I was sixteen when they started coming, when unimaginably wonderful people starting coming over the pass. Not often in large numbers, mind you, but families, clans, individuals. Not all at once, but a few here and more the next month or so.
Running.
They were ashamed, many of them, but desperate, so very desperate. Hungry, and always cold. Like something in each of them had frozen too, never to be thawed. Not while I knew them.
They didn't stay with us long. We were poor as well, though wealthier than them by far in many more important ways. Most were too polite and independent to accept our hospitality for long.
I think we were too close to the mountains. Close enough for air in winds and breezes to come over the peaks and remind them of the home they had left. Cold winds and harsh, often. But once in a while there would be a softer wind with a sweeter smell and gentler feel. One traveler told me that these were the worst: cruel reminders that their land was once a much better, happier place. While this land seemed gone, dead, destroyed under the evil hand of the Witch and the winter, it was not truly lost. These winds made the travelers feel guilt for abandoning the land, for abandoning their hope. Hope in the happiness they had once shared, in the glory of their home, and worst of all, losing their hope in their lord, Aslan.
I do many of them a disservice. Not all who came were so discouraged. Some fled because they had fought, rebelling in the service of their homes. Some feared retribution for some act of kindness or treason. Others came simply because they were not made to withstand the cold and the lack.
I could not help but pity them all. I heard their stories and saw their tears. I saw a vision of what I could be, if the winter were to spread south. I saw the harsh reality of a country under siege. In this conflict the casualties were of minds and spirits rather than of bodies.