Disclaimer: squeak squeakers squeak squeakum. That's "I don't own Narnia" for those of you who never learned to speak Squirrel from The Emperor's Groove. Not to be confused with "The Emperor's New Clothes," which doesn't refer to learning languages of any sort, just learning common sense.

OOOOO

"That's horrible." Lucy looked up, noting Susan's shiver and edging closer to her. The bruise appeared even darker as Susan's face paled.

"We need to figure out why this is happening to them," Peter said in grim agreement. His eyes flickered to Edmund, and Lucy's followed. "And why they think Edmund being their king can help stop it."

"Actually, I don't think they want Edmund to be their king; they didn't care enough which of you they took. They just keep saying they need a king, as if he had to be a king, crowned, ruling, but not..." The children stood silent as Susan's fear-filled words sank in, and then Peter shook himself.

"In either case, there's not much more to be learned here, and we'd better get back before they notice we're gone."

"Since I'm supposed to stay put," Edmund quipped, accepting Peter's hand to get up. And back around the large tree, down the tall road, and back into the circular dwelling the four walked. The next few hours passed slowly, in slow stretches (which Lucy started when she noticed Susan's breathing hitch), quiet conversation, suppressed hunger, and speculation about whether or not they would be found.

It was then that the Telar arrived with food. Three of the large monkeys carried large wooden trays covered in a selection of unappetizing leaves, a few dead birds with cracked necks, and various kinds of nuts. The humans looked at each other, and then Susan stepped forward and thanked the Telar, taking one of the trays. Edmund quickly relieved her of it, and Lucy stepped forward to take the tray from Sirrioth, smiling up at him as she did so. Juddahum surrendered the third to Peter.

"I do not remember what Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve eat," Khonat admitted. "We brought what we remembered eating."

"It should be enough," Susan reassured, studying the trays.

"We'll go outside and clean the birds," Peter offered, nodding at Edmund.

"I can get you water," Khonat said, though his stone eyebrows were raised in surprise.

"That would be lovely, thank you. Could you bring it to the kitchen?" Susan asked with a smile, and Khonat looked at her in confusion.

"Why would the water be in the kitchen if the birds are being cleaned outside?" The Four stared at him for a moment before Lucy began laughing, setting down her tray and bringing her hands up to her mouth to cover the laughter.

"'Cleaning' the birds means taking off their feathers and other inedible things," Peter explained, though his mouth was twitching. "We'll use the water to cook, and some of it to clean ourselves afterwards, though."

"Ah." Khonat bowed and turned to go, but Sirrioth put a hand on his arm.

"It will cost me nothing, and you hours," he told the one-winged Telar. "I will be back with water," he added to Lucy, his obvious favorite, and bowed and left. Juddahum stepped toward Lucy after and bowed.

"Would your Majesty wish to see my dwelling after you have eaten?"

"Oh, yes please," Lucy answered, her eyes lighting up.

"Actually, Lucy, it will be dark soon, and you'll see it better in the light. Why don't you go while we prepare dinner?" Susan suggested.

"Oh, but the work-"

"Is not more than I can do on my own." Susan smiled, but it was her polite smile, and her eyes flashed to Edmund and back to Lucy. "Go explore, and learn, and we'll listen to your stories over supper."

Lucy nodded her understanding, and turned to Juddahum with a smile. "Would now be all right?" He bowed, but turned to Khonat in question.

"Perhaps I may offer my services in the kitchen in her place? It would be good to learn to prepare food again," Khonat offered the elder Queen, and Susan curtsied her acceptance. "Then enjoy the company, and the lessons, Your Majesty, and I will see you at a later time, Juddahum." The Telar nodded and scooped Lucy in his arms, stepping off the street and falling once again. Peter and Edmund picked up the birds from all three trays and took them outside, glancing a bit uneasily at the extremely long knives beneath their tunics. Susan smiled at Khonat, picking up a tray and heading for the cooking room.

Lucy's heart lodged in her throat at the beginning of the fall, but she had done this several times before, and within moments the rushing wind thrilled her as they had before. Juddahum rode the wind around and around the large tree trunk, winding around it like a road down a mountain, and finally landing on a level only a normal tree's height from the ground. He set her down with a gentleness that was as much skill as kindness. "I live there, Queen of Narnia," his voice rumbled, and Lucy followed his pointing finger—about as large as her arm—to another circular dwelling, though this one was much larger than the one near the top of the tree.

"May I go inside?"

"I would welcome the company. It is empty, but for me." Lucy stepped closer, putting her hand on the large fingers that hung limp, for that sentence was as sad as anything Mr. Tumnus had said, when the White Witch ruled. The large finger turned in hers and the stone hand engulfed her own, though he had to bend down to do so. Together they walked into the home.

The first room was very like the one from before, though the number of chairs around the table were larger, and the paintings bright with color, having been dusted, Lucy thought. They were of places like the homes around the trees, but on the ground, with open roofs, and much, much larger. Crowds of Telar gathered there, perched in the trees around it and on the ground, and three Telar wearing crowns stood in the center. None of the Telar were stone, but of a light brown color, though some had black spots, and some white, and some both.

"You are so much bigger than us," Lucy noted, looking again at the chairs far too large for them. Though there were two that were smaller, almost made for a Marshwiggle's height, and Lucy almost went over to them, but Juddahum noticed her looking and gently pulled her towards the next door. It opened onto a much smaller sleeping area, with only two perches, and Juddahum led her through it quickly. The tapestries hanging on the walls were blank, with no family tree or any other embroidery, but she forgot that the moment they entered the next room. It held comfortable chairs, a few perches along the walls, and shelves and shelves and shelves of instruments in glass cases. Lucy let go of Juddahum's hand and ran to look in.

"What are these?"

"They were for my work," and Lucy turned, for she could hear Juddahum smiling. He looked at the glass cases fondly. "Before we were stone and there was no need for it, I was a healer. I loved my work, and learned from all who would teach me, about the Telar, the birds, the squirrels, even the butterflies, and all I learned helped me. I eventually found favor in the King's eyes, and he made sure I had all I needed."

Lucy looked back at the cases, at one large round disk tied with a string long enough to measure her head to toe. "What was this for?"

Peter and Edmund cleaned the first birds in silence, Edmund pretending not to notice the glances Peter sent his way.

"It's a bit like our first night at the Beavers', only it's birds instead of fish," Edmund put in suddenly. He kept his eyes on the bird in his hands.

"I think I prefer fish." Edmund could hear Peter's grimace. "But at least it's not so cold here as it was on the ice."

"We've got the statues of people but not the winter." Edmund heard Peter put down the very large knife.

"Are you all right, Ed?"

"Fine," he answered shortly. But Peter wasn't having it, and Edmund felt the hand grip his arm, stopping him from continuing to work. Edmund sighed and lifted his other arm to rub his forehead, avoiding touching it with his messy fingers. "I just—I saw that courtyard again, Peter, with the Dwarf and Lion and Giant Rumblebuffin, and all of them were turned to stone. And I jeered at them—did I tell you that? I drew a mustache and spectacles on the lion, and tried to laugh at it, but it looked so sad, it wasn't any fun. Any fun, when it'd had its life robbed away by her. And Peter, what if it had been smashed?" Edmund looked up at his big brother then, at the one who'd never wavered, even if he told Edmund that he felt sick to his stomach sometimes rather than brave, when he did things like face the Wolf.

"I don't know, Ed."

"I don't know either. And if that's what they're facing—Peter, we have to do something."

"We have to take care of Narnia first. We left it rulerless, and that's wrong. Aslan gave us Narnia, Edmund. He crowned us kings there. And you're on Aslan's side this time. You didn't jeer at the statues we found. You didn't even think of it. You're not back in her courtyard, you're here."

"Cleaning birds instead of fish," Edmund interjected, but he kept listening.

"We're here till Aslan sends us home, and He might have sent us here to fix this. I don't know yet. But it's no good speculating about what we might or might not do when we haven't the faintest clue."

Edmund sighed. Peter had a lot of sense. He always had, and if he hadn't been the oldest Edmund guessed they still would have listened to him more often than not.

"Thanks," Edmund said quietly, beginning to pluck feathers again.

It was a good thing Khonat was here and not Lucy, Susan reflected. The Telar was large enough to move with ease several pots and pans too large for humans, and it would have taken the Queens hours to clear a space. But Khonat saw at once the need for space to prepare the food, and listened with interest—while moving things aside—as Susan explained about boiling or cooking meat while she cracked the shells off of the nuts. None of the leaves were edible, but Khonat sent Sirrioth off for firewood once he'd returned with water, and soon had the kitchen not only clear, but clean, and Susan found him a most practical and helpful partner. When the boys returned with the birds, she showed Khonat how to cook them, though she grimaced a little at how plain they were likely to taste. And she hoped Lucy didn't stay away too long, because they were all hungry.

Lucy was exploring on her own, and wishing for both her siblings and dinner. Juddahum had with pleasure explained a great deal of what a healer used to do, and afterwards had taken her through the rest of the house, which included a bigger cooking area, a room with two chairs he had hurried her through, and a room of many chairs he said had once been where the broken or hurt Telar waited, if he was busy. They had gone outside and he'd been about to take her back, up and up the great tree trunk, when another Telar landed and called for him with an urgent tone, saying a Telar had landed wrong and its leg had cracked off. With a swift apology Juddahum had set her down and flown off, promising to return shortly. And Lucy had gone exploring.

She peered over the side of the street first and saw the forest floor. It was dark, completely shaded by the branches of trees, and completely clear of both bushes and grass; the ground was entirely dirt. And there, in the distance, she could see the building the painting had been of, what must have been the royal dwelling. Perhaps the richest Telar dwelt near the ground, and the highest at the top, where it took work to fly up. She rolled away from the side and looked around the street; it was far wider than the one above, and there weren't any still statues that she could see. There were other large dwellings, but at a distance, and Lucy, not wanting to stray too far, decided to go around Juddahum's house. The tree trunk grew out of the center, and the boards of the roof, she noted with curiosity, seemed to grow into the trunk itself, actually connected to them. She wondered how they'd done that. But wait, there was a flash of white up ahead. She took faster steps, turning around the curve of the wall, and nearly ran into another still statue.

Only this one was a woman. Or a girl, Lucy corrected herself, because it was a bit shorter than a Marshwiggle, much shorter than the other Telar, with smaller eyes, a fuller mouth, and the wings—the wings were more fairylike than feathered, and as beautiful as anything she'd read. The statue held both hands cupped together, and Lucy felt her heart stir with pity, because the statue had been looking at her hands and crying before it became still. A few of the tears were frozen stone on her cheeks. Lucy lifted her hand up, standing on her tiptoes, trying to touch them, to maybe, possibly, wipe them away.

"Don't touch her!" The voice thundered like an avalanche, and Lucy lost her balance and fell backwards, unyielding hands snatching her back from the statue before she could hit the street. "Do not touch her," the voice said once more, more quietly, and Lucy looked up to Juddahum.

"I didn't mean to hurt her."

"Whether you meant to or not—" Juddahum paused. "You would have made her crumble."

Lucy thought of the statues they had seen in pieces, and shuddered. Juddahum felt it, and his hands became gentler, setting Lucy on her feet, but keeping a hand on her shoulder to keep her back from the Telar girl. "A single touch destroys the still, especially ones," his voice caught, "ones close enough to crumbling there is moss on their wings."

Lucy looked, seeing the green growing on the stone feathers, and aching for this child. "Who is she?"

"She is my daughter," Juddahum answered, his voice filled with a longing as deep as Lucy had felt for Aslan.

"Would you like to tell me about her?" Lucy hesitantly asked, knowing that to tell someone of Aslan made it feel like He was close. Juddahum looked at her in surprise, and then back at the statue in front of them.

"She wanted to be a healer. She wanted it like nothing else in the world, and she'd practice, sometimes. She'd find a hurt animal and bring it to me. It was for her I first learned to treat the birds, the squirrels. She learned to care for them, and they'd follow her around. You could hear her coming when the chirps of the birds multiplied, and they'd land on her wings like they were home. She could not stand it when we were not able to save them. She never could. No matter how many times I told her not to, she'd—"

Lucy waited, aching to help the grief that choked his words away. But the Telar did not continue his thought.

"It is time for your dinner," Juddahum said, collecting himself into a polite and present tone. "Forgive me for keeping you waiting.

The meat cooked well, the nuts were ready, and Susan asked the boys to watch the food while she went (with Khonat) to clean off the table. They could share two plates (the plates were too large for one), and it would have to be with their fingers, but Susan was not going to eat on a dirty table. She walked over to the chair, but trying to climb it stole her breath, her body informing her that such efforts were a terrible idea. Khonat, catching on, gently lifted her to the tabletop and set her down on it. She began wiping it busily, her wet cloth running over the coated feathers, the dust quickly becoming gritty under her hands. Khonat's large stone fingers came down to touch one she'd just made more visible.

"We were such fools."

Susan looked up, her attention caught at the regret, the self-recrimination in his voice. His finger ran over one set of feathers, over and over, and he had been kind. He was unlikely to hurt her, she told herself. He wasn't like her carrier before. For Edmund, she decided, she had to dare to ask him about something that might make him angry. "We wondered about the feathers," she began slowly. "They do not seem to be decorations."

Khonat shook his head. "No, they are not decorations. They are actual feathers, plucked from our wings, laid on lines we drew on the tables and then erased. But the feathers remain. Always."

"What were they for?"

"Sacrifice." The fingers of his left hand still traced the ones they'd been touching, going down the length of them over and over, and his right hand reached for another to do the same.

"Why would you sacrifice your feathers?"

"The generation before mine was given a gift." Khonat's wing fluttered, stirring the air in the room, and Susan's hair brushed against her cheek. "They were told a White Terror roamed this world, and the time might come when we had to fight against her. Narnia was given a tree, won by the obedience of a Son of Adam, to keep her at bay." Jadis, Susan thought. She had turned them to stone. But Khonat said they were given a gift to stop her- "The Telar were given magic."

"Magic?" Susan breathed, sitting and tucking her feet under her.

Khonat shrugged. "How do you think I can fly with but one wing?" he asked softly. Her eyes stole to his single wing, then back to his face, creased now with a sad smile. "We were warned, when we were given the gift, to use it only in greatest need. There were rules, warnings; it was a gift not to be used lightly, for it is a magic based on sacrifice, small sacrifices for small needs, great sacrifices for great ones. It was meant to be used only as a necessity, when we faced things our brains and hands could not handle." His wing swept around his shoulder, the tip around his tall waist, and he ran his stone fingers over it. "Like flying with one wing. And we resisted the temptation to use it for anything else—for a generation. That generation remembered the warning, and warned the next in turn, but the younger ones did not listen. As children they found that plucking a single feather from their wings would mold a tree branch into a toy. Why would they not? They no longer had to envy, or go without, or make it themselves. Oh, they learned quickly to hide their feather-bought trinkets from their parents, who scolded and punished and warned, but we were heedless. Magic and desire became rooted together in our hearts, and together they grew strong. As the old died, the need to hide our use of it lessened. Only the very old repeated the warnings, though their words fell on deaf ears. Why would we listen? Magic granted our every desire. Three feathers pulled from my wings in exchange for a new roof for my bride, and suddenly we could marry months sooner. One for a meal of delicacies to impress our neighbors and lords. A handful of feathers to do a lord's spells for him and he'd grant a high position. A drop of blood to open ears to a new language. It opened up new trade routes, new wealthy, new luxuries! To bleed for three minutes grew a tree from an acorn to the height of a new home in the space of a breath, and why would we wait? We had forgotten the warnings." He paused. "We had refused to believe the warnings."

"And what happened?" asked Lucy's voice behind them, the sound of stone wings sounding from outside as her carrier flew away. Khonat bowed to her with his head and one wing, and offered open palms to place her next to her sister.

"Your pardon, Narnian Queen, I did not see you enter. As for what happened, my people paid the once-spoken price: magic would be our death. It was meant to teach us the value of sacrifice against evil, to grant love the power to save, but it had become how we lived, all we depended on. We rarely worked with our hands. A plague broke out among us, taking first our wings, then breaking our skin in cuts, and finally taking lives. We could find no cause. We turned to magic, trying to use it to heal, and it did nothing. Then our Prince noticed it was those who used magic the most who sickened; those who used it the least had untouched wings. We would not believe him. He called us together, lords, guards, his parents, all the Telar within hearing of his echoing voice. He stood on the ground, doing spell after spell, homes and paths and trees sprouting up around their dwelling, till his wings drooped and fell off, and cuts began opening on his skin, and he finally listened as his father begged him to stop. He stood bleeding, breathing ragged and wings gone, and he looked at us. He looked straight at us, and he asked us if we believed."

"What happened to him?" Susan asked the question as gently as she could. She heard his aching regret.

"He did no more spells, and his father took him inside. I went to visit him—he was my friend—the next day. He was fevered. He begged me to help him prove what he had already proven. He did not hear me—I tried to tell him that he had succeeded. He did not believe me, and I left, not wanting to make him worse. He did not live for me to see him again." Khonat's wing rose from his waist to cover his face, and Susan reached forward, scooting to the edge of the table, and stroked the stone feathers. Minutes passed, and she kept her gentle tracing, hoping he could still feel it, till the wing fell in a Telar bow, and Khonat placed it behind his back.

"But now you are stone?" she asked.

"Only half of those in the courtyard believed we could not solve the problem and keep our magic." Khonat's wing swept forward to hide his face again. "They believed magic could solve the very problem it created. Jumak had seen the King's magic while on guard, the strength of it, and believed magic could be strong enough to heal the hurt it started." Susan thought of what Edmund would say to that. "But our race grew smaller and smaller, and in desperation our king cast a spell of his own." Khonat's arms rose, raising the wing higher as he spread his stone fingers, looking at his body, showing it to them. "Stone does not need to eat, nor sleep, nor need a home. Stone cannot die of a plague. He meant, according to Jumak, to wean us off of magic, to take away our need for it and teach us how to live without it. To make his son's sacrifice the beginning of our salvation. When we had learned, and when there were no more sick, he would turn us back. But he failed. He believed his son. He believed we needed to stop. But even he had forgotten the price. That he would pay a price. And he paid it, for he was the first to become still. And it was he who showed us the new prie. When magic can longer take our feathers or our blood, it can still take our lives. We feel it, every time we cast a spell, a bit of our life leeching away, our bodies slowing, our desire for rest growing stronger. In this the King succeeded, I suppose, for we feel the price."

"So every time you fly…" Susan trailed off, and Khonat smiled grimly.

"Your half-horse, half-man bested me more than he knew, for my life drains away every time I take to the skies. Yet what can I do? A flightless Telar is as dead as a still one." He shrugged. "It will happen to us all, sooner or later, for there is always the one spell, just the one, that is worth a few days. Zedekah cast one to make us invisible to all eyes before we descended on your home, and now we often shake him awake."

"And if a child were to heal a bird too many times..." Lucy whispered in horror, and Khonat looked at her, setting a gentle hand on her head.

"She would give her life for the birds, and become still. It is how we lost all our children. Few of us denied ourselves. Our children grew up seeing us use magic for every pleasure, and we could not by words teach them what we had denied by our actions; we could not teach them a virtue none of us possessed."

"Then how will you fix this?" Lucy asked desperately. "Can you wake her? Can someone? In our country Aslan turned the stone back into living-"

Khonat's hand fell away. "We have not seen or heard of the Lion in many lifetimes," he said quietly. "But there is one who could save us; who could turn us back. Our king. He could by magic undo his spell, and restore all those who have not crumbled. Our race could live once again."

"And the King won't wake up? You said you shook Zedekah—could you not do the same to him?" Susan asked, thoughtful. Khonat shook his head.

"Zedekah has not become still yet; he is merely close."
"Then why don't the rest of you reverse his spell?" Khonat snorted, the sound odd from stone nostrils.

"We cannot. Would that we could! We would wake them all, and count our stilling and crumbling as joy, or crawl off without wings if the plague returned as our flesh bodies did. But such power is not given to any Telar but those who rule. It is that family that leads, and they were given magic greater than hundreds of us together."

"Su, the meat's boiling!" Edmund stuck his head out of the kitchen door, pausing as he took in the faces. "Ah. I'll just be going." He ducked back inside, but Khonat was already reaching for both Queens, gently lifting them to the ground before striding into the kitchen. Susan and Lucy looked at each other.

"We need to keep him here through dinner," Susan advised Lucy quietly, looking after the Telar. "We still don't know what they want with Edmund, but now I really don't like it."

"No," Lucy agreed, and Susan looked quickly at the misery in her voice. "And I really don't like what's happening to the Telar either."

OOOOO

A/N: I apologise for any mistakes in this; I wrote it more quickly than normal, and far too late for anyone to beta. I may have been slightly sidetracked by an unrelated two-page one-shot that became a 22 page story on Friday, and it didn't leave me any time to write anything else in time for my beta.