[Fic] "They Do Not Always Like It" -- Chronicles of Narnia

[edenfalling]

Summary: Who ever heard of a witch that really died? (250 words)

[ETA: The AO3 crosspost is now up!]

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They Do Not Always Like It
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"Who ever heard of a witch that really died?" the Hag asked, and it's true, you can always call them back. But what you summon is never the true woman, never the spark of life and will that sought to seize a world and force it into a shape of her liking. What you raise in the bloody circle, what flickers in the eerie blue flames, is only a shadow, a dream, a trick of the mind. Even magic dies in the end.

Except for one. For Jadis ate the apple in the garden, and it worked on her according to its nature. Aslan killed her. No Deeper Magic saved her. And yet she is woven into the very sinews of the world, so that even dead she is not truly gone. Hers is the whisper in the winter wind, leeching color and hope from every soul foolish enough to listen. Hers is the touch that drags the drowning to the depths. Hers is the killing drought, the gnawing hunger that turns to violence and despair.

But that world is ended, you may say, and so it is: returned to the endless dark from which it was born.

And yet, there is still a door. It stands in Aslan's Country, its edges mired in jagged ice, and it is forbidden for anyone to open.

What lies beyond it...

Well.

Press your ear to the keyhole and listen, if you dare. And think what it might mean, to never truly die.

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Inspired by the 9/21/14 15_minute_ficlets word #204: sleep

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So yeah, that happened. Tiny Narnia finger exercise for the win? (Even if it does directly incorporate TLB, ugh. But hey, I am always in favor of making that book's ending even creepier, especially if all I have to do is point out aspects of his own creation that Lewis either forgot or preferred to gloss over. This is 100% canon-supported, you know!)

Comments

[rosaxx50]

Geez, I almost feel sorry for Jadis, trapped for eternity in the emptiness.

[edenfalling]

It does give one pause to think about, doesn't it? Though so far as I can tell, Lewis never noticed the implications of his own previous statements, or if he did, he didn't care.

[branchandroot]

That is /totally/ even creepier, omg. *shivers* And it also points up just how a) careless or b) vicious Aslan and/or the Emperor-we-never-meet has to be.

[edenfalling]

Fridge horror is delicious, isn't it? And that's one of the classic creeping psychological terrors -- that there is nothing after death, but somehow, irrationally and impossibly, you might be aware of that eternal nothingness. *twitches*

Any world that is set up to allow the possibility of that outcome, intentionally or not, has a serious design flaw.

[heliopausa]

I love the voice of the last sentences -- very, very creepy! So much implication -- and beautifully economical.

[edenfalling]

One of the beautiful things about writing horror is that you don't always have to write it. In fact, often you shouldn't -- or at least not in great detail. The monster we imagine is always scarier than the monster we see, because it can be all monsters at once, you know? So you say just enough to plant an idea, back off, and let the reader's mind do the rest. :-)