TWO OF A KIND

Thus we proceed with a fresh, new adventure. I wanted to show how Tumnus, along with everyone else, would have reacted when they first discovered Terence in his human shape. I imagine it would have been a bit of a nasty shock for them all, most especially for Tumnus, considering Terence is his best mate. I hope you don't mind reading about Terence again; I plan to publish a full, complete novel about him someday, and this helps give him a little bit of publicity. This also helps me hone my writing skills, which will benefit me in my writing career.

Terence and Story © unicorn-skydancer08

All rights reserved.

"Are you all right, Lucy?" Edmund asked gently, seeing the distress reflected in his sister's face.

"You're not eating your breakfast," Susan pointed out.

Lucy, who had been poking listlessly at her food, looked up slowly into her three elder siblings' concerned eyes.

"Don't you feel well, Lu?" questioned Peter. He reached over while he spoke and laid a large hand mildly on Lucy's forehead, as if to check for a fever.

"Oh…yes," said Lucy softly, "yes, I feel fine, Peter. Physically, if nothing else."

"What's wrong?" Edmund queried, as he set his own fork and knife carefully aside.

"It's Tumnus," Lucy explained, looking and sounding downcast. "I'm very worried about him."

"Is he all right?" asked Susan.

"I couldn't say, Susan. He has been looking rather pale and thin to me lately, as if he hasn't been eating properly. The last time I saw him, when he invited me to tea at his cave, I noticed he had dark smudges under his eyes, like he hasn't been getting enough sleep. And his eyes themselves were dreadfully red, like he had been crying. When I tried to strike up a conversation with him, I could barely get him to say more than five words at a time. Even when he smiled at me and tried to act like everything was fine, I could clearly see something was troubling him."

"That doesn't sound right to me," said Edmund.

"What could be the matter with him?" Susan wondered.

"I expect he's still grieving about…" Lucy paused for a second, before finishing her sentence. "…you know, him."

Peter nodded, knowing what Lucy meant by "him". "Terence," the High King said quietly.

Lucy gloomily nodded herself. Tears pricked at the youngest queen's eyes as she thought about the white unicorn, who had mysteriously disappeared some time ago, and for some strange reason, never returned. Neither Lucy nor her siblings nor Tumnus had heard from him or seen so much as a trace of the stallion in ages—neither had anyone else, for that matter.

Although the unicorn did not exactly hail from Narnia, the land which Lucy and her brothers and sister presided over, he used to visit them, quite frequently, and stay with them for considerable periods of time. Lucy could hardly imagine so much as one day going by in which she couldn't see the handsome young unicorn with her own eyes, or hear him speak to her in his richly accented voice. (Being a unicorn, he had the gift of speech, and could converse as well as any human.)

Then, one day, the visits somehow just stopped altogether. Terence had never even told them he was going anywhere.

Lucy knew her friend possessed a free spirit, that he liked to roam wherever his feet took him. But surely the unicorn wouldn't leave them forever…not without telling them, at least.

Lucy couldn't help fearing something might have happened to him, without their knowing…something terrible.

Apparently, Tumnus harbored that same fear.

Terence was Tumnus's best mate. Out of everyone in Narnia, Tumnus was the closest to the unicorn. Though the two of them were about as different as they could be, both inside and out, though they often disagreed and sometimes even bickered, they could not have loved each other more and been any more intimate than if they had truly been brothers.

Lucy missed Terence terribly, but Tumnus was undoubtedly taking the loss the hardest.

"I don't mean to sound heartless, Lucy," said Susan, at length, "but it has been five years, now. It doesn't look like Terence will be coming back anytime soon, if ever."

"Perhaps it is time to leave the past in the past," Peter added gently, "and move on with your life."

Lucy sighed heavily and raised her elbows onto the table, sinking her head into her hands, slowly shaking it from side to side.

"I know you are right, Peter," she said melancholically, without looking up. "It's just…hard to say goodbye. I never got the chance to even tell Terence goodbye."

Edmund nodded empathetically, knowing exactly how Lucy felt. He knew how much Terence had meant to her. The unicorn had meant a great deal to all of them.

Even Peter, who was often aggravated by Terence's absurd antics, had ultimately grown to be quite fond of the stallion.

Looking up from her hands, Lucy went on, "And I can't bear to see Tumnus the way he is. It's like…it's like he's wasting away, like there's a light inside of him and it's just about to go out." She lowered her gaze to her plate, where her breakfast lay cold and untouched. "If only there was something I could do for him, something to cheer him up. But I don't know what I can do."

Peter patted her hand consolingly. "Maybe there's nothing you can do, Lu," he said, "aside from simply treating Tumnus kindly, and being there for him when he needs you."

At that same time, Tumnus was alone in his private cave in the Western Woods. He had just finished a scanty breakfast, and now sat in his living room next to the fire with a fresh cup of tea, trying to read a book—one of his personal favorite volumes. Yet for some reason, the faun couldn't bring himself to concentrate on the words.

He had only turned a few pages before tears unexpectedly flooded his eyes, blurring his surroundings, and he had to give up and set the book aside.

He leaned forward, put his elbows on his furry brown haunches, and bent his head, raking his fingers on both hands distractedly through his tangled honey-brown locks. Almost involuntarily, his fingers curled around the little horns that protruded from the crown of his head, holding on tight. Yet even as he sat there and clutched at his horns, he kept seeing a face before his eyes, the face of an old friend. Even as Tumnus closed his eyes, he couldn't block out the image, nor could he do anything to alleviate the pain that tore him up inside.

Oh, Terence, his heart lamented, where are you?

Where could his mate possibly be, now? What could have happened to him? The unicorn had gone away, that much Tumnus knew.

Why his friend, his brother, had gone—without even saying goodbye—was beyond him. Was it something Tumnus had said or done, to offend him? Tumnus buried his face in his hands, trying to remember the last time he was with Terence. He couldn't recall much, the details were vague. While the faun couldn't think of anything very terrible, he couldn't think of much good, either. He remembered being somewhat cross with Terence about something, though he could no longer bring to mind exactly what had upset him to begin with.

He did, however, recall failing to appreciate Terence as much as he should have. When was the last time he'd expressed to the unicorn just how much he cared for him?

When was the last time he personally told Terence "I love you"? Guilt stabbed at Tumnus's heart to think of how long it had been.

Now Terence was gone, and though Tumnus had prayed earnestly every day for the past five years that his friend would come back, and continued to do so to this very day, even this very moment, the odds of Terence returning to Narnia were looking progressively slimmer. Sometimes Tumnus couldn't help thinking he might never see the stallion again.

Maybe some horrible misfortune had come about him. Maybe the white beast had been captured, imprisoned somewhere—or even killed. That last notion was so awful that it broke Tumnus's heart, and very nearly made the faun sick to his stomach. Far worse than this was the notion that Terence, if still alive, might have forgotten all about Tumnus. Perhaps he'd run off with some beautiful unicorn mare, started a herd all his own. Tumnus wondered if Terence had any children. He wondered if the stallion even remembered his name.

Oh, what Tumnus wouldn't give to have his old mate back. He would give up everything he owned in the world, if only to see Terence face-to-face again for one minute.

Though a part of Tumnus insisted he ought to put the past behind him, and get on with his life, the faun just couldn't. He had tried, he had honestly tried—yet Terence's memory refused to go away. If anything, it grew and became more potent with every day, until Tumnus could hardly stand it. His sense of guilt had grown as well: guilt not only for taking Terence for granted, and for thinking about what he could have done so terrible as to drive his one true friend in the world away from him, but also guilt for living his life without Terence, for not being able to move on.

It was like he was stuck. He couldn't very well go back, but he couldn't advance forward, either.

What was he to do?

Tumnus's emotions soon caught up with him, surpassing even his physical strength, and all the forlorn creature could do was sit there by the hearth, and weep bitterly.