"I am very glad that you agreed to speak with me, Lieutenant Ravnic. I understand that this cannot be… easy for you."
"Not at all, your Majesty. I do wonder though, if there is anything I can tell you that will be of any practical use."
"I do not seek practical application so much as I seek knowledge, Lieutenant. Anything that you can remember- anything at all- would be most useful."
"Oh, is the little birdie lost?" The Hag approaches with a malicious grin, her eyes glinting hungrily as she nears Ravnic. He can see her calculating how much meat she'll be able to get from his bones.
"Stay away from me," he spits, hopping back along the snow-covered ground, fervently hoping that someone, anyone will come along. Anyone. Please.
"Oh, but the little birdie is all alone, and hurt." He tries to pull his wounded wing in closer to his body, as though if the damned thing can't see it, she'll forget about it. It's a desperate, instinctual hope, but then, Hags are notoriously stupid when it comes to practical things. "Poor little birdie should come to my home, to dinner."
"Not bloody likely."
The Hag grins and makes a grab for him, just missing his wing. "Ooh, ooh, little lost birdie shouldn't be so smart. I'll have to make a nice stew out of the little birdie, make him go down sweet, eh?"
"May you choke on the bones, you wretch." A poor insult, really, but what else is there to fall back on?
The Hag, too, damn her, can hear the desperation in the words, and she only grins and moves closer, crowding the Eagle against the frozen brush. For the first time in his life, Ravnic wishes he were smaller. She reaches for him with her filthy hands and then…
"Rechys, what have you found?"
The words nearly freeze the blood in his veins. He knows that he prayed for anyone to come, but the Lion must have a sense of humor sicker than Tash's to send Ravnic her.
The Hag dithers. "My- my Lady. Your Imperial Majesty." She sweeps her filthy rags into a semblance of a curtsy. "An Eagle. It's- it's a rebel spy, your Majesty. I'm certain of it."
"Indeed." Ravnic forces himself to look her in the face, in the eyes. Her voice is soft, like snow falling on water. He shudders. "And what would an Eagle be doing here- so near to my palace- at such a time as this?"
He can't help himself. "Your palace," he sneers.
Her calm look hardens. "Yes. My palace. My country."
Ravnic can hear the small, sensible voice in his head warning him away from what he is about to do. But he wouldn't be an Eagle if he didn't get one last jibe at the damned Witch before she kills him. And so he disregards the voice that sounds so like his mother's and replies, "Aslan's country."
"It is impossible to describe being stone. The closest you can come to it- and this really is a very poor comparison, your Majesty- is to imagine that you are blind and deaf and dumb. You're trapped in a world of absolute silence, absolute darkness. You can't move. But you can feel."
"And what did you feel?"
"It's- you can't imagine it. I don't wish to say that what I felt was pain, but that's as close as I can get to the truth. It's more… there is no sense of the passage of time, you understand; thoughts are muddled. But you can sense, eventually, that you are alive, that you are trapped, somehow. You can feel that your blood is stone, feel the weight of it in your veins. You feel as though you are crushed beneath the whole of the earth, and squeezed between the mountains, and thrown into an abyss. All you want is for everything to end, to die… but you can't."
The first thing he is aware of- and calling it awareness is a lie, really- is the pain in his wing. Acute, shooting; it's as painful as it was when it was first broken, and it won't stop.
And then there are other things: a dead weight all around him, a pressure, a pain. It's above and below and outside and inside and it's only then that he realizes what has happened, because even hell couldn't be this bad, could it?
And he waits- for a second, for a year, because there's no time here- for the pain to cease, for his breath to be stolen away or his heart to fail… but though he's not breathing, and though his heart's not beating, he doesn't die.
And the pain won't stop.
"Eventually, you become capable of thinking of something other than the pain, but never for very long. It's very difficult, your Majesty, to force yourself past the pain. Even the smallest of thoughts takes your entire concentration. But then again, there's no outside influence, no distraction. And no way to tell the passage of time."
"And so you spent the entirety of… Lieutenant, how long were you stone before Aslan returned?"
"Three years, two months, and eleven days…"
"I wish that it had not been so, Ravnic."
"… after the start of the Winter, I was turned to stone."
"After the start of the Wint- Lion's mane, Ravnic! You were… ninety-six years… and I saw you in the battle that day..."
"Oh, I killed a great many Hags at Beruna, your Majesty."
It's like floating… in a blackness so deep and measureless that, after a time, he feels as though he's always been here. What had been the world starts to fade, until there are only flashes of lucidity that interrupt the droning pain.
The flashes of consciousness that bravely- and, ultimately, futilely- rear their heads are odd, disjointed. A stunted peach tree fighting its way through a field of weeds… a beautiful young female with a black tail that gleams blue in the sunlight… the feeling of horror rising as the falling snow won't stop… a look of greed and hunger and the Hag's groping hands...
Eventually, the flashes of lucidity cease, and the real world fades, and all that is left besides the pain is the image of a face as beautiful and as cold as ice and the words "My country…"
"That's the real danger, your Majesty: forgetting. I met creatures, after Aslan came, who had gotten so lost in the blackness that they couldn't find their way out. I can't blame them, but neither can I condone them. It is one thing to be afraid, to wish to escape pain, and quite another to deny Aslan and Narnia and retreat to the familiar darkness of a hundred years of stone."
"And you, Ravnic?"
"… I cannot deny, your Majesty, that things became… very bad. There was a point at which I forgot my own name, and it is only by Aslan's grace that I am not as much of a wreck as are those who surrendered themselves."
"Yet you are here, Ravnic. I do wonder, though, do you remember when Aslan came?"
"Remember? Your Majesty, after stone, Aslan was like… it wasn't even like being reborn. It was more… I felt as if Aslan had torn me down to nothing and built me up again, all in the space of a single breath's time."
The warm breath is the first thing he feels in nearly a hundred years, and it carries with it such terrible beauty that Ravnic's first action in his new life is to weep.
And then he heaviness and the pain of the stone drop away and the world comes rushing back. He whirls, expecting a twinge from his wing and the insidious giggle of the Hag, but there is nothing of the Winter, not even snow. Instead there is soft grass and a warm breeze and little girl who stares at him most concernedly.
"Is your wing feeling better?" she asks. Ravnic can't process the question. He stares instead; stares at her bright dress and her bright hair and the bright half-smile that's slowly fading from her bright face. "Sir? Your wing… it should be healed… I saw that it had been broken when…"
And then he realizes that his wing is healed, and that the Winter is gone, and that he can think without fighting the monotonous pain. And he smiles a Raptor's smile, because this means that a Hag is about to die. "Ravnic, gentle lady. My name is Ravnic."
"And so now?"
"Now? Now, your Majesty, I am free, and I enjoy the feel of snow against my wings- if there's a warm nest to return to- and I stay out of caves, and I kill Hags where I find them."
"Ravnic, there is more to it than that."
"Nothing, your Majesty, that you would find useful."
"Hmm, perhaps not, but I would know, if you can bear to tell it."
"Your Majesty… why?"
"Because I would have myself remember eyes such as yours when you speak of this. Because I would see to it that I am never a part of such a thing again."
"Your Majesty-"
"Ravnic, I, too, know Aslan's grace, but I would still have the truth. Please."
"Very well. In truth? The nightmares come and go… and when they come, they are very bad indeed. But, your Majesty, there is also the sun, and the wind under my wings, and the warmth of summer. What's past is past; I won't forget, but I won't dwell, either. I am no longer stone."