A/N: It's been a while since I've posted anything Narnia, and while I am writing a Lucyfic at the moment, it'll take time before it's ready to go up, so I thought I'd put this up I also have a poll on my page for what sort of story you'd be interested in me writing.
The Plan
When the daughter of Eve first stumbled into sight, Tumnus was so shocked he dropped all his packages one by one in the snow around him. And then, when the girl moved towards him and he realized she was not some sort of mirage, he could scarcely remember his manners... and his orders.
Draw her to your house for tea.
And he had taken her arm and raised the umbrella and led her to the little cave he liked to think of as home. The door had been opened wide for her, and the fire lit and tea put on, and all the time a steady stream of trivialities flew from his mouth.
He looked into her innocent eyes as she took the cup from him and was surprised to see she suspected nothing.
Cast her into an enchanted sleep.
He played his pipe and the twisting whirls of the melody wove themselves into a net to snare the child in a land of dreams, and she slept. But long after the pipe had been lowered from his lips, he sat thinking, considering. For in the conversation the human girl had made, one line stood out among the others. "Oh, I'm not an only child. I have two brothers and a sister. They're all older than me."
Two brothers and a sister.
Two brothers and a sister.
Two brothers and a sister.
And a new plan began to form.
Wake her, bait her.
Trembling hands drew the child from the enchantment. In a shaking, sobbing voice, he confessed of service to the White Witch. And before the girl could really comprehend what was happening, Tumnus was leading her back through the woods and the snow and the trees to the iron post, and sending her on her way.
There was a chance his gamble might come to naught, and if so, the Witch would not be pleased.
- x -
But it was only a few days gone before there was a timid knock at his door and Tumnus opened it to see again the human child. She was alone again, and so he did not play his pipes but rather entertained her with tales of past and present and had her promise that if ever she should come with her siblings, they should all come to visit for tea.
And when the girl left again with the promise to return soon, Tumnus felt again that the Witch would not be pleased. But oh! the rewards for one human child were so much less than for four!
But it is hard to keep secrets in a forest where even some of the trees report to the Witch, and it really should not have been such a shock when rumours of the Secret Police wanting a certain faun began to circulate. And after the whirlwind of frantic messages - just why did he give the handkerchief to Beaver, anyway? - and snarling wolves and trees and snow and gate and statues, Tumnus was thrown grovelling before the Witch. He was trying to explain his plan, which suddenly didn't feel nearly so ingenuous anymore, but he had not gotten very far at all before She interrupted.
"And you thought," She said coldly, and Her voice was both terrible and beautiful, "that your plan might be smarter than anything I might think of?" And she raised her wand and he tried to scramble back but it was too late. A wave of horrible nothing swept across him all at once and he could not move nor feel but he could think - oh, he could think!