Title: Children and Their Imaginations
Author: Evelyn Benton
Rating: Young Adults
Date: 08/11/06
Genre: General, Humor, Romance
Fandom: The Chronicles of Narnia (Lucy/Tumnus)
Archive: Stellar Phenomena and fan fiction dot net; all others, please ask.
Disclaimer: Walt Disney, Walden Media, and C.S. Lewis own The Chronicles of Narnia; I own this not-for-profit fan fiction; no copyright infringement intended.
Summary: Edmund finally blurts out what he really thinks about Tumnus and Lucy's relationship. Too bad he's the only one who sees it. Movieverse.

Edmund shifted in his seat as he watched his older siblings Susan and Peter stare at the chess board with unnervingly intense gazes. The Pevensie youths had been rulers of Narnia for a little over six months or, as Edmund preferred to think of it, six boring months.

Narnia seemed so perfect that it was almost like a paradise where real life ceased to exist. At least in Spare Oom real life was interesting, despite all of the dangers and terrible realities that Edmund preferred not to acknowledge. Edmund didn't wish for misfortune to befall Narnia once more simply for his own entertainment, but due to the selfishness common to youngsters his age, he could not resist craving something interesting to occupy his mind.

The three eldest siblings sat at a small square table on the balcony overlooking the front of the castle. While Susan and Peter silently battled on their homemade chess board, complete with wooden pieces Peter had proudly carved by hand, Edmund lazily rested his head on his hands atop the table.

His eyes shifted upward to cast a glance at Susan. The slight wind disturbing her silky dark hair did not distract her from the game as she focused her full attention downward at the board. Her ruby lips were pursed tightly as she reached for a piece and, just shy of touching it, pulled her hand back as if stung. Peter snickered.

Edmund's nose twitched in response to the smell of flowers and pollen on the breeze. Without moving from his comfortable position, he stifled a sneeze that went completely unnoticed by his brother and sister.

Edmund shifted his eyes to the left in time to catch his oldest sibling trying to force the big grin off of his face. "Give up?" Edmund looked back at Susan, who was ignoring both of them.

"How long has it been?" Edmund asked in an especially whiny voice that, on the word "been," experienced a crack common to adolescent boys. Susan didn't acknowledge him.

Peter, however, responded, "Seven minutes, and she can take all the time she wants. This is a game of strategy that requires intel—"

"Aren't you supposed to time the game?" Edmund interrupted, sitting up as to straighten the kinked muscles in his shoulders and back. Once his muscles were relaxed again, Edmund slouched in his chair.

Susan finally looked at Edmund, irritation on her face. "We don't exactly have a timer, Edmund," she reminded him. When she looked back at the board, she instantly started smiling excitedly. A small squeal of youthful delight sneaked out of the mature teenager's throat as she grabbed a chess piece and quickly navigated it across the board. "Checkmate!"

Peter's confident face had now morphed into a look of absolute astonishment. "Impossible," he breathed, which made Susan beam more.

"It's possible. I saw it," Edmund deadpanned, earning him a big grin from Susan and a scowl from Peter.

Something off of the balcony caught Edmund's eye. He lifted his heavy head and focused his vision on the curious interaction on the ground. In front of the castle he saw his younger sister Lucy running to meet her Faun friend Mr. Tumnus. Edmund was positive that watching his baby sister interact with the Narnia native would surely be more interesting than watching his stuffy older siblings play a stuffy old game that only stuffy old people appreciated back in that stuffy old place called Spare Oom.

Edmund leaned back in his chair and casually crossed his arms across his chest. He had a perfect view over the table and balcony railing to watch the interaction on the ground below.

A small smile eased its way onto his face at the way Lucy ran to her friend. Her personality was mature and almost like that of an adult, but occasionally the girl would take some action that would truly give her age away.

"You know," Edmund said to his oblivious siblings, "Lucy isn't really a child. She's like an adult, only short. It's odd, don't you think?" Edmund didn't wait for an answer, nor did he really expect one from the duo so deeply absorbed in their game.

Lucy and Tumnus shook hands, as they usually did. Edmund snickered. "Is she ever going to tell that poor Faun that you're not supposed to shake hands like that?" he asked as he watched the twosome on the ground grasp hands and shake their joined hands in the most literal sense of the word "shake."

Edmund closely scrutinized Lucy and Tumnus as they continued to shake hands while talking. It fascinated Edmund that his younger sister was bold enough to put herself on equal footing as adults. She often seemed to forget that she was different due to her age, but it was only a setback in the physical sense. Her mind was as sharp as any adult's mind and her bold personality did not possess any of the typical childhood inhibitions such as shyness or immaturity. In any other child, such maturity would be arrogant and annoying, but that wasn't the case with Lucy. Edmund sometimes found himself feeling slightly jealous at how easily Lucy handled life and growing up.

Edmund noticed how Tumnus kept Lucy's intense direct gaze, something that even he and their other two siblings had trouble with on a fair number of occasions. Tumnus never spoke down to Lucy, but instead spoke with her, leaving her plenty of room to join the conversation and never putting her in a place where she had to prove herself to him.

Lucy cocked her head to the side, the way she usually did when either making an accusation or preparing to tease someone. Tumnus responded to her and his lips curled into a half smile. Edmund could hear Lucy's infectious laughter.

"Are they ever going to stop shaking hands?" Edmund asked, now addressing himself more than the other two at the table. Susan and Peter didn't flinch as they continued staring at the chessboard.

Edmund's eyes narrowed as he thought about the couple talking on the ground below him. "Watching those two is worse than watching a chess game. No one ever really wants to watch a game of chess. I've never seen people line up at the park to watch games and the kids at school don't cheer the chess team to victory."

Edmund shook his head as he continued sorting through his thoughts. "People would rather do things than watch things. Watching is boring. Watching a chess game makes you want to play a chess game, even if you don't like chess. It's all about doing something fun. Cricket is fun. I would much rather—"

"Edmund!" Susan loudly chided.

Peter moved one of his pieces and looked up. "What are you prattling on about anyway?" Peter asked. Susan noted the new location of the pieces and muttered something to herself.

With a start, Edmund straightened in his seat. "That!" he exclaimed, pointing at Lucy and Tumnus. "Haven't you ever noticed anything odd about that?"

Lucy and Tumnus were still shaking hands, but now their hands were swinging side to side rather than shaking. "Stop it," Lucy urged with a giggle.

Tumnus was grinning and desperately attempting to suppress a laugh when he responded, "No, you stop first." The two continued swinging their hands, smiling merrily as they interacted in their own little world that was unmindful to the crown on young Lucy's head or the royal audience watching them from the balcony.

"No, you!"

"No, you!"

"You!"

"You!"

"I'm going to be ill," Edmund muttered. What had started out as a fun distraction and an interesting assessment of his sister's personality had now turned into a nauseatingly sweet display.

"Why? What's wrong?" Peter asked.

Susan almost simultaneously asked her question: "Are you warm?" She put her hand on Edmund's forehead and felt for a fever. Edmund jerked out of her touch and stood up.

"Are you two blind?" Peter and Susan exchanged confused glances before returning their attention to Edmund. "Haven't you seen the way those two have acted since the day they met?" When Edmund was once again met with blank stares, he melodramatically pulled his hair and grunted in frustration.

Susan frowned disapprovingly at her younger brother's erratic behavior. "Edmund, are you sure you're alright?" Susan inquired.

Edmund quickly regained his composure. "Yes," he calmly stated. "Now look!" he ordered, pointing at the couple below. Peter and Susan continued their game as they occasionally glanced down to observe the interaction between Lucy and Tumnus.

"Are you going to stop now?" Tumnus asked Lucy as the two continued swinging their joined hands gaily.

She bit her lip in contemplation. "I'll stop if you stop." Tumnus nodded firmly. "One, two, three." On three, the pair pulled their hands back. Lucy's arm immediately looped itself around Tumnus's offered arm. He escorted her to the garden table a few feet away.

They sat down and began to sort through the picnic basket Tumnus had brought for the two of them. A sudden yell of "checkmate!" from the balcony caused them to look up. They saw Peter uncharacteristically throwing his hands up in an exaggerated victory as Susan shot him a critical look. Edmund, who was sitting between them, slapped his hand to his forehead.

Upon seeing Edmund's peculiar reaction, Lucy raised a tiny eyebrow on her round, cherubic face. She opened her mouth and was about to ask Tumnus what he thought of Edmund's reaction when Tumnus asked his question first.

"What's ch—" Tumnus hesitated. He closely examined Lucy as she went about pouring their tea. She seemed particularly young and naïve at that moment. "Check-a-mate?" he asked barely above a whisper, as if he had said something that was inappropriate at the dining table.

Lucy looked up at him, her big wide eyes sparkling as usual. "Silly Mr. Tumnus, it's 'checkmate' and it's what happens in a game of chess," she explained in a crisp, proper voice.

Tumnus wasn't familiar with chess. He looked upward at the balcony in an attempt to catch a better glimpse of the game two out of three participating Pevensies found interesting.

"So it's not…it doesn't have to do with…" Tumnus felt his cheeks flush from embarrassment as he remembered his company. He suddenly found himself fascinated by the peach colored blossoms on a nearby bush. It was hard sometimes to remember that Lucy was so young by both Faun and Human standards. His relationship with her was harmless, but sometimes conversations between adults were not intended for children's ears.

"It doesn't have to do with what?" Lucy pressed. Tumnus's gaze shifted back to Lucy, who sat with her shoulders straight and a curious expression on her rosy-cheeked face.

"So, it has to do with a game?" Tumnus asked, taking the attention off of Lucy's harmless question.

Lucy nodded. "Yes, a dreadfully boring game if I do say so myself. It's a game of—" she paused, thinking of the word from her studies back in the school of Spare Oom. "Strategy," she said, careful of how she pronounced one of the last vocabulary words she had learned in school. She offered Tumnus a filled cup of tea and he took it with a gracious nod.

"Susan and Peter enjoy it," she stated. "I think it's because they think it makes them feel older and smarter, something I disagree with entirely. Two people sit at a table and try to outsmart one another using too many pieces and rules to remember them all. When they do something good, they say 'checkmate.'" Lucy took a sip of her tea. "What did you think it meant, Mr. Tumnus?" she asked.

Tumnus dropped his eyes, annoyed that his tea time companion had recalled her line of thought from moments ago. "Cake?" Tumnus offered awkwardly.

Lucy suspected that Tumnus had been referring to something grown-up, something she didn't know about nor could imagine. Although it wasn't her intention, she had to admit she rather enjoyed flustering her friend. He never treated her with anything less than the utmost respect. As a friend, he treated her as his equal, and as a Narnian, he treated her with the loyalty and devotion a queen deserves.

Lucy laughed, breaking the awkward moment. When Tumnus realized she had been teasing him about something they both knew she was too young to know or discuss, he joined in and laughed with her.

On the balcony, Edmund shook his head to himself. If she was this intelligent, wise, and bold now, Lucy was going to be a horror for her siblings to keep up with when she came of age. Lucy did not let her life direct her; instead, she directed her life. Edmund realized that Lucy knew full well what she was with Tumnus at that point in time and, if Edmund was reading her correctly, what she would be with Tumnus in the future.

"Wait, Edmund," Peter began carefully, "are you saying that there's something going on between Lucy and Tumnus?" Edmund recognized that voice. It was not Peter talking. It was the voice of little Lucy's fiercely protective eldest brother, the King of Narnia.

Edmund's shoulders dropped as he shook his head in defeat. "Nothing wrong, Peter," he insisted. Peter's furrowed brow relaxed and his tense body language returned to its previous carefree state. "I just wouldn't be surprised if we have a Faun in the family ten years from now."

Peter and Susan exchanged baffled expressions before looking back to Edmund. "Oh, never mind. Now I know how Lucy felt," Edmund added in a lower voice. As Edmund walked away, Susan and Peter could hear Edmund mumbling that Peter really was as dumb as he once believed.

"What was all of that about?" Susan asked. Peter's only response was a shrug. The two returned their attention to their game, never giving Edmund's theory a consideration.

Edmund wondered if the world was as black and white for all adults as it was for Susan and Peter. They were still young, but the maturity that comes with responsibilities had forced them to grow up when they were still in the best years of their lives.

Edmund was afraid. What if it was true—what if only those who were young, naïve, or already in love could see beautiful things like love? What if Edmund could never see it again? Would he become (as Lucy had described Susan) boring? Would he become hard and protective like Peter? Would he never again see the nuances that make the world interesting, the same nuances he had never seen before today but now couldn't imagine a day without seeing them?

The only thing Edmund was certain of was that which he had been seeing for the past six months since coming to Narnia. Edmund smiled as he drilled the memory into his mind and forced himself to never forget that he saw what no one else could see: that this already-present seed of a relationship between the Faun and Narnia's youngest queen would one day grow into a magnificent relationship.

Edmund was heading outside to get some fresh air and hopefully find something exciting to occupy his time when Lucy stopped him just a few feet inside the entrance of the castle.

"Edmund!" she greeted cheerfully, seeing him for the first time that day. Edmund's gaze shifted from his sister's perky expression to the peach colored, closed bud Narnian rose she held in her hands. The naturally thornless rose had been cut so that the stem was just the right size for Lucy's small hands to handle.

"I knew it! And you know it too! I know you know it! Admit it!" Edmund exclaimed, pointing an accusing finger at Lucy. Lucy's eyebrows shot upward, causing her forehead to wrinkle in utter confusion.

"I don't know," Lucy began, uncertain of how to respond to the word puzzle Edmund had presented to her. "What you know," she continued, "that I know, that—" Lucy pursed her lips and pondered the original question. "What?" she asked, cocking her head to the side as she waited for clarification.

"I saw it, Lu. I know everything! You like Mr. Tumnus!"

Lucy chuckled. "Well of course I do, Edmund. Don't you?" she asked plainly, redirecting the question toward her strangely-behaving brother.

Edmund saw that sparkle in Lucy's eye. "Don't do that, Lucy. Don't do that thing you do where you twist everything and make that pouty, cute little kid face."

Lucy smiled innocently, which wasn't difficult for her to do. "Forget what? Edmund, you're making no sense." She subtly made the exact facial expression Edmund had told her not to make.

"You're sweet on Mr. Tumnus!" Lucy stared at him blankly, not unlike how the eldest Pevensies had reacted to his theory. "Admit it!" Edmund urged, stepping forward so that he could lean down and look directly into Lucy's eyes.

"Are you feeling well?" she inquired, leaning closer to him and looking unwaveringly into his perturbed eyes.

"I'm fine," Edmund maintained, crossing his arms across his chest. "Now, admit it." Edmund jerked back out of her touch and speechlessly stared at her. When Lucy didn't flinch, Edmund broke.

"Arh! I give up!" With that, Edmund ran out of the castle and headed for the stable thinking that perhaps his horse Phillip would believe him.

Lucy continued staring at the spot where Edmund had stood moments earlier. She lowered her head, closed her eyes, and put the peach colored rose to her nose. The smooth unopened petals barely touched her tiny red lips. She breathed deeply, taking in the sweet aroma from the rose Tumnus had picked for her when they had bid one another goodbye for the day.

She looked up and slowly lowered the rose. A big toothy grin of childhood innocence spread across her face as a sparkle of complete understanding and anticipation twinkled in her eye. "Some children and their imaginations," she sighed, shaking her head in mock pity as she continued to grin gleefully.

Young Lucy blissfully skipped through the castle, rose in hand, as she loudly hummed one of the more cheerful sounding Narnian lullabies.

END