[six: lie]

"After you." Tumnus says as he leads Lucy into his home after locking the floor behind them. Lucy looks around the home, a soft smile on her features as she feels the warmth radiate her skin. She looks towards Mr Tumnus, who looks as if he is struggling with the many parcels in his arms.

"May I help you with that?" Lucy asked politely, thinking it was unfair that he should carry all those parcels in despite opening his home for her.

"Thank you very much." Tumnus replies, handing Lucy a parcel as they walked though the small house.

Lucy once again looks around the small house, in absolute awe over how much she felt at home in the small makeshift house. Despite the small lighting and the lack of windows, Lucy still felt a sense of familiar warmth in his home, as if it were her own

"Oh." Lucy said as she walked over to a portrait that was on a mantle piece. Painted was a faun, noticeably older than Tumnus and noticeably prouder. He had a stern but gentle look upon his face and Lucy smiled up at the photo, as if hoping that in this magical land that portraits could smile back.

"Now that...that is my father." Tumnus said after taking a deep breath, a small frown etched upon his soft features but this seemed to make Lucy smile more.

"He has a nice face. He looks a lot like you." Lucy complimented and Tumnus only frowned, feeling a wave of guilt surge through his features. He wasn't like his father at all.

"No. No, I'm not very much like him at all, really." He whispered, and Lucy sensed that Tumnus didn't want to talk about it much so she dropped that part of the conversation completely.

"My father is fighting in the war." Lucy sighed as she sat down in a chair, images of her father fighting flashing through her mind as a soft frown appeared on her face.

"My father went away to war too. But that was a long, long time ago. Before this dreadful winter." Tumnus tried to lighten the mood slightly by letting her know that he knew how she was feeling as his father had also brought pain upon him in the past by fighting in a war where Tumnus was scared he would never see him again.

"Winter's not all bad. There's ice skating and snow ball fights. Oh! And Christmas!" Lucy squealed, the idea of Christmas being her favourite part of winter as she loved spending time around her family, even Edmund who represented the Grinch, and having the joy of opening and sharing presents and watching as everybody's faces light up at the gifts they were given.

"Not here. No. No, we haven't had a Christmas in a hundred years." Tumnus said bluntly and Lucy gasped, the ideal being so hard to imagine.

"What? No presents for a hundred years?"

"Always winter, never Christmas. It's been a long winter. But you would have loved Narnia in summer. We Fauns danced with the dryads all night, and, you know, we never got tired. And music! Oh, such music! Would... would you like to hear some now?" Tumnus said slyly, guilt rising up his body but he pushed it away. He had to do this.

"Oh! Yes please." Tumnus got his flute out and started setting up to play.

"Now, are you familiar with any Narnian lullabies?" Tumnus asked and Lucy immediately shook her head, having never been in Narnia before.

"Sorry, no."

"Well, that's good. Because this... probably won't sound anything like one." Tumnus said slyly before he started playing.

Tumnus plays a soft Narnian Lullaby and Lucy turned to look at the fire, the beautiful orange flames dancing as he played. She watched as the flames took forms of different Narnian creature. Fauns, centaurs and even forest animals started dancing in the fire and Lucy let a soft smile form on her face. She keeps watching the Narnians dancing in the fire and falls asleep under an enchantment and Tumnus suddenly feels the guilt.

Hours later, Lucy awakes and the sky outside is practically black as the once soft winter air is now harsh and rugged. Lucy sits up with a start and quickly goes to run to the door, thinking her siblings would be worried as to where she's been for hours at a time.

"Oh, I should go." Lucy said and she looks over at Tumnus who seems to be crying in a hollow of self-guilt as he lets the tears fall freely down his face.

"It's too late for that now. I'm such a terrible faun."

"Oh, no. You're the nicest faun I've ever met." Lucy comforted as she handed the faun in front of her her white handkerchief and he took it to wipe his eyes but the tears kept falling down his face.

"Then I'm afraid you've had a very poor sampling."

"No. You can't have done anything that bad." Lucy said and Tumnus wanted to scoff and hit himself. He was a terrible faun.

"It's not something I have done, Lucy Pevensie. It's something I am doing."

"What are you doing?" Lucy asked, a small ounce of fear rising in her body as she looked at the faun she considered a friend in front of her.

"I'm kidnapping you..." Tumnus said and Lucy gasped, her heart rate increasing as she tried to control her ragged breaths. This was it. She would never see her family again. "It was the White Witch. She's the one who makes it always winter, always cold. She gave orders. If any of us ever find a human wandering in the woods,we're supposed to turn it over to her!"

"But, Mr. Tumnus, you wouldn't. I thought you were my friend." Lucy said and Tumnus just looked at her, an idea in his mind. A rather silly idea, but an idea.

Tumnus quickly grabbed Lucy's hand as they ran through the snowy woods, careful not to slip the the snow that had unknowingly started melting at Lucy's feet. Narnia was a lot scarier now at night and Lucy was scared to say the least. What if she didn't make it back in time?

"Now. She may already know you're here. The woods are full of her spies. Even some of the trees are on her side!" Tumnus rambled and Lucy's eyes widened as she thought of the possibility of trees talking and communicating with each other.  As the lamppost came into view, Tumnus slowed down and he and Lucy stopped abruptly in front of the highly lit piece of metal frame and Lucy took a deep breath.

"Can you find your way back from here?" Tumnus asked, concerned for the safety of the Daughter of Eve stood in front of him. She sent him a small smile which he tried to return but couldn't must the courage after what he did.

"I think so."

"All right."

"Will you be alright?" Lucy asked and Tumnus laughed nervously and Lucy immediately comforts him, letting his use her handkerchief once again.

"Hey... hey... hey."

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Here." Tumnus said as he tried to hand Lucy back her handkerchief but she immediately rejected it.

"Keep it." Lucy said before letting out a small giggle. "You need it more than I do."

Tumnus laughs, and touches Lucy's nose.

"No matter what happens, Lucy Pevensie, I am glad to have met you. You've made me feel warmer than I've felt in a hundred years. Now go. Go!" Tumnus urges and Lucy runs off, leaving Tumnus to return home.

...

Lucy falls through the wardrobe, slowly falling to the floor as he catches her breath. A smile lights onto her face as she thinks of Narnia, she needed to tell somebody.  She runs out to find her brothers and sisters, to apologize for taking hours and to ensure they knew she was okay.

"It's all right! I'm back! I'm all right!" Lucy said as she ran through the corridor where she left Edmund, only to find him in the same place he was when she left.

"Shut up! He's coming!" Edmund said as he tried to hide behind the curtain again only for Peter to walk in, likely due to to Lucy's shouting a few seconds prior.

"You know, I'm not sure you two have quite got the idea of this game!" Peter joked, a smile clear on his features as he looked to both Edmund and Lucy as he found someone so quickly.

"Weren't you wondering where I was?" Lucy asked, confused as to why nobody looked worried or was surprised to relieved to see her.

"That's the point. That was why he was seeking you." Edmund said, annoyed that he was found so quickly. 

"Does this mean I win?" Susan asked as she walked into the room, seeing that she was the last one to be found with a smile on her face.

"I don't think Lucy wants to play anymore." Peter said, a confused look on his face as he stared at Lucy who looked more confused than ever.

"But I've been gone for hours." Lucy said and the other three Pevensies looked at her like she was mad.

Lucy took them all to the room she was in before, the white sheet still scprawn across the floor in front of. Edmund and Susan stepped forward and started examining the wardrobe, pushing through the many coats in the wardrobe before knocking on the wood at the back which made a rhythmic melody. There was no snowy wood.

"Lucy, the only wood in here is the back of the wardrobe." Susan said, rolling her eyes at her stupidity over the matter.

"One game at a time, Lu. We don't all have your imagination." Peter whispered, a smile on his face as he looked at his younger sister who looked confused.

"But I wasn't imagining!" Lucy whined, not wanting her siblings to think she was lying over the matter.

"That's enough, Lucy." Susan scolded Lucy and Lucy wanted to shrink in her spot.

"I wouldn't lie about this!"

"Well, I believe you." Edmund said, finally getting involved in the conversation with mischief written across his lips.

"You do?" Lucy asked him, hope in her eyes as she looked at her brother with a smile on her face.

"Yeah, of course! Didn't I tell you about the football field in the bathroom cupboard?" Edmund joked and all three Pevensies turned to him, Lucy almost in tears whereas the older two looking at him with a scolding glare.

"Will you just stop? You just have to make everything worse, don't you?" Peter scolded, having enough of his brothers childish antics.

"It was just a joke!" Edmund reasoned, not seeing it as such a big deal.

"When are you gonna learn to grow up?" Edmund's face grew red as he turned to Peter with anger clear on his features.

"Shut up! You think you're Dad, but you're not!" Edmund's storms out and Susan glares at Peter in anger.

"Well, that was nicely handled!" Susan says sarcastically and follows Edmund out before anymore damage takes place.

"But... it really was there." Lucy whispers as she looks up to Peter with wide eyes, hoping he would believe her.

"Susan's right, Lucy. That's enough." Peter says as he walks out of the room.

Lucy walks up to the wardrobe and feels the wood at the back and sighs. She closes the wardrobe and walks off to her room, tears falling freely down her cheeks.

Narnia is real, she told herself. Narnia is real.