A/N: This one-shot sort of surprised me. I had been thinking about the loss of innocence, and suddenly thought to do a piece on this with Lucy. This is the result, and is rather more gloomy than I expected...
A hand rests on the doorframe. Lucy has her eyes shut; she is not sure whether she can bear to look. The room is silent, no life within the stone walls. Lucy is alone. She would prefer to come with someone else, but her siblings would try to convince her to stay away. "You don't need to see this," Susan had said when Lucy mentioned her thoughts, but Susan is wrong. Lucy does need to see. She needs to be sure.
It is a strange thing to be in this room where hope has fled. So often Lucy has seen hope return with a single drop from her cordial; it is hard to imagine that for once she is too late. Too late – the words echo in her mind as though someone had spoken aloud in this stone room. But there will be no words spoken to her here; not today, and perhaps never again. Instead there is the quiet splash of a tear at Lucy's feet, and the gentle whisper of stone beneath her fingers.
When her eyes open, the sight takes her by surprise. She knew what to expect, but inside, Lucy was still hoping. Now she sees the single white sheet draped over the body, and her breath catches. In a dreamlike state she moves across the cold floor and lifts the cover.
It is as they told her. His blue eyes are closed in eternal sleep, and his skin is cold and pale. A sharp red cut stands out across his cheek, and a bruise is forming over his eye. Lucy is afraid to lift the sheet farther, and she loosens her fingers to let it flutter down to cover his face again.
Her heart is thudding, and Lucy stumbles back against the wall. Her siblings were right in telling her she would not want to see this. But still, it is something she needed to see. Now she knows it is true, that there is nothing more she could do to bring him back. She knows he is gone. Oh, but Aslan, it hurts…
The stone room is stifling, and Lucy realizes she needs to escape the memories of innocence that hang in the air. Her feet carry her to the door, but she can't leave yet, for she has not yet done what she came for. Slowly, Lucy moves back to the table, her head bowed and tears in her lashes. She drops to her knees, her skirts gathering beneath her, and for one terrible moment her throat closes and she feels trapped in time.
Then her voice returns, and Lucy begins to think again. For a moment she considers everything she could say. Then she speaks, bidding the lifeless body farewell. When she is finished, there is still the feeling that Lucy must say something more, and so she lifts her head to whisper his name one last time.
"Goodbye, Mr. Tumnus."
Yes, I'm sorry, I killed off the faun. *sob* It was really either Mr. Tumnus or Peter... for some reason I never even considered Edmund. And I really didn't want to have Peter die. I suppose I could have come up with some other character, but it isn't really the same.
As I was writing this, I realized it would work really well with a Lucy/Tumnus pairing. I usually don't go for that pairing (I prefer to think of them as friends) or any pairing at all other than specific pairings Lewis mentioned himself. However, if you are a Lucy/Tumnus fan and prefer to think of this story that way, go ahead.
Anyway, I would appreciate reviews, seeing as I'm always a little uncertain about whether I get the feelings across properly (and I don't have my sister here for me to test this on!) So please, if you would hit that beautiful button down below... Thanks muchly!