A/N: This little ficlet takes place during the Hundred Year Winter. It's been plaguing me for a little while now, and the time of year is about right, methinks. :) Enjoy.
10.
He is only seven years old when he first meets her—a mischievous, bright eyed boy with a mop of pale yellow hair. It is a cool autumn day that has a curious bite to it, and he's running through the courtyard when he knows, just knows, that something isn't right. Perhaps it is the sudden knife of the icy North wind that leaves him breathless in the courtyard—perhaps the sight of the first snowflake of the season. At first the boy is pleased by the snow, but it stings his skin and makes it itch, and it is abruptly very clear to him that this is not friendly snow.
There are strange people in the street—at least, he thinks they are people. They're all dressed in dark, tattered cloaks, and some of them are making strange noises, and some of them are very tall. A tall, beautiful sledge is standing by the stables, six mournful, shivering reindeer strapped to the front. There is a path of snow on which the sledge has crossed the cobblestones of the street—and now the boy knows something is wrong, because there shouldn't be enough snow anywhere in Anvard for a sledge to ride on.
And then a voice hisses at him, "There you are, highness! Where have you been? Quickly—into the hall before you catch your death!"
His nurse. He tries to duck away from her firm grasp, but she has him by the arm and is towing him painfully up the stairs in the hall when another voice, which could very well be the North wind for all the warmth in it, cries, "Stop!"
The nurse freezes (ironically), and releases her hold on him. The boy turns around and sees his father (thank the Lion, for surely Father will know what is wrong with the snow!). He does not understand why his father is frowning until he is already halfway across the room to him and sees the tall Woman standing beside him.
The boy checks himself, but does not halt. In a glance he takes in everything about her, and he knows, from that icy blue stare, and that jagged crystalline crown, that this is the Cold Voice he heard. This is the cause of the Wrong Snow, the bringer of the sledge and the dark creatures in the street who he is sure are not people at all. Her hair is black, yes, and luxuriously long, but her face is white—not just pale, but white like the face of a dead thing.
"Father!" he says, wrapping his arms around the man and burying his face in the warm, reassuring cloak that smells of tobacco and peppermint. "Father."
His father's hand brushes over his hair, and then pulls him back. His hands are shaking. The boy is confused.
"So," says the North wind-Woman, "this is your son?"
"Yes," his father, the King of Archenland, says back. "This is my son."
Those cold blue eyes rake over him like icy fingers of fear, and the boy shivers involuntarily, although he does not look away.
"What is your name, boy?"
His throat constricts, but the boy lifts his chin and says, in a thin but proud voice, "Lune."
"Lune." He doesn't like how she says it, giving the sound of the letters a cruel, harsh twist. His stomach churns, but he nods a little, almost like a bow. "Lune. Do you know who I am?"
He stares into those cold blue eyes and feels the fear wisp over him before vanishing in a flash of anger. Does he know who she is.
"You're Jadis."
The woman laughs coldly. "Does he mean to be impudent, my friend, or is he merely ignorant of my rank?" The king's lips press together as the woman bends and cups Lune's cheek in her hand (which is also as cold as death). Her dangerous eyes bore deep into his, and he wonders if perhaps she is searching for something. Only one thing is in his mind as he stares at her—beautiful, in a harsh, cold sort of way. Terrifying, yet also somehow mortal (even though it is rumored that she's lived for millennia, since before the beginning of the World). He knows that she is evil, that she murdered Narnia's king and queen seventy years ago, when his father's father was yet alive.
And as he stares into her hateful, scathing eyes, he wonders why no one has done anything about it yet. Why his father allows her to trample through Anvard once every five or so years, to be sure they are "behaving themselves". He thinks, "When I am king, I will fight her with all my being."
But for now, he says nothing, and focuses on not shivering as the icy hand holds his gaze steadily on hers. It was the first time he had thought about being king—and Lune often remarked, as he told the story to his two sons, many years later in the summertime, that after meeting the White Witch, he no longer minded much about growing up.