Disclaimer: I don't own Aslan. I don't even know him. He knows me.

AN: I was thinking about Digory Kirke, and how, though he dealt with some guilt in The Magician's Nephew, at the end of that book, all had been set right. "Evil will come of that evil," said Aslan, "but it is still afar off and I will see to it that the worst falls on myself." But what did Digory think when the children told their story and he heard that the witch he'd accidentally set loose had imprisoned all of Narnia for a hundred years and who-knows-how-many people had died, (nearly) including one of these children? So, here's a piece, inspired by a conversation between Digory and Polly in The Magician's Nephew just after Jadis has been set loose in England. It fits pretty neatly into the ending of "Foreign Royalty". I respond personally to all reviews!

Somewhere in the English countryside, ten miles from the nearest railway station and two miles from the nearest post office, an old man sat up late into the night and stared into the fire, murmuring, " 'Evil will come of that evil—' What have I done?"

And a voice out of the past, shrill and accusing, cried, "Nothing, of course. Only struck the bell. Only turned back in the wood so that she had time to catch hold of you. Only wakened an evil witch and set her loose in a newborn land. Only brought about the death of the Lion himself."

And the old man buried his head in his hands and groaned. "Oh, what have I done?"

But another voice, richer, stronger, wilder, sad and full of love, spoke next. "Only buttoned up your coat and took up the ring. Only confessed your failings and helped to heal them. Only stood firm in the face of temptation. Only planted a Tree such that protected the land for hundreds upon hundreds of years. Only commissioned a wardrobe built. Only listened to four exiled children when they were lost between the worlds, and only believed them when no one else would. Well done, my son."

And the wind roared around the eaves, and the flames crackled in the fireplace.

~ consumatum est ~