A/N: Written for the Narnia Holiday One shot Contest. Prompt: Traditions
When We Remembered Zion
There was no Christmas in Narnia. There hadn't been for nearly a hundred years. Days were reckoned by the rising and setting of the sun, months by the waxing and waning of the moon, and years by those centaurs who still tracked the stars from hiding. Beaver could not remember a spring. His father and grandfather had passed down stories from their forefathers of the time before the queen-witch they whispered in the safety of their own homes-when the banks of the river grew green with grass, and the water flowed freely without chunks of ice, when the Tree of Protection bore irreplaceable fruit and sheltered the defenders who stood in its shade as it sheltered all Narnia with its magic. The trees told stories of a time when they dressed themselves in green leaves and silken blossoms and the brilliant reds and golds of autumn. In that time, the stories ran, the sound of bells in the snow meant building up the fire and opening one's doors in anticipation of a visit from Father Christmas rather than barring it tight and hiding in the cellar in hopes that she would pass by and not stop.
The Witch did not permit even the mention of Christmas, the celebration of Aslan's birth in the old legends of the sons of Adam and daughters of Eve. Its connection to the Great Lion and to the kings and queens of old made it doubly anathema to her. Her Majesty was not fond of large gatherings, either. Not unless she had called for a spectacle - usually to witness the meting out of some punishment - and even those were rare.
"She wants us separate," Beaver's father had told him many times. "Isolated. She doesn't want Narnians talking, planning, thinking of resisting. She especially doesn't want us remembering."
"Remembering what?" he'd asked when he was still a pup.
"Remembering Aslan," his father had answered. "Remembering who we are. She doesn't want us having hope."
It was Beaver's father who had taught him to memorize the prophecies, who had entrusted him with knowledge of the old hiding places, and quietly introduced him to that network of folk who shared news and looked after the suffering Narnians. It was also his father who had recited the old songs and stories for him. Someday, he'd say, they will be needed.
Someday, he'd continued to say to the very day he died.
So on this winter evening that was not Christmas because Christmas no longer came to Narnia, Beaver and Tumnus (his father's friend and grandfather's and now Beaver's because fauns live longer than beasts) hung holly over the tightly-shuttered windows of Beaver's barely begun dam and set a stout oak log to burning in the fireplace. The dryads who had provided both wove crowns of ivy and placed them on the heads of Beaver and his new bride. Old words were spoken, Tumnus played a tune from before the winter, and in the spirit of hope, they danced.
Fin.