Marley loosened the tie around his jaw, so that his chin fell thump onto his chest and nearly frightened the poor, little faun out of his quaking hooves. The ghostly man then lifted it painfully and found the socket to begin talking again. “My name is Jacob Marley, and I have been dead these nine years long, and roaming to find my old business partner, Scrooge. He is a miserable man and must be warned of what awaits him in the afterlife if he does not turn from his wicked ways.” He sighed aloud and shook his head. “Poor brute has more trouble in store for him than I had, and a weaker soul than mine at that.”
“I'm sorry to hear these things,” sympathized the faun, “and on the Eve of Christmas too.” He grew more suspicious by the minute of his cider's quality and poured himself another mug, just to be sure.
Marley retied his kerchief and stretched his legs before standing again. “I know our old boarding house can't be too far from here,” he murmured, scratching his hip with a chained knuckle. “It's just all these worlds, I'm not quite up to such things. Where am I anyway?”
“Narnia, sir!” cried Tumnus proudly. “Aslan's kingdom! And perhaps you'll see him before you leave.”
“Oh? And what is he like? I shall keep an eye out for him.”
Tumnus took a jolly gulp of cider, happy to talk of his King. It was his favorite topic after all. “He is good, to be sure. Kind and true. If you're lost, as you seem to be, he will help you find the way.”
“Is he a man?” inquired Marley, looking toward the window.
“Lion,” answered Tumnus, matter-of-factly.
Marley smiled then; a sight foreign to all but his mother upon his birth. The kerchief stretched and the chains around his neck shifted. His eyes were still set on the window.
“Well then, I think I've found him,” he whispered, and stepped back into the shadows. The sounds of metal and leather scraping on the floor moved back 'round the faun's chair and dissipated into darkness, just as they had come.
Tumnus chuckled to himself and took up his book again to find his place. “How my King picks up these silly stray souls, I just can't understand it. And on the Eve of Christmas too. Oh Aslan, you have a way about you. You do have a way.”