"I tell you the truth, the man who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber." John 10:1

Power will soon again be mine. And it is power that I know I deserve, for I have sacrificed much to gain it. After all, I am Jadis, Empress of Charn. The last Empress, though it was really my sister's fault that it had to come to that. I am not sorry that I spoke that Word. Why should I be? She knew that I would have been better fit to be queen than she, yet still she resisted. It was her own poor choice that resulted in her death, and the death of our people.

I admit that I lost the power I had for a while as I slept, frozen and waiting. Waiting for the one who would come to free me and take me to a place where I could rule anew. Of course, I should have known that not every world would be acceptable, for certainly the boy's world was not. But that doesn't matter now, for everything is now turning in my favor. This is a world that will do.

There before me stands the only thing that I now need to be powerful again. Just one bite and I will have my heart's desire. That is what the sign on the gate said. What else it said doesn't matter, for that last line means more than all the rest. My heart's desire. I desire to live forever, and to be ruler of all worlds. And after what I've endured, don't I deserve it? And despair? What is despair? I'll tell you what it is. Despair was how my sister should have felt knowing she had rebelled against me. Despair was evident in the way that Lion walked back and forth across the land. I could see it in His eyes; He knew that I was more powerful than He. And despair is what I will feel if I do not get what I desire, and get it now.

What else could I have done? The gate was locked; it wouldn't open for me. Naturally, of course I'm going to climb over the wall. I knew that what was being protected inside the gate, a place where I now stand, was something that would give me what I desired. In fact, it had probably been there for a long time, waiting for me to come and claim it. That is what I'm here to do now—claim my reward.

I reach up to pick an apple from the tree in front of me. When it is in my hand, I realize that all I need to do now is take one bite. Just one bite and everything I have ever dreamed for will be given to me. So here I go—yes! I feel it already. There is life in my veins, life that will never leave me. With just this one bite, I have accomplished what nobody ever has before me, and never will ever after. I will rule this world forever…

"The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full." John 10:10
1000 years later

I don't understand; it wasn't supposed to happen this way. When I ate that apple, I was supposed to receive the one thing I wanted most. But things certainly didn't turn out the way they were supposed to. First, they planted that tree from the apple that the boy brought back to Him; the apple that I told him to bring home to the mother that he claimed to love so dearly. That tree kept me away from the land for nearly 900 years. Victory was finally mine when I returned; this pitiful land deserved to know the curse of unending winter. And then, there was that other human. He was so easy to convince. But the Lion was supposed to remain dead. He was the sacrifice for the human, and I killed him.

But now I am laying here in the dirt, the life I gained with just that one bite draining from my body. I can only say that I am satisfied with one thing—the human, if he isn't already, will be dead shortly, for no one could survive being stabbed in the gut in the way I stabbed him. Still, I die with at least an ounce of satisfaction, for the prophecy will never be fulfilled. Yes, the destruction of Narnia is at hand, and there is nothing to be done about it. Though I must now leave this world, still I have won. Jadis, Empress of Charn, remains victorious.

A/N: Originally, the inspiration that I got for a fic based on these two verses was very different. It was the next day after I was inspired to write that fic that I wrote this one.