In the wood, near but not too near the Lantern, drives a sledge, drawn by a reindeer under the whip of a Dwarf, and carrying a woman, of sorts. She is taller, and paler, and somehow - grander, more terrible, colder even than the deep winter through which she rides. The furs are decorative; she wears nothing over her ears, which, were she human, would spell frostbite given how long she has been on this ride.

The harness-bells jingle tinnily.

Author: charning	In the wood, near but not too near the Lantern, drives a sledge, drawn by a reindeer under the whip of a Dwarf, and carrying a woman, of sorts. She is taller, and paler, and somehow - grander, more terrible, colder even than the deep winter through which she rides. The furs are decorative; she wears nothing over her ears, which, were she human, would spell frostbite given how long she has been on this ride. The harness-bells jingle tinnily.
Author: pythbox	There is a boy trudging through the wood. He's wearing jeans and a thin white T-shirt and snow-soaked sneakers, and shivering appropriately. He doesn't look up when the sledge draws near. He is too tall for a Dwarf, too small for a Giant, too young for an Incubus, too handsome for an Ogre - he is, in other words, a human.
Author: charning	"Stop," calls the Queen, and the dwarf hauls on the harness, and the reindeer takes its rest, panting. She looks him over, hard, calculating. It is rather improbable that he be a human. "And what, pray, are you?"
Author: pythbox	The boy stops walking after a few steps. He looks up at her, blinking to dislodge a flake of snow from his eyelashes. He says, "Huh?"
Author: charning	"What are you?" repeats the Queen, arching a brow.
Author: pythbox	"Um... really cold?"
Author: charning	She purses her lips. "I mean to say," she says, "that you do not look like a Dwarf -" she gestures at the dwarf - "nor an Ogre, nor a River-spirit, nor any of the other creatures I might normally find in surveying my realm - so - what are you?"
Author: pythbox	"Human, last I checked," he says, wrapping his arms around his stomach and shivering.
Author: charning	"Are you," says the Queen, smiling suddenly; it looks odd on her face, like an ice-sculpture of a fire. "Why don't you come up here and sit with me, and I will put my fur around you, and you will be more comfortable."
Author: pythbox	"That sounds like a great idea," says the boy, with a wry little twist of a smile. He climbs up into her sledge and sits down next to her.
Author: charning	And she wraps him up in fur. Her own body hasn't warmed it at all, but it's still better than exposure to the wind, and presently his own escaping heat has it a bit better than that. "There you are. But of course that will not do all by itself -" She produces a bottle of some wicked-looking, thin liquid, pours a droplet onto the snow, and watches at it becomes a steaming mug of something with a thick head of froth. She gestures at the dwarf, and he hops up, picks up the mug, and offers it to the boy with a bow. "What is your name, dear child?"
Author: pythbox	"I don't have one I'm especially attached to," he says, reaching for the mug and hugging it against his chest with his hands wrapped all the way around it. "What's yours?"
Author: charning	"I am Jadis, Queen of Narnia, Chatelaine of Cair Paravel, Empress of the Lone Islands. Go on, you may drink it."
Author: pythbox	"Gonna snuggle it first, 'f it's all the same to you," says the boy.
Author: charning	"As you like," she says, and since he's not doing anything in particular with his face, she curls one cold finger under his chin, and tilts it up towards her for inspection, and smiles at him. "What do you like best to eat, dear nameless child?"
Author: pythbox	"Jellybeans," he says promptly, grinning back at her.
Author: charning	She drops another drop of her liquid into the snow, and presently it is a jar of jellybeans in every color, and the dwarf fetches it up for the boy with another bow.
Author: pythbox	Now he has to drink his drink in order to get his hands on the jellybeans. So he does. It warms him up magically, and that is exactly the right word because even his feet aren't cold anymore. He cradles the empty mug in his lap and reaches for the jar.
Author: charning	"You may have them all; they are for you," says Jadis magnanimously. "I should like to hear all there is to know about you."
Author: pythbox	"I hate my dad and I like loud music, violence, and wearing girls' clothes," he suggests as a starting point.
Author: charning	The queen laughs as though he has told a particularly clever joke. "Do you. Such diverse interests."
Author: pythbox	He grins. He eats a jelly bean. He eats another one.
Author: charning	"Tell me more, won't you?" entices Jadis.
Author: pythbox	He shrugs. "Like what?" he asks, between jellybeans three and four. He's still eating them one at a time, but he's picking up speed.
Author: charning	"Have you any brothers, or sisters? Did anyone come to this place with you?" she asks, and one long-nailed hand adjusts his hair, scratching gently over his scalp.
Author: pythbox	His hair is curly and brown and full of snow. He leans into her hand a little. "Nah, it's just me."
Author: charning	"And how did you come to be here, all by yourself," she almost coos, dusting the snow from his hair and smoothing the curls.
Author: pythbox	"I was hiding in my mom's wardrobe and I came out in a forest. These are really good," he says, indicating the jar of jelly beans.
Author: charning	"Of course they are," says the witch. "There are more of them at my home. Perhaps you would like to come with me to see it."
Author: pythbox	"Sure!" he says cheerfully, and he crunches another jelly bean.
Author: charning	She gestures to the dwarf, and his whip cracks, and the reindeer drags them all into the forest. "Dear nameless child," says the Queen. "I think perhaps I should like to call you Winter."
Author: pythbox	Winter grins brightly at her. There is candy between his teeth. "Okay."
Author: charning	"Do tell me anything else there is to know about my new favorite," she purrs. "For that is what you are."
Author: pythbox	"Mmm..." The answer is less immediately obvious now, but after a few seconds he volunteers, "I hate my dad 'cause he beats me up a lot. I was gonna kill him when I figured out how, but I'd rather just stay here and forget about him." The jelly beans are half gone by the end of this little speech.
Author: charning	"And stay here you shall," pronounces Jadis. "In time perhaps you will forget him completely. What was the obstacle to his death?"
Author: pythbox	"...I'm fourteen and he's forty?"
Author: charning	"You must never allow that to stop you when someone needs to die," says Jadis. "Many ancient things will fall, when pressed."
Author: pythbox	He laughs. "I like you," he declares, reaching into the jar for another jelly bean.
Author: charning	She smiles. "Perhaps you should like to learn a thing or two about putting one's enemies to death, and help me with a few of mine."
Author: pythbox	"That," says Winter, popping the jellybean into his mouth and crunching down on it, "sounds fantastic."
Author: charning	"Excellent. You shall have the finest weapons, and you shall be my assassin," says the Queen.
Author: pythbox	Winter beams.
Author: charning	Jadis resumes idly toying with his curls. After something like half an hour, they arrive at her home, a castle so pointy it looks ready to carve great rents in the sky surrounded by a garden of stone creatures in postures combative or terrified, and she and Winter dismount the sledge and the dwarf takes it and the reindeer to put them away, and she begins issuing orders to other assorted minions of all shapes and sizes except human. She commands quarters prepared for Winter, and a suitable assassin's livery, and arranges lessons for him with the quartermaster, and instructs a specter of some sort to conduct him on a tour of the castle.
Author: pythbox	Winter follows the specter cheerfully, jar of jellybeans held protectively against his stomach. There are only a handful or so left.
Author: charning	The specter shows off halls of statuary, and the throne room, and where he will be learning to stab and club various sorts of the Queen's enemies to death, and the dining hall where she eats with whoever is favored of an evening, and the servants' quarters, and the chamber where he will be staying "so long as Her Imperial Majesty allows", and a vault of treasure which is quite easy to open and look inside, but of course all of the treasure is surrounded further within the vault, by a wall of magic, which prevents any light-fingered servitors from absconding with it. Winter is not shown the Queen's personal chambers, but there is plenty else to see.
Author: pythbox	Winter runs up and touches the magic wall, just to see what happens.
Author: charning	He is violently thrown back, clear through the insubstantial specter and against a non-magical wall, and his hand smarts with electricity.
Author: pythbox	He giggles. The jar of jellybeans is empty by this time, so he doesn't mind it breaking.
Author: charning	"Her Majesty does not like thievery," advises the specter.
Author: pythbox	"I can tell," laughs Winter.
Author: charning	"Come, you have yet to see the dungeons," the specter says, and it shows Winter the dungeons. They are not well-populated, but there are a few creatures here - a Badger, a Dryad, a unicorn with her horn sawed off - who are locked away in the hopes that they may yet break and disclose information to their captors.
Author: pythbox	Winter is impressed by the dungeons! They're very dungeony.
Author: alicornucopia	"Son of Adam?" inquires the Badger weakly. "A Son of Adam - here?"
Author: pythbox	"Huh?" says Winter.
Author: alicornucopia	"A boy, a human boy," says the Unicorn, "and in the Witch's Dungeon." The Dryad seems too overcome with despair to speak. "Don't listen to the prisoners," advises the specter loftily.
Author: pythbox	Winter shrugs. "I'm hungry, are there more jellybeans?"
Author: alicornucopia	"I have never seen a confection like what you were eating before today," says the Specter. The Badger sobs quietly.
Author: pythbox	"Guess I'll have to ask the queen, then," he says serenely.
Author: alicornucopia	The Specter nods, relaxing. "Son of Adam," says the Unicorn. "As you value your life - you must fly from this place -" The specter reaches in the unicorn's direction, and does no visible thing, but the Unicorn screams softly and falls silent, backing away as far as her chains allow.
Author: pythbox	"Ooh, what was that?" says Winter.
Author: alicornucopia	"I am not most often a giver of tours," says the specter mysteriously, and he leads Winter out of the dungeon. The Badger sobs some more.
Author: pythbox	"No, really, what'd you do?" says Winter, tagging along with a grin like sun on snow.
Author: alicornucopia	"Only a little nightmare," the specter says modestly.
Author: pythbox	"Nice," says Winter. "So is that your job? Nightmare people until they do what Jadis wants?" He seems very impressed by this!
Author: alicornucopia	"Occasionally. I have also seen use as a spy," the specter adds. "Being insubstantial helps. Her Majesty finds me useful."
Author: pythbox	"I bet!" says Winter, gazing at him admiringly.
Author: alicornucopia	The Specter smiles. "I am called Wisp," he adds.
Author: pythbox	"Nice to meetcha, Wisp," says Winter. "I'm Winter, but I guess you heard."
Author: alicornucopia	"Yes. Her Majesty must favor you to call you that."
Author: pythbox	"Guess she does!" he agrees. "Think that means she'll give me more jellybeans?"
Author: alicornucopia	"Possibly. Or she may dispense them only as a reward when you have done things she particularly approves."
Author: pythbox	Winter giggles.
Author: charning	It turns out that jellybeans are dispensed partly according to random whim, but mostly as rewards - never as a whole jar all at once, but handsful and occasionally only one or two at a time, if his teachers (ogres, wolves, dwarves, all manner of vicious beasts teaching him to kill, occasionally on live captives) praise his quickness with a knife, or if he says something that amuses her over dinner, or if she finds his smile particularly charming. Jadis treats him much like a useful, working pet - her sheepdog, or perhaps her hunting falcon. When she is present with him at her side he does not have such a thing as personal space; she arranges him for her comfort as readily as she arranges her own limbs, and sometimes hand-feeds him the jellybeans.
Author: pythbox	He eats up the jellybeans and drinks in the lessons and kills on command and laughs at strange moments and purrs like a kitten when she touches him. And he develops a habit of wandering into the treasure room and touching the magical barrier.
Author: charning	That is quite all right. He will never get through it; his recreation is his business. The other minions will tease him about it - and will also tease him if he solicits nightmares from the specter or anything of that nature - but they are conscious of his favored status and mostly note it quietly for later rather than making a scene about it. He has been in her service for a year, and managed to kill a number of creatures for her who have been informed on by the Secret Police but proved too inconvenient to haul to the castle for stoning, when she says: "Winter, I should like to retain you for a good bit longer, and Sons of Adam are so ephemeral, so I should like it if you would go to a place which I will describe for you, and go into it, and take an apple and eat it, and then I can keep you as long as I please." And she calls for a map, and indicates the path to a certain garden.
Author: pythbox	"Okay," he says cheerfully. "Wow, that's a long way off. When do I start?"
Author: charning	"Today," she says. "And it is quite a long way, so bring whatever companion you like, except for the core of my Guard, who I will need here, and ensure that you pack well for it. I would give you a few jelly beans to content you on your way, but you would only eat them all at once, so instead I will give you a large number when you come back, and that will have to do."
Author: pythbox	Winter laughs. "It's a deal, your majesty."
Author: charning	"There may be some writing around the garden," she adds, almost as an afterthought. "Don't trouble yourself about it. I have eaten one of the apples myself."
Author: pythbox	"Okay," he says, grinning up at her. (The difference in height between them has shrunk in the past year; he comes all the way up to her shoulder now, a little more when his hair is running particularly wild.)
Author: charning	She smooths said hair and plants a chilly kiss on his forehead. "Go, prepare for your journey, and you will be back all the sooner, and be my eternal Winter."
Author: pythbox	"Bye, your majesty," he says, and he scampers off to pack. He doesn't bring a companion; he does bring food that will last, and flasks for water, and a sword and a knife and a good coat. And the map. From all of the hunting he has done for his Queen, he knows little tricks like how to take shelter in the snow and which trees to trust with his business; he won't have any trouble crossing the country of Narnia. After that, it may get interesting.
Author: alicornucopia	It does not get very interesting. Winter may be a human, but he has been in Narnia long enough to pick up the speech and habits and dress of Narnians, and could be mistaken for a young midgety giant or a certain type of incubus. No creatures he meets outside of Narnia's borders know who or what the White Witch keeps at her right hand; they see the blades he carries and the way he walks and presume that his business, if he doesn't trouble them with it, is his own. There are a great many mountains in his way, with hazardous slopes and even bitterer cold at the high altitudes. But once they have been crossed, there is a garden.
Author: pythbox	He pushes back his hood and looks at the garden with a feeling of immense satisfaction.
Author: alicornucopia	There are some words, just as the Queen said. Come in by the gold gates or not at all take of my fruit for others or forbear for those who steal or those who climb my wall shall find their heart's desire and find despair
Author: pythbox	Shrugging, he tries the gate.
Author: alicornucopia	It opens.
Author: pythbox	He smiles at it and enters the garden.
Author: alicornucopia	And there is an apple tree.
Author: pythbox	He's kind of hungry. He takes three.
Author: alicornucopia	The first one does nothing in particular, except be oddly dark-fleshed and juicy for an apple, that he can detect. At the second, he feels cold, when he first bites it - and colder as he goes on - and at the end of the apple he is so much so that "cold" has ceased to have meaning; he can no more feel cold than a snowflake can. At the third apple, he may notice the color of his hands changing, as though he is a snowflake, or a human-shaped tracery of frost on the landscape.
Author: jackfrostbite	That first bite of the second apple almost stops him, but he keeps going so he can find out what happens. And what happens is - He laughs with delight, drags a handful of long curly hair in front of his face; the morning light ripples through it, glinting blue and white and green from the ice-black strands. He stretches out his arms and watches them shine with all the colours of frost. "I'm Winter," he says gleefully, spinning around with his arms flung out, whirling and whirling until he sits dizzily at the base of the tree. He hugs it. It is a good tree and he loves it very much. He's not hungry anymore, not even a little bit, except for the familiar squirming ache when he thinks about jelly beans. He doesn't get hungry again the whole way back to the castle. He eats anyway, once or twice, and the rest of the time he doesn't; it doesn't seem to hurt him either way. He does get thirsty, but eating ice and snow solves that. He's stronger and faster, though not as strong as his queen; he tires more slowly, but he still needs to sleep. He can curl up in a snowbank and it won't melt. Snow makes a nice blanket, when it's light and fluffy. He does that a lot. A month and a half after he left, he arrives at the castle gate with snow in his hair and a bright beaming smile.
Author: charning	Jadis is quite fascinated. "My dear Eternal Winter," she purrs. "Whatever has happened to you? Tell me everything."
Author: jackfrostbite	"I ate some apples," he shrugs. "And now I'm all - frosty."
Author: charning	She laughs. "I told you to eat one apple, greedy child. Who knows what will come of this in the long run? But come here, sit by me, and I will give you some jellybeans, unless you no longer want them now that you have changed color and grown chilled."
Author: jackfrostbite	He sits by her and grins up at her. "No, give me some, give me some."
Author: charning	She rearranges him according to some opaque whim and pats his cheek and conjures up a jar of jellybeans; it is the first full jar he's been allowed since she first collected him.
Author: jackfrostbite	He hugs the jar happily before he starts eating them.
Author: charning	"Dear Eternal Winter," Jadis purrs.
Author: jackfrostbite	He giggles around a mouthful of jelly beans.
Author: charning	Time goes on, but while Jadis didn't want her Winter snatched away by the end of mortal life, this apparently doesn't mean her interest in him is actually infinite. It fades gradually; there is never a reason offered her to move him from his chambers to the servants' quarters, so he keeps his accustomed lodgings, but her attention - and the jellybeans - become less frequent. On one occasion, she produces a container of jellybeans not for him, but for Maugrim to distribute, because she is going to an island in the far North with some of her retinue - and not Winter - in the hopes of retrieving some arifacts and books that may have use for her. The jellybeans are to keep Winter "out of trouble" in her absence. They are promptly distributed, and everyone who's received any - is, first of all, careful not to eat them, and, second, curious about the extent of how good they are at controlling Winter.
Author: jackfrostbite	Winter, it turns out, will do all kinds of amusing tricks for a jelly bean.
Author: charning	Jadis's trip lasts a long time. The supply of jelly beans was pretty generous, though. It lasts too; everyone has enough to do and can only occasionally spend their down-time sending him on amusing capers or delegating Winter their less delicate chores in exchange for candy. One day there is a fateful combination: an incubus with a jellybean and spare time and no ideas. He toys with the green bean between his clawed thumb and forefinger. "I wonder what you would do for this," he purrs, in a voice like velvet and a serrated knife. "Has anyone found a limit to it yet?"
Author: jackfrostbite	Winter laughs. "Not yet, my lord. Do you care to try?"
Author: alicornucopia	"Oh, maybe," says the incubus, as though he has something in mind. He doesn't, yet. He's not a very creative incubus. "What wouldn't you do?"
Author: jackfrostbite	"Well, that would be telling," he says reasonably. "Do you just not have any good ideas, my lord? Because—" he licks his frost-blue lips "—I can think of a few."
Author: alicornucopia	"Can you," says the incubus, eying the jellybean, and Winter.
Author: jackfrostbite	He grins sunnily. He makes a suggestion.
Author: alicornucopia	The incubus takes him up on it. Winter earns his jelly bean. The incubus tells all his friends, and Winter is kept very busy for a while. One of the incubi was already out of the jellybeans he managed to secure, at the time of this event. He sulks.
Author: jackfrostbite	Winter decides to cheer him up. Incubi are fun.
Author: alicornucopia	Once it is clear that jellybeans are not, strictly, required as recompense, something of an open season is called on Winter. He must do more and more to earn smaller and smaller chances of candy; the supply dwindles, but there are one or two still floating around, and some of the incubi are capable of cooperating well enough to pass them around, keep Winter guessing, dole them out slower and slower. News of this new era in Make Winter Do Things spreads quickly, and while incubi are the keenest, they are not the only.
Author: jackfrostbite	Winter is, on the whole, happy with this arrangement. He could do with more jellybeans, if more were available, but they aren't and what he gets in their place is... fun. Mostly. Not completely. He doesn't complain. That might get some of them to stop, but not the ones who are the problem.
Author: charning	Eventually Jadis returns, with the treasure she sought, minus a few of her companions but ungrieving. Some of her minions ask her for a resupply. She wants to know if they've been eating them, and they tell her they have not, they only feed them to Winter. And she laughs and makes a new jar and distributes them to everyone who wants a few, and she calls Winter over to hand-feed him just one; it is the first jellybean he hasn't had to do anything for in nearly a year.
Author: jackfrostbite	Winter beams at her.
Author: charning	"My Eternal Winter," she says, but then she's off to play with her new artifacts in her arcane workrooms.
Author: alicornucopia	One of the dwarves holds up a yellow jelly bean, smirking.
Author: jackfrostbite	His eyes track the bean without conscious intervention. He licks his lips.
Author: charning	A good time is had by - all. When Jadis finds out what her minions have been doing with the provided jellybeans, she laughs and laughs.
Author: jackfrostbite	Winter is amused by her amusement.
Author: charning	That is the correct reaction to Jadis's amusement. So he gets a jellybean. And then she sends him away to kill someone the secret police have informed on.
Author: jackfrostbite	It's so nice when he has things to do.