April Showers Prompt #4, They Who Are Coming (Chronicles of Narnia)
Title: They Who Are Coming
Author: mrstater
Prompt: #4, Spring is sprung / De grass is riz / I wonder where dem birdies is? / De little birds is on de wing / Ain’t dat absurd? / De little wing is on de bird! (Anonymous, "Spring is Sprung")
Fandom: The Chronicles of Narnia
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Tumnus
Genre: general
Rating & Warnings: rated PG for mild violence and strong religious themes
Word Count: 539
Summary: The arrest of Tumnus the Faun.
As he stamps his hooves on the stoop and tamps the snow off of his umbrella, Tumnus casts his gaze around at the winter wonderland surrounding his home. It looks like Christmas, though of course it isn't, never is in Narnia, though it is always winter and the country buried under Lord only knows how many feet of snow even though it's April. He imagines spikes of green pushing up through the blanket of white for the first time in a hundred years, and then shakes his head and quickly unlocks the door and goes inside.
Soon, and very soon, they who are coming for him will come.
Let them come, Tumnus thinks, and puts on the kettle as he would if he were waiting for a friend.
In a way, he is. They who are coming will come…Adam's flesh and Adam's bone will sit in Cair Paravel in throne, and the evil time will be over and done.
Winter will be done. Spring will come.
If only it would come before he must go! If only he could see the grass again, the flowers again! If only he could see her again, his dear little Lucy, seated on one of the Four Thrones, if only he could bow his knee to Narnia's true and rightful Queen!
Oh, he will bow, all right, he muses darkly as he gazes into the whirlpool of tea he is stirring. The White Witch will have him on his knees as she watches his horns sawn off, his beard plucked out. He wonders if he will be able to find his feet before she makes a statue of him. Tumnus will gladly lay down his life to the service of Queen Lucy, but a part of him fancies laying down being only in the figurative. Now that he has found his courage, he should like to defy the Witch to her face, to stand instead of snivel before his former Mistress and declare that They who are coming will come!
They who are coming for him have come.
"Tumnus," snarls Maugrim, Captain of the Secret Police, as his lieutenants drag the Faun out of his house, "you are hereby under arrest for High Treason against the Queen."
"I have saved the Queen," says Tumnus, "I have committed treason against a Witch."
The defiant smile is swiped from his face by a heavy, clawed foot that spills his blood in the snow. As they ransack his beloved home, Tumnus fixes his gaze on the crimson stain that spreads across the white like a flower. He imagines the blood, like rain, washing away the snow so the grass can grow.
"Up, filth!" Maugrim barks, and Tumnus obeys, though he keeps his eyes upon the blood dripping on the snow silently argues with the Wolf's pejorative. Not filth; by this blood his sins are washed whiter than snow.
As they lead him away, a flash of red on the branch of a tree catches his eye. He nods to Robin Redbreast.
The Robin watches until Tumnus disappears between the two hills, then flies off to tell Mr and Mrs Beaver.
"They who are coming will come!"
Author: mrstater
Prompt: #4, Spring is sprung / De grass is riz / I wonder where dem birdies is? / De little birds is on de wing / Ain’t dat absurd? / De little wing is on de bird! (Anonymous, "Spring is Sprung")
Fandom: The Chronicles of Narnia
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Tumnus
Genre: general
Rating & Warnings: rated PG for mild violence and strong religious themes
Word Count: 539
Summary: The arrest of Tumnus the Faun.
As he stamps his hooves on the stoop and tamps the snow off of his umbrella, Tumnus casts his gaze around at the winter wonderland surrounding his home. It looks like Christmas, though of course it isn't, never is in Narnia, though it is always winter and the country buried under Lord only knows how many feet of snow even though it's April. He imagines spikes of green pushing up through the blanket of white for the first time in a hundred years, and then shakes his head and quickly unlocks the door and goes inside.
Soon, and very soon, they who are coming for him will come.
Let them come, Tumnus thinks, and puts on the kettle as he would if he were waiting for a friend.
In a way, he is. They who are coming will come…Adam's flesh and Adam's bone will sit in Cair Paravel in throne, and the evil time will be over and done.
Winter will be done. Spring will come.
If only it would come before he must go! If only he could see the grass again, the flowers again! If only he could see her again, his dear little Lucy, seated on one of the Four Thrones, if only he could bow his knee to Narnia's true and rightful Queen!
Oh, he will bow, all right, he muses darkly as he gazes into the whirlpool of tea he is stirring. The White Witch will have him on his knees as she watches his horns sawn off, his beard plucked out. He wonders if he will be able to find his feet before she makes a statue of him. Tumnus will gladly lay down his life to the service of Queen Lucy, but a part of him fancies laying down being only in the figurative. Now that he has found his courage, he should like to defy the Witch to her face, to stand instead of snivel before his former Mistress and declare that They who are coming will come!
They who are coming for him have come.
"Tumnus," snarls Maugrim, Captain of the Secret Police, as his lieutenants drag the Faun out of his house, "you are hereby under arrest for High Treason against the Queen."
"I have saved the Queen," says Tumnus, "I have committed treason against a Witch."
The defiant smile is swiped from his face by a heavy, clawed foot that spills his blood in the snow. As they ransack his beloved home, Tumnus fixes his gaze on the crimson stain that spreads across the white like a flower. He imagines the blood, like rain, washing away the snow so the grass can grow.
"Up, filth!" Maugrim barks, and Tumnus obeys, though he keeps his eyes upon the blood dripping on the snow silently argues with the Wolf's pejorative. Not filth; by this blood his sins are washed whiter than snow.
As they lead him away, a flash of red on the branch of a tree catches his eye. He nods to Robin Redbreast.
The Robin watches until Tumnus disappears between the two hills, then flies off to tell Mr and Mrs Beaver.
"They who are coming will come!"