My first phanphic, so be merciful, I beg of you!

SUMMARY:

Part One: Basically, Tumnus' story of his friendship with Lucy.

Part Two: Their friendship after Lucy becomes Queen Lucy the Valiant of Narnia.

Part Three: Lucy and Tumnus reunite many years later, and how their friendship progresses into love.

Disclaimer: I don't own Lucy, Tumnus, or anything, really, in Part One. I get to own more stuff as the book progresses... but for now, I own nothing; I am simply a phanphiction hobo.

Chapter Seven

A Future Set in Stone

Tumnus couldn't move, there was simply no other way to put it. A solid freeze, beginning at his fingertips, seeped further into his body. It seared his skin like wild-fire and chilled him to the marrow. Tumnus knew not if the sensation was rapid or sluggish, only that he was acutely aware of the blood gushing each vein of his wrists go solid. The coldness crawled into every nerve, every hair, every cell. His eyes were shut tight therefore unawares of anything outside of the cold imprisonment he was locked inside of.

The sensation diffused through his legs and hoofs, sprawled into his arms. He felt each lung fill with emptiness and solidity, and the hardness crept through all veins to his heart. It snuck up his neck and into his face, where the real fear began its descent on him. His mouth, every tooth, every tastebud, each drop of saliva went solid. It closed over his ears and nose and – this was what scared Tumnus the most – swept over his locked eyes, oozing into any creases and skin folds and forever moulding his eyelids together. His brain immobilized, and one by one, all the vertebrae went out down his spine. In seconds, he'd become nothing more than stone.

And there he stayed, the stone faun, Tumnus.

Ever-present, a silence absorbed into his ears in and out, making him scream. But he could not scream, couldn't utter a single breath with that eternally shouting mouth that the curse of stone has nestled on him. Yet in the silence, there was music – horrible music. If broken glass had a voice, that would be it: the shrill wailing of hatred and fear.

Breathing was of no need to him, and as such, his lungs had been hushed on the moment of exhale. Those lungs were still inside his unmoving chest, fated to be forever in that crumpled position of pain to which there was no release. Tumnus longed to have air to breathe, yet there was only the solidness of rock.

Perhaps it was lucky that his eyes were closed when the stone had blanketed over his body, for he would've seen such atrocious things. Instead, he was granted a blessing: the blankness of no sight. His eyes were frozen to the lids, his pupils forever boring into a vast expanse, a Void, a Nothing.

He could no longer feel the air surrounding him, only the nullity pulsing through him. He lived in each hair, each cell. He was rock inside and out, but there was something storm-like tumbling in him. It crashed against the stone walls, fruitlessly attempting to free Tumnus from the unmoving fate he was caged in. Yet, in spite of the prison that was his own body, he was aware of every speck of movement in the wind outside of him, conscious of each breath the earth took. It was there before him, tantalizing and taunting, only a arm's length away, but he could never reach it.

A disgusting odour filled his nostrils in every moment, somewhat like rust and mildew. His heart was still, stopped in mid-beat, and he couldn't tell if his blood was stone as well, or flooding through each vein in a mud-like clotting of grey rock, or buzzing into ever artery and vein at the speed of light.

Thoughts were everywhere and nowhere, all confusion aside. He was rushing into the next new theory that flitted across his mind, yet his brain was only there: motionless and unburdened by thoughts. His mind pulsed with nonsense and insanity, but what he was thinking wasn't really thinking.

Time was, mayhap, filled with even more perplexity. He was at the very centre of time. Every second revolved around him, but he wasn't really in time, so how could he be so important? One moment he was the eye of the storm, the next moment he was smaller than a speck of importance . . . but one moment didn't exist. One moment could have been eternity, and eternity was naught but the blink of an eye.

All of this whirled about in him, toppling and tumbling into ever fold of stony flesh. And then. . . A warmth, rustling his hair. . .