Disclaimer: I don't own Narnia, only one guy does...
Day
"Will we make it home grandydaddy?" Lightning flashed, crack! The two badgerlings were clinging to their grandfather like leaves to a tree in fall. However, it was summer and a great lightning storm had creeped in, He was moving toward the orchard as fast as an elderly badger with two children can. He looked around for somewhere to take shelter, they dashed into a glade, flash, crack! A tree stood watch in the glade, large like a fortress, and a luminescent grey. Fireflies danced around it in swirls of glow. He paused as he remembered the history of that tree, knowing it would be the safest place, yet hesistant like someone reluctant to into a room because it contains portraits of themselves in younger more adventurous years. Flash! Pause. Shaking rumble. He corraled the children under the tree, deciding to wait out the storm, this would be the safest place, he knew. Flash! This one closer. Crack!
"Grandydaddy, why are there storms?"
"Sometimes Marlette, storms put us exactly where we need to be, sometimes they give us courage, if we can face lightning from the sky, we can face any form of darkness, no matter what." He looked up again, flash! Crack! "They help us grow up." If he were to keep a diary, he would have described this experience as eerie, inoportune, uncanny.
"But grandydaddy, why are there storms?" She persisted.
"So that we now how good sunny days are."
"I wish I could make storms! I would make lightning strike just to scare people! KA-PFFF!"
"I don't think you'd like that that much. And besides, how would you feel if lightning struck next to you all the time?"
"Oh, I guess I would be scared a lot of the time."
"Yeah, if you don't like something, just think of how much other people don't like it. Okay?"
"Okay."
"Grandydaddy?" Her brother piped up, "Why is this tree glowing like a giant candle?"
Eerie, absolutely eerie. He shivered, "Perid, would you like to hear a story?"
"Sure!"
"Would you like to hear a story about this tree?"
"Yeah!" In unison.
"Okay, sit down and get settled, this is going to be a long story, so no talking or I'm going to get distracted and forget, okay?" They nodded. "Well, the story begins in Cair Paravel, before you two were even born. Queen Lucy was speaking with the Master Candlemaker of Cair Paravel, he had a mouse apprentice who had been raised in the castle all her life. She had just been left in the courtyard, scared, wet, and alone. The Master Candlemaker, a badger, his wife had died several years before from grief at the loss of her son, and he thought he had no children at the time, so he took her in and began teaching her the ways of candlemaking. She knew it was wrong to listen from behind doors, but any news from outside the castle fascinated her, and so she couldn't help herself, she listened to her master and Queen Lucy talking in the hallway.
"'I'm sorry to put this burden on your back, Grimble, but my royal sister is insisting on a midnight sending-off feast, and I'm checking for last minute preparations. Tonight, she's off to meet her first suitor, and she wants to make a grand deal of it. "Out with the moon and in with the sun!" as she put it. Sometimes I worry about her eagerness to grow up.' She bit her lip, then relaxed, 'But enough of my sister, do we have enough candles to light a great feast at the stroke of midnight?'
"'Of course my lady, our stockpile is at this moment only half full, but it shall be enough, all it means is double duty for my apprentice and I afterward.'
"'Have you ever thought of taking on more apprentices? It would certainly lighten the load.' She looked at him, one eyebrow raised.
"'Of course, but one pupil is enough for an old badger like me, and I need to keep up my strength!'
"'Thank you for your kindness badger, now I must talk to my royal brother Peter, a messenger came from the centaur Meadowglen saying she would arrive tomorrow with great news for our kingdom, I haven't told Susan, I won't worry her on what could be one the happiest moments of her life.' She bit her lip again, 'Oh, how our life grows. Grimble, I'd be honored if you and your pupil would join us for the banquet feast.'
"He gave a badger-bow, 'I'd be honored as well your majesty.'
"'Very well, I will see you then.' She stood, turned and walked down the hall surefooted, singing the Lament of Ages:
Oh, how the time slips through my fingers
as the tales of some lost life lingers
in the background memories
of the faded reveries
of a trumpet lost to the spring
Whose name could bring
Tears to the lost of the souls
whose love was stole
by the creature that creeps alone
"She stopped, and looked out the window to the near-setting sun.
Time! How silent a thing!
Burying a peasant!
Toppling a king!
Where the roses do bloom and fall!
Where the lives do grow and call!
Oh my voice! Oh, how I call to time!
To bring back to me, tender and mild
The far spirit of a life sublime!
The spirit of an innocent child!
"Memories of childhood swept through Grimble's mind like steps in a beautiful, yet quick dance.
Oh, how to catch the time,
and lay it down for all of mine!
Like the jubilant melody,
That spring trumpets shout so free!
Shouting the pass of another year,
And I shall cry and shed a tear.
How life has slipped me by again,
How foolish with the days I've been!
"Lucy looked down, her eyebrows pulled together, then she tilted her head back, holding back tears, like she was facing her worst enemy, and her voice did the same.
Memory!
That thing that brings life to days
begot by none but me!
The number of songs and lays,
That could not express the sorrow,
Of the unforgotten tomorrow!
Oh how sweet the sound
That memory abounds
In a life
I used to live
"Her voice softened out and she was quiet for a moment. then her voice shot up like a tulip in the spring.
I really would not mind
If life were not so divine
Oh how our life grows
as our love shows so softly
as the wind blows so gently
as the night flows...
"She faltered and looked at Grimble, a single tear fell down her cheek, she asked, '...so kindly?'
He replied, 'So bently.' Then their voices rose together to that height of reality that only someone who is really singing can reach.
As the moon is merely a pawn,
As clearly the king day shall dawn!
Silence penetrated the hall, like a knife into a heart. Lucy wiped her face, turned, and disappeared around a corner. Grimble stood silent for a moment, smoothed his fur, and turned into the workshop. Marlette had made herself look busy, "And how would you like a break?" he said with a wondrous smile.
PS/AN: Emotionally provacative? Rambling nonsense? Tell me in a review.
