telmarine occupied narnia / year 2100
word count: 1,135
"ruins of cair paravel" requested by ari
xXx
The ruins of Cair Paravel stood up bone white in the moonlight, crumbling terraces supported by the tangling dark branches of skeletal trees now growing inside the castle walls, breaching the last sacred barriers of their forlorn monument as roots knotted under paving stones and sent snaking tendrils out to ensnare the stumps of fallen pillars as if claiming them for their own.
Soulless now the forest crawled, just as empty as the halls upon which they encroached, snow heaped over shuddering branches and pale stone alike, fluttering down thick into rooms that had once housed royalty.
But if anyone had been looking into the ruins at that moment, they would have seen all manner of tracks in the gathering snow, large and small and clawed and hooved, winding up from the shore where the shapes of tiny overturned boats and coracles blended almost perfectly with the stony beach.
If anyone had been looking at that moment, which of course they were not, as no men dared settle near enough to the sea to come within view of the castle isle, they would have seen a tiny burst of orange light flicker to life in the heart of the snowy colonnade which had once been a roaring great hall with a roof and a hearth fire and wild warbling music and talk and laughter.
Now small figures scurried amongst the crumbling pillars, twigs cracking as meager flames caught and illuminated towering archways in the flickering golden glow of a small bonfire, and someone struck up a rich woody tune on a small flute.
A mouse's squeal seemed to break some unspoken rule of silence, and all at once a dozen voices flooded the desolate hall; a hedgehog and its children waddling out from behind a round pillar, a raven alighting in the branches of a snowy tree with a good-natured croak, a rabbit bounding into the firelight just as two faun women crept fully into the open space and twirled to the tune of their brother's flute.
Snuffly badger babies tumbled over each other into the center of the ancient room as their parents spoke with an old tabby tomcat, and the youngsters scampered over the stone, free to play here where they feared no human detection.
"Now, let's see about that meal," said a single red dwarf, unloading his well-stuffed knapsack onto the ground as others gathered eagerly to help.
Though few in number now compared to the throng who had once made the journey up the coast every moonlit Christmas Eve, they remained a merry bunch, those few who dared to celebrate in spite of the ever-steady expansion of Telmarine villages and outposts all across their beloved land.
Even Father Christmas had not dared to visit since the early years of the invasion; not since his presence had alerted the conquering enemy to the locations of several Narnians in hiding. No magic held him at bay this time, but the watchful eye of the King proved just as dangerous as any spellbound winter.
And even still, the bravest of creatures kept their tradition alive.
Even when no dryads remained awake to join in the festivities, when no firs shimmered with ornamentation or danced in the center of the throng, still they gathered to bring light back into their desecrated halls.
Even when few now lived who had seen the royal city in its former glory, still they passed stories between themselves of the Kings and Queens who had once ruled from the four thrones, and their children begged for the same tales over and over again in the shadows of their ancestors' history.
"Look!" cried one of the small badgers as it broke apart from its siblings and gazed across to the opposite side of the open hall where the firelight had just begun to reach.
The others looked up, and even a few of the older creatures turned at the small voice.
"Well, I never," breathed a faun woman, and the flute music fell silent as even more turned to look where the tiny badgers' snout pointed.
"What is it?" asked an elderly mole, nearly blind.
"It…" The rabbit bounded halfway across the hall and stood up sniffing on its hind legs. "It's an apple tree."
"So are the rest of this lot," grumbled the dwarf, still distracted by the matter of supper.
"No," said the little badger, "it has apples."
This garnered everyone's attention.
The raven flapped its wings and jumped from its branch, sending a heavy snow drift down on the head of a particularly prickly hedgehog who shook its quills and spluttered in protest as the bird alighted in the silhouetted apple tree.
"He's right!" it croaked, "why, these apples are plump and ripe as any you could wish for!"
A murmur of disbelief swept through the assembled creatures and they moved all at once toward the silhouetted tree, shining almost silver in the moon's brilliant glow.
And indeed, in spite of its twisted figure and gnarled roots digging into cracked stone well apart from any of its brethren—as if having clawed its way there in the last gasps of life—its crown bloomed thick and leafy, laden with shining red snow-dusted apples as rich as if they'd only just come ripe in the middle of August.
"Why, it's a Christmas tree!" cried one of the tiniest hedgehogs, and with a ripple of gasping awe the words bounced between every young voice from hedgehogs to moles to mice.
Christmas tree! Christmas tree! Christmas tree!
"So it is!" laughed one of the faun women, and reached up to pluck an apple from a low-hanging bough, gazing at the fruit so perfect it could have been one of the glittering painted bulbs the Kings and Queens of old had once passed down through ancient tradition.
"Well, then," said the dwarf, "it seems the trees are celebrating after all!"
A round of cheers and laughter swept through the party, and all fell to gathering the lowest of the crisp fruit or dancing around the tree trunk as the flute music struck up again and a fresh spark of joy burst alight in the heart of every creature.
The cat purred by the fireside and the dwarf hummed as badgers brought him armloads of apples to fry up with the rest of their hearty victuals, and the pillars of the great hall flickered orange against the moonlight as if a beating heart had once again taken up residence in the vacant cavity of skeletal ribs, thrumming with lifeblood if only for a night.
And for a moment, as the Christmas Tree stood proud in the center of the great hall echoing at last with music and laughter, the halls of Cair Paravel knew joy as it had not known it in a hundred years.