farewell to the shadowlands
Jack watches as she pours them both tea, and notes that there's something different to her--like the weight of the world's fallen off of her shoulder's.
Like, really, she's stopped fighting something she had been for so long she'd forgotten she was.
"This is the last night, I think, that you and I will speak like this."
"But you haven't finished the story," he protests, ignoring the cup placed before him--ignoring the way that he suspects he sounds like a child, more than a man.
"They all end the same way, really, in the end," she says with a soft laugh as she adds lemon to her tea. "You know that, Jack. In the end, you die, and you find out what you truly thought mattered. That's how stories always end."
"I thought they lived happiliy ever after."
"No. Not if you read long enough, they don't. But what you get is still all right, really."
"So how did it end?" he asks after they've sat, silently, and sipped tea.
She smiles at him and leans over to press a soft kiss to his forehead, and he smells summer and lilies and roses and honey and something he can't name but knows he'll never forget.
"You tell me."
And then he wakes up, and looks at his ceiling for several moments as he hears her laugh in his head, and sees her smile that's a little sad at times but mostly--often--fully of a quiet sort of joy.
Later, when he assembles the book--the last book, and he knows it, not because the ideas are dry, because there are always more ideas, and more stories, but because everyone deserves an ending--the page he finds, the one he scrawled the night of his last dream, he doesn't edit at all, only puts it in exactly as it is.
All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.
Like, really, she's stopped fighting something she had been for so long she'd forgotten she was.
"This is the last night, I think, that you and I will speak like this."
"But you haven't finished the story," he protests, ignoring the cup placed before him--ignoring the way that he suspects he sounds like a child, more than a man.
"They all end the same way, really, in the end," she says with a soft laugh as she adds lemon to her tea. "You know that, Jack. In the end, you die, and you find out what you truly thought mattered. That's how stories always end."
"I thought they lived happiliy ever after."
"No. Not if you read long enough, they don't. But what you get is still all right, really."
"So how did it end?" he asks after they've sat, silently, and sipped tea.
She smiles at him and leans over to press a soft kiss to his forehead, and he smells summer and lilies and roses and honey and something he can't name but knows he'll never forget.
"You tell me."
And then he wakes up, and looks at his ceiling for several moments as he hears her laugh in his head, and sees her smile that's a little sad at times but mostly--often--fully of a quiet sort of joy.
Later, when he assembles the book--the last book, and he knows it, not because the ideas are dry, because there are always more ideas, and more stories, but because everyone deserves an ending--the page he finds, the one he scrawled the night of his last dream, he doesn't edit at all, only puts it in exactly as it is.
All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.