Disclaimer: I claim no ownership of anything you recognize. Anything new to you has a higher chance of being mine, but only a chance: Mr Beaver's name comes from another classic children's book, and Mrs Beaver received the name of her 2005 voice actress (because the name and the voice seemed like a good fit to me).
Author's Note: While I like to think of this being a mix of bookverse and movieverse, I do have to admit that it leans toward the movieverse end of the scale.
Snowflakes floated down from laden clouds. Beaver frowned and quickened his pace. She was at it again. A week's respite was all she allowed this time. Of course, no one still adhering to the calendar would expect any different in the month of Frostcoat. Not that the calendar made much difference to anyone anymore, especially among the younger Narnians: Frostcoat in perpetuity was all a number had ever known – including Beaver. A sudden gust of wind bit at his nose, prompting him into as close to a run he could manage under his pack.
His breath puffed out in thick, frosty clouds by the time he reached the path that led down the embankment to his destination. He looked all about and sniffed for any out-of-place scents. When he found nothing, he returned his attention to the slope. Patches of dark brown earth poked out stubbornly against the smothering snow. Beaver padded over them in an effort to help them last just a little longer: if the land itself could show a little rebellion, so could he. His paw slipped on a wet patch and he failed to regain his balance as the rest of him slid too, till he finally came to a stop splayed out on the riverbank. He allowed himself a wry smile at the swath of brown left in his wake: rebellion surely had never looked so comical.
Recessed into the riverbank was the rough wooden door he sought. He gave himself a moment to brush off some of the mud and to wipe his paws on the old sod mat before reaching for the bell-pull.
The door opened, and a greying She-Beaver poked her head out. Her eyes lit up, but what came out of her mouth was, "Raging rapids, Paddy, get in here and wash up this instant! How long have you been walking like – wipe your paws." Then she waddled off, probably in search of something to protect her clean floor.
Beaver dutifully wiped his paws again – and his tail for good measure – before entering. "Hullo, Mama."
She waddled back with an armful of towels. "You always were such a mess. Whatever will Dawn say, hm?"
Beaver chuckled wryly. "Plenty, no doubt." He took a towel and rubbed himself down.
She wiped her paws on her apron. "I'll warm up some water for a proper wash."
"Mama!"
She wagged a claw at him. "Just enough to send you home respectably. I'll not have Dawn think I'm a negligent mother."
The smile in her eyes told Beaver she already knew the response, but wanted to hear it anyway. "She would never think that, Mama. She loves you."
Mama tilted her head up with a satisfied sniff and then busied herself with the promised washing water. "And how is my favourite daughter-in-law?"
Taking care to step on the towels laid out for him, Beaver slid his pack onto the table. "She's well, Mama. She's got the sewing machine singing day and night. Says it keeps her sufficiently occupied – Here's the fabric she promised to send."
"Isn't she a dear," she hummed, her eyes and paws roving over the roll of pine-green fabric patterned with tiny white starflowers. "Day and night, you say?"
"Yes, she's always sewing something or other, some for selling, some for giving away – Careful with that; she wrapped a jar of marmalade in there."
"Marmalade!" Mama exclaimed with some awe. "Now that is a treat! You know, I've just the thing…." Wagging a claw to herself, she shuffled to a cupboard and flipped through a book. "Ah, here it is. Remember my marmalade roll? I'll send the recipe home for her. Now where did I leave my pen – ah! Here. Now you go on and wash up while I write it down."
Beaver shook his head with a smile. He emptied his pack of its remaining items: a side of bacon, a packet of tea, and a gift wrapped in brown paper and tied with a bit of red yarn. Just in case he couldn't deliver it on Christmas – one never could be sure these days. As quickly as the gloomy thought had come, he chased it out, assuming an air of normalcy and washing up as instructed, even using the lavender-scented soap he'd never acquired a tolerance for.
"Paddy, it's wonderful."
Half sudsy in front of the hearth, Beaver looked over his shoulder to find that everything that he'd brought had been unwrapped and inspected. Of greatest interest to Mama was a figurine of polished oak. In the light of the hearth, he could see how her eyes shone as she took in every detail: a Beaver seated on a tree stump, a pile of arrows on the ground next to him, a whittling knife in one paw and what would soon be a carved water lily in the other, a rudimentary miniature of the one that adorned the mantelpiece.
Beaver set the soap back on its dish. "I thought you'd like a little something of him. It being the first…," he trailed off, not willing to verbalize it.
Mama wiped at her eyes. "It's perfect. Very much like him. Thank you." She approached, arms wide.
"Mama, I'm –"
She cut him off with a warm embrace. "Never mind the apron," she said into his shoulder. So he responded in kind, laying one soapy paw on her bonnet as he held her close, each drawing from the other as they sought to fill a little of the emptiness they felt.
Laying his head on hers, his eyes settled on the little window that looked out on the front door, the river beyond, and the thickening snowfall. A surge of bitterness washed over him. It was all because of her, that wicked, cruel, usurper. All her doing. This eternal winter, this constant and unnatural fear, this endless oppression. Because of her, his mother had struggled in vain for her husband's life as he weakened before her. Beaver wanted to be angry – was angry. And yet, in the gentle caress of his mother, he could not seem to hold it.
As if she knew what he was thinking – and who was to say she didn't? – Mama murmured, "Wrong will be right, when Aslan comes in sight." She pulled away and offered his paw a bracing squeeze. "At the sound of His roar, sorrows will be no more. Just you remember that."
He forced more into his smile than what he wanted to feel. Surely Mama knew what that was like better than he did.
She brought the corner of her apron to her eye and let out a sudden chuckle. "And what a sight we are," she said, gesturing with the mud-streaked hem of her apron. "I'll get out of this while you finish up." On her way, she set the oaken figurine on her sewing table – next to her favourite chair – and gave it another reverent touch. Beaver turned his eyes away to allow her the moment, setting himself to the task of rinsing off the remaining mud and soap.
By the time Mama was satisfied his fur was both clean and dry, the early winter dusk had already fallen.
"I don't like it," she muttered. "The snow hasn't let up at all and it'll be hard to see soon."
Beaver shouldered his pack, finding it certainly heavier now than when he'd first arrived. "This is good, Mama," he assured her. "Especially the snow: it'll cover my tracks quick enough. And I know these woods well."
Mama opened the door a brief moment, then shut it again. "That wind'll be nasty too." She turned to inspect the pack, readjusting a strap here and shifting an item there. "Now you take the quickest way home, you hear?"
"Of course, Mama."
"No son of mine will catch his death of cold if I have anything to say on it. And mind your footing."
Beaver leaned in to kiss her cheek. "We'll visit at Christmas." He reached for the doorknob.
"Don't make promises you can't keep."
"We'll try our best," he amended, but even as he said it, his eyes fell upon the red yarn she held in her paw – the yarn from the gift wrapping – and he knew that wasn't quite what she meant. His heart pounded. But surely she couldn't have guessed at what he hadn't said?
"You're so much like your da, and I couldn't be more proud."
Beaver thought of his carving – of his father, of the water lily and arrows he had fashioned, of how he had given of himself for family and country. If Mama saw a little of Da in him, then surely he was doing something right.
She touched his cheek. "Be careful, Paddy. It's cold outside."
Beaver nodded wordlessly, hoping that his promise to tread carefully was clear enough. As he scrambled up the snow-blanketed embankment, he decided that though he hated to add to his mother's worries, it was rather a relief to have her blessing.
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