milliways_bar | (no subject)

Entry tags:

fawkes,
tumnus

(no subject)

One day, Fawkes is going to come through the door at the same time as Ellen. Today is just not that day. Fortunately, there's no real problem with the separation- just a moment's confused looking-around before the mutant shrugs and heads for the bar.

There's a package waiting for him. And a note, which he reads.

"I must remember to thank Ben when next I see him," Fawkes muses aloud. "These will make things significantly easier."

With that, he settles down at a nearby table, only too happy to put up with the fuss and bother of getting the weird little rubber things onto his fingers if it means he has an easier time turning the pages of his Marcus Aurelius.

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Milliways always seems to find Tumnus near the library and today he was searching for a map when he found it in an older room.

He enters with a sigh and walks by Fawkes before stopping and asking, "Pardon me, but are you a giant?"

"Hmm?" Fawkes glances up. "Oh, no. Nothing of the sort. I fear I'm nothing but a mutant- a very tall one. And yourself?"

"Oh, yes, I have met some mutants. I'm a Faun from a place called Narnia."

"I don't believe I've ever heard of that place," says Fawkes after some thought. "What can you tell me about it?"

"What would you like to know? Its a rather large kingdom."

"Anything at all," says Fawkes. "I've spent most of my life imprisoned. To learn anything about new places is fascinating, whatever the information gained."

"I see. Then let me begin with this,"

He's carrying a number of books and lays one down to open it to a map of Narnia,

"I live here at Caer Paravel, but grew up here in the Lantern Wastes close to the Lamp Post."

Fawkes leans over to have a look, carefully setting his hands on either side of the book to avoid accidentally damaging it. For all that he has the rubber caps on his fingers, the pages still look fragile. "These markings," he says, carefully indicating the area around the post. "They .... they indicate trees?"

"Yes and these are mountains. The forests in Narnia are wonderful, deep and full of life. They're some of my favorite places."

"I don't believe I've ever seen a forest," says Fawkes a bit wistfully. "Other than the trees here, I mean."

"Never? I'm sorry. What happened to the trees on your world?"

"A war, two hundred years ago," says Fawkes. "I'm told it devastated the entire planet. I couldn't really say, of course. The area where I live now is mostly desert and scrubland."

"Oh my. Narnia was held in winter for a hundred years but the White Witch rarely destroyed the land only the people."

"That sounds disturbing," says Fawkes. "I hope your people had enough food to last them through that time."

"It was, she turned some of her enemies to stone and others she simply killed. We did but it was terribly long."

Fawkes nods. "I can only imagine," he says. "You speak of her in the past tense. She was- disposed of?"

Tumnus looks down at the map instead of Fawkes as his time as a statue still haunts him, time isn't meant to be lost like that,

"Yes, she was, many years ago."

"Good," says Fawkes firmly. "An evil like that should be purged from the land, quickly and cleanly."

Fawkes has some very definite ideas about that kind of thing.

"She was and Narnia has healed."

"Even better," says Fawkes. "The weather is back to normal, now? There's something other than winter?"

He's never seen winter, himself. But he's read about it.

"Yes, we have the proper seasons again."

"Very good," says Fawkes. "Hard as it is to farm in the Capital Wasteland, at least there are times of year when it's... not as hard as at others."

"The Capital Wasteland, that's where you live?"

Fawkes nods. "Before the Great War," he says, "it was the city of Washington, DC, and all the lands around it. There are small settlements now in different places, but the city itself is ruins."

"Are things being rebuilt? Does anyone lead or rule?"