Malacandra
Member
(This is a follow-on from the earlier stories "Plumbing the Depths" and "Once a Queen in Narnia". I was talking them over with Copilot and the AI asked if I had any future plans for John Henry to interact with Susan. And a sudden thought occurred to me. 
)
She stood before the Fountain, full of peace and contentment. The weight of glory on her shoulders was almost palpable. Lessons learned, wrongs righted, bridges built, Queenship restored. At last she was ready, fit and willing to join her sister, her brothers, and all those others she had loved.
"Well done," said the Gardener -- but she knew now who He truly was, keenly and unforgettably. "But before you go, there is one small thing you could do, one small debt to repay. Take the Cup that you see before you and fill it with water."
Puzzled, she lifted what was by no means a gleaming chalice, but the kind of battered tin-plated workman's mug that had been old-fashioned even when she was a girl. She inspected it curiously, but she also did as she was told.
Without needing to be told, she followed the Gardener through the quiet, dreamy Wood, walking by trees daubed with mud, until they stood by the one pool she had marked when she first arrived. She looked at it in wonderment.
"Back to Earth?"
"Yes. But not the place and time you knew. Someone is in need of the water that you carry."
Her eyes lowered, and she was not sure she ought to question; but at the last, she was still Susan. "You told me -- "
"Questions afterwards," the Gardener answered mildly, "and then it will not be wrong to ask them. Duty and Mercy first."
Slipping the green ring on, Susan stepped into the pool, and as there had been every time before, there was a timeless moment of no sensation at all, before she reappeared in a place where a hot wind blew. She staggered, touched her cheek, and knew instantly and without a mirror that she was ancient once again. That didn't matter now. Her eyes almost closed against the pitiless midday blaze, and from somewhere far away came a sound of metal on metal and a faint haze of coal-smoke, such as she had hardly known in more than fifty years.
There was no time for distractions. She saw in front of her a large man, prone on the ground, discarded like so much trash; not even cast aside in contempt, but ignored because he did not matter any more. He wasn't moving; but she dropped to both knees beside him, and tugged with all her poor strength at his bib-front overalls, careful not to spill the precious water she was carrying.
His mouth lolled open, almost like a dead man's and yet, she knew without being told, not dead after all. What white teeth he had! All the whiter, she supposed, both because of the glare of the sun that beat down out of a cloudless sky, and because of the darkness of his skin. Carefully she tipped the cup and poured a thin stream of the clearest of all waters between his lips. Why he didn't choke she didn't know. Why the water disappeared down his throat she did not know. She only knew that she wanted desperately to linger long enough to see what happened next; and that she had not even a few bare seconds to do so. Her heart had stopped. With the one remaining moment of consciousness she had, she replaced the green ring with the yellow, even as the man's eyes flickered open to see someone he didn't know silhouetted against the blinding light of the sun for an instant before she vanished.
In the pool once again, she clung on to the Gardener, but the feebleness of her body was offset by a fierce joy, and also a burning desire to have her question answered. She wasn't sure what happened next. She only knew that a moment later they were not in the Wood, but she was drinking of a water that outdid even that of the wondrous Fountain, and this time she knew that she would never thirst again.
"--but," she said, "he who drank of what I gave him will thirst again, won't he?"
She didn't let go. She could not have said whether her face was buried in a lion's glorious mane, or in the folds of a humble robe of coarse wool, or of something more royal than the finest cloth-of-gold that was ever spun, or something that transcended all of those utterly. Whatever it was, it did nothing to muffle the gentle laughter of the One she was holding on to.
"It will be enough," her Saviour answered. "For you, it had to undo many sorrowful years. He was yet a young man when you gave him the water."
"And he will be for a long time, too?"
He would once have said that this was someone else's story; but this time he said, "You will have the chance to talk that over with him, at the proper time."
She let go and stood tall, gazing around her with eyes that could see about as far into the True World as she wanted them to. "But... He came to me. He showed me the way to go. And because of that, I had this moment, when I went to him. And because of that, he will live to come to me. I do have that down correctly, am I right?"
Many times she had heard the expression "roar with laughter", and now for the first time she heard what it was like when there was no danger that it would be too much for mortal ears to hear or the world itself to contain. "Is it not marvellous? Does it not bring joy? And... oh, Susan, once, now and forever a Queen in Narnia, the grand jests and the absurd tales are only beginning.
"All times are one to Me. It is your choices that matter. The rest is not as important as you have thought. You will understand all this and more besides; but for now, enter into the greatest of all stories with the knowledge that your single thread in it is, will be, and always was, just as needed as every other."
And that, as her eyes effortlessly sought out the ones she most wanted to find, and saw them already looking back into hers not in surprise but in blissful acceptance of what they had always known, was answer enough.
)She stood before the Fountain, full of peace and contentment. The weight of glory on her shoulders was almost palpable. Lessons learned, wrongs righted, bridges built, Queenship restored. At last she was ready, fit and willing to join her sister, her brothers, and all those others she had loved.
"Well done," said the Gardener -- but she knew now who He truly was, keenly and unforgettably. "But before you go, there is one small thing you could do, one small debt to repay. Take the Cup that you see before you and fill it with water."
Puzzled, she lifted what was by no means a gleaming chalice, but the kind of battered tin-plated workman's mug that had been old-fashioned even when she was a girl. She inspected it curiously, but she also did as she was told.
Without needing to be told, she followed the Gardener through the quiet, dreamy Wood, walking by trees daubed with mud, until they stood by the one pool she had marked when she first arrived. She looked at it in wonderment.
"Back to Earth?"
"Yes. But not the place and time you knew. Someone is in need of the water that you carry."
Her eyes lowered, and she was not sure she ought to question; but at the last, she was still Susan. "You told me -- "
"Questions afterwards," the Gardener answered mildly, "and then it will not be wrong to ask them. Duty and Mercy first."
Slipping the green ring on, Susan stepped into the pool, and as there had been every time before, there was a timeless moment of no sensation at all, before she reappeared in a place where a hot wind blew. She staggered, touched her cheek, and knew instantly and without a mirror that she was ancient once again. That didn't matter now. Her eyes almost closed against the pitiless midday blaze, and from somewhere far away came a sound of metal on metal and a faint haze of coal-smoke, such as she had hardly known in more than fifty years.
There was no time for distractions. She saw in front of her a large man, prone on the ground, discarded like so much trash; not even cast aside in contempt, but ignored because he did not matter any more. He wasn't moving; but she dropped to both knees beside him, and tugged with all her poor strength at his bib-front overalls, careful not to spill the precious water she was carrying.
His mouth lolled open, almost like a dead man's and yet, she knew without being told, not dead after all. What white teeth he had! All the whiter, she supposed, both because of the glare of the sun that beat down out of a cloudless sky, and because of the darkness of his skin. Carefully she tipped the cup and poured a thin stream of the clearest of all waters between his lips. Why he didn't choke she didn't know. Why the water disappeared down his throat she did not know. She only knew that she wanted desperately to linger long enough to see what happened next; and that she had not even a few bare seconds to do so. Her heart had stopped. With the one remaining moment of consciousness she had, she replaced the green ring with the yellow, even as the man's eyes flickered open to see someone he didn't know silhouetted against the blinding light of the sun for an instant before she vanished.
In the pool once again, she clung on to the Gardener, but the feebleness of her body was offset by a fierce joy, and also a burning desire to have her question answered. She wasn't sure what happened next. She only knew that a moment later they were not in the Wood, but she was drinking of a water that outdid even that of the wondrous Fountain, and this time she knew that she would never thirst again.
"--but," she said, "he who drank of what I gave him will thirst again, won't he?"
She didn't let go. She could not have said whether her face was buried in a lion's glorious mane, or in the folds of a humble robe of coarse wool, or of something more royal than the finest cloth-of-gold that was ever spun, or something that transcended all of those utterly. Whatever it was, it did nothing to muffle the gentle laughter of the One she was holding on to.
"It will be enough," her Saviour answered. "For you, it had to undo many sorrowful years. He was yet a young man when you gave him the water."
"And he will be for a long time, too?"
He would once have said that this was someone else's story; but this time he said, "You will have the chance to talk that over with him, at the proper time."
She let go and stood tall, gazing around her with eyes that could see about as far into the True World as she wanted them to. "But... He came to me. He showed me the way to go. And because of that, I had this moment, when I went to him. And because of that, he will live to come to me. I do have that down correctly, am I right?"
Many times she had heard the expression "roar with laughter", and now for the first time she heard what it was like when there was no danger that it would be too much for mortal ears to hear or the world itself to contain. "Is it not marvellous? Does it not bring joy? And... oh, Susan, once, now and forever a Queen in Narnia, the grand jests and the absurd tales are only beginning.
"All times are one to Me. It is your choices that matter. The rest is not as important as you have thought. You will understand all this and more besides; but for now, enter into the greatest of all stories with the knowledge that your single thread in it is, will be, and always was, just as needed as every other."
And that, as her eyes effortlessly sought out the ones she most wanted to find, and saw them already looking back into hers not in surprise but in blissful acceptance of what they had always known, was answer enough.
