A/N: Big thanks to Lauren Wagner, JacksTortugaLass, jasonc65, and DarkLightningEnvy for kindly consenting to be staff of "Fun With Fauns". Believe it or not, I can't always be cruising to see if there are any more Tumnus stories. But between the five of us, we should be able to do it! So all you Narnia fans out there: get writing about our favourite Faun!
Nobody found the movie reference in the last chapter? Well, then nobody gets a bottle of healing cordial, which is just as well because Lucy's is one-of-a-kind. It's the part where Tumnus first sees Aslan: he falls to his knees, and says, "My Lord". A tough reference to find, I admit, as it requires knowledge about a certain backstory: The film's special effects boss Howard Berger thought James McAvoy was too young to play the part of Mr. Tumnus. (Nonsense, I say!) When Berger met McAvoy, the actor saw a life-sized sculpture of Aslan, and he immediately fell to his knees and said, "My Lord". Apparently that convinced Berger that he was right for the job!
Disclaimer: Sometimes I like to pretend that Narnia's mine. Then reality sets in…
A Faun's Tale
Chapter Seven: A most reluctant hero
Mr. Tumnus stood awkwardly in the bustling stone courtyard, looking very lost. Around him, dwarfs and squirrels were climbing onto the backs of horses and centaurs, all chattering excitedly about the fight to come.
A Faun with a curly red beard held out his hand, and pulled Mr. Tumnus up behind him onto the back of a unicorn. "My name is Nictus", the Faun said, smiling brightly.
"Tumnus", Mr. Tumnus answered distractedly, looking about with wide eyes.
Nictus gestured at the unicorn. "This is Coral". The beast inclined his horned head solicitously. Nictus must have noticed the other Faun's fidgeting, because he looked over his shoulder and gave a broad wink. "Worried?" he asked lightly.
"Just a little", Mr. Tumnus admitted. In truth, it felt as though the Queen's wolves themselves were fighting to get out of his stomach.
Nictus grinned, apple-round cheeks dimpling. "Don't be", he said simply, "Aslan is here". The little Faun felt somewhat comforted at that, but he was still anxious to the point of feeling slightly ill.
The group started to move sooner than Mr. Tumnus was ready. As they all galloped through the hole in the castle wall, the little Faun held tight to Nictus' shoulders, trying not to look at the ground that was rushing by. He could see Lucy up at the front on Aslan's back, and she turned and waved at him. Mr. Tumnus forced himself to wave back, all the time terrified that he would topple to the ground.
After a few moments of sniffing, one large hound started to bay, and pandemonium broke out as everyone rushed to follow him. Soon all of the hunting animals had picked up the scent, and Mr. Tumnus' head rang with the clamorous barking and howling. Amidst the commotion, they could sometimes hear Aslan's deep, rich roar, and the Narnians rushed forward in a long, boisterous, disorderly line strung out for half a mile.
Coral the unicorn was very fleet of foot, and as he only bore two little Fauns upon his back he was quite near the head of the group. This did not sit very well with Mr. Tumnus, who was now wishing that he had chosen to ride on the back of a hippopotamus he had seen earlier in the courtyard. The mixed troupe was running faster now, much to the little Faun's dismay.
They thundered down a narrow, winding valley, and soon a new sound came to their ears. Mr. Tumnus could hear metal clashing on metal, shouts, shrieks, snarls, and all sorts of fearsome noises of things angry and in pain. He flinched, realizing that these were the sounds of battle.
Following Aslan, the large group of creatures hurtled around the final bend, emerging from the valley. Mr. Tumnus stared at the remains of Aslan's army, led by Peter, who were fighting desperately against the Witch's creatures. And there, right in the middle of it all, he could see the Witch herself. Her horrible stone knife was out, flashing through the air. Mr. Tumnus cringed; even now she had the power to frighten him, and she wasn't even looking at him.
He was brought sharply out of his thoughts when the unicorn gave a little half-rear of excitement. Beside a host of other beasts and led by Aslan, Coral tossed his horned head and charged towards the fight, carrying the two Fauns with him.
Chaos!
Mr. Tumnus was frozen for five whole seconds, unable to do anything but cling to the shoulders of the Faun in front of him. He soon came to his senses when a hag flew at them, and only quick action on the part of Coral saved Tumnus from her snatching claws. When the hag had fallen, the unicorn bent his head and picked up two dropped spears in his teeth, one of which Nictus passed back to the other Faun. Tumnus looked at the thing in his hands, not having the slightest idea what to do with it. He had never held a weapon before in his life; the closest thing would probably be his little brass fire-poker.
Coral reared up suddenly in alarm, and Tumnus tumbled to the earth. He scrambled to his feet immediately, but the unicorn and Nictus were nowhere to be seen. All around him were ghastly creatures fighting Aslan's forces, and somewhere he could hear the Lion himself roaring terribly.
He nervously scrambled backwards, and ran against something hard. Mr. Tumnus whirled around, heart pounding, and his jaw dropped – he had backed right into a satyr who had been turned to stone. Beyond this poor fellow, he could see many more statues dotted about the battlefield.
A crashing sound behind Mr. Tumnus made him turn, in time to see one of the Queen's giants felling several centaurs with his club. This was no Buffin! Overwhelmed with terror, the Faun dropped to the ground, spear sticking up haphazardly, and tried to look as small as possible.
The giant stomped closer with his wicked-looking spiked boots, and the ground shook beneath Tumnus as one of those feet came down almost on top of him. He felt a strange resistance against his spear, and then heard a terrible roar.
Mr. Tumnus risked looking up, and saw that the weapon had become imbedded in the back of the giant's ankle. Somehow the spearhead had found the tiny unprotected area of skin where the boot was fastened. The giant had stamped down with all of his might, intending to crush anything below, and now the weapon was imbedded nearly half its length in the rough grey flesh.
Taking advantage of the giant's distraction, the centaurs moved in and managed to finish him off.
One of the centaurs helped Tumnus to his feet. "Remarkable", he was saying.
Mr. Tumnus started to brush himself off fastidiously – falling off a unicorn! What a ridiculous thing for him to do! He'd nearly been squashed into the ground, and now he was covered in dirt – this was turning out to be a most distressing day. "What's remarkable?" he asked absently.
The centaur gestured at the fallen giant. "That! It is remarkable that one of the Queen's giants was slain by a Faun."
Tumnus froze. He felt his face turn red. "Oh." He swallowed, and stared from the centaur's admiring expression to the dead giant and back again. "Oh."
Soon Tumnus found himself surrounded by the centaurs, all of whom insisted on shaking him by the hand, congratulating him in loud voices. The little Faun had no chance of being heard, his timid protests lost among their boisterous praise. Nor would they stop calling him "Tumnus Giant-Slayer", no matter how he implored them to stop. In the distance, the Faun could see Lucy tending to the wounded, but the centaurs were not of a mind to let him slip away. This was how Nictus found him, caught in the middle of a rowdy group of centaurs, when the other Faun rode up on Coral.
"I say! Tumnus!" the Faun called jovially. "I leave for a moment, and look what you do! Slay a giant without me?"
Mr. Tumnus stammered in protest, but Nictus waved his hand. "No matter. We have come to tell you that the battle is won."
"Already?" one of the centaurs asked, sounding disappointed. But Mr. Tumnus felt only relief.
Coral nodded his horned head eagerly. "Aslan has killed the Witch, and the enemy is either taken prisoner or fled!"
The centaurs burst into riotous cheers, and Mr. Tumnus couldn't stop a silly grin from spreading over his face. That grin instantly disappeared, however, when two centaurs lifted him up onto their shoulders. Apparently they wished to parade him around the battlefield, and sing his praises to whoever they passed.
"I say!" the little Faun exclaimed, rather alarmed, "Please put me down!"
Nictus smirked up at him from Coral's back. "Really, Tumnus", the red-bearded Faun observed, eyes twinkling, "You do make a most reluctant hero".
"These – these – centaurs won't listen to me!" Mr. Tumnus protested, gesturing helplessly at the rambunctious group.
Nictus gave a wicked grin. "And they have not even broken out the wine yet. Dear, dear…" He and Coral galloped off, sniggering loudly; they were gone before Mr. Tumnus could come up with a suitably scathing answer.
A good deal of the evening was spent in celebration. Long after night had fallen, an exhausted Faun finally bedded down. Closing his tired eyes, Mr. Tumnus slept under the stars for the very first time.
A/N: I didn't initially mean for Mr. Tumnus to do anything of significance in the battle, but you give these characters a free rein and they do something unexpected. Like Nictus said: "I leave for a moment, and look what you do! Slay a giant without me?" That was pretty much my reaction; I was just as surprised as Tumnus at the outcome!
Random thought here – If I listened to my spell-checker, you'd be reading about Mr. Tummies from the land of Mania! Sounds like a kiddie cartoon – lol!
The final chapter is on its way! Do you want to read it? Leave a review!