A/N: Did I leave you hanging rather cruelly there? No, this story is not over yet. Keep reviewing, please! Woot, Chapter 10! Hooray! 20 reviews! I love y'all for sticking with me through ten chappys. This is rather an interesting chapter - I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!
I was stone.
Silence surrounded me. I was silence. Nothingness was everything. Grey was my vision, cold stone my only sense of touch, and a vague sense of touch.
A stone is ageless. A stone has no sense of time. I was frozen, frozen in a moment, alone with my thoughts. There was nothing but myself, frozen. My thoughts were sluggish, the pace of the crumbling of stone.
What have I done? What has happened to me? How can I escape?
But there is no escape for a stone. As the days passed, I lost all thought of time. Time does not move for a stone. Or, if it moves, it moves at the pace of glaciers. Time was as frozen as Narnia itself. The winter in which I was frozen would have no spring. There would be no release until I crumbled into dust.
Would there be pain? Would I suffer when my stone faded into the ages of the world, or would it just be a peaceful, easy passing into eternity?
A stone feels nothing. There is only cold, always cold, around and above and inside you. My heart was stone. It would have been heavy if I had not had any sense of weight. I thought of Ishtar. Where was she now? What was she thinking? What was she feeling? But in time, those thoughts faded. A stone feels nothing.
I was stone.
All thought faded, eventually. There was no thought, no time, no pain, no regret. Only fragments of memory, of speech.
Your whim before –
-help me, my –
Love me, be-
-stone forever.
Your whim before help me my love me be stone forever.
Whim help love stone forever.
Help stone forever.
Stone forever.
Forever.
Finally, all thought faded. A stone has no name. I had no name. I was nothing. I was lost. Memory was lost. Thought faded into distance. A stone does not need to think. A stone thinks at the pace of glaciers, and I could not read my thought any longer.
You should die-
-betrayal is the ultimate crime-
The penalty of-
Love-
Is Death.
Should betrayal ultimate penalty love is death.
Betrayal penalty love is death.
Penalty love is death.
Love is death.
Death.
Loss.
Name.
I was stone.
Stone. The Witch. Aslan. Words had no meaning. A stone has no speech. A stone cannot talk. A stone cannot remember. A stone cannot regret.
What had I done? I had killed Ishtar. My brother.
I had had a brother?
No, that could not be right. I had no brother.
Stones did not have brothers.
I was stone.
Who was Ishtar?
Ishtar.
The she wolf.
She had no name.
I forgot everything that had mattered to me. The only thought of stone is to cold. Cold is all that exists for a stone. And there was cold. Everywhere. This winter would never end. I needed to eat. I needed food.
No, stones did not eat.
What was food?
Food.
There was no memory to connect with the word.
Then there was no word.
I was stone.
I was stone.
Stone.
There was no thought for a long time. No thought, no movement, no life. Nothing but stone. But then, I heard a voice. It called me back, reminded me of sunshine and a spring, a spring I could not remember. Then warmth. Warmth cutting through my cold. It was a strange feeling. It made me want to remember, to move, to live.
The part of me that was stone struggled to hold on to the coldness. But the part that was coming back to live would not be stone struggled toward the life that beckoned me. I would live. I would survive. I had to.
I struggled back toward life. The cries beckoned me. I would live. I would live.
Live.