A/N: I know I'm a few days early, but The Walker is tomorrow, so here, have a Thanksgiving snippet.
The Bader looked down at the meagre spread and bowed his head. Once, he remembered, there had been nuts in piles higher than his head, pies baked by the Beaver neighbours, corn from the Dwarf cave nearby with butter dripping off it, and vegetables without number brought by the Birds and Squirrels. It had started because his neighbours worried the single old creature would be lonely, but his house had become the gathering place for every harvest celebration, once.
Now the Dwarf cave housed only statues; the Beavers had been frozen under the water, and no one expected to see them again; and the Birds and Squirrels found very few things to bring. Such was life, since the cold queen had begun her rule.
The coming years would be harder. The winter had not ended, and it would not be in keeping with the Queen's cruelty to lift the cold. Already the Badger mourned the loss of friends, the loss of safety, and now, adding to that, the loss of food.
But the Badger looked at the twenty or thirty nuts, the two Birds brave enough to still come, the one family of Squirrels with the nervous mother and grim father, and he closed his eyes. Aslan had still given him this.
"Aslan gives every harvest, and we thank Him for this one. May the coming year be full of our remembrance of His victories, when the evidence seems slim."
"May we remember and give thanks that He is always with our children, even when the world we give them is cold and fearful," the father added.
"We thank Him that music does not cease even when the singers are few," added the older Bird.
"And we thank Him for nuts!" one of the little Squirrels piped up. "Can we eat now?"
And so the scanty feast began with laughter, the adults looking at each other and remembering that, though the young were foolish, the Great Lion had once said to let a little child lead—to lead back to hope, and to thanks.