Authors Note: CS Lewis owns everthing
So as it's coming up to Christmas I decided to write this little ficlet about one of the most important characters in The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe. He only features in a few pages, but his appearence is very important.
Merry Christmas. Long live the true King.
That Christmas
Father Christmas sat in his workshop, staring out the windows, across the hills towards the border of Narnia. His forge was cold and his tools lay on the bench gathering dust. Of course he still made some gifts – He could still reach Archenland and the Lone Islands after all – but those had been made long before hand and now he had nothing to do but sit and wait. Wait for that time when he would deliver gifts to those places he could go before returning to his workshop for another year of brooding.
So things had been for over one hundred years, ever since that usurper Jadis had made it past the Tree of Protection and caught Narnia in her cold grip. He could still remember that night when he had tried to enter his beloved land only to find that he could not set even a foot past its borders.
"My son," a deep voice said from behind him, "Why so sad?"
Father Christmas turned to find a great Lion standing behind him, "Your Majesty," the Christmas spirit said falling to his knees.
"Why so sad?" Aslan repeated
Father Christmas got up, and made his way to the window "It's Narnia Aslan," he said after a minute, "I miss it so much."
"Take heart," the Lion said, "Your banishment is nearly at an end."
"You mean?"
Aslan nodded, "The prophecy will soon becoming to fruition. The Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve will enter Narnia and break the Witch's power. I want you to greet them."
"Me sire?"
"Yes," Aslan said, "I want you to meet them and take gifts for the three of them."
"Three?" Father Christmas said perplexed, "But what of the fourth."
"His story is his own," Aslan said, "And prepare presents for the Beavers of Beversdam. In fact all of Narnia."
Father Christmas smiled his first proper smile in over a hundred years, "Right away Aslan."
As soon as Aslan had left, Father Christmas set to work. It took him a long while to prepare the gifts Aslan had instructed should be made, but at last they were done. Laying them out on his table he looked at them, a sword and shield for the High King, a bow, arrows and horn for his sister and a vial containing a healing cordial and a small dagger for the other sister. Then loading them and all the other gifts into his bag he readied his sleigh, and set out.
As he neared the borders of Narnia, he began to feel something he had not felt in a hundred years. Hope radiating from every stick and stone. Joy had returned to this jewel in Aslan's crown.
As he rode his sleigh over the borders without trouble, Father Christmas let out a great whoop of delight.
Christmas had come to Narnia at last.
"It was a sledge and it was reindeer with bells on their harness. But they were far bigger than the Witch's reindeer and they were not white but brown. And on the sledge sat a person whom everyone knew the moment they set eyes on him. He was a huge man in a bright red robe (as red as hollyberries) with a hood that fur inside it and a great white beard that fell like foamy waterfall over his chest.
Everyone knew him because, though you see people of his sort only in Narnia, you see pictures of them and hear them talked of even in our world – the world on this side of the wardrobe door. But when you really see them in Narnia it is rather different. Some of the pictures of Father Christmas in our world make him look only funny and jolly. But now that the children stood looking at him they didn't find it quite like that. He was so big and so glad and so real, that they all became quite still. They felt very glad, but also solemn.
"I've come at last," said he. "She has kept me out for a long time, but I have got in at last. Aslan is on the move. The Witch's magic is weakening."
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