Chapter Text
It was darker than I had expected inside the inner room of the publications room, where I had gone to retrieve a memory card. Yes, the lights were off, but there had been no absence of sunlight until I had gone in.
Yellow. Bright. There seemed to be some source of light that penetrated the darkness of the abyss I had ventured into. Naturally, I walked toward it—which, now that I think of it, is exactly how horror movies begin; and I can attest to the fact that all the extraordinary things I have gone through would never have occurred had I not crossed over to the yellow ball of light that had beckoned me.
I had crossed over to the light and lifted my hand up to let my palm grasp any speckle of warmth it provided (was I transforming into a moth?), but instead I was greeted by frost; and while it did take me a while to register what exactly had happened to my surroundings, the shred of Mort from Madagascar in me was yelling "SNOEFLEK", and wanted to roll around in this frost-covered wood I had somehow come to. I would almost certainly have let my intrusive thoughts win if it were not for a rather shaky—and if I may say so— bleaty (if that even qualifies as a word) voice.
I did a 180, only for myself to have to direct my gaze downwards to see who had beckoned me. It was a satyr. Surprising how fast my brain accepted it.
"Wherever did you come from?" asked the satyr. “You look unlike any creature in Narnia—in the most extraordinary way, mind you. Forgive me for being too blunt with my words.”
“No, ‘tis all well,” I whispered in wonder—which was very unlike me, but then again, this place I had come to was unlike anything I had ever seen. There was a lamp post standing right next to me. Not one of the tall modern ones I was used to, but something older. It was a real lamp with real fire, perhaps something you would see in Victorian times. I am not fully sure, as I am not knowledgeable in the specific niche of lamp posts in history.
I did not know what to say to the satyr (of course that’s what I assumed he was; he matched the description). He was studying me—very keenly, if I may add.
“Is your mother perhaps Eve?” he asked all of a sudden. No hesitation, nothing. Just a question about my mother’s name. I stood still, waiting for some sort of explanation for such a random question. Instead, I was met with the same words framed differently:
“Is your mother’s name Eve?”
“Well,” I replied—seeing as I could not escape this, “my mother herself is not named Eve, but if you look at it from an Abrahamic point of view, all humans are descended from Eve, so she could be “The Mother”, hence being my mother in some way, but religion is a notion I refuse to believe in.”
The satyr took all this in with wide eyes. Perhaps he thought I was being incredibly blasphemous.
“No reason to talk about people who are not present,” I said quickly, considering the fact that the Abrahamic religions might exist in this particular universe, and that this particular demi-goat could very well be a religious fanatic. “What is your name, my good caprine?”
“You see, my name is Tumnus, for that was my father’s name before me, and his father’s name before, and now my daughter is named Tumnus,” he spoke at a remarkably fast pace. “I had a great-aunt named Tumnus who died of hypothermia,” he added.
“That sounds nice,” I whispered gently before he started listing all the ancestors who had consumed the leaves of his family tree. It worked.
“I must away, and you must beware the White Witch, for she often masquerades as one of your kind,” he said as he trotted away quite nervously, without even telling me who this White Witch was. Was she simply made of snow? Was she Caucasian? Or was she so pure they called her white?