Chapter 78- arrival at the destination at last and epilogue part one
The migrating crowd continued their journey south through the snowy Narnian landscape towards the Narnia/Archenland border under the guidance of Aslan who shone his Lion-faced fireball as a beacon to guide the migrants during the day and the night as usual. Since their attempted detour down a wrong path resulting in their traumatic and deadly encounter with Jadis, Krampus, which further resulted in casualties, fatalities and petrified individuals, the evacuees had learned their lesson of disobeying Aslan's guidance the hard way. Further, they were more eager than ever to get out of the cursed wintery Narnian landscape, and the Witch's deranged regime and diamond-ice fist of tyranny. Thrown in amongst the desperation was heartbreak. Cedrus, Deodara, Tsuga, Keteleeria and the other Curupira were still devastated over the loss of their tribe members, amongst them Deodara's sister who had sacrificed herself to save Troodon from certain death from the gingerbread men minions of Krampus when his biological family, amongst them Dromaeo his uncle and except for a few of them such as his mother Ena who had thanked her son for saving her life from those cursed candy figures, had left him to die in revenge for his actions he had done to everyone back at Gandalf's base under the coercion of Belladonna, and that grudge was still festering within them against Troodon even now, and some of them were planning on causing the young and troubled Theropod a LOT of trouble and misery in the future. However, the Theropod family's minds, like everyone else's in the crowd, was on getting out of the Narnian landscape and the White Witch's reign as soon as possible, and that journey still had a few Narnian days before the crowd reached their goal, the Narnia/Archenland border in the south.
While the migrants continued their journey with many of Gandalf and Kyukon's former helpers escorting them, back in Kyukon and company's cave and tunnel home, extreme sadness and bereavement was saturating the inhabitants, especially a certain nine-tailed Fox and many of her elder children, among them Alestormeria and her husband Hagrid who were to be the next Kitsune Chroniclers after Gandalf and Kyukon's retirement. However, that role's passing to this couple was to wait. When the Dryad had told Kyukon and her group of Gandalf's demise and the events leading up to it, a crack of thunder had shattered the hearts of Kyukon and her helpers into a million pieces and over the next few days, the group had entered a state of deep bereavement. But although she was severely heartbroken over her beloved mate's death, Kyukon had concluded that Gandalf had bravely and willingly given up his own life to ensure that the migrating Narnian crowd had made it safely to Archenland for Jadis and her crowd had been extremely eager to track down the vulnerable migrants to catch and haul back to her palace, where the captured creatures would have been assigned a different variety of horrible fates, such as 'playmates' for many of the wicked creatures; death for their meat, death by slaying each other in the Arena of Blood Jadis and her cronies used for their Massacre Event (which the Witch still planned on using but for every year this time with fewer forcibly selected Narnians who chose to remain behind in the land to ensure that her tyranny was reinforced, rather than every ten years), turned to stone or made into slaves, either in the labour zones or in and around the Witch's palace and grounds. But with the triumph of killing the patriarch of all the Kitsune species and processing his body for his meat and using his tails as part of her attires of pure vanity occupying the Witch, it seemed that the Witch had decided to abandon her pursuit of the migrating crowd and relish in that triumph as well as try out her 'new' addition to her attire, the nine tails of a fully matured Kitsune sewn to one of her sparkling coats, and it was likely that she would remain occupied with that new addition to her wardrobe for quite some time. Although this sounded like a very dark blizzard, in that dark blizzard was a silver lining and that was the migrants continuing their southbound journey to Archenland safely but they still needed to follow Aslan's guidance, lest they be destroyed through their disobedience like at the fork in the road and they took the clear path against Aslan's guidance, resulting in the mess we had seen in the previous chapters and its subsequent results.
Several days later
As the crowd of migrating Narnians approached the border to Archenland after several more days of near-nonstop walking and trekking except for several rest-stops and sleeps since their disturbing encounter with Jadis, Krampus and their cronies which nearly resulted in all of them getting captured, killed or turned to stone if it weren't for the escorts who had chosen to leave Gandalf's side with his permission to go with the migrants, they noticed that the snow was beginning to melt away into smaller and smaller patches and give way to patches of green grass strewing the thinning snow. These grass puddles grew larger and merged into one larger mass towards the border and the white patches of the snow became less and less. This grass was the first natural greenery the crowd members born between the events of the Witch's usurping of the Narnian throne and this one, the Exodus, such as Kushanku and company, Tesseract, Troodon and Guinan, among others, had EVER encountered while for those that were born before the Witch's takeover of Narnia, such as Cedrus and the other of Gandalf's helpers who had chosen to escort the migrants, it was the first grass they had ever come across in decades. This was because Archenland was not a part of Narnia and was a separate country in its own right, and thus was not a part of Jadis's Eternally Winter-locked land hence why the snow faded to smaller and smaller patches towards the border. The Narnia/Archenland border itself was mountainous for ahead of the crowd of migrants and beyond the sea of grass rose a line of mountains, and it was the final obstacle the migrating crowd had to hike through in order to be completely out of Jadis's reach, and their Archenlandic home for the rest of the Eternal Winter until the Golden Age Prophecy and the Dawn of Spring arrived, was to be in those mountains and just outside the Archenlandic towns.
As the crowd gazed at the series of mountains ahead of them, Cedrus, with his staff which he used as a weapon, a walking stick and as a symbol of his rank as patriarch of the Curupira tribe who had been Gandalf's helpers, struggled to the front and stared hard at the towering near-pyramidal hills ahead, the smaller ones at the front and the taller ones behind them. As soon as recognition that this was the Narnia/Archenland border took hold within the Curupira tribe patriarch, he sent some of the flying escorts, among them Ptériga, Cygnus and Swomee, and Passiflora, ahead of the crowd as a signal to the Archenlandic inhabitants that the migrant crowd had arrived just outside the border and will need help hiking through the mountains to their new homes. As the flying scout group flew on ahead, Kushanku gazed at the mountains with Nyarth, Satoshi, Sandstorm and Ryn. Nearby, the Pyros such as Emberflame, the Hitodama and Will O Wisps were being released from their lamps for it was now safe for the Fire Sprites to leave their protective confines as the Witch's deadly winter curse was weaker here. The Pyros were especially glad to be out of their lamps after so long and were flying around like fiery Humanoid fireballs and relishing the air for the first time in days, while the Hitodama and Will O Wisps who resembled simple fireballs with limbs, danced on the ground, their fire not igniting the plants.
"So that's our destination?" asked Kushanku as Alexandrite, Padparadscha, Dahlia, Azula, Snowwing, Crystal, Molayne, Link, Cyril, Desdemona, Tesseract and Chicory came in with Trotterhoof, Thundersparx, Obsidian, Nanu, Milky Way, Ahhuayo and new friend Teal'c.
"Yes it is, Kushanku," said Thundersparx as he also gazed at the mountains leading into Archenland while Obsidian flopped down nearby, relief that the journey was nearly over washing over her and the other migrants. The journey had clearly demanded every ounce of their energy and strength, and they were all exhausted as a result.
"It is to be our home for the coming years until the Dawn of Spring arrives," said Tuvok nearby, his seven tails sweeping out behind him. During the battle with Jadis and company, these Kitsune had been busy in herding the crowd away from the danger zone they had brought themselves in and had only used their foxfire a few times due to its energetic demands on them. Now that the crowd was nearly out of Jadis' reach, they couldn't have been more relieved, but the loss of Gandalf was heavy on them, and Tuvok especially felt it. Despite the loss, they kept their focus on their escorting jobs during the Exodus. However, the Kitsune migrants had planned to conduct a funeral for their fallen father once they had settled into their new but temporary home.
"When will the Dawn of Spring come?" asked Nyarth.
"In Aslan's timing," said Obsidian as she relaxed from the journey for a while, while the flying escort group continued to shrink as they receded further into the distance from the crowd in the direction of the mountains, "It might not be in the lifetimes of some of us but our descendants will be present to see the First Spring arrive with the Great Thaw and the Golden Age Prophecy."
"But one thing is clear," said Milky Way seriously, "We're to stay in Archenland until then and continue our lives, as well as repopulate our species, which will be the case with the critically endangered species such as the Okuri-Inu," she flashed a glance at some of the Canid creatures who wearily walked in and collapsed onto the grass patches from exhaustion. ALL the members of the species of Magical Canid present in the crowd were relieved beyond description to be out of the range of the White Witch's curse with the hope that they can increase their numbers for their pups strongly required the natural day-night cycle to mature into reproduction-capable, fertile adults, something the adolescent pups had been unable to achieve in Gandalf and Kyukon's base due to a lack of natural circadian rhythm as the Kitsune couple had been well aware. This was why they had planned on sending the Okuri-Inu off to Archenland first and earlier than the others, along with the Alicanto Birds due to their dietary requirements for metal trees could not grow in the winter-cursed Narnian land. Due to lack of maturation in the Okuri-Inu, new pups had not been born for years and years. However, the Okuri-Inu were not the only creatures that were relieved.
The mostly-metallivorous Alicanto Birds were also relieved to be out of the Witch's grasp as the land of Archenland would be fertile enough to grow metal trees which will provide then with food for the rest of the Eternal Winter. Back in Narnia, their only source of food had been the trees grown in Gandalf's underground base for growing the metal trees aboveground was extremely difficult due to the conditions the metal trees required. Furthermore, the White Witch and her cronies were not hesitant in taking the harvested metal pieces from those trees for their own selfish and greedy uses, such as the Jadis idols, which left the Alicanto Birds starving. And although there were a LOT of individuals in this crowd of practically every Narnian species, with some of them originating from the Underworld Realm such as the Karura, the Talking Dragons and the Basan, not every Narnian had chosen to depart their Winter Curse-infected land. A large number of Narnians had chosen to remain behind, and it will be them who will be on the lookout for the Great Thaw on the ground while Asgard, Martian and their Moon Men, and also the Cloudbirds and other inhabitants friends with the Narnians in Asgard Sky City will keep an eye out for the Great Thaw from above. Milky Way continued.
"And when the Dawn of Spring arrives with the Golden Age Prophecy, we'll be returning to Narnia for the Winter Revolution," said the Pegasus. This made the faces of Kushanku and company fall. The sound of 'until Aslan's timing' was clearly igniting despair and discouragement within them but then Thundersparx put a paw on Kushanku's shoulder and gazed sympathetically at him and the others with him.
"I know it sounds bleak but remember, Aslan knows best," the Raiju said gently, "It is for the safety of the majority of the Narnians, especially for the younger generation such as you guys, and the coming generations after us for as long as our stay in Archenland lasts, which will NOT be forever."
Kushanku and company slowly perked up at this assuring fact and prepared to move into Archenland with everyone else. Although this age of Narnia was called the Eternal Winter, also the Age of Winter, it will, ironically and as stated before, not last long, but that's another story. Then when Ptériga and the other flying escorts were spotted returning to the crowd, the crowd prepared to cross the Narnia/Archenland border and into the mountains, called the Narnia-Archenland Mountains. With the flying escorts were strange creatures and they were following the scouts on a special mode of aerial transport. As these creatures melted into view, Kushanku and company, to their surprise, saw that they were riding on CARPETS that could FLY.
Magic carpets were common magical artefacts in the Narnian world and were used as a mode of aerial transport. Users of these carpets were often Fairies, Elves, Oni (that is, Oni who were not on the Witch's side), and a variety of other Humanoid Magical Creatures though some species, such as Curupira, Tengu and Dwarves, were not known to use then a lot. As soon as Ptériga and company had touched down, the riders of the magic carpets also landed before the crowd. Then one of the Oni, a large hairy creature resembling a Troll but with prehensile hair like tentacles, approached Cedrus and shook hands with him from a distance, using his tentacle-like hair in the handshake.
"Welcome, Cedrus," he said with a wide smile, "Welcome to the Narnia-Archenland border and the mountains marking it," he then broke the handshake with Cedrus, retracted his prehensile hair to his arm and commanded the crowd to get moving. The crowd did so and as soon as any items, kids or pregnant mothers, or baskets containing un-hatched eggs and babies too young to walk that had been put down for the short rest stop were picked back up, or had mounted the stronger creatures such as the Centaurs, Kirin, certain Dinosaurs, Unicorns and Horses, the crowd got moving again. Within hours, the crowd was seeping through the mountains under the guidance of the magic carpet flyers in the direction of their place of stay, which were a large collection of houses, dens, caves, a river, ponds, forests and lakes and various other habitats suited for a wide variety of creatures. Amongst the soon-to-be-occupied villages and towns, farms and fields had been provided to help with the growing of food though some will be provided by the inhabitants of Archenland who were friends with Narnia, among them Humans though these individuals will not leave their villages for safety reasons for where the migrated Narnians will be staying was too close to the Narnian border, and because of the Witch's immense power in sensing the presence of humans afoot in her winter-cursed land, presumably through the power of telepathy, any presence of even ONE human was enough to have her send her cronies to the border to capture him and her to haul back to the Witch's palace. Humans, also known as Sons of Adam for the males and Daughters of Eve for the females, were a significant threat to the Witch due to their inclusion in the Golden Age Prophecy and the Witch wanted to make sure that ANY traces of human, no matter how small, was not present in her land.
As the crowd continued to seep through the mountains to their temporary villages, the Narnians that went ahead of them, such as some of the defectors from Jadis's crowd and had escaped, including Dionaea the Manticore who had managed to escape and fly all the way south to Archenland after freeing the Rainbow Serpent and the captured Sea folk and Talking Sea Beasts with her friends, had been working to build the villages and towns for the main Exodus travellers and had managed to finish them before the crowd arrived at the border. Then as soon as the crowd had completely left their snow-saturated land behind and had entered the northern mountains of Archenland, they began to settle into their new home with the help of the Narnians already present, alongside the Arcenlandic non-human inhabitants and had been provided with fresh food in the form of a large feast. Then after this, the migrants were guided to their new homes, family by family, species by species, tribe, clan or equivalent, by group. Kushanku settled into a simple small den with Amberpaw, Nyarth, Satoshi, Sandstorm and Ryn with Thundersparx as their foster guardian to replace Dashiell and Honeycomb. This den resembled their previous den and brought back many sad and nostalgic memories but they settled into it anyway for they had no choice. Everyone else also settled into their new homes and relished the presence of green leaves and flowers, some of the things that had been missing from their original homes for so long due to the Witch's Eternal Winter, alongside the warmth of the sun and the fresh air of spring which came as quite a surprise to the migrants for they had not seen spring for so long in their original home. Then as soon as all the migrants had settled down, they began their lives anew which will continue until the coming of the Dawn of Spring, and away from the Witch's tyranny and the difficult implications it brought, such as the immense food shortage due to the Witch's corrupt legal system, and the risk of being forcibly selected for her sickening and excessively-violent Decadal Massacre Event, though it would take a long time for the victims who had lost loved ones to the sickening event, such as Shadewing the Bat with his son Firewing, and Kushanku and his family with the loss of their brother Gingerfur, to recover and move on.
Epilogue
A number of years had passed since the Exodus and the migrants' settling into the northern mountains of Archenland, and during that time, a lot had happened. The Witch continued her tyrannical rule with her iron (or rather, diamond-ice) fist over the land of Narnia and since the Exodus, she had enforced even stricter and crueller rules on whoever had chosen to remain behind in Narnia to keep an eye out for any humans entering into the land through a wooden box according to the Golden Age Prophecy. One of these was forcing those remaining Narnians, among them Tumnus and his family who were related to Guinan for she was Tumnus' cousin, into becoming spies for any such human and if any human was found in Narnia, they were to take them in and hand them over to the Secret Police, many divisions who had obtained new leaders to replace the ones who had been slain, some by Gandalf, to be forcibly carted off to the Witch to be dealt with. Among the divisions were the Wolves with Romulus's leadership being taken over by his older son and his mate who will eventually become the ancestors of Maugrim in the future. Furthermore, the Witch had kept her Massacre Event games but only this time, the event was to take place once per year with fewer Narnians, mostly young ones, being forcibly selected and thrown into the Arena of Death for the entertainment of the Witch and her cronies and to continue to enforce the diamond-ice control over everyone who had remained in Narnia, as mentioned before. Thankfully, the majority of the younger generation was absent and will not face such demise unlike the unfortunate younger victims before the Exodus.
While life in Narnia continued to flow under the White Snow Beast's evil rule, in Archenland, the evacuees had settled into their new but temporary homes until the Golden Age Prophecy arrived. Kushanku and company had grown into young creatures with some of them getting married and having their own offspring. Kushanku and Alexandrite were amongst these couples and had had their first litter of their own kits, a litter of four. That litter was three daughters and a son. The three daughters were named Aka, Kiiro and Midori while the son was named Ao. Satoshi had married Padparadscha and the two had had a litter of three kits, all three being daughters. The girls were named Merida, Sunstone and Moonstone. Ryn had married Nyaonix the Bakeneko, one of Dionaea the Manticore's friends and together, the couple had a litter of two kits, Neelix and Fleur. The two kits were Nekomata/Bakeneko hybrids due to their parents' different species of Magical Cat Yokai though Nekomata and Bakeneko could also breed with Regular Cats as well, similar to how Kitsune could breed with Regular Talking Foxes. Nyarth had married a female Regular Talking Cat and with her, he had a single daughter, Amethyst, who was a Nekomata/Talking Regular Cat hybrid. In the same way, Sandstorm, the only Cheetah family member who remained close to his adopted Magical Cat Yokai siblings, had married a female Cheetah and had had a litter of two cubs with her, and several other members of Kushanku and his siblings' close friends had also paired up and had offspring, including Snowwing the Skvader and Dahlia the Jackalope.
Kushanku and company had indeed become proud parents and had yet to tell them about the horrors they had faced during their time in Narnia at the hands of the evil White Witch. Kushanku, Ryn, Satoshi and Nyarth had also yet to tell their kits about their grandparents that they will never meet and how they had sacrificed themselves to save them from certain death after Thundersparx's father had betrayed them and the other Aslan believers to the Witch by revealing their den's location to the evil tyrant and her cronies resulting in the slaughter that in turn resulted in the death of their parents, as well as other adventures they had had growing up, and the hardships they had to deal with while living with Dashiell and his family. The majority of the other young evacuees, including the Okuri-Inu who had passed maturation due to their exposure to the natural day-night cycle, also had litters and offspring, while eggs that had been carried during the Exodus had finally hatched, and mothers gave birth to the young they had been carrying during the journey, and over the years, these new additions had grown up. This generation of young Narnians was the first generation to be born on Archenlandic soil and they will not see their true home until the Golden Age Prophecy came true. Speaking of this, as time went by, there were some Narnians that, sadly, eventually lost faith in the Prophecy and worse, Aslan.
Amongst these doubters were Amberpaw, the only other surviving Cheetah member of Sandstorm's biological family and Kushanku and his siblings' adopted family. Because she did not believe in the existence of the Great Lion, she had turned to the secular, evolutionary view of Narnia's history and had encouraged a number of other Narnians to follow her. This led to a group of Narnians who doubted Aslan's existence and the Golden Age Prophecy and so denied them, forming, and this group had encouraged some of the other Narnians, especially the new additions to the evacuees into joining and learning about the false history of the Narnian world, among it the evolution story of how Narnia came to be with the seeding of the primitive Narnian sea with a comet that exploded with the fragments containing various types of microbes, supposedly the ancestors of all the different Narnian creature types, raining into that ocean, and those microbes evolving into the various Talking Beast and Magical Creature varieties with many eventually migrating onto land and some becoming flying creatures. This disheartening and disappointing path this group of Narnians took thanks to Amberpaw and a few others caused divisions amongst the evacuees and they split into two groups; the secularists and the Aslan and the Golden Age Prophecy believers. Kushanku and company had kept their children from the secular crowd and educated their kids with the true history of Narnia, including Aslan's creation of it and the Golden Age Prophecy and how it will be carried out.
Besides the saddening and disheartening formation of the secular group, some of the evacuees had also not had a happy ending. Troodon, who continued to live with the Curupira tribe and their friends such as the Tengu, with Cedrus and his family and learn better personality traits such as manners thanks to the counselling and education from Cedrus and his tribe, continued to be fiercely shunned by his own biological family except Ena and a few others who had forgiven him for his antics with Belladonna after he had saved Ena's life, and Cedrus and company did not blame the Theropod for the death of Deodara's sister who had rescued him from he cursed gingerbread men of Krampus when Dromaeo, Troodon's uncle, and many others of his family abandoned him to his fate. The reason for Troodon's troubled behaviour was that he had felt utterly rejected by his own father as a young Theropodling when the father had abandoned Eva's family to join the Witch's side, and the little Theropod had been bottling up his emotions since that devastating time. As Troodon grew up, Ena had been too busy to understand him better while his siblings shunned him, leading to the Theropod's development of troubling behaviour such as becoming naughty which continued until Cedrus and his tribe counselled him. It seemed that Belladonna had exploited this weak spot and his desire to make friends and had plunged him into further trouble but despite this, Troodon had eventually learned to let go of his past and move on.
Eventually, Troodon had met a lovely young female Theropod but due to the antics of his biological family except Ena and a few others, just as the Theropod was to become Troodon's wife, Troodon ended up getting framed for a VERY serious crime by his biological family with even Cedrus, his tribe, Kushanku and company and even Ena believing the lies, leading to the female Theropod who had become engaged to Troodon at the time to forsake him and marry one of his brothers instead which was what Dromaeo and the other members that still despised Troodon wanted. This resulted in Troodon leaving the evacuee home in heartbreak and secretly becoming a recluse far away from the home area, leading Kushanku and company, as well as Cedrus and his tribe and Ena down the path of severe guilt, especially when they had found out the truth. These individuals had arrived to the assumption that Troodon had left the evacuees for good, or worse. Furthermore, Kushanku and company still grieved the loss of Gandalf and had hoped that Kyukon and the others, who will also be grieving for the loss of the Kitsune who bravely sacrificed his own life to save the evacuees as well as continue to live in their Eternal Winter-stricken land until the Dawn of Spring, were alright. Sadness was clearly gripping a lot of the evacuees and would take a while to be overcome.
While things were otherwise improving for Kushanku and most of everyone else, sadness, resentment, hurt and other negative emotions were still present within a lot of them including Kushanku and his siblings who continued to grieve the loss of Gingerfur, Honeycomb and Dashiell who had also died in the home they knew as Narnia a number of years ago.