Peace. Respond to a request for help.

Lucy sees Aravis, the young Tarkheena who arrived in Archenland with Prince Cor that summer, sitting idly in the snow. She is fourteen or fifteen, very pretty, and looks every bit a princess as Lucy could imagine, even now, with her skirts folded underneath her in two inches of snow, her face turned towards the sky, snowflakes falling in her dark eyelashes, sparkling in her dark hair. Aravis shakes them out of her hair a few times as Lucy makes her way over to her. Lucy kneels next to the Tarkheena in the snow. "My lady," Lucy whispers. "Are you not cold?"

Aravis starts a little, and looks at Lucy suspiciously. "Your Majesty," she says. She nods her head respectfully, but does not stand. Lucy sits next to her. "The cold I feel is negligible. I have never seen snow before. It is warm where I come from."

"Where is that you come from, Tarkheena?" Lucy wonders. Lucy loves Calormen, even Tashbaan. It is hot and crowded and beautiful there. There is music in the streets and vendors selling their wares with verve. In the south, there are lush, green forests, and golden beaches with rough, gritty sand and the smell of the ocean for miles. There are rivers that run north to south and west to east, and oases in the desert. The temples to Tash were grand expressions of faith.

"Rishtibaan," Aravis says dully, still staring at the sky. "In the south. Further south than Shasta."

"What's it like there?" Lucy asks.

"Warm," she sighs. "Green. Fruit grows on the trees all year long, the water in the lake is always warm. There are wide, open fields and a little ways off there's a wood, and the trees –they're not like this. They have broad leaves and thick bark."

"Do you miss it?"

"Sometimes," she admits. "My father and mother, and my brother. My friends. I miss the warmth. But I'm glad that I'm here." She sighs and reaches out her hands to catch a snowflake. "The snow…it's beautiful."

"Yes," sighs Lucy. "My home," she says. "Well, not my home…Narnia is my home…but where I'm from, Spare Oom, was cool and rainy, and when we left there was war. The streets were all paved and there were machines that spewed smog. But that's where my parents were. I miss them too."

"My mother and brother are dead," Aravis mumbles. "My father gave me a way to a man three times my age. I know he wanted what was best for me, a man in the Tisroc's (may he live forever) inner circle, but…" Aravis's voice trails off. She shakes her head. "I still miss him."

"That's normal," Lucy assures her, taking her hands. They're ice cold. "Here," Lucy says. "Archenland, it's a fresh start for you. It's a fresh start for everyone who has the courage to take it." Aravis nods. "Tomorrow is Christmas. In my land, Christmas is a celebration of birth. Of a fresh start."

"Who was born?" asks Aravis.

Lucy frowns. Every year the memories get more and more distant. The things they keep in Narnia, the wreaths and the decorated trees, the green and the red, Father Christmas, those she remembers better. She remembers squabbling with Susan, their last Christmas is Spare Oom, about whether Father Christmas was real or not. Edmund had told her he wasn't –he was a lie, to trust him because the older boys told him so –and Lucy, in tears tried to tell on him to Peter and Susan, when to her dismay, Peter and Susan both informed her that, while it was a rotten thing for Edmund to spoil Christmas for her, there was nothing they could do to make Father Christmas real. She remembers long, dull services, and a dress that was even more uncomfortable than usual, and a lot of songs about birth, a lot that she could remember only a few bars from. They remind her of Aslan, but she knows there was no Aslan in Spare Oom.

"Well," Lucy says slowly. "Someone they consider a savior there. I don't remember what he's called, but he was born on Christmas and when he grows up he saves the whole world. And anyway, there are winter celebrations throughout the whole world, at least where it's cold. The days start to get longer after Christmas. It starts to get warmer. The winter –it's almost over. That's what's important in Narnia, at any rate."

"We don't have those, where I'm from," Aravis says. "But I learned about them. When you get round to the other side of the winter, and you look forward to the spring so you can grow crops again. But where I'm from, we can grow all year round. So there are only winter celebrations in the North near the desert."

Lucy smiles. "When we came here, it was always winter, never Christmas."

"I heard the story."

"It never got round to Christmas, and the Narnians, for a long time, thought they never would see the spring or Aslan again," Lucy remembers. This she remembers well –the way Tumnus' voice dropped in despair when Lucy mentioned Christmas, when the Beavers saw Father Christmas for the first time in their lives. The light that radiates from Father Christmas every winter, melting snow in his path. "But when we came, Father Christmas came and Aslan wasn't far behind him."

"You brought Christmas back to Narnia?" Aravis asks, a little breathless.

"No," Lucy laughs. "Aslan brought Christmas back to Narnia. Aslan…he is Christmas. He comes to Narnia and summons Father Christmas and Father Christmas brings the spring. But the first Christmas, the Narnians needed to hope for spring, for the White Witch to be gone. They never had that before –not for a hundred years."

Aravis laughs softly and shakes her head, snowflakes dancing around her. "It all sounds a little fantastic to me," she mumbles.

Lucy smiles and pulls Aravis up by her hands. She looks her right in the eye. "It does to me, as well," Lucy assures her. "And yet, every winter we have a Christmas and winter has always been followed by a spring as long as I've been here." Lucy rubs Aravis' frozen hands between hers. "A fresh start."

"A fresh start," Aravis echoes. "A fresh start."

A/N: Week 4/4! This is a day late and I just wrote it right now, but I hope you enjoyed this, and I am thinking about doing one every year. I love Aravis and I don't know how to write her, but she's my fave. I'll probably be updating The Gentle, for those of you who are wondering, some time in January, also, if you happen to be waiting for that. Have a safe and merry Christmas and a happy New Year!