Tea and Stories for bedlamsbard

[nfe-gremlin.livejournal.com]

Title: Tea and Stories
Author: angel_in_tears
Recipient: bedlamsbard
Rating: G
Possible Spoilers/Warnings: Mentions of events prior to The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe
Summary: Lucy couldn’t wait to see Mr Tumnus again.

Tea and Stories


Lucy sighed happily as she came through the wardrobe and saw the lamppost glistening in the distance. It hadn’t been a dream, no matter what the others said. She was back in Narnia, and she was going to see Mr Tumnus again, and that would show them all. Running now, she hurried from the lamppost, trying to remember her steps to Mr Tumnus’ house.

Turning past a tree, she saw it, light glowing merrily from the gap in the door. Hurrying forward she knocked quickly and waiting, bouncing from foot to foot. The door opened a gap and an eye looked at her before the door swung wide and a smiling Mr Tumnus was ushering her inside.

“Lucy Pevensie, well I never,” Mr Tumnus exclaimed. “I never thought to see you again, not after you had left for the shining land of Ward Robe. How did you come to be back in Narnia?”

Lucy giggled. “My brothers and sister didn’t believe me so I came back to prove to myself that this was true, that this was all real. Could we have tea again? Oh please. I can stay as long as I like.”

Mr Tumnus bowed and offered her a chair, before gathering the tea things. There was toast with deliciously melting squares of butter, little sardines and little cakes and a seat by the roaring hot fire. Mr Tumnus poured the tea, before turning.

“Would you like to hear some stories of Narnia Lucy?” he queried. “Seeing as you’re from a different land?”

“Oh yes please,” Lucy nodded, clutching her cup of tea tightly.

“Well,” Mr Tumnus began. “I shall tell you what I know of Narnia then.”

Mr Tumnus talked for hours. There were stories of the beginning of Narnia, legends that had been handed down in his family from faun to faun. Always Aslan was mentioned, a name that made Lucy feel warm and happy. A name that evoked hope. Whenever there was danger, Aslan was soon there.

Mr Tumnus talked about the Queen, or the White Witch as he would whisper. She had destroyed everyone in a different realm, a realm far away from Narnia, and was accidentally brought to Narnia by the first humans to visit the land. She ate the fruit of everlasting life and became immortal, retreating to the north of the land. She plotted and schemed and slowly began to gain control over Narnia, using the winter to hide her march. Without Aslan, there was not much to be done, all submitted to her rule. Those that fought, soon became statues for her palace of ice and stone. All the good parts of winter were taken, the happiness of snowball fights, the joy of Christmas, the fun of ice skating – she banned them all. They all prayed and hoped for a day where their fate would change, when Aslan would return.

He talked about his father, and of his mother. They were good fauns. They only ever tried to do what was right by everybody. He would sit on his father’s lap for hours, listening to all kinds of stories about Narnia. His mother would just shake her head, as she walked past, telling her husband that he was “encouraging all kinds of nonsense with this talk”. One day he came home to find his father getting ready to leave, while his mother cried.

“He knelt and said to me, son, look after your mother, there’s a good lad,” Mr Tumnus whispered, his eyes shining. “And then he was off to war and we never saw him again. He could be a statue in that evil palace for all we know.”

Mr Tumnus sniffed and grabbed a handkerchief from the table next to him, noticing with surprise it was the one Lucy gave him.

“I believe I owe you this back,” he said.

Lucy smiled and shook her head. “Keep it, you do need it more than I do.”

He nodded and put it back next to him neatly.

“My father’s off fighting a war at the moment,” Lucy said quietly. “I wish he would come home and then we wouldn’t have to stay in the country. It’s nice there, but it’s not home. And we’re so far away from Mother.”

Mr Tumnus patted her knee awkwardly and poured more tea. “I’m sure he will be home soon, and all will be okay.”

Lucy nodded, sipping her tea. “I wish I could protect him. Sometimes I have nightmares that he’s all alone and no one is there to look after him.” A tear slowly trickled down her cheek.

Leaning forward, Mr Tumnus took the tea from her hand and put it down. Holding her hand, he looked her in the eye.

“I do believe, Lucy Pevensie, that all will be okay in the end. He will be home before you know it, and he would not want to think that you were upset for him. I’m sure he is thinking that you are all happy and safe and that in turn makes him happy and strong.”

Lucy smiled and threw her arms around Mr Tumnus impulsively in a hug. “You are a kind and wonderful faun, Mr Tumnus. The kindest I’ve ever met, I’m sure. I think I should probably be getting back now.”

Standing up, she left a shocked Mr Tumnus still sitting in his chair. He wasn’t sure what to think of hugs yet. Realising that she was heading for the door he jumped up quickly.

“I will walk you back, Lucy, the woods aren’t safe.”

“Nonsense!” Lucy exclaimed. “It is just a short walk and I wouldn’t want the White Witch to know I’ve been visiting you again, you would get into trouble!”

With another quick hug, Lucy ducked out of the door before Mr Tumnus could object. When she got to the trees, she turned and waved, racing off to try and keep warm.

The lamp post was in sight when she had another surprise.

“Edmund? Oh Edmund you got in too, it’s so wonderful!”

She hugged him quickly, thinking all was right in the world again.

Original Prompt that we sent you:
What I want: In LWW, Tumnus and Lucy have a second meeting while Edmund runs into the White Witch. I'd like to see what happened during their meeting: stories? conversation? music?

I have long had a dream of a noir-ish mystery set during the Long Winter with Maugrim and the Secret Police as the protagonists.

What kind of fairy tales do they have in Narnia? Maybe set during the Long Winter?

If none of these tickle your fancy or if you have a really great idea that you've been dying to write, just please write whatever makes you happy.

Prompt words/objects/quotes/whatever: *If we are facing in the right direction, all we have to do is keep on walking. -- Buddhist Proverb

*"Everyone is mine to torment." -- Game of Thrones

*Tomorrow we may come this way
And take the hidden paths that run
Towards the Moon or to the Sun. -- The Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien

*fire exposes our priorities

*"I'd better not arrive in hell and find you're not there."

Comments

[jn208505.livejournal.com]

This was fantastic! Very well written! Fit right into the story. Flowed well! Liked it alot! Good work!

[angel-in-tears.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much :)

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

Oh, this is delightful! I like that stories about Narnia and the White Witch are passed down from word of mouth, and that Tumnus remembers them and does the same. And, oh, Lucy, coming back just to prove to herself that she hadn't made it all up.

Thank you very much, anon!

[angel-in-tears.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad you liked it <3 I'm sorry I couldn't use all of your prompts, but this one struck my muse best :)

[moriwen1.livejournal.com]

Lovely little story, and very much in the style and spirit of the original. Cheery and idyllic but bittersweet because we know what comes after. Mr. Tumnus reassuring Lucy about her father is very sweet.

[angel-in-tears.livejournal.com]

Thank you heaps! :)

[snitchnipped.livejournal.com]

Aww, this story has a quiet bittersweetness to it—the fact that Tumnus and Lucy have in common the fact that their fathers went off to war. It does make you wonder if perhaps Tumnus' father could possibly have been frozen into a statue and liberated by Aslan!

You captured their friendship very nicely, and I like the deceptively happy note that it ends on—that all is right in the world, but in reality, things were just starting to get shaken up!

Thank you for the lovely story!

[angel-in-tears.livejournal.com]

I would actually love that, if his father was found and liberated <3 :) Thank you very much!

[rthstewart.livejournal.com]

This is a lovely gap filler. I really liked how Lucy and Tumnus have the link between them, the fathers at war. You capture Tumnus' duality, too, in that he is a spy for the witch but he also likes and sympathizes with Lucy, and is very sympathetic to her. There would be a great follow on to this where we get his pov on the similarities he sees between the two of them in missing fathers and the fears of losing them.

Well done!

[angel-in-tears.livejournal.com]

That sounds like a good idea actually, I might give that a try :)
Thank you! :)

[turkeyish.livejournal.com]

Oh, how I love this. Short and sweet and a little bit sad. And it fits so well into the book - you've totally nailed it in terms of tone, etc. Well done!

[angel-in-tears.livejournal.com]

Thanks heaps <3 :)

[edenfalling]

This is adorable! I love how happy Lucy is to have proof that Narnia is real, and how pleased she and Mr. Tumnus clearly are to see each other -- he has obviously been in need of a friend for some time, probably since before he became an informant, and Lucy is equally in need of support given the war, the separation from her parents, and now her siblings' refusal to believe her. And yet there are darker undercurrents, since Narnia is trapped in a magical winter, after all; Tumnus is in danger; and while Edmund now knows Narnia is real, Lucy will not get the reconciliation she expects at the close of this story. I particularly like how that darkness mostly exists around the edges, in the outside knowledge readers bring to the fic, rather than in the text itself; that's a neat structural technique.

[angel-in-tears.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much <3

[autumnia]

This is a lovely little filler that fits right in with the scenes from the book. Lucy and Tumnus have much in common here and I love seeing the faun comforting her and it's interesting to see how he reacts to her even though he's a spy for the Witch. But it looks like he's already changing sides since he offered to escort her back to the lamppost even though it's dangerous for both of them.

[angel-in-tears.livejournal.com]

Thanks you so much :)

[ceitfianna]

This is charming. I love this glimpse into their friendship and how they help each other.

[angel-in-tears.livejournal.com]

Thank you :D <3

[heliopausa.livejournal.com]

This is so gentle, a window of warmth in a really bleak world! I like the way you bring us right into the quiet warmth of the afternoon with Tumnus ("...toast with deliciously melting squares of butter, little sardines and little cakes and a seat by the roaring hot fire... ") against which the background stories, the past of what happened to Tumnus' father, and Lucy's fears for her own father, and Edmund's imminent betrayals, are all the more chilling. "...the woods aren't safe... " and the reader shivers for Lucy in her innocence, setting off on her short walk, with no idea how much "trouble" there could be. Well done!

[angel-in-tears.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much for your kind words <333

[starbrowsings.livejournal.com]

How lovely! You've captured the sweetness and empathy of the relationship between Tumnus and Lucy, through the little glimpses of the histories he shares, their common backgrounds of war, and the way they comfort each other. I can very much picture all of this happening in LWW.

[angel-in-tears.livejournal.com]

Thank you! :) Lucy and Tumnus are two of my favourite characters, I love their interactions :)

[pencildragon11.livejournal.com]

Aww, what a sweet little story of Lucy and Tumnus telling stories to each other. I like how he opens up and starts talking about his parents, and remembers who he was meant to be, and Lucy comforting him and then skipping off confidently through the woods is just dear, especially before that innocently suspenseful ending.

[angel-in-tears.livejournal.com]

:) Thank you so much!

[deepdarkwaters.livejournal.com]

I always wondered a bit about the Pevensies' parents, they're not mentioned very often in the books. Really nice to see that discussed, and how much their parents obviously mean to both of them :)

[angel-in-tears.livejournal.com]

Me too! I wish they had've been discussed more in the books :) Thank you very much!