I don't own Narnia or the Pevensies.
I can't make promises. Seasonal affective disorder (SAD) stole my winter writing away and it's hard to get it back. I'll try. I'm sorry.
For a moment, no one spoke, as if afraid of making a noise that would offend whatever it was that had just made its appearance. Then Edmund took a swift step backwards, mouth hanging open at the sheer size of the thing that was standing before them.
Its head was so high up, it exploded through the foliage above and extended another good ten feet (the trees in the Void, though quite thick and very dense, were only about twenty-five feet tall on average). After a moment, Lucy made the surprising but somewhat calming observation that the foot (she was pretty sure it was a foot) bore no claws, simply ending in a large, vaguely-toed stump. She supposed there was another foot somewhere, but for the moment her gaze was drawn upwards, and she stared towards the sky, shielding her eyes against the sun.
She was greeted by two enormous, curious eyes, an odd purple in color and so big, she could have held up Peter's shield and it wouldn't have covered them. Its face contained nothing but these and two slits that seemed to be for breathing, like nostrils. The thing had apparently bent over, for she could see its short, thick neck extending back to its shoulders, which were a silvery purple, gradually fading to the grayish green of its massive, round feet. It seemed unexpectedly harmless. From the cylindrical trunk of its body sprouted four long, thin arm-like appendages, though instead of fingers they seemed to have small mouths; one of these was currently chewing on a nearby tree.
The four travelers remained bolt stiff and quite silent, their eyes locked with those of the strange creature that towered above them. It must have been a full minute before the thing moved, straightening out to its full height and making a low sort of booming noise that came from a hole in its neck (which had previously been hidden from their sight by its head).
Edmund clapped his free hand over his ear and winced. Peter tensed, but when the creature did nothing but make noise, he relaxed again. Staring in wide-eyed wonderment at this new acquaintance, Lucy was the first to move as she stepped forward and tentatively touched a hand to its scaly skin. It was smooth and cool to the touch, though the edges of the scales were rough, nearing sharpness.
"Lu, be careful," Edmund warned her.
"You'd best leave it be, lass," Timothy whispered. She ignored both of them and looked up into the curious eyes of the purple being. A second later, it bent down again, pushing its face through the foliage and bringing it frighteningly close to theirs, at which the boys all took a step back and Lucy alone stood her ground.
"Hello," Lucy said amiably. She wasn't bothered by this creature in the least. It seemed…almost friendly, somehow. The creature made another low rumbling noise and pushed yet closer, blinking its great eyes slowly. Lucy reached out and haltingly put a hand on its cheek, at which the little slits of its nostrils flared and a gust of hot air drifted past her face, but it did not move away.
"Madness," she heard Timothy mutter.
"It's not dangerous," Lucy shrugged. "Look, its arms are for eating trees. Don't be silly."
"Try saying it's not dangerous when you're a pancake in its footprint," said Edmund darkly. Peter snorted.
The thing (Lucy mentally named it the Purple, for lack of a better name) finally lifted its face away from her and lifted it back above the treetops as if surveying the area. A second later, there was some kind of noise in the undergrowth and it responded with its own bellow – this time, even Lucy covered her ears.
"Not so loud," she grumbled, though of course it neither understood nor responded. There was another noise, from somewhere far to their left, and the Purple let out a high-pitched bray like some strange mix of a donkey and an elephant. From what they could see of its eyes from thirty feet below, they were opening wider in alarm. A final noise came, much closer than before, and suddenly the foot before them – scarcely two feet in front of Lucy – lifted rapidly out of the forest, leaving a small pond of tree slime in the depression.
"Lucy, get out of the way!" Edmund shouted from behind her, quickly grabbing the back of her tunic and pulling her backwards. She stumbled, but he quickly caught her as the foot swung towards them a little, knocking through the place where her head had just been, then swung the other direction as the Purple worked to turn itself around. Its other foot lifted from the woods twenty feet to their right, swung away from them, and it slowly revolved before taking off into an unexpected sprint, one foot in front of the other, a lumbering, thumping gait that took it quickly out of their eyesight, though exactly in the direction they were traveling.
But one thing was certainly changed – where their path before had been marked only by Peter's judgments of sun position, so that they might keep traveling northward, suddenly there were more tell-tale signs. The Purple had fled due north, and left behind it a mess of fallen trees, puddles of ooze and general detritus. However, Lucy also noticed the vast number of bugs and small critters fleeing away from the destroyed environment, and came to a bit of a realization.
"Looks like we have a path," Timothy commented, raising an eyebrow and pushing aside a vine with his sword.
"So long as we keep our eyes open for footprints," said Edmund darkly.
"I'm staying with 'we have a path,'" said Peter, edging past his brother and their friend to stand beside Lucy, who was in front. "What do you say, Lu?"
"Told you it was friendly," she said with a smile, looking at the trail the Purple had left them.
"No you didn't," said Peter confusedly. Lucy shrugged.
"Same thing."