Previously posted as part of a Multifandom Drabble Collection.

Title: The Golden Age of Love
Author: Winter Ashby (rosweldrmr)
Disclaimer: Narnia © C.S. Lewis
Rating: K+
Summary: She loved him... (Mr. Tumus/Lucy (older))
Authors Notes: Done for kaiwynn's NARNIA UNCANON DRABBLE-A-THON at LJ

She loved him sweetly, with all the child-like innocence of a first love. She loved when he played the flute for her, because it was melodic and familiar. It reminded her of a home she no longer associated with humanity. War and bombs and a generation of fathers lost to a cause she was too young to understand.

She grew, older, wiser, more valiant with each passing year. And Narnia became home, body and soul. Until she no longer recalled another life, just beyond the lamppost and through the wardrobe.

She loved him as her companion in adventure. She loved him as her companion in triumph. She loved him as hers. Hers to love, and hers to keep. She loved him when he took her on solitary walks by the eastern seas. She loved him with each passing year as she grew taller, as daughters of eve were prone to do – and he remained so much the same.

She asked him once, why he didn't age.

And he smiled, lips curled at the edges with so much joy. "Fauns do not age the way humans do, young Queen Lucy."

Already in her teens, she looped her arm in his and watched the waves lap at the stone-strewn shore.

She loved him, as young girls often do, when he was away; visiting the farther reaches of her kingdom, past the Western mountains, to the seas that lay unclaimed. And she loved him still, when he returned three years later, more bronze than she remembered him ever being.

His smile was radiant when he greeted her. Open arms, strong hands, and bare chest. He smelled of spring. Even in the dead of winter, he always smelled of fresh rain and rich earth, wet bark and saplings.

She loved him the first time she kissed him. Bashful and blushing, she touched the tips of her lips to the corner of his in a not-quite-accidental greeting. He took her hand in his patted it, reassuringly and bent to offer his thanks. Lips to lips.

He still played the flute for her.

Even after she was gone, and the world faded into darkness once again.

She loved him, even when she was a child again, because she could still recall the feel of his lips and the sound of his flute just before she fell to sleep.