Disclaimer: Most of the Witch's threats I took from Mr. Tumnus's fears, and he and the Witch herself were invited by Lewis. If you're still reading this story, your attention is the only thing I can claim, and it's not really mine, it's a gift you're giving.

Beta'd by trustingHim17! She's not to blame for any of my remaining poor choices, however, only for making them less frequent.

OOOOO

I'm sorry, dear Reader. Where were we?

There, right there. With Tumnus and the Wolves entering the door to the castle courtyard, and the Witch waiting inside.

Tumnus thought the castle had been menacing, but the courtyard was worse. Inside stood the frozen statues Tumnus had heard about, from the day the last battle of the war was fought—the day all of Narnia lost. His father told the story only once.

Now Tumnus knew, he knew, why it was only told once. Why telling the story would be…be like drinking fear instead of tea. Some of the stone faces were fierce, intense, the Lion just inside the door, noble and sad, the Centaur with an arrow on her string, frozen into stone before she realized they'd lost, and the stone giant looking down in puzzlement. But some. Some wore looks of horror, hands up, backs curved in defeat as they crouched, backing away. These she had placed nearest the main door, and Tumnus began crying, tears blurring the statues and his nose running, as he wondered if he would be next. The next statue added to her horrific collection. Abruptly he wondered if tears became stone too, and wiped them off.

The two Wolves stopped at the beginning of the stone steps leading to the castle door. Fenris Ulf walked straight up, and Tumnus followed, trying vainly to quiet the sound of his hooves on the stone, wishing he was invisible. Fenris stopped at the top, turning to the Faun.

"Wait here, Faun, till I discern Her Majesty's pleasure." He vanished inside the door, and Tumnus stood outside, shivering, wishing he had a handkerchief to wipe his nose. Wishing he'd never started looking into humans. Shaking, cold, and wishing so many, many things.

The Wolf appeared in the doorway. "Come in, you whom the Queen calls." Tumnus slipped on the stairs, falling into the cold stone. His hands bruised. He began crying again, but as teeth began digging in his arm he scrambled up, hurrying through the door and into a long, dark hall. There at the end, in an ornate silver chair, sat the White Witch.

She stood, and Tumnus forgot the statues with sad faces, the Wolf behind him, even the pain on his palms. She was tall, with paper-white skin and terrible eyes.

"You are the Faun who pursued the myths of the Sons of Adam." She smiled, a cold, pleased smile, and Tumnus shivered. "Have you seen them before?"

"No, no, please, Your Majesty, I just wondered if they were real," he babbled. "I've never seen any in Narnia, not ever! Or anywhere else, you know, so I wondered if they were—myths." The corners of her mouth dropped, the smile changing into a frown, and Tumnus flinched, thinking of the Dryad. "Did—did Your Majesty wish to see humans in Narnia?"

"I wish," she cried in a terrible voice, "to have all of them brought to me!" She strode down the hall, seizing his face in her fingers. "If you see one, even one, tiny Faun, you will bring them to my house. Do you understand?"

"Ye-e-es, your Majesty!"

"Good." She dropped his face and turned away, striding back to her throne. Tumnus nearly fell to the floor when her fingers dropped away, so strong had been her grip. He caught himself, knees knocking, and waited.

She paid him no attention. Perhaps—perhaps that had been it? A single command—to look for something that might not exist—and he needn't tell her anyway, if he saw any. "May—may I go?" That imperial face turned towards him. He stopped breathing; why had he said anything?

"You are thinking of lying to me!" Her hand reached up, her wand extended, and Tumnus fell to the floor, groveling.

"I wasn't, I wasn't!"

"But you were," and her voice had become suddenly soft. He heard her footsteps, and felt the chill when she stooped over him. "Let me give you a choice, Faun. You can be one of mine, and gain my favor. You can have cake, and sardines, and bread, and a quiet home in your cave again. You can have all you have had before. OR," and her voice grew loud, the echoes of her voice drowning the hall in her fury, "you can know my wrath, the wrath that brought a world to its knees!"

"I won't, I won't, I'll do anything!" Tumnus cried, curling himself into a ball.

"Silence! Cease your babbling!" Her voice hissed in his ear as she caught his hair and pulled his head up close. "If you lie to me, Faun, and my spies come and tell me of it, do you know what I shall do to you? My Ogres shall lay hand to their axes and chop off your horns. My Hags shall pluck out your beard. Next will be your tail. Each time you fail to come to me, it will be worse. And if I find that you saw a Son of Adam or a Daughter of Eve, and did not bring them here, do you know what will happen to you?" Her cold, cold breath blew on his ear as she used his hair to turn his gaze. "Look at the statues," she hissed. Her cold fingers were immovable. His eyes looked where she turned them, at the strangers frozen in stone, and some neighbors—that was Hemlet the Otter, frozen with one paw outstretched. He'd been Tumnus's nearest neighbor. "Those do not have to be you," she breathed into his ear. "They defied me and were punished, but to those who serve me," and she turned his head back, up, so he could see the dead white face with its cruel eyes, "for those who serve me, life can be easy." He shuddered, muscles twitching - like they wouldn't if he resisted. "You want an easy life. Do this for me, and you will have all the ease you desire." She let go of his hair, unbending her tall frame.

"Just—just to look for the Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve?"

"And to bring them here. Look to that, Faun of the Forest. Look especially to that tree of iron that shines like a small sun, for it is a thing of the Sons of Adam. Look to it, and check it often." She turned away, clapping her hands. A Dwarf entered the hall from a side door and bowed "See to it that this Faun is given provisions from our stores." She smiled down at Tumnus, the smile that was crueler than her frown. "We do not want him fainting on his trip home." The Dwarf bowed and left again, and the White Witch returned to her throne. Tumnus dragged himself into a sitting position, still shivering, from the cold stone underneath him, from fear, and from pain. This hall, and this Queen, twisted his stomach and held his heart in clamps. Minutes, long, long minutes later, the Dwarf returned, two parcels in his hands. He presented them to the Faun with a sneer. The sneer grew into a smirk as the Faun's trembling hands took the smooth paper packages. Tumnus dragged himself to his feet, bowed, and fled the hall.

Dear Reader, he did not slow till the castle was far behind. He could never tell people later how he got through the courtyard, or if he saw the wolves—or how he kept his grip on the packages he'd accepted from the Witch's Dwarf. He must have clung to them as a drowning man clutches anything inside his fingers. For though the castle was now far behind, his fear had not lessened.

So it was that he did not hear Mr. Beaver calling his name at first. "Mr. Tumnus. Mr. Tumnus! MR. TUMNUS!"

He turned, frantic, ready for any friend. There, there were both of them, partway through the wood, waving from beneath a tree! So far from their dam! He stumbled forward, suddenly aware he was gasping, sobbing, still clutching the brown paper parcels.

He reached them and instantly their paws were on his knees, his arms, holding him up. "Did she hurt you? You all right there?"

Mrs. Beaver was fussing, hands patting him. "We heard they'd come to take you, and it was awful, just awful! How did you get away? Do you need anything? Poor dear, you're shivering—"

Suddenly their voices ceased. Tumnus looked up to see one of Mr. Beaver's paws laid on his wife's arm, and both their eyes fixed on his parcels. "What is that?" Mr. Beaver moved forward, sniffing slightly at the packages, and recoiling an instant later, tugging his wife away with him. "Those are hers. What—what happened?"

Tumnus looked down at the two boxes underneath his arm. He'd accepted them. He'd taken them without a word, desperate to get out of there, and suddenly he realized that by taking them he'd agreed to the Witch's terms. To her bargain. He—

He looked up, suddenly feeling blood rushing to his face, his mind, his heart, both defensive. "I didn't have a choice!" A part of him was begging the Beavers to understand; another part jeered at him, reminding him of the Beavers' honest faith, and expecting nothing but condemnation in their eyes. "She had me in her castle, I was there, and she wanted—she wanted nothing! Just that, if I saw a Son of Adam or Daughter of Eve in the woods, I'd take them to her. But—"

"You'd take our best hope, take him right to her house." Mr. Beaver took another step back. "The end of her reign, walking right into Narnia, and you'd lead them right to her."

"Innocent things." Mrs. Beaver's paws came up to cover her mouth. "They—they wouldn't know, and you—"

"They don't exist!" Tumnus tried desperately to convince them, to make them see. "What have I traded? Nothing! She was going to cut my horns off, my tail off, or turn me to stone! Now—now she won't! Don't you see? I had to make that choice, I had to." The parcels under his arm rustled as he moved forward, trying to get nearer, closer, back to be with them. "Please, it's just cake, that's all it is. Come and eat it with me, and we'll—we'll talk about it."

"I wouldn't touch her food with the longest log in Narnia," Mr. Beaver responded. He stared hard at Tumnus. "I was wrong about you. You've taken a devil's bargain. You're not one of Aslan's own." He turned, heading back towards his dam, and with a few backwards glances, Mrs. Beaver followed him.

Tumnus slumped against a tree, the bark digging into his back. Goosebumps rose on his arms from the cold, but he ignored them.

They couldn't be right. It—it was a harmless bargain. Just to check on the Lamppost, from time to time, and not to find anything there. It was harmless. They only cared because they thought Sons of Adam would actually come to Narnia. His bargain with the White Witch wasn't harmful as long as no one came. (He was wrong, you know. A bargain with evil, dear Reader, is never harmless.)

And it wasn't like the Beavers were much help. They'd—they'd warned him about the soldiers, but much good that did, Tumnus thought bitterly. So Tumnus wasn't Aslan's own? If Aslan had wanted him to be faithful he shouldn't have put him in a position where he had no choice. (His pronouns were getting quite mixed up, he realised.) So it was partly Aslan's fault. And it wasn't that bad of a bargain.

(He ignored the voice that asked what his father would have thought, if his father knew how this story was going.) It didn't make him a bad person. He pushed himself off the tree and headed for home. The only thing he wanted right now, very much, was to sit down with tea and cake, and be happy again.

I don't think, dear Reader, it was a very happy tea, even once he reached home. He still looks sad whenever he tells us about that hope he'd held on to on the way home, so I think the hope was indeed false.

But the following days were worse. The Beavers must have told their new discovery, for Mr. Tumnus suddenly found himself ostracized. The Robin he greeted every time he left the house (there was no reason to stay safely inside now, was there?) flew away at the first sight of him. The Centaurs galloped away before he could speak, their hooves flinging scattered snow on his scarf. The Dryads withdrew, their limbs still and silent, and no amount of polite conversation drew them out. The Dwarves were the worst, the ones that weren't hers. They muttered "traitor," or "coward," and turned back to their own conversations. Mr. Tumnus was very, very much alone.

He played his flute more and more often. He reread all his books. He learned the best ways to make toast, and tried very hard to pretend there was someone coming over to share it. He began going to the Lamppost often. It was away from all the others, and he could pretend, there, that he was really indulging in the others' fanciful dreams. That he wasn't alone because everyone left, but because he, himself, was going to check—just to check, you know, not because he actually thought anything would happen—and see if stories really happened. If spring was a real hope, because Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve were real. If—if only—if only the cold, lonely winter was not the only reality left.

But it was always, always winter. There was never anyone there. And Mr. Tumnus retreated more and more into dreams of spring, of dancing, of music and laughter and people who were there. Who spoke to him.

And he picked up the parcels that started appearing near the Lamppost. There were new ones there any time he went to the Lantern Waste, proof that he was watched, that if he disobeyed—but he couldn't disobey. Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve did not exist. He tried to tell himself that this exchange, after all, was easy. The bargain wasn't that bad. That he might as well go home and eat the cake. Alone.

Dear Reader, I hope you never, ever, ever feel how very lonely he was.