A/N: Hi again. We're still concentrating on Edmund and Tumnus in this chapter. I realise it's all a bit angsty at the moment. I'll try to put a bit of levity in to lighten it a bit. But I'm afraid it'll take a while before things are cheery!
Hope you enjoy it all the same.

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Drip … drip … drip …

Edmund tossed on the floor of the cell, trying to find a comfortable position.

Drip … drip … drip …

Trying to sleep, but the drip would not let him.

Drip … drip … drip …

Not thirsty as he was.

Drip … drip … drip …

He could not sleep through the thirst.

Drip … drip … drip …

Could not sleep through the pain.

Edmund shuddered as he remembered his first encounter with the White Witch, or Queen Jadis as she preferred to be called …

"What is your name, Son of Adam?"

Edmund cowered in his chains, almost too afraid to speak, but the look the Witch directed at him loosened his tongue.

"Uh, E .. Edmund." He stammered.

At this the dwarf, that had accompanied the Witch flicked his whip at Edmund leaving deep welts on the front of his legs.

"Is that how you address the Queen of Narnia?" he screamed at Edmund as Tumnus winced.

"I'm sorry … Your Majesty" Edmund whimpered.

The White Witch ignored the whipping and the whimpers.

"And how, Edmund, did you come to enter my dominion?"

"I'm not sure." The dwarf flicked his whip again, this time it bit into Edmund's back as he twisted, trying to avoid it.

"Your Majesty, I was just playing w …" here he cast a look at Tumnus. He had been about to mention his siblings. "I just opened a door and found myself here" he continued instead.

"A door from the word of men" The White Witch murmured to herself. "This could ruin all. But he is only one and easily dealt with."

Then a though occurred to her and she turned to Edmund. "And are there any others?" she asked with a type of dreadful eagerness.

Once again Edmund glanced almost involuntarily at Tumnus. A fact that did not go unnoticed by The White Witch. She nodded to the dwarf who once again wielded his whip, cutting Edmund's back and shoulders unmercifully. Edmund screamed.

"You will look at me when I speak to you Edmund!" declared The Witch.

"No, Your Majesty" Edmund whimpered. "I have no one, no parents, no siblings. It is just me!"

Edmund had seen enough of the Witch and her dungeons to know that, confrontational as his relationship might be with his family, he would never wish this place on them!

Tumnus's almost involuntary sigh of relief caused the Witch to turn on him. Striding towards the terrified faun, she reached out and lifted him up by the neck, frighteningly easily, and held him against the damp, icy wall of the passage. She turned to Edmund.

"Do you know why you're here, Edmund?" she asked.

Edmund mutely shook his head, cowering when the dwarf once again, plied his whip on the boy without mercy.

The Witch grinned cruelly at Tumnus.

"You're here... ...because he" she pointed at Tumnus with her free hand, "turned you in."

Edmund looked at Tumnus in disbelief.

"I have yet to find a way to reward you for that Tumnus" purred the Witch, throwing the faun to the floor where he turned his head away in shame.

"Since you and Edmund seem to have developed a special relationship," she continued. "I think I will allow you to stay with him."

At a signal from the White Witch a huge Minotaur who had been waiting in the shadows strode forward and dragged Tumnus into the cell next to Edmund's where he shackled him to the floor. Then she and her servants had left, locking the doors behind them. Tumnus now a prisoner as well as Edmund.

Tumnus …

At this memory of Tumnus, Edmund turned to regard the faun. They had not exchanged a word since the Witch had left. Tumnus had been too ashamed. Edmund too hurt, in more ways than one.

Tumnus had lied to him. Pretended to be his friend. He should have known. Should have realised that no one was going to be nice to him – not without a cost …

A cost. The White Witch had said that she would be back and that next time she would expect Edmund to tell her the truth and that if he did, she would be merciful.

Perhaps she would let him go if he told her about his siblings.

It would serve Peter right – self-satisfied prig that he was …

… but even as he thought the words, Edmund knew that he did not mean them.

The thought of Peter or Susan suffering as he had made him feel faint.

The idea of little Lucy being whipped nearly made him pass out with the pain of the thought.

He was beginning to come to the realisation that there were a lot worse things than being nagged and ordered about by his siblings.

The door to the dungeons clanged open and Edmund and Tumnus cowered back against the walls of their cells, expecting that it was Jadis returning.

But it was not Jadis, it was the Minotaur and a large ogre. Between them they dragged what Edmund realised could only be a centaur. The centaur's body was such a mass of cuts and welts, that hardly a patch could be seen that was untouched. Without mercy, the ogre and the minotaur threw him roughly into the cell on the other side of Tumnus's from Edmund and shackled him to the floor.

As the minotaur and ogre left, slamming the door behind them. The centaur turned towards Tumnus in the next cell.

"Tumnus" he gasped, obviously in pain as he attempted to peer through the bars into the dim cell. "Is that you?"

Tumnus stared back at the familiar face in the next cell in disbelief.

"Oreius?"

Edmund listened as Oreius described to Tumnus how he had been captured by the White Witch after one of her spies heard that he had prophesised the imminent arrival of the promised Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve. She had held him for weeks and tortured him, until he had finally broken and told her what he had read in the stars - that they would arrive within this Lunar cycle.

"I betrayed them Tumnus. Betrayed Aslan" he admonished himself.

Tumnus shifted uncomfortably in his cell.

"I will never forgive myself" he declared, "I am a traitor and do not deserve forgiveness" he continued harshly. Tumnus attempted to speak but could find no words.

"How will I ever hold my head up if I meet a Son of Adam or Daughter of Eve?" Oreius asked. "They will hate me!"

"Well!" came a weak but determined voice from the cell beyond Tumnus's. "I admit you aren't my favourite person at the moment. "But … help me get out of here and we'll call it quits."

Oreius started and shifted painfully so that he could see the figure that had spoken. Edmund Pevensie stared back at him. The spark, which he had thought his family determined to quash, which the dwarf's whip had begun the process of beating out of him, was still there.

Edmund stood bruised and bleeding but with a grin and a challenge on his face. That spark, which manifested as cheeky and rude in England, was beginning to emerge as something else here, something better, something that would stand him in good stead if he were to survive in Narnia.

"Your Highness" gasped Oreius in awe. "Please forgive me for what I told the White Witch! I will do all that I can to make amends! We will escape and I will bring you to …" here the centaur leaned closer to Tumnus and Edmund and lowered his voice.

"They say Aslan is on the move"

Aslan! At that name, a strange thrill coursed through Edmund's body and soul. An intoxicating mixture of fear, joy, exhilaration, and anxiety.

Wait … what had he said?
"Your Highness?"

Please review and let me know what you think - thanks to those who have reviewed already - it really helps.