FOOLS IN LOVE
Another beautiful love story, featuring my favorite couple! I was inspired by Tom Lefroy's heartfelt confession in "Becoming Jane", but mostly it was the kissing scene between Johnny and Penelope in "Penelope". James McAvoy looks to be an excellent kisser. I could just picture Tumnus kissing Lucy in a similar fashion, with similar music playing in the background. Don't forget to review!
Characters © C.S. Lewis and Disney/Walden Media
Story © unicorn-skydancer08
All rights reserved.
All her life, Lucy Pevensie had dreamed of how she would discover her one true love. Ever since she was a small child, she was enthralled by stories of romance, of passion and unreserved devotion, of two people coming together as one and living happily ever after. As she grew older, she yearned and prayed more frequently that there may be someone out there for her, that she could have a "happily ever after" to call her own. Now, as a grown woman, and a queen of Narnia, she believed she just might have found that special someone.
But this special someone was not exactly…well, human. Tumnus, the young faun who hailed from the Wild Woods of the West, who was Lucy's first and foremost friend in Narnia, was the one whom her eyes rested upon. He was the last creature anyone would have expected Lucy to fall for. For that matter, Lucy herself never expected a faun to be the love of her life.
Yet, she could not deny what she felt for him in her heart.
Not only was Tumnus exceptionally handsome, with his fine build, his curly hair that was a mix of honey and cinnamon, and his sweet blue eyes that lit up with his charming smile, but he was also very kind, caring, strong, brave, and fiercely loyal. He was the best friend Lucy had ever had, and now she found herself viewing him from a whole new perspective.
Many a time, she envisioned herself kissing him, and him kissing her back. She wanted to feel his soft caress on her skin, hear his sweet voice whisper into her ear. She wanted to lie in his arms at night, to have him hold her and comfort her when she was lonely, frightened, or upset, and to comfort him in return when he had distress of his own. She wanted him as her husband; she wanted to give him children, and—if possible—grandchildren. In short, she wanted to remain with him, and only him, for the rest of her life, and far beyond that.
But alas, these things, as beautiful as they were, were not to be.
Why should Tumnus be involved with someone like her? Why should he ever love her? Better yet, why should she love him? She was only a child when she'd met him for the first time. Although she had now come of age, and, of course, the aging process for fauns was extremely slow, she was still a child to him in every other aspect.
Besides, she and Tumnus were about as separate as sun and water, as stones and trees. Anyone with half a mind could tell the difference between them. Instead of feet, Tumnus walked on a pair of cloven hooves, like those of a big goat. His legs were also like those of a wild goat, with a bit of stag mixed in. Even though his face resembled that of a man, his ears were long and shaped like flower petals, and stuck straight out on either side of his head; and if you paid close attention, you could make out a pair of little curved horns amid his tangle of hair.
Despite all that, despite every reason there was to not love Tumnus, Lucy loved him anyway.
Ah, she thought wistfully, if only Tumnus knew her true feelings for himself. If only he knew, if no one else aside from God did, just how much she needed him.
But Tumnus didn't know, for Lucy never uttered a word to him. How would she be able to tell him, and how would he react? Though Tumnus obviously cared very much about Lucy, surely it never came into his head to make her his wife. If she told him, he would think she was out of her mind; worse, he may very well be disgusted by such abnormal behavior.
Lucy doubted she could bear that kind of rejection.
So, all that was left to do was keep quiet about it, to simply admire her love from afar.
At the same time, unbeknownst to Lucy, Tumnus himself was harboring feelings that were quite similar to hers, if not totally alike.
He, too, had discovered love—a love that he was more than certain he could never obtain.
From the moment he and Lucy ran into each other at Lantern Waste, he thought she was the most beautiful human he'd ever met. Of course, at that time, she was the only human he'd ever met, but he still considered her the most beautiful all the same. She always had a sparkle in her eyes, a smile that warmed him from the inside out, and the sweetest spirit of anyone he had ever known. For the first few years of their relationship, he looked after her and sheltered her like an older brother. But then, as Lucy got older, and her beauty and femininity became more pronounced, Tumnus began to see her differently. He found himself filled to the brim with an incredible, inexplicable desire.
He felt the overwhelming need to take Lucy into his arms, and never let her go. His lips tingled with the urge to kiss her. His very skin itched to feel hers.
At night, he could hardly sleep due to the dreams that plagued him. During the day, he was finding it increasingly difficult to be around Lucy, and keep his silence. More than once, he made an honest effort to make his feelings for her known, but the words got lost on their way to his mouth and he ended up saying something entirely different and irrelevant.
Perhaps it was just as well. He was not meant for Lucy, or for her world, and he knew it.
Nevertheless, that did not keep away the feeling of longing. He wished, hoped, and prayed all the same that, somehow, Lucy could be his.
If only he could have that dream fulfilled, that one dream alone, he would be satisfied. Unfortunately, it was a dream that seemed to always remain just beyond his reach.
All he could truly do was watch Lucy from a distance, with a heavy heart, a little more weight adding on each time he saw her. It killed him, almost literally, to think of how close he and Lucy were, and at the same time how far. Though they were so close, there may as well have been miles of ocean, desert, and forest between them.
It also wounded the faun to imagine the joy he and Lucy could have together being smothered, reduced to a much lower, colder flame.
On top of all this, more pressure was being put on Lucy these days to find a husband. After all, Peter had already settled down and was expecting his first child, and Susan was engaged to be married in the following spring. Edmund had not yet married, but there was a young girl he'd been seeing for quite some time, and hopes for the two of them were high. Tumnus could hardly stomach the idea of Lucy being wed to some human prince, of her giving her love to another. He knew he shouldn't be selfish, but the feeling remained.
Without Lucy, what else was left for him? What else was he supposed to do?
Once, Tumnus even prayed that Lucy would never choose a suitor, but then he immediately felt guilty and recanted, pleading to be forgiven for wishing such a thing.
It wasn't fair of him to have Lucy abandon her dreams, just to make him happy.
If Lucy truly sought after someone, who was he, to stand in her way?
Then the fateful day finally came, when word got out that Lucy had made her decision of whom she was going to marry. At first Tumnus thought it was nothing more than gossip. When Sir Giles first told him about it, and when Tumnus asked the fox where he'd obtained such information, Giles replied, "I heard Marcellus talking about it earlier this afternoon, during training." Marcellus was one of the leading fauns in the High King's army. Tumnus knew him well. He was a pleasant, chipper fellow, sometimes a bit too flippant and frivolous for a soldier.
"And you believe him?" Tumnus said, somewhat incredulously. "You know Marcellus often talks just to hear his own voice."
But when Tumnus heard the same thing later from Romulus, his old childhood friend, and from General Oreius, and ultimately from Edmund himself, he was finally convinced that the story must be true. He sickened. Though he did his best to keep his dismay and despair hidden on the outside, it felt as though his heart had just shattered into a thousand pieces.
No, he lamented inwardly. Oh, dear Aslan, no…
He was sure he would die, there and then. He could feel all his hopes and dreams crumbling down, and inexpressible pain building up at the same time.
That was it, then. It was all over, before it even began in the first place.
He would lose Lucy forever. He knew it, he could just feel it.
She would be joined forever to someone else, and forget all about him. He could not have her, and now he never would. Tumnus wanted to cry, wanted to scream and stamp his hooves and tear his hair, but he couldn't get any part of his body to cooperate with him, and his eyes remained perfectly dry and tearless; it seemed his pain and grief ran deeper than tears.
The rest of the day passed slowly, in a cold, numbing fog of disbelief, and it wasn't until nearly sundown that Tumnus had the opportunity to see Lucy again.
The faun had been standing alone on one of the balconies that overlooked the sea, trying to let the cool, salt-perfumed breeze clear his mind, when presently Lucy came out to join him. Tumnus never moved or spoke as the girl stood alongside him, but his throat tightened considerably and his stomach felt like a hard, icy hand had seized hold of it. He dared not speak to Lucy, dared not ask her whom it was she had chosen. Not knowing served as a protective shield, and so long as he didn't know, there was a possibility it might not be true after all.
Lucy ended up being the one to break the eerie silence.
"So," she said, with her eyes on her hands, which were folded together on the edge of the balcony, "it has happened. I have officially found the love of my life."
Such words were more than Tumnus could bear to hear, and he would have turned on the spot and fled, but his hooves seemed to be glued to the floor.
"This person," the faun managed to say at length, in a reasonably steady voice, "he means a lot to you, doesn't he?"
"Yes," Lucy answered quietly. "Yes, he does." Tumnus noticed she was careful to avoid his gaze while she said it.
"Is he—very handsome?"
"Some wouldn't think so, but I feel he is. More than any other man I've met."
There was another long moment of awkward silence between the two, before Tumnus gave voice to the question he dreaded most. "Do you truly love him?"
"I do, with all my heart and soul," said Lucy, and Tumnus closed his eyes and sorrowfully turned away from her.
What the girl said next, however, surprised him: "But I'm not so sure he feels the same way about me."
Stunned, Tumnus jerked his head up at once and glanced over his shoulder at her, his expression one of pure disbelief.
"What? How can you say that, Lucy? Whatever gave you that crazy idea?"
Lucy bowed her head, causing her long red-gold hair to spill forward and shield her face like a curtain. "I'm sure he cares very much about me…but I doubt he actually loves me."
"What do you mean?"
"For one thing, he's never told me outright that he loves me. He's never kissed me before, he never holds my hand, and lately, he seems to be going out of his way to avoid me altogether."
A queer feeling came over Tumnus.
Despite his heartbreak, he felt a surge of hot anger against the man, whoever he was. Who was he, to brush Lucy off, to respond to her pure, honest love with cold indifference?
Tumnus had no tolerance for anyone treating Lucy contemptuously or making a mockery of her; he would have liked to throttle the man with his bare hands.
"Why do you stay with him, then?" he asked, and there was now a small but noticeable tremor in his voice.
"Because no one else in the world can make me feel the way he does…" Lucy had barely finished speaking, before Tumnus abruptly caught hold of her and pulled her toward him.
Unable to control himself any longer, Tumnus closed his eyes, pressed his lips to Lucy's, and kissed her fervently. He kissed her as he never had before, with anyone. He kissed her again, and again, until he quite took her breath away. He kissed with the passion of a starving man who had just found food, or a thirsting man who had discovered water.
When at last he pulled away, Lucy just stood there, seemingly frozen to the spot, her eyes wide with wonder and disbelief.
"Lucy—I'm sorry," Tumnus didn't hesitate to say. "Forgive me. I—I don't know what came over me."
"Tumnus…"
"I know," he cut her off. "I know you're already involved with someone else, that you have already decided whom your heart belongs to, but I—" He caught his breath, as tears he'd forgotten how to cry filled his china-blue eyes to the brim. "I just can't stand it anymore," he blurted. He seized Lucy, rather roughly, by the shoulders, shaking her slightly as if she were a misbehaving child. "I can't keep this a secret any longer. You must know the truth, Lucy, about how I feel." And before Lucy could say or do anything, he confessed to her, "I love you."
"W-what?" Lucy blinked several times, unsure of whether she'd heard right.
"I love you!" Tumnus said, a little louder this time, and with more evident emotion. His tears broke forth and flooded his face as he went on passionately, "By the Lion's Golden Mane, I love you! I love you, Lucy Marie Pevensie, and everything about you!" He tightened his grip on Lucy's shoulders, his nails digging rather painfully into her skin. "Forgive me," he begged again, "but I cannot help myself. I know I'm not that man whom you love. I'm no prince, no one of great importance. I can't give you much, as far as the world is concerned—but I swear, I would stand by you, and stay true to you, always. I'd take care of you, give you all my heart, and give my very life for your sake."
For a solid minute or so, Lucy didn't move or speak.
She merely looked at Tumnus, and he gazed intently back at her, breathing raggedly as tears continued to slide steadily down his cheeks.
Then, slowly, like butter melting on toast, a smile began to spread over Lucy's face, even as her own eyes filled to overflowing.
Impulsively, she threw herself at Tumnus, nearly knocking him flat.
She wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him so fiercely it was a miracle she didn't choke him to death. Tumnus readily returned her impassioned embrace. With her face buried in his neck, Lucy said fervently, "Oh, Tumnus—you wouldn't believe how much I have longed to hear you say that, how long I have waited to hear such words from your own lips!"
Hardly able to believe his ears, Tumnus thrust her away from him so as to look at her more properly. "You mean to say—"
"Yes, Tumnus," she said, now cutting him short. "You are the one I've been referring to, all along. You are that man."
"Me?" Tumnus was beginning to wonder if this was all a dream, or if he'd simply lost his mind altogether.
"Yes," Lucy repeated, with a sound that was somewhere between a laugh and a sob. "I love you, Tumnus. I want you—and no other."
Tumnus said no more after this, being at a total loss for words. He opened his mouth once or twice, then simply gave up on speaking. He drew Lucy to him again, slowly and gently this time, and she came willingly. Tumnus lifted a hand to brush Lucy's cheek, and she gasped a little at his touch, but she never made a flinch. Very slowly, Tumnus lowered his face until their lips were touching once more. The new kiss was soft at first, then it quickly intensified. Tumnus could feel Lucy's hands on his bare back as she tightened her grip on him, and he did likewise.
He buried his hands in the girl's luxurious hair, kissing her repeatedly until both of them could hardly breathe. The sensation was nothing short of intoxicating; Lucy felt ready to swoon, and she thought she would have fallen had Tumnus not been there to bear her up. Tumnus, too, could feel the whole world spinning rapidly about him.
Even when it was over, when the kissing finally stopped (at least for the time being) and Tumnus and Lucy could think just a little more clearly, they continued to hold fast to each other, neither one wanting to let the other go for a second. Lucy laid her head against Tumnus's heart, and he felt a warm wetness run down his skin. In turn, he allowed his face to rest in her hair, while his fingers toyed idly with it and his own tears seeped into it. They could feel the rays of the setting sun as they stood there together; they had never felt so warm before.
"This is better than a fairy tale," Lucy mumbled into Tumnus's chest.
Tumnus smiled through his tears, and silently agreed.
Love wasn't anything like it was in the books. True, sincere love, the kind he and Lucy had for one another, the kind that lasted a lifetime and transcended the ages, was much deeper.