Disclaimer: I own nothing of Narnia, none of the characters, none of the ideas, none of the places, none of the anything. The only thing I own is my OC. Everything else is the property of the estate of CS Lewis.

Imagination, Reality, and the Space Between

Chapter Five: Surprising Allies

The children were still standing in the wreckage of Mr. Tumnus' house, when they heard a noise that sounded oddly like a "psst". However, once they had all trooped outside to see where the noise had come from, they didn't see anything but a single bird perched on one of the lower braches of a nearby tree.

Susan furrowed her brow. "Did that bird just 'psst' us?" The others merely shrugged in reply, unsure and quite unwilling to admit that it was really the only possibility as there was absolutely no other living creature in sight.

At that same moment, there was a rustling noise coming from beyond a couple of snow covered rocks. The rustling noise continued, drawing closer as they all looked around, frightened and confused. After a moment, a small animal popped out from behind one of the rocks.

Lucy blinked. "It's – It's a beaver."

Indeed it was a beaver. It sniffed around for a moment, and Peter inched closer to it, extending his hand and clicking his tongue.

"I'm not sure beavers respond to…" Marilyn said, trailing off as she saw the beaver come closer.

Within a moment, the beaver stood up on its hind legs, and did something every unexpected. It spoke.

"I ain't gonna smell it, if that's what you want." The beaver said looking at Peter's hand distastefully.

Everyone but Lucy was shocked to hear it speak. Marilyn attempted to smother a gasp by clapping her hand over her mouth, but didn't succeed. Both Edmund's and Susan's eyes widened in surprise, and Peter mumbled a shocked apology to the creature. Lucy, however, merely giggled. Her giggles were quickly put a stop to when the beaver turned to her and said her name. She stepped forward tentatively, murmuring an affirmative answer. And seemingly out of nowhere the beaver produced a white handkerchief with the initials LP embroidered on it.

"Hey, that's the hanky I gave to Mr. Tum—" Lucy said, taking the square of cloth.

"Tumnus. He got it to me just before they took him."

Lucy looked alarmed. "Is he alright?" she asked worriedly.

The beaver looked around and then motioned for them to follow him, whispering "Further in" as he did.

Lucy and Peter made to follow the beaver, but Susan stopped them by calling out.

"What are you doing?" She asked.

Edmund nodded in agreement. "She's right. How do we know we can trust him?"

Peter shrugged. "He said he knows the faun."

"He's a beaver. He shouldn't be saying anything." Susan said seriously.

At that point, the beaver popped back into view. "Everything all right?" he asked.

Peter nodded. "We were just talking."

The beaver looked agitated and whispered again. "That's better left for safer quarters."

Lucy looked around, biting her lower lip. "He means the trees."

All five of them looked at one another. Susan suggested again that they go back, but Lucy wanted to know what happened to Mr. Tumnus. After a moment or arguing, Marilyn murmured to herself. "This is ridiculous" and started off after the beaver.

Peter and Susan both called out at the same time with the same question: "Where are you going?"

Marilyn pointed after the beaver. "After him. I'm not going to stand in the snow all day while you all argue about whether or not to go back. I'm cold, and since I can't find my way back to the wardrobe alone, I figure the quickest way to somewhere warm is to follow him." She said matter-of-factly, before turning and continuing on.

A few moments later, the other four caught up to her. Lucy smiled at her as she caught up, mouthing 'thank you'. Marilyn just smiled and nodded. She hadn't really followed the beaver to help Lucy convince the others, but if Lucy wanted to think she did, there was no real reason to say otherwise. They followed the beaver mostly in silence. They walked through the snow surrounded by small snow covered trees until they came to this side of a mountain which had a narrow passageway carved into it through an archway that looked to have been carved there even though the flat top above the peak of the arch indicated there had been something else there at one time.

"This is… absolutely amazing." Marilyn breathed. "Absolutely amazing." She had slowed her pace a bit, taking the scenery in. That fact was not missed by the beaver.

"Come on. We don't want to get caught out here after nightfall." It said. Marilyn blinked, but starting walking at a normal pace again.

"What comes out after nightfall?" She asked curiously, but the beaver never answered.

The passage through the mountain got narrower as they went. Eventually, they had to go through single file, as the passage would barely accommodate one person at a time, let alone two. It took mere minutes after that to reach the other side, where once oust the passage, they could all see a dam, twice the size of any depicted in schoolbooks with a stream of pale smoke coming out of a chimney.

"Ah, blimey! Looks like the old girl's got the kettle on. Nice cup o' Rosy Lee." The beaver said, sounding satisfied.

Lucy grinned. "It's lovely." She said politely, though she really did mean it.

The beaver sounded as though he were blushing when he replied. "It's merely a trifle. Still plenty to do. Ain't quite finished it yet. It'll look the business when it is, though."

They continued down the hill, and as they approached, they could hear a woman shouting. "Beaver, is that you? I've been worried sick. If I find out you've been out with Badger again—"

The voice stopped as they came around the corner. There was a female beaver standing outside the dam, with her paws over her mouth.

"Oh. Those aren't badgers. " She said, surprised. She walked closer, her tone changed from surprise before to a sort of subtle excitement. "Oh, I never thought I'd live to see this day."

The five children looked at her with blank expressions, not really understanding what she meant. Surely there was nothing impressive about them.

Mrs. Beaver (for from the first words out of her mouth, it was obvious she was the beaver's wife) mumbled something about her fur then turned on the Beaver. "You couldn't have given me ten minutes warning?" She said in an annoyed tone.

The beaver chuckled. "I'd have given you a week if I thought it would have helped." The glare he received was enough to make the children all chuckle as well.

Mrs. Beaver started inside. "Oh, come inside, and we'll see if we can't find you some food and some civilised company."

The children made to follow Mrs. Beaver in, the girls first, and then the boys, as Beaver himself warned them to watch their step.

Both Susan and Marilyn volunteered to help Mrs. Beaver, but the place was really far too small for that (as the dam was, of course, beaver-sized, not human-sized), so they resigned to sit and wait while Mrs. Beaver busied herself about the small kitchen.

In this time, Lucy took the chance to ask Beaver once more about what had happened to Mr. Tumnus. But he shook his head, and told her that such matters were best left unspoken about until after dinner.

Author's Note: This is a bit shorter than the last couple of chapters, but my whole aim in this chapter was to get to the beaver's house. I'm still deciding what all I want to touch on with the Beaver's as they give us quite a lot of exposition both in the book and film. At any rate, if you've made it this far, please do review. It'll be greatly appreciated. Thanks and happy reading,

ESG