis lifted her wand away from his heart. "Now... your name, faun."

He couldn't speak in fear.

The White Witch's voice had risen "Have you gone mute, scum, or do you really have the impertinence to ignore your queen's demands! Now answer me, creature, with your name! "

The figure cowering against the tree had licked his lips. "T-t-t... Tumnus, my lady."

She'd bent down to meet his eye level. "Tumnus," she'd murmured, tracing her long finger down the side of his face, then across his jaw line. Tumnus sprang back in shock. Never, in all the Long Winter, had he encountered anything as utterly freezing as that second-long touch.

She had looked him directly in the eye. Tumnus couldn't help but have this overpowering emotion of fear. "I want you to do something for me, Tumnus," she'd whispered. "Undoubtedly, you've heard of the prophecy of Cair Paravel."

Tumnus nodded briskly.

"Then you shall know that any human creature that walks in my domain shall be... done away with," she'd finished. "So I need you to promise me something, faun."

She was terrifyingly close. Her breath was comprised of minuscule crystals, her words were seductive and slippery with persuasion, and Tumnus was petrified of her cold beauty. The words seemed to be choked out of his reluctantly scared throat: "Anything you ask, my lady."

She had smiled wickedly. "I need you to promise me this: that should you ever see a Son of Adam or a Daughter of Eve, you should befriend it." Tumnus furrowed his brow in slight perplexity. "Pretend, will you? Act as though you mean to be the best of friends. Then when you've got the human brute under your thumb, take it to your home (wherever that may be), and lull it to sleep." Tumnus thought this a rather easy task, but was no simpleton. There was more to this request. "Once it's gone to sleep, you shall then hand it over to me, and I'll... take care of things."

Kill it. Torture first, perhaps, but kill it undoubtedly, Tumnus knew.

"Promise me, faun. Swear to me, your queen."

He'd opened his throat and managed to croak out, "As you wish, my lady. I swear to you, I shall fulfill your request."

She had once again smiled temptingly. "Thank you, Tumnus." She fingered a lock of his hair, and Tumnus tried not to wince from the inhumanly cold touch. Then, as quickly as she'd come, she had retreated to her sleigh in all its grandeur, for it was as pale and cold as she.

The dwarf in the front of the sledge was seconds away from whipping the horses when Tumnus had called, "Wait, Your Majesty!"

The Witch had fixed her lifeless gaze on him.

"How am I to get the human to fall asleep?"

Once again, for the final time, she let her lips curve upwards in the dangerously enigmatic smile. "The box in your hands, faun. Play the human creature music, but do not use the tool for any other purpose." Tumnus looked down to his fingers to find that she'd slid a box into his grasp when he hadn't noticed.

"Oh, and Tumnus?"

He looked up at her once more.

"Betray me, and you shall compensate for it with such pain that you can't fathom." And with the flick of a silver whip, she had disappeared before he could blink.

Tumnus shuddered as he recalled the memory. How could he have been so foolish, so dishonorable to accept the Witch's task?

He knew why.

It was unlikely, perhaps the most unlikely thing in the world that he should run into a human in the wood. The Western Wood held numerous mysteries, but he felt sure that humans weren't one of them. And giving his word to the Witch gave him leverage, he felt sure.

All the same, Tumnus fingered the box she'd given him with a guilty conscience, now safe in his own den. He'd opened it soon after the Witch's departure on that day so long ago, to discover that it held a wooden flute, one of the finest he'd ever seen. The instrument split into two pipes at the end in the stead of one long pipe. He was quite familiar with it, being a musician himself. Yet he'd compared the queen's instrument with his own to discover that the holes in the new flute were differently sized than his own. How on earth did she expect him to play a human to sleep if he the instrument would play no song? Ah, but no human would wander into Narnia. That he knew.

Still, should such a thing happen, he would be forced to hold to his word.

But suppose the human were a child...

Tumnus was terribly fond of children. He thought, knew with every fiber of his being that children should never cry. Children should be happy as much as possible before they had to enter the terrifying grown-up world. Thus, the last place a tear should appear (though sadly the most common) is on a face so young. Tumnus avoided at all costs for such a sorrowful thing to happen, and certainly not on his account. And if... If he had to turn over a human child to the White Witch...

Ah, but he was thinking nonsense. He had errands to run. So, minutes later, with a red muffler round his neck and a snow umbrella hooked over his wrist, Tumnus stepped a cloven hoof into the wintry frost.

Ack, it's not the best I could've done… Oh well.

Sorry if it was a little long, I get carried away, you know?

Read and Review, please!