Chapter Text
The forest had gone quiet, not the kind of peaceful quiet that follows a good snowfall or a well-earned nap, but the brittle kind. The kind that made birds pause mid-note and squirrels forget what they were saying. Even the river, which never liked to be left out of conversations, had fallen into a sort of sullen mumbling beneath the ice.
Mr. Beaver sat on the bank, paws tucked under his coat and eyes squinting at a tree that hadn’t done anything wrong. Not yet, anyway.
Behind him, the kettle clanked. Mrs. Beaver—long-suffering, endlessly practical, and precisely three seconds ahead of every conversation—stood in the doorway of their home with a ladle in one paw and a disapproving expression in the other.
“You’ll freeze your whiskers off sulking out here.”
Mr. Beaver didn’t move. “They’re already half-frozen, thanks.”
“Then they’ll snap off and you’ll look like a water vole in mourning. Come inside.”
He didn’t turn, but he could hear the sigh. It was the sort of sigh that had previously preceded things like re-roofing the dam, mending a broken canoe, or surviving the reign of a tyrant witch.
“I’m not sulking,” he added finally. “I’m thinking.”
“You can think with soup,” she replied. “Multitasking. It's what separates us from the stoats.”
Mr. Beaver gave a snort but didn’t rise. A snowflake fluttered past his nose, hesitated as if reconsidering its landing spot, then committed to the ground with the solemnity of a falling leaf.
Mrs. Beaver stepped down the snowy path with a caution born of heavy boots and heavier news.
“You should say something,” she said gently. “He was your friend, after all.”
“He wasn’t.”
“Well, he wasn’t your enemy either.”
“Didn’t say that, did I?”
She narrowed her eyes. “You’re being difficult.”
“It’s part of my charm.”
Mrs. Beaver tucked her arms into her apron and looked out at the trees with him. “You didn’t ask how it happened.”
“I don’t have to. If he’s dead, it wasn’t natural. Nikabrik would’ve buried Death in a snowbank and dared him to come back.”
“He was trying to bring the White Witch back.”
Mr. Beaver didn’t respond, but his tail thudded once against the packed snow like a warning bell on a foggy morning.
“There was a hag,” Mrs. Beaver continued. “And a werewolf.”
“Of course there was,” Mr. Beaver muttered. “Nikabrik never liked to enter a bad idea half-armed.”
She sat beside him, smoothing her skirt over the cold stump next to his. “There was a fight. Caspian’s people stopped them. Nikabrik didn’t make it.”
“Did he ever?” Mr. Beaver said softly.
The question hovered in the air, untouched.
They sat in silence, broken only by the creak of winter branches and the distant rustle of something that had no business rustling in this kind of cold. Mr. Beaver chewed the inside of his cheek, then rubbed his paws together, less for warmth than from habit.
“I suppose he thought he was saving Narnia,” he muttered.
“They always do, the ones who ruin things.”
Mr. Beaver glanced sideways. “That’s unusually grim for you.”
“I’ve been doing the washing,” she said flatly. “You’d be grim too if you saw what badger mud does to good linens.”
He cracked a smile but only briefly.
“I hadn’t thought about him in years,” he admitted.
Mrs. Beaver didn’t say anything. She didn’t need to.
“I mean, yes, the name came up here and there. Rumors. Squirrels muttering about a dwarf with a bad attitude and a worse beard. But it’s been ages since I really remembered him. Properly.”
Mrs. Beaver tilted her head. “And now?”
“Now he’s dead. And I’m wondering if we were ever really friends. Or just two angry beasts heading the same direction long enough to think we were.”
She considered that. “That still counts for something.”
“Does it?”
“Of course. You row a boat together, you both still get wet.”
“...Is that wisdom, or just damp logic?”
“I don’t know. You’re the one sulking next to a frozen river like a tragic woodcut.”
Mr. Beaver gave her a withering look. “I liked it better when you were back inside with the soup.”
“You always do. That’s how I know when something’s wrong.”
He looked back at the trees.
“Did I ever tell you how we met?” he asked suddenly.
Mrs. Beaver folded her arms. “You said he smelled like pipe smoke and treason.”
“Well. That’s accurate. But not very detailed.”
“I figured the rest of it was too unpleasant to repeat.”
“Or too important,” he said quietly.
Mrs. Beaver went still, then nodded once and stood. “Then I’ll leave you to it. Don’t freeze solid. We can’t afford another fur-lined doorstop.”
As she padded back toward the house, the wind stirred and a flurry of snow caught the corner of Mr. Beaver’s vision. He looked up, expecting another half-hearted drift.
Instead, a single snowflake spun downward: slow, deliberate, and oddly bright.
It landed on his paw and didn’t melt.
Mr. Beaver blinked.
And suddenly, he wasn’t at the river anymore.
The forest, in those days, did not whisper. It hissed.
Snow lay like ash across the ground, thin and windblown, as though winter had been hastily thrown on rather than settled into place. Trees hunched against the cold, their branches brittle as old bones. The air held the sharp edge of danger, and every crack of ice sounded like something breaking that wasn’t supposed to.
Mr. Beaver—much younger then, with a leaner face and a tendency to mutter aloud when he thought no one was listening—was halfway across a frozen stream when he heard the growling.
Not the casual sort of growl, either. Not the “this is my tree stump and I’m guarding it” kind. No, this was a low, rolling, teeth-bared growl that made his fur bristle before his mind caught up.
He ducked low, flattening himself against the brittle ice, ears twitching.
The trees ahead were moving.
Or rather—something was moving in the trees.
It crashed through the underbrush with no regard for stealth, snarling, howling, and occasionally cursing in what could only be described as impolite canine. And it was not alone.
Mr. Beaver backed slowly onto the snow-covered bank and crouched behind a half-fallen pine. He hadn’t meant to stumble into anything. He had only meant to fish, which was absurd under a frozen stream but worth trying anyway, if only for the principle of the thing. But now—
A shout. Sharp. Desperate.
Steel rang against bone. Then came another shout, lower this time. Rougher.
Mr. Beaver risked a peek.
A dwarf. Bleeding from the scalp, back against a gnarled elm, swinging an axe with the kind of precision that only comes from long practice or short temper. Three wolves circled him, tails low and ears back, waiting for an opening.
There was something unmistakable about the dwarf: short, dark-bearded, hunched slightly like he distrusted the very sky, and wild around the eyes. His axe was red—not just with blood, but the metal itself had a ruddy hue, as if it had been forged out of fire and poor decisions.
The dwarf swung again. A yelp. One wolf down.
Mr. Beaver didn’t like wolves. No talking creature did, these days. The Witch’s wolves weren’t like the old wolves of Narnia—the noble, moon-singing kind. These were bred for obedience and terror. Their eyes had gone cold.
And yet, he hesitated.
“Help the dwarf, or let him be eaten?” he muttered. “Bit of a toss-up, that.”
Nikabrik lunged, roared something in Dwarvish, and missed his target by inches. Another wolf lunged for his leg.
Mr. Beaver sighed, rose from his hiding place, and launched himself across the snow.
He wasn’t built for combat. Beavers weren’t. But he was built for ambush.
He collided with the wolf mid-leap, teeth sinking into fur, claws scrabbling for purchase. The wolf yowled and rolled, throwing him off, but it bought Nikabrik just enough time to plant his axe in the last one’s shoulder.
Silence fell again, sudden and complete.
Nikabrik stood panting, eyes scanning the trees for reinforcements. Mr. Beaver crouched nearby, spitting out a mouthful of fur and regretting all his life choices.
The dwarf turned to him.
“…You’re a beaver,” he said, as though this was both an accusation and a disappointment.
“And you’re welcome,” Mr. Beaver replied, brushing snow off his coat.
Nikabrik narrowed his eyes. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“No. I considered the alternatives. I picked the least annoying one.”
The dwarf grunted, wiped his axe on the snow, and dropped onto a log with a groan. Blood dripped from a gash above his eyebrow.
Mr. Beaver shuffled closer, still watching the treeline. “More of them will come. Wolves travel in packs.”
“Yes, I’ve heard,” Nikabrik said through clenched teeth. “Thank you for that insight, Encyclopedia Rodentica.”
“You’re bleeding.”
“No, really?”
Mr. Beaver opened his satchel and pulled out a cloth. “Here. Press this to your head.”
Nikabrik eyed the cloth like it might bite him.
“It’s clean,” Mr. Beaver added.
“Is it also useful?”
“Well, it’s better than bleeding out and being found by crows. Unless you’d prefer that.”
The dwarf snatched the cloth, muttering.
They sat in tense silence as the wind whispered around them. The wolves lay still, steam rising faintly from their bodies. The blood in the snow looked far too vivid for such a grey day.
After a while, Mr. Beaver broke the silence.
“You got a name, or should I continue calling you ‘idiot with the axe’ in my head?”
The dwarf glanced over, one brow raised.
“Nikabrik,” he said at last. “And I’d say ‘pleased to meet you,’ but I try not to lie before supper.”
Mr. Beaver snorted. “Likewise. I’m called Beaver.”
Nikabrik blinked. “That’s your name?”
“It’s my name when people ask for it. Otherwise I just go by ‘Hey, you with the tail.’”
Nikabrik gave a small, grudging chuckle, then winced and touched his head.
“Come on,” Mr. Beaver said. “There’s a cave not far. We can start a fire.”
“Is this the part where you rob me and leave me for the wolves?”
“If I was going to rob you, I’d have done it before the fighting. Now you’re just heavy and surly.”
Nikabrik grumbled something inaudible and followed.
They reached the cave as the sky darkened... barely more than an overhang of rock tucked into the hillside, but sheltered from the wind and hidden by pine. Mr. Beaver made a fire with practiced speed. Nikabrik slumped against the far wall, cradling his axe.
“You always this charitable to strangers?” he asked as flames crackled to life.
“Only the ones who bleed on my forest.”
Nikabrik’s mouth twitched. “Fair.”
They sat a while, letting warmth creep back into their limbs. Outside, the snow deepened. Somewhere in the distance, an owl called, then went abruptly silent.
Nikabrik stirred. “You know,” he said, staring into the fire, “the world’s gone mad.”
Mr. Beaver didn’t look up. “Yes. I’ve noticed.”
“She’s turned spring into rumor. Made statues out of friends. There are talking beasts who would sooner serve her than speak truth. Dwarfs who betray their clans for silver.”
He spat into the flames.
“I used to think it would turn around. That someone would rise up. That maybe the old magic would come back. But no. It’s just wolves and witches and cowards with quiet voices.”
Mr. Beaver poked the fire with a stick. “Maybe not all voices are quiet. Maybe some are just waiting.”
Nikabrik glanced at him.
Mr. Beaver shrugged. “Takes time to thaw a river. Doesn’t mean the current’s not still running underneath.”
They looked at each other across the fire.
And for a brief moment, in that tiny, flickering warmth in the middle of a frozen, broken world, two stubborn creatures stopped being strangers.