Whose Name is called Immanuel

What is Christmas? A small Telmarine wonders.

Festive one-shot, post Prince Caspian.

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A/N: For those who liked Garian, for those who like Caspian, and for all those who like a little Narnia with their Christmas – Merry Christmas :)

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"Christmas." Garian tried out the word carefully. "What is Christmas?"

He wasn't really expecting an answer, and he got none, only Lizzie turning her head to huff warm clouds of white, horsey breath at him in the cold air of the stable. He rubbed her nose gently, and she turned back to her hay.

Garian sighed out a small white cloud of his own. "I don't s'pose you'd know, would you, Lizzie? I don't think Lord Sopespian had Christmas on his estate. Only the fireworks."

Garian sighed again. For as long as he could remember, which was all the nine years he had lived with his great-aunt and a very very little of when Father and Mother had been alive before that, mid-winter had been marked by the commemorations of King Miraz' birthday, two days before the shortest day. "Fireworks for the grand folk and bonfires for the poor folk, and both of them a waste of money," Garian's great-aunt would grumble every year. She never went to the village bonfire, but she would let Garian go, with a bundle of sticks because you were meant to bring something, however poor you were. And, even when the other boys from the village made fun of him for bringing nothing more than sticks, Garian still felt it was fun. Standing about in the dark around a crackling, roaring fire; the occasional offer of part of a baked potato if someone had had a good enough harvest to put a few potatoes in the fire; the three cheers for the king once the fire started to die down: it was a shame it was a waste of money.

It was also a shame that the new King Caspian had his birthday in the spring. It was the one thing Garian felt was disappointing about the new situation in Narnia. But then, cheering for Miraz had not brought them Lizzie, nor the wakened Trees and talking Beasts, and those were certainly worth facing a long, dark winter with no bonfires for.

On this thought, Garian leaned over from his perch on the corn bin to give Lizzie's flank a quick rub. She huffed into her hay, and Garian grinned. Lizzie didn't need to be a Talking Horse – except that if she had been, she might have been able to answer the questions which had been bubbling in him since that afternoon.

Garian and Lizzie had been down in the village to barter half a sack of carrots (very large and fine ones grown on Lizzie's manure) to the miller for a sack of corn, to keep Lizzie warm and fed in this cold snowy weather. It had been a successful errand, and Garian had just been strapping the corn sack onto Lizzie's back for the walk home, when there had been a sharp, noisy chakking from middle of the village green. Perched on top of the well-house had been a huge Magpie.

Its "Chak-chak-chak!" had brought all the villagers rushing out to see it. The sight of the miller, fat and puffing and with his apron strings flying out behind him, running to look at a bird would have been quite exciting enough as far as Garian was concerned. But the Magpie had produced a large scroll from under its wing and read out a proclamation, in the Name of the King, that a thing called 'Christmas' was to celebrated by a feast across all Narnia in a week's time.

If Christmas meant a feast, it sounded good. "But what is it?" Garian enquired again of the quiet stable.

Lizzie seemed to be tired of this question, for she gave a very petulant huff and stamped one back foot warningly. Garian slid off the corn-bin. "It matters, you know," he objected. "If we're meant to celebrate something, we need to know what it is. And I don't know, and you don't know, and all Aunt will say is that it's stuff and nonsense for the grand folks and no difference to the poor, just like she did when the proclamation came in the summer about Aslan and the new King."

Lizzie's twitching tail seemed to agree, and Garian shook his head in despair. "We ought to know, Lizzie. Really, ought." He shut the stable door with a bang for emphasis.

If it had been cold enough to see your breath inside the stable, it was much much colder than that outside. Garian's breath felt rather as if it was freezing inside him, and the cold from the crunching snow underfoot seized his toes as if he hadn't any boots on at all. Despite this, Garian paused and stared up at the clear, star-filled sky. What was Christmas?

It had to be something. And since it was something from the new King, it must be something that either he had thought of new, to make up for having his birthday in the spring, or something from Old Narnia. The first idea was exciting; the second made Garian's toes tingle for quite another reason than the cold. If Christmas was Old Narnia-!

Well, what?

As cold as the snow, the realisation sank into Garian that he didn't know any way at all to find out. There had been quite a few Old Narnians about in the summer and autumn, as Garian and Lizzie had come and gone to the common and down to the village and through the woods to sell cabbages. But with the snow, he no longer met Dryads whisking graciously along the forest paths, or a dwarf passing on the road with a small pony of his own.

Garian kicked at the snow with his good boot; the one without a hole in the toe. The only Old Narnians he knew where to find were the Black Dwarves who had opened a smithy in the woods beyond the next village. They did excellent work and good business, since the village smith had, for reasons Garian could not fathom at all, not stayed in Narnia – but that didn't make them the sort of people you could really go up to in cold blood and say: "Please, what's Christmas?"

Besides which, the last time he had met the Black Dwarves had been when he had taken Lizzie to have a shoe replaced, and his own boot had just been wearing through into the hole. The dwarf working on Lizzie had noticed, and tapped Garian on the toe with the hammer, and said "Fix that for you for a crescent!" He'd laughed, as if he'd meant it kindly, and all the other dwarves had laughed too – but Garian hadn't a spare coin in the world. At the very memory, he tucked his boot behind his leg. He couldn't go back there. At least not until the weather was warm enough to go barefoot once more.

Garian sighed another vast white cloud into the frosty air. What was Christmas? He should have asked the Magpie, but it would probably not have had time for a small, twelve-year-old Telmarine with a hole in one boot and no money.

Who would have time for a small, twelve-year-old Telmarine with a hole in one boot and no money?

Someone at the Castle, said the most inexplicable little voice at the back of his mind – a voice so clear though small Garian actually looked round to see who had spoken. No-one was there, but it was quite true. If Christmas was an idea of the new King's, everyone at the Royal Castle would know what it was! And somebody, somebody, would surely tell him. Especially … Garian's mind ranged to the cabbages hanging by their roots from the cellar ceiling. If Christmas was a feast, the Beaversdam cook would certainly want the biggest cabbage. If he, Garian, offered it at a very reasonable price, the cook would be in a good humour and tell him what Christmas was.

Garian nodded in decision. The tongue-lashing he would get from his great-aunt for selling the biggest cabbage would be worth it, to know what Christmas was. He would waste no time. He and Lizzie would go to Beaversdam in the morning.

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A/N: Answers to follow! I just have to go make marzipan first... :)