Welcome to late night and long overdue stories that I started a few years ago and just now decided to roll with again! I can say that this was probably the weirdest experience in my life, considering I found this again today and already have three chapters completely typed up for it, each about 7-8 pages on word. I really do go through random and sporadic periods of doing nothing followed by my brain saying "hey, remember this one thing you started years ago and didn't finish?! NOW YOU CAN!" And i basically did nothing but type that today. I accomplished nothing important. Except this, and this chapter and the first half of the second one were written a while ago, so about halfway through you can probably see where I picked it back up. I might post all of the chapters tonight, to give people something to do, I don't know, its late and I'm running on no sleep haha. ANYHOO, PLEASE READ! Don't be too critical, I was younger when I wrote this.
Disclaimer: I do not own the Chronicles of Narnia, but I do own William. Who is the main POV.
Have you ever had the feeling that you didn't belong? That you weren't meant to be where you are? I have that feeling everyday of my life. I don't know where these feelings come from either, because I've lived in Finchley all my life. I felt drawn to the woods, and the open air more than other children, I was a fast runner, and sports came easily to me. I had no way to explain it. I lived with my mum peacefully while my father went to war. I was the only child of the family, and I was 11 years old. My name is William Oakley; I went to a small private primary school where I met Lucy. We were the same age, and her father was fighting in the war as well, we also live down the street from one another. When the bombings started mom was hesitant to send me off, she was afraid that we would never see each other again. The one thing that was reassuring to her was that I was being sent off with Lucy's family, and she had three older siblings to watch over her.
My hair was smoothed back into a ribbon behind my head, where my curls could be tamed, and a hat was placed firmly on my head. My pea coat was closed in the front and had large label on it that specified which stop I would be getting off. Lucy and her family had similar labels, with the same stop. I held her hand as we walked onto the train, not wanting to get separated and needing the comfort. I'd never been away from mom for such a long time, and I couldn't help but cry. Lucy squeezed my hand reassuringly; she was in the same position. Peter led the way, making Susan and Edmund follow. We sat in silence through most of the trip until we reached our stop. I never let got of Lucy's hand. She was braver than I was, and she was helping me. We walked off of the train and onto the platform. From there we waited a while as cars and carriages alike passed. Eventually a woman in a carriage pulled up and gave us a critical look.
"This it then? Haven't you brought anything else?" She asked.
"No mum. Its just us." Peter said. We all nodded. We only had the clothes on our backs, the clothes in one trunk each, and each other.
"Small favors." She sighed. We piled into the back of the open carriage, and we were driven to the place we would call home until the war was over. The mansion was enormous, and full of old trinkets and such. I reached to touch a marble bust that was sitting on the platform of the stairs when the housekeeper snapped at me.
"There are rules that are to be followed, the professor is not accustomed to housing children. There will be no shouting, no running, and the professor is not to be disturbed." She instructed and showed us to our rooms. We were in a separate wing from the professor, and I wasn't sure how we were going to bother him because we were far enough away where a shout wasn't going to be heard. I was in a room with Edmund and Peter, sleeping on a small cot on the floor as there weren't enough beds in the room. I was lying on the couch wondering what I could do to keep myself from being bored while listening to Susan read from a dictionary. Lucy was sitting by the window, watching the rain pour outside. She's been promised a great day, but we couldn't even go outside to play.
"Is it latin?" Peter asked, after Susan read the word.
"Yes."
"Is it latin for worst game ever invented?" Edmund chimed from where he was tinkering with a chair on the floor.
"We could play hide and seek?" Lucy spoke, having walked over to where we were.
"But we're already having so much fun." Peter sighed sarcastically.
"Come on! Please?" She begged, I stood up and nodded my agreement. I didn't need to say that I was bored for them to already know.
"One, two, three, four…" Peter smiled and started counting. Edmund was confused, but we all filed out of the room quickly, seeking the best place to hide. Susan found a small chest not far from the initial bedrooms and Lucy and I went sprinting up the stairs. Edmund forced his way passed us, imposing himself into our hiding spot saying he was there first, and then we both ran upstairs again, getting desperate. Rooms passed by all locked in some way, however the last one we ran into was unlocked. The room was vacant except for a cloth thrown over something large on the far wall. Lucy started to walk towards it almost mesmerized, however I hung back towards the door.
"Come on Will. It would be the perfect hiding place!" Lucy smiled at me, and pulled me with her towards the door.
"I don't know Luc…" I gulped.
"Alright, we pull it on three. One…two…three!" She counted and we both yanked the cloth off to find a large wardrobe.
"See! Its perfect!" She spoke, unhinging the lock and opened the doors. Mothballs cluttered to the floor, and as we climbed in we heard Peter's counting come to its end. I closed the door behind us, and as we sunk into the back of the wardrobe I couldn't help but think it was a lot bigger on the inside than it looked. I walked backwards, keeping an eye on the door of the wardrobe until I couldn't see it anymore, and the soft fur coats that surrounded me became rough like pine trees.
"Will! Turn around!" Lucy called. I did as she told and was amazed by the world around me. In that second however I was engulfed in what seemed to be light and sparks, and I heard fabric tearing before it ended.
"Will!" Lucy cried, running towards me. However when the lights stopped flashing I had to look down to see her. I felt my body with my hands and glanced down to see that where my waist started there was the body of a horse. My…fur, was blonde and silky looking, while around my brown hooves I had speckles of white. Where the fur on my waist/chest of the horse part of me was, a patch of white fur ran between my forelegs. I cried out and jumped in fear, feeling the strength in my lower body bunch and release as I shot forward on shaking legs.
"Will stop, its alright!" Lucy called chasing after me. By the time I got the feel for my legs I had run circles around a lamppost in the snow. The light from the post was warm, the snow had only started to collect around Lucy's height. It wasn't cold for me, however it seemed to be cold to Lucy.
"I think I'm warmer than you are. Come closer to me." I put my hand out. My shirt had disappeared along with the rest of my clothing, and I was left with nothing on. My ears had grown as well, resembling that of a horses from what I could feel of them.
"Thanks Will." Lucy smiled at me. I smiled back and we started to look around us when the sound of footsteps in the snow alerted us of another being in the area. The footsteps seemed to come from all around us until eventually something jumped out behind us, causing Lucy to scream and hide behind the lamppost while I reared up to my hind legs and bucked. The unknown person screamed as well, dropping what he had been carrying and hurriedly hid behind the tree that he'd just walked past. Lucy then walked towards the tree, where the creature, a man with horns on his head and similar ears to me was peering out. Lucy bent down and helped him to pick up his dropped belongings, before we realized that he had the legs of a goat.
"Were you hiding from me?" Lucy asked, as the creature stuttered in response. He'd left where he was hiding behind the tree and proceeded to approach Lucy. Weary of this man/goat creature, I stuck close to her.
"No….I…at least…No….I…I…I was just um…I didn't want to scare you." He answered, seemingly with difficulty. Lucy looked skeptical at first, and glanced back at me. The creature did the same, seemingly puzzled by my appearance.
"If you don't mind my asking…What are you?" I asked, getting another strange look.
"W…why I'm a faun. As much as you are a centaur. H-have you hit your head? And what about you? You must be some kind of…beardless dwarf?" The faun asked in response to my question before turning to Lucy again.
"A centaur…" I muttered, glancing over my changed body once more. I had read of centaurs in my books before. They were creatures of myths, like the faun was.
"I'm not a dwarf! I'm a girl! And actually, I'm tallest in my class!" Lucy replied, handing another package back to the faun. I was going to jokingly respond with 'not anymore' before the faun started speaking again.
"You-you mean to say that you're a daughter of Eve?" The faun asked.
"Well my mothers name was Helen…"
"W-Well yes but you are in fact…human?" The faun pressed onwards.
"Yes. Of course!" Lucy replied.
"I was too up until about a half hour ago." I muttered, getting a confused look from the creature.
"What are you doing here?" He asked. Lucy had then explained about us hiding in the wardrobe in the spare room, to which the faun misunderstood as Spare Oom, and asked if that was in Narnia. I narrowed my eyes.
"What's Narnia?" I asked.
"Well dear one's…you're in it. Everything from the lamppost, all the way to Cair Paravel on the Eastern Ocean. Every stick and stone you see every…icicle, is…Narnia." The faun explained. My mind was having a hard time understanding everything that was going on then, while Lucy seemed to be taking everything in stride.
"A magic wardrobe…" She muttered with a smile. I was running my hands through my hair, fixing it back into the ribbon it was still situated in. I realized that my hair resembled my fur, and had to sigh, thinking about how Edmund would respond to knowing that I was now part horse.
"Where are my manners! Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Tumnus." The faun spoke with a small but curt smile.
"Pleased to meet you Mr. Tumnus! I'm Lucy Pevensie. This is my friend William Oakley." Lucy extended her hand. Tumnus seemed genuinely confused by the gesture.
"You shake it." I explained.
"Um…why?" Tumnus asked.
"I don't know…people do it when they meet each other." Lucy replied. Tumnus chuckled and grabbed Lucy's hand, shaking it like you would a jar to hear its contents. Lucy giggled and I smiled back.
"Well, then, Lucy Pevensie and William Oakley from the shining city of Wardrobe in the wondrous land of Spare Oom, how would it be, if you came and had tea…with me." Tumnus smiled, pulling Lucy under his parasol.
"Thank you very much! But we really should be getting back…" I started to turn away before Tumnus stuttered out something about being around the corner, and a glorious fire, along with tea and cakes and apparently sardines as a luxury. Lucy seemed to be swayed by his words, however he seemed to be acting strange to me.
"Well I don't know…" I started again, to which he turned to me with a seemingly genuine smile.
"Oh come on. It's not every day I get to make a new friend. Let alone two of them!" He glanced between us. Lucy's eyes were persuading me to go, while somewhere inside me my instincts were telling me to run.
"Well alright. I suppose we could for a little while. If you have sardines." I smiled, but I was still suspicious.
"By the bucket load." Tumnus chirped, and began to lead both Lucy and I away from the lamppost and around the big rocks that stood in front of us. The climb around them was easy for me, I realized I was far steadier on four hooves than I ever was on two feet. I was stronger as well, able to make it up some of the steeper climbs with no issues. Tumnus and Lucy were just ahead of me, making small talk as they went, and as she stumbled a bit in the snow he steadied her. The last turn brought us in front of a large area with a door in the side of the rocks. Lucy gasped and smiled at me. We both stopped there, not sure of what to say.
"Well here we are. Come along." Tumnus smiled. We followed him inside, to find it was very spacious and warm.
"You have a lovely home." I complimented, attempting to wipe my hooves of the snow before walking in. It was obviously fitted for a faun, because to my size it was slightly small to walk around in. It was decorated in a homely fashion, with books scattered around and candles lit in many places. There was a small window on the same wall as the entrance with a cabinet filled with different sorts of wines and meads. My hooves were wet and covered in a little mud where they'd dug out some of the snow and drying them was taking some time. Maneuvering them was still strange, and while I had gotten most of the basic functions down by that point, cleaning them off seemed to be the new challenge. Tumnus followed me inside, and repeatedly stamped his hooves on the ground to shake the snow from his shaggy fur. I would have done the same however I took up more space then he did, even with my being only a child, and thus the size of a yearling horse. Lucy had grabbed a picture off of a table, and conversed with Tumnus about his father as I made my way towards his seating area, very carefully.
"You seem unused to yourself. Is it true that you were human before you arrived here? You were a son of Adam?" Tumnus questioned.
"I was human yes. I'm obviously not now, and for some reason it seems to me that I feel more comfortable this way." I commented.
"That is strange." Tumnus proceeded to make us all tea, while Lucy spoke of winter and how it would bring Christmas.
"Well, we haven't had a Christmas in over 100 years." Tumnus replied.
"What? No presents for 100 years?" Lucy gasped. That caught my attention as well.
"Always winter, never Christmas. And it has been a very long winter. But, I'd imagine that you both would have loved Narnia in the summer. We fauns…would dance with the Dryads all night and you know, we never got tired. And the music, ahhh, such music!" Tumnus handed a cup to Lucy, and then over towards me. I took a sip of mine, finding it quite soothing, and figured out how to lay my legs down on the ground in a comfortable way.
"Would…would you like to hear some?" Tumnus asked.
"Oh, yes please." Lucy smiled, and then took a sip of her tea.
"Now, are either of you familiar with any Narnian Lullabies?" He asked, pulling a small wooden case off of his mantle.
"No, sorry." I responded, still maneuvering myself. Being half horse was harder than I thought it would be.
"Well then that's good! Because this…probably won't sound anything like one." He answered, placing his fingers in the proper positions on the Y shaped flute. He cleared his throat a few times, and then began to play. The sound was low, and slightly haunting, while the tune was sad and hard to ignore. Images began to form over the fire, and many sounds filtered through the room over the sound of the flute. Men laughing and horses whinnying. I felt my eyes progressively drift closed as Tumnus kept playing. I glanced at Lucy one more time finding that she was falling asleep as well, and then I passed out. As I did the sounds of the room faded, however as the last of the song faded out, a lions roar cut it off, and I could hear no more.
What felt like a moment later I came to, where the room was dark and slightly cold.
"Oh we should go." Lucy commented, standing up from her chair.
"Its too late for that now. I'm such a terrible faun." Tumnus spoke, from where he was seated on his stairs.
"Oh no Mr. Tumnus. You're the nicest faun we've ever met." Lucy spoke nicely. I wanted to mutter that he was the only one we'd ever met, but I bit my tongue.
"Then I'm afraid you've had a very poor assembling." Tumnus muttered, tears showing in the dim light.
"You can't have done anything that bad." I put in, as Lucy handed him her handkerchief.
"It's not something I have done, William Oakley. It is something I am doing." Tumnus looked at me, regret filling his eyes.
"What are you doing?" Lucy questioned. This seemed all too strange to me, and I fought to get back to my hooves without knocking things over in the process. I remembered how horses stood up in the past, from having ridden them a few times with my mother, and copied that, finding it easier.
"I'm kidnapping you." Tumnus looked back at Lucy, and I used that moment to pull her away from him and behind me.
"It was the White Witch. She is the one who makes it always winter always cold. She gave orders…if anyone was to find a human wandering around in the woods we were supposed to turn it over to her. I had no intention of turning you in as well William Oakley however you were once human." Tumnus cried again. He was crumpled over on the floor, while Lucy peered around my rib cage.
"But Mr. Tumnus…you wouldn't." She said, a solemn smile on her face.
"I think he would Luc…" I spoke, pushing her behind me again. She went to my back and looked over my spine. Tumnus said nothing as he sniffled again, using her handkerchief to wipe his tears away.
"I thought you were my friend." Lucy spoke, her voice shaking slightly. In that second Tumnus blinked away his tears and looked between us. Knocking things over as he did, he ushered us out the door in a frantic manner. Tumnus then put Lucy on my back. It felt wrong to be giving someone a ride, and immediately I felt my face contort in disgust, even though Lucy was my best friend.
"I apologize for this dishonor. However you will run faster than she can. She may already know you both are here. The woods are full of her spies, even some of the trees are on her side." Tumnus spoke, running as fast as he could while leading the two of us, Lucy holding onto my waist as I followed the faun. We made it back to the lamppost, when he let go of my hand.
"Can you find your way back from here?" He asked.
"I-I think so." Lucy answered hesitantly.
"Alright." He answered, before removing Lucy from my back.
"Will you be alright?" I asked. Tumnus began to cry again, after a small snort.
"I'm sorry…I'm so sorry. Here…" Tumnus attempted to return the cloth to Lucy however she refused, having Tumnus keep it because he was still crying.
"No matter what happens, Lucy Pevensie and William Oakley, I am glad to have met you both. You've made me feel warmer than I've ever felt in a hundred years. Now go." He urged us both on, brushing Lucy over the nose and patting my shoulder.
"Go." He said more urgently. I grabbed Lucy's hand and dragged her back in the direction of where we had entered Narnia. We glanced back one more time to find that Tumnus had disappeared. I burst through the door first, having changed back to human legs halfway through the wardrobe, and fell to the ground as Lucy fell on top of me. We both ran back to where Lucy's family would be, calling out that we were fine and we came back safe and sound.
"Shut up! He's coming!" Edmund pushed his head through the curtains he hid behind, right as Peter rounded the corner.
"I'm not sure you three have quite got the idea of this game." Peter chastised us, to which Lucy and I looked at each other. Walking on two legs was even stranger now that I'd gotten used to four, and toes felt strange in comparison to hooves. I wiggled them experimentally and made a face at it.
"Weren't you wondering where we were?" Lucy asked.
"That's the point. That was why he was seeking you." Edmund spoke, as if we were stupid. I stuck my tongue out at him, and realized that while time had passed in Narnia, none had passed in England.
"Does that mean you win?" Susan asked, coming from behind Peter.
"I don't think Lucy and Will want to play anymore." Peter turned to her while Edmund looked between us.
"But we've been gone for hours." Lucy objected. All three of her older siblings turned to us in confusion. We brought them to the spare room, where the wardrobe sat still open from when we'd burst out of it. Edmund walked to the back of it while Susan checked the inside. Wherever Narnia was, it wasn't there anymore.
"The only wood in here is at the back of the wardrobe." Susan spoke, turning to us.
"One game at a time Lu…Will." Edmund smirked.
"We don't all have the same imagination as you two do." Peter smiled as kindly as he could.
"But we weren't imagining!" I shouted to their turned backs. All three of Lucy's siblings turned around.
"That's enough of that Will." Susan said. Edmund had a sly expression on his face.
"We wouldn't lie about this!" Lucy stepped up next to me.
"Well I believe you." Edmund spoke. I turned to him, putting an expression on my face that I hoped looked like a question.
"You do?" Lucy asked, a similar look on her face.
"Of course! Didn't I tell you about the football field in the bathroom cupboards?" Edmund said in a derogatory manner. Lucy's face fell then, while Peter chastised Edmund.
"It was just a joke!" Edmund got defensive. His black hair was brushed back neatly, however as he walked backwards away from Peter it fell into his face slightly.
"When will you learn to grow up." Peter finally said. Edmunds face contorted in anger.
"Why don't you just shut up! You think you're dad but you're not!" He shouted, running from the room, brushing passed Susan as he did.
"Well that was nicely handled." She said angrily and turned from the room as well.
"But…It really was there." Lucy said one last time. I picked her hand up in mine and held it, meeting Peter's eyes with her.
"Susan's right Lucy. That's enough out of the two of you." Peter then left the room. Lucy let go of my hand, and closed the wardrobe door.
Well, there is that. Its not the best its not the worst, I can't say I'm overly excited about it, but getting away from the fics I was writing helps me to come up with better ideas for them. Take my mind off of pulling my hair out over them lol. Alrighty, let me know what you think, Will is staying that won't change, and he seems blah, but he's kinda based off of me, and I'm that way most times, so if that helps (it probably doesn't). The next few chapters were a bit better in the regard of adding personality to my OC.