Hermione's Journey

Chapter Seventeen

I don't really know when I started to wake up, but the first thing I noticed was a tickle on my nose. My first reaction, of course, was to wave it away, but once the tickling left, I wish it had come back. I was swatted in the face with what felt like a broom's bristles, and I jerked up very quickly.

The Fox quickly jumped off of my chest and curled his tail around his feet innocently.

"Is there any particular reason you woke me up in such an unnecessary way?" I asked.

"I'm sorry, did you say something?" the Fox yawned loudly.

"I could say a few choice words right now," I grumbled to myself as I rolled over in an attempt to get a few more winks of sleep before we had to leave. "It's not even daylight."

"Which is why we're leaving now," the Fox took the back of my shirt and began pulling. "We have to use the cover of darkness for now until we can get in a more sheltered area."

"I didn't know foxes were so pushy," I muttered, reluctantly sitting up, just to get the Fox to stop pulling.

"I didn't know girls with magical powers were so hard to get up in the morning," the Fox sat down, waiting for me to get my shoes on.

"Only after a rough night's sleep on a rock hard couch," I told him, stretching my stiff and sore muscles. I tilted my head this way and that and winced when some of the bones in my neck popped. "That'll do it." The Fox impatiently nosed my shoes towards me.

"Let's get a move on. We're starting to lose the dark," he urged.

"Alright," I stood up, my shoes fastened tightly. I darted about the room, grabbing a knapsack I had found the day before and throwing any supplies I thought I would need into it, including several books. I told myself I would apologize to Tumnus if I ever saw him, and hopefully I would be able to return the books to him.

The Fox darted out the door as soon as I had opened it a crack. I shivered before pushing on through the cold after him.

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The Pevensies trudged through the deep snow, their troubling thoughts constantly disturbed by their concentration on their journey and the fact that this experience was actually happening. They were actually in a magical world with mythical creatures.

The children followed the beavers over a naturally made stone bridge when they all stopped at Mr. Beaver's pointing.

"Now, Aslan's camp is near the Stone Table, just across the frozen river," he said.

"River?" Peter glanced down at the beavers nervously.

"Oh, the river's been frozen solid for a hundred years," Mrs. Beaver reassured him. That didn't exactly make any of the children feel much more confident.

"It's so far," Peter said dejectedly, and the excitement seemed to be drained right out of his eyes.

"It's the world, dear," Mrs. Beaver smiled. "Did you expect it to be small?"

"Smaller," Susan gave Peter a patronizing look before they all continued on.

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Edmund slipped on the ice slightly as Ginarrbrik the dwarf prodded him outside into the courtyard.

Edmund was regretting leaving his coat behind at the beavers' but he began to believe that he deserved to be miserable after the things he had done. He continued to walk at the dwarf's demands, but he pulled up short when he saw something out of the corner of his eye.

The faun. Tumnus.

The creature that had hidden his sister from harm looked to be turned to stone. He had become another one of the Witch's insignificant statues, like the giant and the lion, which Edmund noticed still had the glasses and moustache he had drawn on it earlier. These had once been actual living and breathing beings. That fact made Edmund look away, hating himself even more. He had been drawn to the side of a "Queen" that did all of this. He deserted his family and Hermione and turned against all of Narnia for a treat he could have gotten at any corner sweet shop in London. There must have been something in them, Edmund insisted before the Witch called out to him.

"When you're ready, son of Adam." She held a slight smirk on her face. 

Edmund was forced onto the white sleigh and made to sit at the Witch's feet. The only thing Edmund was grateful for about this situation was that at least the freezing wind wouldn't be hitting his face.

As the sleigh took off out of the grim courtyard, Edmund shot another guilty look at the frozen Tumnus, before all of the statues were out of sight.

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The Fox actually made the walk through the snowy woods quite pleasant. He was very easy to talk to, and when there wasn't anything to say, he didn't make silences awkward or uncomfortable.

In the few hours of strolling along, I believed I had made a friend I could keep for a lifetime. Hopefully, the Pevensies and I wouldn't be stuck here for that long, but the Fox was an amusing and intelligent animal. A nice change from the dunderheads I usually hung around with, no matter how kind they were.

"What do I call you?" I asked suddenly. The Fox turned around and stared at me.

"What do you mean?" was his reply. I felt slightly self-conscious for a second before explaining.

"Do you have a name?"

"Ah, yes. My name is simply Fox, or others call me Mr. Fox," the Fox grinned. "Not a very hard name to remember. Simple and easy." I looked at him again, studying him. "What is it?"

"Are Narnian foxes normally as large as you?" The Fox was nearly twice the size of earth foxes, but that was about the only difference. That, and he could talk.

"The talking ones are," the Fox hopped over a log, and I followed suit. I began to ask even more questions about Narnia, not sure if I was annoying the Fox or not. I asked things I couldn't find in Tumnus's books.

"How many countries are in Narnia? I could only find maps of Narnia itself," I asked.

"Narnia is a country," the Fox said, "and I'm not surprised you could only find maps of Narnia. Contact with other countries has been difficult to achieve for the past century. The Witch has made sure of that." I nodded before the Fox continued. "There's Archenland, which is to our north quite a ways, Calormen, which is separated from Archenland by a desert, although I've heard tell it's much easier to get there by ocean. There's also Telmar, but they're not a very friendly bunch, and finally, there are the Eastern Isles. No one is quite sure what is past the Eastern Isles, but there are rumors of that being the location of Aslan's Country."

"This world is much bigger than I thought," I murmured while walking quickly, passing the Fox without realizing it.

"And you can go much faster than I thought," the Fox teased as he trotted up so he was the one leading again.