Chapter Six
Title: The Myu Chronicles - Book One: The Dancing Lion, the Warlock, and the Wardrobe
Author: KY
Genre: pnish/TeniMyu/Narnia crossover
Characters/pairings: TutixNagayan, MorixDaiki, KazukixShirota, SaitoxAoyagi, various others, *pnish*
Rating: PG
Word Count: 5,595
Summary: *pnish*, the chosen humans destined to become Kings of Narnia and do battle against the White Warlock and the minions of his ice palace, must return peace and eternal summer to this mythical world.
It took longer than Tuti expected to reach the familiar wall of rock, having lost the path, found it, lost it again, and then realized he hadn’t lost it after all when he nearly ran into the base of the gray cliff as true night was beginning to descend on Narnia. There were no stars visible yet but the shadows had long since blended into an encompassing level of dusky light that made it difficult to distinguish between what was snow and what was rock. It took him a few more minutes of awkward searching through the drifts to find a way up the rock face, which proved to be rather treacherous and slow going with the banks of snow that obscured most of the footholds. Tuti wasn’t sure if he had even arrived in the same vicinity as Nagayama’s house, though he was sure that once he reached the first shelf it would just be a matter of searching the rock face for a door--if his freezing legs didn’t give out on him beforehand.
His bare hands were red and numb from catching his balance on the rock by the time he reached the level path carved into the cliff face. Nothing but gray stone and a few tenacious, skeletal plants clinging to the rough stone were there to greet his eyes, and the stone was a cracked and uniform wall that gave away no clues as to the location of the door he was searching for. Tuti turned to face the tree line he’d left but could distinguish no familiar landmarks, and a burst of cold wind struck his face like icy needles that left him breathless and shivering for a moment. His situation seemed unexpectedly bleak now that he’d arrived, but there was no other choice than to keep walking and hope to all the gods that he chose the right direction to search in.
His footfalls were loud and crunched like he was walking over bags of potato chips as he maneuvered across the rock shelf, pausing when the rock indented or seemed discolored from the rest of its surrounding in the hopes that he’d inadvertently discovered the door he was searching for. But every discovery turned out to be a false hope, and it was getting harder and harder to tell the difference as the twinkling dusk faded entirely, so much that Tuti began to grow more worried about taking a wrong step and breaking his leg than failing to locate the door before he froze to death.
As he came to a section of the wall that held nothing but absolute blackness, Tuti swore under his breath for the lack of light and dug through his pockets, finally producing his tank lighter and a guilty thought for not having withdrawn it sooner. It took him several attempts to produce a flame, his fingers so numb that they slid and missed and barely held a stable grip on the metal case, but finally a torch of orange light appeared and bathed him and his surroundings in its flickering glow. Tuti kept his hands cupped around the flame and held it high to let him see the rock face better, but only found a vein of shale that cut back into the cliff and hardly resembled the door shape he’d hoped to see. The wind was an afterthought that had yet to pick up in force but still came now and then in short and powerful gusts, and Tuti made haste to continue walking along the wall in the hopes of finding the door before his flame was snuffed out, or worse.
The twisted path took him higher above the forest floor, which seemed vaguely familiar (much to his relief), and Tuti let his hand closest to the cliff drag along the rough rock while his other held the lighter aloft. The play of orange light against the cliff was feeble at best, and Tuti tried very hard not to think about wild animals or spying trees or other unknown dangers as he stood like a lit-up target against the dark wall. He refused to start thinking negatively or regret his decision to come back into Narnia, and despite the obvious danger there was still an excitement of the unknown that kept him from turning tail and running back to the wardrobe. Something inside him knew, was absolutely sure, that he’d find Nagayama again if he just kept looking. Giving up on finding a door meant giving up on Narnia and giving up on the faun, and that was something he refused to do when he’d come this far and seen so little of the world he was becoming almost deliriously curious to learn more about.
The cold stone under his fingers gave way to the cold, rough texture of something else, and Tuti stopped with a skid of his sneakers on the icy rock. He held the lighter closer to the wall and could just make out the vertical grain that ran under the gray paint of the door he’d been searching for, the paint actually chipped enough in a few places to reveal the dark, sturdy color of the wood underneath, and inwardly he whooped with happiness.
With a broad grin Tuti drew back his hand and rapped three times on the cold wood.
He stepped back to wait, using his makeshift torch to discern the outline of the door and the disappointing absence of a handle, but it was exactly the height and width he remembered from the last time he’d been there. He could hear no sound beyond, which simply could have been the nature of the stone house, but as the seconds dragged on Tuti couldn’t stop the fermentation of worry that was filling his stomach. He’d spent so much of the entire trek fighting down his worries and overblown fantasies about what he might encounter on the way that he hadn’t thought to plan for the worst, the possibility that Nagayama might not be home. Or might not be around at all.
What if he’d been found out? What if one of the trees had told that power-tripping Warlock that Nagayama had been helping a human? What if in the span of a day he’d been captured and locked away in a cold cell, cut off from the rest of the world? Tuti could hardly think of what to do if that were the case, and he felt the tide of his worst fears hit him like a pang in his gut. He didn’t want to believe in evil magic and spies and dangers lurking around every corner, but the more he tried not to think about it the more his imagination seemed to latch onto the half-recalled words of Nagayama’s warnings, terrible secrets and the sort of nightmares that only children believe in. He was in a world where fauns could talk and magic made it a perpetual winter, heck even the rocks were beginning to look suspicious, and Tuti took a hasty step toward the protection of the rock wall beside the door, glancing behind himself apprehensively. He knocked on the door again, louder this time.
“Nagayama!” he hissed at the edge where the frame met rock, but realized the futility of the action even as the name left his mouth. He was speaking into at least a foot of rock; there was little chance his voice could carry very far.
Feeling suddenly anxious, Tuti slapped his palm against the wood. “Takashi, are you in there?”
To his genuine surprise the door swung open, albeit not very far, and only wide enough to allow a pale face to peer around the corner and leave the space behind him shrouded in shadow. “What business have you?” the face asked.
“Hey!” Tuti exclaimed, sudden and euphoric relief washing over him. “I thought you weren’t home for a minute there. Can I come in? It’s really freezing out here.”
Silence met his request, one that hung so long and deliberate that Tuti began to wonder if he’d knocked on the wrong door, however ridiculous the idea was. Who else would live up here?
“I’m not accustomed to letting in strangers in the middle of the night. State your business,” the face finally stated in a curt temperament that had Tuti reeling in confusion for a moment.
“What? Hey, don’t you… oh! The light!”
Any other time Tuti’s usual response would have been to follow up with a laugh and probably a witty joke about porch lights, but he held his tongue out of a wary deference for the situation and the suspicion laced voice speaking to him from the doorway. It reminded him too much of dealing with a frightened animal, which wasn’t so far from the truth actually. He moved the lighter in front of his chest so that the dancing illumination revealed his face, but couldn’t help tossing in a spectacular grin for his unsuspecting audience.
“Tu-.Tuti!”
“Ah, and here I thought you’d forgotten all about m- woah!”
Nagayama had thrown open the door and was dragging Tuti inside by the sleeve of his coat, and the abrupt forward motion had Tuti hopping and tripping awkwardly over the threshold. He found himself inside the tiny home in no less than two seconds, and the unexpected greeting had him laughing as he was pulled the rest of the way inside and nearly colliding with the faun in the process.
“Hey hey it’s okay, I wasn’t followed,” Tuti tried to explain, but the front door was quickly shut behind him and his words were drowned out by a resounding thunk that reverberated through the stone walls.
Nagayama had one hand on the door and was looking up at Tuti with wide eyes that were nearly all pupil, black and a bit wild, while his face remained half in shadow where the light from the central room couldn’t reach. He looked surprised and just a little scared, like he’d seen a ghost or was seeing Tuti all over again for the first time, and Tuti’s initial happiness over successfully surprising the faun with his visit faded rapidly under that expression. His smile melted completely as Nagayama’s brow pinched in confusion and the hand on his arm flexed gingerly, as if searching for the muscle and bone underneath.
“You’re… alive?”
Tuti felt a cold prickle race down the back of his neck. He licked his lips, feeling the unexpected gravity of the question hanging in the air between them.
“Um, last time I checked.”
“But, you…” Nagayama’s eyes swept over his face as his hand drew away from the door, and Tuti felt the fingers on his sleeve drag down the fur until they were just above his wrist, before the hand pulled back abruptly. Nagayama’s mouth fell open in surprise. “Why do you have the body of a beaver and the head of a man?”
“The what?” Tuti looked down at himself, and couldn’t help but laugh. He pulled open the coat and let the heavy material slip down his shoulders, revealing his workout pants and bright yellow t-shirt underneath. “It’s just a coat, I found it on the way in. Probably saved me from getting hypothermia out there, I- oof!”
Tuti once more found himself cut off in mid-sentence, but this time it was the tight latch of strong arms around his shoulders that had him stuttering to a stop. Nagayama had thrown himself at Tuti and was hugging the man with more of his surprising strength, and Tuti could feel the muscles in his neck straining as the smaller creature hung on, a rush of heat spreading through his whole body as he came into contact with the significantly higher body temperature of the faun in his arms. Tuti could only stand dumbstruck, aware of little else but the fact that this was the first time he’d ever been hugged so spontaneously, by a faun no less, and that it wasn’t so different from being hugged by a person--albeit a short one that was forcing him to bend over awkwardly. After a moment one hand lifted automatically to pat Nagayama on the shoulder, but when his fingers found bare flesh he reeled back in surprise, a victim of his own inattention that had forgotten the faun’s half naked state. By coincidence or out of consideration, Nagayama let him go at the same moment and stood back, his arms moving to hug his broad chest while his face averted itself to the side, leaving his eyes hidden from scrutiny.
The following silence was brief before Nagayama took a deep breath and spoke softly. “I’m sorry, I just… I thought… you were dead. When they didn’t come for me right away I started to hope, but I had to go back and search anyway, just to make sure, and I found… when I saw… I thought they’d gotten you. It was the only reason why I was still alive, or I thought… and… I’ve been waiting… for them to take me away…”
Tuti was startled by the self-pitying and fragile tone the faun’s voice had taken, and even in the dim light he could see that he was hugging himself with enough force to cause his shoulders to quiver under the strain. Not wasting any time to contemplate his actions, Tuti’s feet moved forward of their own accord to bring him by the faun’s side. This time he settled a hand on the bare shoulder closest to him and gave it a comforting squeeze, hoping the gesture was as friendly in this world as it was in his. He could feel the flesh trembling under his hand and held Nagayama’s shoulder tighter.
“Hey, don’t think like that. We’re both okay, I'm alive, and no one found me or saw me coming in this time either.” Or so he hoped, but now was not the time to speculate. “Let’s go sit down. You can tell me what you’ve been up to since yesterday and maybe I can make you tea this time?”
“Yesterday?” Nagayama asked, blinking up at Tuti with unshed tears in his eyes as he was steered out of the entry toward the blazing fire on the opposite side of the room.
“Or today, that’s fine too, you can pick a topic. Read a good book maybe? I’m guessing you haven’t had any good news about that lunatic king, but I suppose hoping for a massive heart attack is a bit too optimistic.” Tuti grinned as he maneuvered Nagayama into one of the high back chairs, seating the faun with a hand on each shoulder much to the creature’s wide-eyed surprise. Tuti removed his ankle length coat and draped it over the back of the other chair as he continued to talk.
“I know it’s a bit strange, but I was actually expecting it to be morning when I got here, with how it worked before. Oh and the weirdest thing happened! Would you believe it, when I got back I found out no time had passed. Nothing! Talk about spooky, but I’m not exactly going to complain since the whole process seems to have a mind of its own. I think I’m better off just letting this thing work on its own and behave myself, though it sure can be a pain in the ass about letting you back when you least expect it. Yeah! It’s like one of those sci-fi movies, where the main guy starts getting curious and the computer goes crazy and gets a mind of its own and it's a really crappy but totally predictable ending, you know? With the guy stuck floating in space with nothing but a box of freeze dried ice cream, and then to make yourself feel better you gotta imagine things like, well maybe some alien ship comes along and picks him up thinking he’s space garbage, so at least he’s been rescued, but I guess what’s what sequels are for, even if they always suck more than the first one. So yeah, where do you keep the tea?”
Tuti looked down at the gaping faun, watching Nagayama’s lips moved fractionally and without sound during the extended pause, until finally the dancer couldn’t hold it anymore and began chuckling. A heartbeat later Nagayama was laughing as well, though by his tone and expression Tuti could tell it was one born more out of surprise than finding any humor in his long-winded monologue. But it was enough, and Tuti grinned at Nagayama until the faun was able to smile back around his choking giggles, looking charming and downright fey-like with his eyes shining and shoulders shaking in the firelight.
Eventually Nagayama rose from the chair, a hand over his mouth to assuage the rest of his diminishing laughter, and gestured to the empty seat beside him. “Please sit down, you’re my guest and it’d be rude of me to not treat you as such. Warm yourself by the fire and I’ll bring us some tea and cookies.”
Tuti pondered this briefly, and grinned when Nagayama’s gaze narrowed, finger pointed insistently toward the other high back chair. The cloud of unhappiness that had lingered around Nagayama seemed to have faded under the pretense of hospitality, and Tuti was willing to let the faun think he’d won for the time being if it made him happy. With a loud sigh he let himself fall into the other chair, the seat squeaking as his body made contact, and Nagayama smiled at him before turning and making his way to the small alcove to the right of the home’s entrance.
Tuti waited until the faun had disappeared into the other room before he sat up and dragged his chair across the floor closer to the blazing hearth, hunching forward as close as he dared to get to the flames as the high heat washed over his chilled limbs and made the wet fabric of his pants sting against his icy skin. It was a wonderful feeling all in all, and short of jumping directly into the grate Tuti had to content himself with squirming around in his chair to warm his sides and the back of his knees every few seconds, half wishing he could string himself up like a rotisserie chicken to better warm himself all over.
He had the warning clink of china to push his chair back into its original position, and looked up to watch Nagayama walk down the short flight of stone steps back into the main room, a tray of steaming tea and a plate full of cookies between his hands. Tuti wasn’t particularly hungry, having just had lunch not more than an hour earlier, but when the tray was set down on the small table between them he couldn’t resist snagging one of the delicious cookies he’d had a hard time forgetting about after his last trip into Narnia. Nagayama only smiled at his enthusiasm and poured them both cups of the brown, steaming liquid, his body angled to the firelight so that Tuti was given an open view of the muscles under his ribcage and the straight line of his slim waist before it met the coarse fur over his hips. Tuti still couldn’t suppress the shudder that went through him at the sight, presented with something so alien and vastly different, but a larger part of him was curious, and growing more so. This was a magical, unexplored world, and Nagayama was a constant reminder of the mix of man and nature that Tuti was finding undeniably fascinating the longer he was in Narnia.
Tuti looked up as a hand came into his field of view, and he automatically accepted the teacup being held out to him. But as his fingers closed around the warm china he was hit by a memory of shattered fragments on the floor, and his guilty expression turned to meet Nagayama’s inquiring eyes.
“I… er, I’m really sorry about last time. I broke your cup,” Tuti explained apologetically.
Nagayama’s eyes immediately lowered. “It’s alright,” he said quietly, busying himself with preparing his own cup of tea.
“I’d be happy to make it up to you if I could. Maybe shovel some snow, alphabetize your library, get you a ticket to a show?” Tuti offered, unable to stop himself from grinning at the absurdness of his last suggestion, even though he’d made it in complete honesty.
Nagayama looked back at Tuti, his lips pressing into a small smile in response to the grin on the actor’s face, and he shook his head as he retreated to his own chair. “I do appreciate the offer, thank you, but it’s unnecessary. I… I should be the one apologizing to you, for what I tried to do. I’m honestly surprised that you came back, willingly… why did you come back?”
Tuti replaced his untouched drink on the tray and leaned back in his chair, hands folding over his middle. “I thought I was crazy,” he admitted, eyes sweeping over the hearth and the packed shelves around it. “I wanted to get back, more than anything, to make sure I wasn’t going insane. I mean, where I come from, stuff like this just doesn’t happen! I know you said it was dangerous but I guess I’m just a stupid guy that can’t take a warning seriously. Not to mention, after hearing a story like yours, how could I not think about it? I wanted to help I guess, but that wardrobe was a real brat about letting me back in.”
“Help?” Nagayama echoed, voice a little bewildered and unsteady.
“Well yeah, sure. I dunno, organize a committee, hand out pamphlets, see about getting a new ruler elected? Who’s in charge of the armies around here?”
“He is,” Nagayama answered quietly, eyes lowered over his teacup.
“You’re kidding. Any neighboring countries? I'm sure someone else has to have beef with what this guy’s doing.”
Nagayama shook his head slowly. “We border the ocean on the eastern side, and to the north live terrible giants that the King himself has employed to entrench his reign. A great desert lies to the south, inhabited by no one, and those who dare to venture across it are not heard from again. The Wild Woods of the West are a forbidden land to us, and they stretch for many, many leagues. Some say it covers the whole world, but no one knows for sure.”
Nagayama glanced behind them to where hundreds of spines looked back, books filling every space of the shelves set into the walls, even a few faded portraits and maps occupying the empty spaces. “My grandfather was a collector of knowledge. It got him killed not long after the White Wizard’s rule began, after my parents were killed in the first battles to oppose him. I’ve been over all his books, over every page and every word looking for a way to help Narnia, besides… well, searching for practical ways. I’ve yet to discover something promising.”
Nagayama leaned back in his chair and offered Tuti a wan smile that seemed to diminish his whole being and carried no joy within it, and Tuti was surprised by how much sympathy he felt for the faun as the terrible look of someone who’d given up all hope stared out through his eyes.
“I’m sorry.” It was the only thing Tuti could think of to say, even while his own gut clenched in anger at the unfairness of the whole situation. It wasn’t fair and it wasn’t right, and nice guys like Nagayama didn’t deserve to live in fear every day under the rule of his family’s murderer. Something had to end it, but what?
Nagayama had replaced his teacup on the tray and was watching Tuti with his luminous brown eyes through the fringe of dark bangs that fell over his forehead. There was a moment of silence while Tuti fumed inwardly, and eventually Nagayama sighed and straightened, drawing himself deeper into his chair.
“Were you able to find your way here easily? Not many venture this way or can readily recall where my house is.”
Tuti accepted the change in topic with a lopsided smile. “Well, I wouldn’t say it was easy, and I probably just got stupidly lucky in the end. It was a good thing I had my lighter or I’d probably still be stumbling around out there in the dark. But getting to the cliff was easy, though climbing was another story.”
Tuti lifted his hands, chuckling a little as he displayed the red splotches against his palms and fingers where the flesh had been abraded by the rocks. Nagayama frowned in concern.
“Are you in pain?”
“Nah,” Tuti assured him, flexing his fingers a little and feeling only a faint sting where a scratch happened to cross a joint. “I’ll be fine, I think the cold did more damage than the rocks.”
Nagayama nodded, accepting this, and turned to look at the fire, one of his hands falling to the forearm in his lap to rub along the fine hairs there. “I honestly wasn’t expecting to ever see you again. I think my reaction might have been a little… hasty. I wanted to apologize again for earlier.”
At the same moment Tuti was reminded of the impulsive hug he’d received, a faint dusting of pink appeared on Nagayama’s cheeks, though it could have been a trick of the rosy flames, and Tuti let out a short laugh to cover up the sudden awkwardness that was probably entirely on his part.
“Don’t worry about it. Really. I’m just surprised. You seemed so dead-set that I was, well, dead. I got back exactly like I said I would, no problems along the way. What made you change your mind?”
Nagayama picked up his cup and gingerly sipped the liquid before he spoke. “At first, after you left, I was so scared that I just sat in my house with the door barred, expecting to be arrested any day for my betrayal. All I could do was think about you and hope that you’d gotten away, that you’d made it back to your land before they could catch you, and I was sure that if they couldn’t get you that they’d at least arrest me. It doesn’t matter how great or small the infringement is, the punishment is always the same, and we live every day knowing this terrible fate. I fantasized about taking my own life so they’d find nothing but my cold body, and all my secrets could die with me. I wanted to, so many times. I hated feeling like I was just waiting for my life to end, either by my own hand or his. But days went by and no one came, which just scared me even more, like I was being taunted and made to endure the agony of waiting. Finally I couldn’t take it anymore, and I probably shouldn’t have done it, but I went back to the woods. I found my scarf in the trees, the one I’d given to you that night, and I… I was sure that you’d been taken. There was no other explanation.”
Nagayama bit his bottom lip, his features twisting into an expression of pain and grief. “I’d never felt so guilty in my entire life. I wanted to die right there in the snow. I’d allowed my selfishness to bring you into harm’s way, and you didn’t… none of this was any of your fault, only mine, but you’d been taken to his castle instead of me. You were being tortured and put to death because of me…”
Nagayama was crying by this point, head bent and big tears rolling down his smooth cheeks, and Tuti was up and out of his chair, kneeling at the cloven feet of the trembling creature. He placed his hands over the faun’s and gently removed the cup and saucer that were clinking loudly from the force of his shivers, and when he had them safely on the tray he placed his hands over the back of Nagayama’s knuckles.
“Hey, hey,” Tuti shushed gently, squeezing the hands beneath his. “You we really beating yourself up over this, weren’t you?”
Nagayama shrugged halfheartedly and withdrew one of his hands out from under Tuti’s to wipe at his cheeks with the back of his fingers. The glistening tear tracks on his skin were breathtaking in the firelight, and in that moment Tuti realized that the faun was beautiful. He felt Nagayama’s hand move to rest over the back of his wrist, the faun’s strong fingers curling around the thin bone, and didn’t mind in the least that he was being prevented from pulling away. He didn’t intend to.
“I thought, tonight… when you came, I thought they had come to arrest me. I didn’t want to open the door, but then I heard someone speaking. You called my name.” Nagayama smiled down at Tuti, a guarded and almost shy smile, and Tuti found himself grinning back up at the faun with a strange fluttering in his chest.
“Ah, yeah. Sorry. I thought you weren’t home so I got a little desperate I guess.”
“I’m glad,” Nagayama said, squeezing Tuti’s wrist. “I was pretty sure the King’s guard wouldn’t be nice enough to use my first name if they wanted to demand I turn myself in.”
Tuti barked out a quick laugh, settling himself a little more comfortably against the carpeted floor and the side of Nagayama’s chair. He knew he was on stone, but the plush rug under his knees made it nearly impossible to tell, and with the warmth of the fireplace on his back he was feeling surprisingly content to remain where he was.
“So if I want to come by to visit again, should I just say ‘Takashi’? It can be our secret code.”
“Again?” Nagayama asked, his face a mixture of surprise and dismay. “Why would you want to come back? I told you it’s dangerous, just because they didn’t come for me this time doesn’t mean they won’t. Maybe they were waiting for you to come back, maybe…”
Nagayama’s eyes had gone wide, his features turning taut and frightened, but Tuti was quick to gain a firm grip on the hands that were straining to pull away from him. “Hey, hey! Stop that, right now. Stop worrying about what you don’t know. I’m not saying there’s no danger, but I think… I don’t know. Maybe his security’s gone lax or something. Maybe he’s on vacation? I want to be here, but if… if I’m endangering you, then I’ll leave. But if it’s okay… I’d like to stay.”
Tuti smiled gently up at the puzzled face of the faun staring down at him. “You didn’t finish telling me all those stories you promised to tell me last time.”
There was a moment of silence, when Tuti could hear his own breathing and the sound of the fire popping behind them, and Nagayama’s eyes were twin pools of black and brown that looked as if they held the very secrets of the world in their hidden depths. Tuti could feel the warmth and the flutters of blood pumping through the hands under his fingers, and he gentled his grip so that Nagayama could pull away if he chose to. But they remained watching each other, and Nagayama’s lips finally curved upward in a faint smile, the shifting of his cheeks revealing more tear tracks in addition to the ones he’d wiped away earlier.
“Humans are so strange,” Nagayama declared softly.
“Am I the first one you’ve ever met?” Tuti asked with a cheeky grin, and knew that Nagayama recognized his own words when the faun’s eyes went wide and his smile broadened.
“Yes,” Nagayama answered breathlessly, sounding like he might cry again, but he was smiling.
“Then how about you let me stay for tea and cakes and I’ll tell you stories about my world, and when you get sick of listening to me talk you can tell me to shut up and talk about what the other seasons were like before what’s-his-face came, and when we’ve run out of things to talk about then I’ll consider letting you kick me out, okay?”
Nagayama began laughing quietly, and he managed a brief nod. “Okay.”
Tuti beamed. “Good. But there is one thing I want to ask first before we get started. What did you mean by days?”
Author: KY
Genre: pnish/TeniMyu/Narnia crossover
Characters/pairings: TutixNagayan, MorixDaiki, KazukixShirota, SaitoxAoyagi, various others, *pnish*
Rating: PG
Word Count: 5,595
Summary: *pnish*, the chosen humans destined to become Kings of Narnia and do battle against the White Warlock and the minions of his ice palace, must return peace and eternal summer to this mythical world.
It took longer than Tuti expected to reach the familiar wall of rock, having lost the path, found it, lost it again, and then realized he hadn’t lost it after all when he nearly ran into the base of the gray cliff as true night was beginning to descend on Narnia. There were no stars visible yet but the shadows had long since blended into an encompassing level of dusky light that made it difficult to distinguish between what was snow and what was rock. It took him a few more minutes of awkward searching through the drifts to find a way up the rock face, which proved to be rather treacherous and slow going with the banks of snow that obscured most of the footholds. Tuti wasn’t sure if he had even arrived in the same vicinity as Nagayama’s house, though he was sure that once he reached the first shelf it would just be a matter of searching the rock face for a door--if his freezing legs didn’t give out on him beforehand.
His bare hands were red and numb from catching his balance on the rock by the time he reached the level path carved into the cliff face. Nothing but gray stone and a few tenacious, skeletal plants clinging to the rough stone were there to greet his eyes, and the stone was a cracked and uniform wall that gave away no clues as to the location of the door he was searching for. Tuti turned to face the tree line he’d left but could distinguish no familiar landmarks, and a burst of cold wind struck his face like icy needles that left him breathless and shivering for a moment. His situation seemed unexpectedly bleak now that he’d arrived, but there was no other choice than to keep walking and hope to all the gods that he chose the right direction to search in.
His footfalls were loud and crunched like he was walking over bags of potato chips as he maneuvered across the rock shelf, pausing when the rock indented or seemed discolored from the rest of its surrounding in the hopes that he’d inadvertently discovered the door he was searching for. But every discovery turned out to be a false hope, and it was getting harder and harder to tell the difference as the twinkling dusk faded entirely, so much that Tuti began to grow more worried about taking a wrong step and breaking his leg than failing to locate the door before he froze to death.
As he came to a section of the wall that held nothing but absolute blackness, Tuti swore under his breath for the lack of light and dug through his pockets, finally producing his tank lighter and a guilty thought for not having withdrawn it sooner. It took him several attempts to produce a flame, his fingers so numb that they slid and missed and barely held a stable grip on the metal case, but finally a torch of orange light appeared and bathed him and his surroundings in its flickering glow. Tuti kept his hands cupped around the flame and held it high to let him see the rock face better, but only found a vein of shale that cut back into the cliff and hardly resembled the door shape he’d hoped to see. The wind was an afterthought that had yet to pick up in force but still came now and then in short and powerful gusts, and Tuti made haste to continue walking along the wall in the hopes of finding the door before his flame was snuffed out, or worse.
The twisted path took him higher above the forest floor, which seemed vaguely familiar (much to his relief), and Tuti let his hand closest to the cliff drag along the rough rock while his other held the lighter aloft. The play of orange light against the cliff was feeble at best, and Tuti tried very hard not to think about wild animals or spying trees or other unknown dangers as he stood like a lit-up target against the dark wall. He refused to start thinking negatively or regret his decision to come back into Narnia, and despite the obvious danger there was still an excitement of the unknown that kept him from turning tail and running back to the wardrobe. Something inside him knew, was absolutely sure, that he’d find Nagayama again if he just kept looking. Giving up on finding a door meant giving up on Narnia and giving up on the faun, and that was something he refused to do when he’d come this far and seen so little of the world he was becoming almost deliriously curious to learn more about.
The cold stone under his fingers gave way to the cold, rough texture of something else, and Tuti stopped with a skid of his sneakers on the icy rock. He held the lighter closer to the wall and could just make out the vertical grain that ran under the gray paint of the door he’d been searching for, the paint actually chipped enough in a few places to reveal the dark, sturdy color of the wood underneath, and inwardly he whooped with happiness.
With a broad grin Tuti drew back his hand and rapped three times on the cold wood.
He stepped back to wait, using his makeshift torch to discern the outline of the door and the disappointing absence of a handle, but it was exactly the height and width he remembered from the last time he’d been there. He could hear no sound beyond, which simply could have been the nature of the stone house, but as the seconds dragged on Tuti couldn’t stop the fermentation of worry that was filling his stomach. He’d spent so much of the entire trek fighting down his worries and overblown fantasies about what he might encounter on the way that he hadn’t thought to plan for the worst, the possibility that Nagayama might not be home. Or might not be around at all.
What if he’d been found out? What if one of the trees had told that power-tripping Warlock that Nagayama had been helping a human? What if in the span of a day he’d been captured and locked away in a cold cell, cut off from the rest of the world? Tuti could hardly think of what to do if that were the case, and he felt the tide of his worst fears hit him like a pang in his gut. He didn’t want to believe in evil magic and spies and dangers lurking around every corner, but the more he tried not to think about it the more his imagination seemed to latch onto the half-recalled words of Nagayama’s warnings, terrible secrets and the sort of nightmares that only children believe in. He was in a world where fauns could talk and magic made it a perpetual winter, heck even the rocks were beginning to look suspicious, and Tuti took a hasty step toward the protection of the rock wall beside the door, glancing behind himself apprehensively. He knocked on the door again, louder this time.
“Nagayama!” he hissed at the edge where the frame met rock, but realized the futility of the action even as the name left his mouth. He was speaking into at least a foot of rock; there was little chance his voice could carry very far.
Feeling suddenly anxious, Tuti slapped his palm against the wood. “Takashi, are you in there?”
To his genuine surprise the door swung open, albeit not very far, and only wide enough to allow a pale face to peer around the corner and leave the space behind him shrouded in shadow. “What business have you?” the face asked.
“Hey!” Tuti exclaimed, sudden and euphoric relief washing over him. “I thought you weren’t home for a minute there. Can I come in? It’s really freezing out here.”
Silence met his request, one that hung so long and deliberate that Tuti began to wonder if he’d knocked on the wrong door, however ridiculous the idea was. Who else would live up here?
“I’m not accustomed to letting in strangers in the middle of the night. State your business,” the face finally stated in a curt temperament that had Tuti reeling in confusion for a moment.
“What? Hey, don’t you… oh! The light!”
Any other time Tuti’s usual response would have been to follow up with a laugh and probably a witty joke about porch lights, but he held his tongue out of a wary deference for the situation and the suspicion laced voice speaking to him from the doorway. It reminded him too much of dealing with a frightened animal, which wasn’t so far from the truth actually. He moved the lighter in front of his chest so that the dancing illumination revealed his face, but couldn’t help tossing in a spectacular grin for his unsuspecting audience.
“Tu-.Tuti!”
“Ah, and here I thought you’d forgotten all about m- woah!”
Nagayama had thrown open the door and was dragging Tuti inside by the sleeve of his coat, and the abrupt forward motion had Tuti hopping and tripping awkwardly over the threshold. He found himself inside the tiny home in no less than two seconds, and the unexpected greeting had him laughing as he was pulled the rest of the way inside and nearly colliding with the faun in the process.
“Hey hey it’s okay, I wasn’t followed,” Tuti tried to explain, but the front door was quickly shut behind him and his words were drowned out by a resounding thunk that reverberated through the stone walls.
Nagayama had one hand on the door and was looking up at Tuti with wide eyes that were nearly all pupil, black and a bit wild, while his face remained half in shadow where the light from the central room couldn’t reach. He looked surprised and just a little scared, like he’d seen a ghost or was seeing Tuti all over again for the first time, and Tuti’s initial happiness over successfully surprising the faun with his visit faded rapidly under that expression. His smile melted completely as Nagayama’s brow pinched in confusion and the hand on his arm flexed gingerly, as if searching for the muscle and bone underneath.
“You’re… alive?”
Tuti felt a cold prickle race down the back of his neck. He licked his lips, feeling the unexpected gravity of the question hanging in the air between them.
“Um, last time I checked.”
“But, you…” Nagayama’s eyes swept over his face as his hand drew away from the door, and Tuti felt the fingers on his sleeve drag down the fur until they were just above his wrist, before the hand pulled back abruptly. Nagayama’s mouth fell open in surprise. “Why do you have the body of a beaver and the head of a man?”
“The what?” Tuti looked down at himself, and couldn’t help but laugh. He pulled open the coat and let the heavy material slip down his shoulders, revealing his workout pants and bright yellow t-shirt underneath. “It’s just a coat, I found it on the way in. Probably saved me from getting hypothermia out there, I- oof!”
Tuti once more found himself cut off in mid-sentence, but this time it was the tight latch of strong arms around his shoulders that had him stuttering to a stop. Nagayama had thrown himself at Tuti and was hugging the man with more of his surprising strength, and Tuti could feel the muscles in his neck straining as the smaller creature hung on, a rush of heat spreading through his whole body as he came into contact with the significantly higher body temperature of the faun in his arms. Tuti could only stand dumbstruck, aware of little else but the fact that this was the first time he’d ever been hugged so spontaneously, by a faun no less, and that it wasn’t so different from being hugged by a person--albeit a short one that was forcing him to bend over awkwardly. After a moment one hand lifted automatically to pat Nagayama on the shoulder, but when his fingers found bare flesh he reeled back in surprise, a victim of his own inattention that had forgotten the faun’s half naked state. By coincidence or out of consideration, Nagayama let him go at the same moment and stood back, his arms moving to hug his broad chest while his face averted itself to the side, leaving his eyes hidden from scrutiny.
The following silence was brief before Nagayama took a deep breath and spoke softly. “I’m sorry, I just… I thought… you were dead. When they didn’t come for me right away I started to hope, but I had to go back and search anyway, just to make sure, and I found… when I saw… I thought they’d gotten you. It was the only reason why I was still alive, or I thought… and… I’ve been waiting… for them to take me away…”
Tuti was startled by the self-pitying and fragile tone the faun’s voice had taken, and even in the dim light he could see that he was hugging himself with enough force to cause his shoulders to quiver under the strain. Not wasting any time to contemplate his actions, Tuti’s feet moved forward of their own accord to bring him by the faun’s side. This time he settled a hand on the bare shoulder closest to him and gave it a comforting squeeze, hoping the gesture was as friendly in this world as it was in his. He could feel the flesh trembling under his hand and held Nagayama’s shoulder tighter.
“Hey, don’t think like that. We’re both okay, I'm alive, and no one found me or saw me coming in this time either.” Or so he hoped, but now was not the time to speculate. “Let’s go sit down. You can tell me what you’ve been up to since yesterday and maybe I can make you tea this time?”
“Yesterday?” Nagayama asked, blinking up at Tuti with unshed tears in his eyes as he was steered out of the entry toward the blazing fire on the opposite side of the room.
“Or today, that’s fine too, you can pick a topic. Read a good book maybe? I’m guessing you haven’t had any good news about that lunatic king, but I suppose hoping for a massive heart attack is a bit too optimistic.” Tuti grinned as he maneuvered Nagayama into one of the high back chairs, seating the faun with a hand on each shoulder much to the creature’s wide-eyed surprise. Tuti removed his ankle length coat and draped it over the back of the other chair as he continued to talk.
“I know it’s a bit strange, but I was actually expecting it to be morning when I got here, with how it worked before. Oh and the weirdest thing happened! Would you believe it, when I got back I found out no time had passed. Nothing! Talk about spooky, but I’m not exactly going to complain since the whole process seems to have a mind of its own. I think I’m better off just letting this thing work on its own and behave myself, though it sure can be a pain in the ass about letting you back when you least expect it. Yeah! It’s like one of those sci-fi movies, where the main guy starts getting curious and the computer goes crazy and gets a mind of its own and it's a really crappy but totally predictable ending, you know? With the guy stuck floating in space with nothing but a box of freeze dried ice cream, and then to make yourself feel better you gotta imagine things like, well maybe some alien ship comes along and picks him up thinking he’s space garbage, so at least he’s been rescued, but I guess what’s what sequels are for, even if they always suck more than the first one. So yeah, where do you keep the tea?”
Tuti looked down at the gaping faun, watching Nagayama’s lips moved fractionally and without sound during the extended pause, until finally the dancer couldn’t hold it anymore and began chuckling. A heartbeat later Nagayama was laughing as well, though by his tone and expression Tuti could tell it was one born more out of surprise than finding any humor in his long-winded monologue. But it was enough, and Tuti grinned at Nagayama until the faun was able to smile back around his choking giggles, looking charming and downright fey-like with his eyes shining and shoulders shaking in the firelight.
Eventually Nagayama rose from the chair, a hand over his mouth to assuage the rest of his diminishing laughter, and gestured to the empty seat beside him. “Please sit down, you’re my guest and it’d be rude of me to not treat you as such. Warm yourself by the fire and I’ll bring us some tea and cookies.”
Tuti pondered this briefly, and grinned when Nagayama’s gaze narrowed, finger pointed insistently toward the other high back chair. The cloud of unhappiness that had lingered around Nagayama seemed to have faded under the pretense of hospitality, and Tuti was willing to let the faun think he’d won for the time being if it made him happy. With a loud sigh he let himself fall into the other chair, the seat squeaking as his body made contact, and Nagayama smiled at him before turning and making his way to the small alcove to the right of the home’s entrance.
Tuti waited until the faun had disappeared into the other room before he sat up and dragged his chair across the floor closer to the blazing hearth, hunching forward as close as he dared to get to the flames as the high heat washed over his chilled limbs and made the wet fabric of his pants sting against his icy skin. It was a wonderful feeling all in all, and short of jumping directly into the grate Tuti had to content himself with squirming around in his chair to warm his sides and the back of his knees every few seconds, half wishing he could string himself up like a rotisserie chicken to better warm himself all over.
He had the warning clink of china to push his chair back into its original position, and looked up to watch Nagayama walk down the short flight of stone steps back into the main room, a tray of steaming tea and a plate full of cookies between his hands. Tuti wasn’t particularly hungry, having just had lunch not more than an hour earlier, but when the tray was set down on the small table between them he couldn’t resist snagging one of the delicious cookies he’d had a hard time forgetting about after his last trip into Narnia. Nagayama only smiled at his enthusiasm and poured them both cups of the brown, steaming liquid, his body angled to the firelight so that Tuti was given an open view of the muscles under his ribcage and the straight line of his slim waist before it met the coarse fur over his hips. Tuti still couldn’t suppress the shudder that went through him at the sight, presented with something so alien and vastly different, but a larger part of him was curious, and growing more so. This was a magical, unexplored world, and Nagayama was a constant reminder of the mix of man and nature that Tuti was finding undeniably fascinating the longer he was in Narnia.
Tuti looked up as a hand came into his field of view, and he automatically accepted the teacup being held out to him. But as his fingers closed around the warm china he was hit by a memory of shattered fragments on the floor, and his guilty expression turned to meet Nagayama’s inquiring eyes.
“I… er, I’m really sorry about last time. I broke your cup,” Tuti explained apologetically.
Nagayama’s eyes immediately lowered. “It’s alright,” he said quietly, busying himself with preparing his own cup of tea.
“I’d be happy to make it up to you if I could. Maybe shovel some snow, alphabetize your library, get you a ticket to a show?” Tuti offered, unable to stop himself from grinning at the absurdness of his last suggestion, even though he’d made it in complete honesty.
Nagayama looked back at Tuti, his lips pressing into a small smile in response to the grin on the actor’s face, and he shook his head as he retreated to his own chair. “I do appreciate the offer, thank you, but it’s unnecessary. I… I should be the one apologizing to you, for what I tried to do. I’m honestly surprised that you came back, willingly… why did you come back?”
Tuti replaced his untouched drink on the tray and leaned back in his chair, hands folding over his middle. “I thought I was crazy,” he admitted, eyes sweeping over the hearth and the packed shelves around it. “I wanted to get back, more than anything, to make sure I wasn’t going insane. I mean, where I come from, stuff like this just doesn’t happen! I know you said it was dangerous but I guess I’m just a stupid guy that can’t take a warning seriously. Not to mention, after hearing a story like yours, how could I not think about it? I wanted to help I guess, but that wardrobe was a real brat about letting me back in.”
“Help?” Nagayama echoed, voice a little bewildered and unsteady.
“Well yeah, sure. I dunno, organize a committee, hand out pamphlets, see about getting a new ruler elected? Who’s in charge of the armies around here?”
“He is,” Nagayama answered quietly, eyes lowered over his teacup.
“You’re kidding. Any neighboring countries? I'm sure someone else has to have beef with what this guy’s doing.”
Nagayama shook his head slowly. “We border the ocean on the eastern side, and to the north live terrible giants that the King himself has employed to entrench his reign. A great desert lies to the south, inhabited by no one, and those who dare to venture across it are not heard from again. The Wild Woods of the West are a forbidden land to us, and they stretch for many, many leagues. Some say it covers the whole world, but no one knows for sure.”
Nagayama glanced behind them to where hundreds of spines looked back, books filling every space of the shelves set into the walls, even a few faded portraits and maps occupying the empty spaces. “My grandfather was a collector of knowledge. It got him killed not long after the White Wizard’s rule began, after my parents were killed in the first battles to oppose him. I’ve been over all his books, over every page and every word looking for a way to help Narnia, besides… well, searching for practical ways. I’ve yet to discover something promising.”
Nagayama leaned back in his chair and offered Tuti a wan smile that seemed to diminish his whole being and carried no joy within it, and Tuti was surprised by how much sympathy he felt for the faun as the terrible look of someone who’d given up all hope stared out through his eyes.
“I’m sorry.” It was the only thing Tuti could think of to say, even while his own gut clenched in anger at the unfairness of the whole situation. It wasn’t fair and it wasn’t right, and nice guys like Nagayama didn’t deserve to live in fear every day under the rule of his family’s murderer. Something had to end it, but what?
Nagayama had replaced his teacup on the tray and was watching Tuti with his luminous brown eyes through the fringe of dark bangs that fell over his forehead. There was a moment of silence while Tuti fumed inwardly, and eventually Nagayama sighed and straightened, drawing himself deeper into his chair.
“Were you able to find your way here easily? Not many venture this way or can readily recall where my house is.”
Tuti accepted the change in topic with a lopsided smile. “Well, I wouldn’t say it was easy, and I probably just got stupidly lucky in the end. It was a good thing I had my lighter or I’d probably still be stumbling around out there in the dark. But getting to the cliff was easy, though climbing was another story.”
Tuti lifted his hands, chuckling a little as he displayed the red splotches against his palms and fingers where the flesh had been abraded by the rocks. Nagayama frowned in concern.
“Are you in pain?”
“Nah,” Tuti assured him, flexing his fingers a little and feeling only a faint sting where a scratch happened to cross a joint. “I’ll be fine, I think the cold did more damage than the rocks.”
Nagayama nodded, accepting this, and turned to look at the fire, one of his hands falling to the forearm in his lap to rub along the fine hairs there. “I honestly wasn’t expecting to ever see you again. I think my reaction might have been a little… hasty. I wanted to apologize again for earlier.”
At the same moment Tuti was reminded of the impulsive hug he’d received, a faint dusting of pink appeared on Nagayama’s cheeks, though it could have been a trick of the rosy flames, and Tuti let out a short laugh to cover up the sudden awkwardness that was probably entirely on his part.
“Don’t worry about it. Really. I’m just surprised. You seemed so dead-set that I was, well, dead. I got back exactly like I said I would, no problems along the way. What made you change your mind?”
Nagayama picked up his cup and gingerly sipped the liquid before he spoke. “At first, after you left, I was so scared that I just sat in my house with the door barred, expecting to be arrested any day for my betrayal. All I could do was think about you and hope that you’d gotten away, that you’d made it back to your land before they could catch you, and I was sure that if they couldn’t get you that they’d at least arrest me. It doesn’t matter how great or small the infringement is, the punishment is always the same, and we live every day knowing this terrible fate. I fantasized about taking my own life so they’d find nothing but my cold body, and all my secrets could die with me. I wanted to, so many times. I hated feeling like I was just waiting for my life to end, either by my own hand or his. But days went by and no one came, which just scared me even more, like I was being taunted and made to endure the agony of waiting. Finally I couldn’t take it anymore, and I probably shouldn’t have done it, but I went back to the woods. I found my scarf in the trees, the one I’d given to you that night, and I… I was sure that you’d been taken. There was no other explanation.”
Nagayama bit his bottom lip, his features twisting into an expression of pain and grief. “I’d never felt so guilty in my entire life. I wanted to die right there in the snow. I’d allowed my selfishness to bring you into harm’s way, and you didn’t… none of this was any of your fault, only mine, but you’d been taken to his castle instead of me. You were being tortured and put to death because of me…”
Nagayama was crying by this point, head bent and big tears rolling down his smooth cheeks, and Tuti was up and out of his chair, kneeling at the cloven feet of the trembling creature. He placed his hands over the faun’s and gently removed the cup and saucer that were clinking loudly from the force of his shivers, and when he had them safely on the tray he placed his hands over the back of Nagayama’s knuckles.
“Hey, hey,” Tuti shushed gently, squeezing the hands beneath his. “You we really beating yourself up over this, weren’t you?”
Nagayama shrugged halfheartedly and withdrew one of his hands out from under Tuti’s to wipe at his cheeks with the back of his fingers. The glistening tear tracks on his skin were breathtaking in the firelight, and in that moment Tuti realized that the faun was beautiful. He felt Nagayama’s hand move to rest over the back of his wrist, the faun’s strong fingers curling around the thin bone, and didn’t mind in the least that he was being prevented from pulling away. He didn’t intend to.
“I thought, tonight… when you came, I thought they had come to arrest me. I didn’t want to open the door, but then I heard someone speaking. You called my name.” Nagayama smiled down at Tuti, a guarded and almost shy smile, and Tuti found himself grinning back up at the faun with a strange fluttering in his chest.
“Ah, yeah. Sorry. I thought you weren’t home so I got a little desperate I guess.”
“I’m glad,” Nagayama said, squeezing Tuti’s wrist. “I was pretty sure the King’s guard wouldn’t be nice enough to use my first name if they wanted to demand I turn myself in.”
Tuti barked out a quick laugh, settling himself a little more comfortably against the carpeted floor and the side of Nagayama’s chair. He knew he was on stone, but the plush rug under his knees made it nearly impossible to tell, and with the warmth of the fireplace on his back he was feeling surprisingly content to remain where he was.
“So if I want to come by to visit again, should I just say ‘Takashi’? It can be our secret code.”
“Again?” Nagayama asked, his face a mixture of surprise and dismay. “Why would you want to come back? I told you it’s dangerous, just because they didn’t come for me this time doesn’t mean they won’t. Maybe they were waiting for you to come back, maybe…”
Nagayama’s eyes had gone wide, his features turning taut and frightened, but Tuti was quick to gain a firm grip on the hands that were straining to pull away from him. “Hey, hey! Stop that, right now. Stop worrying about what you don’t know. I’m not saying there’s no danger, but I think… I don’t know. Maybe his security’s gone lax or something. Maybe he’s on vacation? I want to be here, but if… if I’m endangering you, then I’ll leave. But if it’s okay… I’d like to stay.”
Tuti smiled gently up at the puzzled face of the faun staring down at him. “You didn’t finish telling me all those stories you promised to tell me last time.”
There was a moment of silence, when Tuti could hear his own breathing and the sound of the fire popping behind them, and Nagayama’s eyes were twin pools of black and brown that looked as if they held the very secrets of the world in their hidden depths. Tuti could feel the warmth and the flutters of blood pumping through the hands under his fingers, and he gentled his grip so that Nagayama could pull away if he chose to. But they remained watching each other, and Nagayama’s lips finally curved upward in a faint smile, the shifting of his cheeks revealing more tear tracks in addition to the ones he’d wiped away earlier.
“Humans are so strange,” Nagayama declared softly.
“Am I the first one you’ve ever met?” Tuti asked with a cheeky grin, and knew that Nagayama recognized his own words when the faun’s eyes went wide and his smile broadened.
“Yes,” Nagayama answered breathlessly, sounding like he might cry again, but he was smiling.
“Then how about you let me stay for tea and cakes and I’ll tell you stories about my world, and when you get sick of listening to me talk you can tell me to shut up and talk about what the other seasons were like before what’s-his-face came, and when we’ve run out of things to talk about then I’ll consider letting you kick me out, okay?”
Nagayama began laughing quietly, and he managed a brief nod. “Okay.”
Tuti beamed. “Good. But there is one thing I want to ask first before we get started. What did you mean by days?”