Queen Lucy floated in darkness.

She was in pain no longer. The poison having reached her heart, she lay quiet, knowing that she was near death. It did not trouble her. Aslan would come for her soon, she was certain, and carry her to his own country. The only thing that grieved her was the thought that she was causing such heartache to her brothers and sister, and that one day they might discover…

A sigh went through her mind. She felt nothing for what seemed a long time, only the conviction that when next she woke, she would be in the paws of the Lion.

She felt his mane upon her cheek.

Smelled the perfume of his breath.

Tasted the refreshment of his tears.

Heard his purring in her ear.

Daughter of Eve, Valiant Queen, Beloved of Narnia, Dear One of Mine…

"Lucy."

She opened her eyes.

She saw Aslan, the True King of Narnia, smiling down on her. It was just as she had always imagined. She lay on some soft ground, with Aslan's warm and heavy body spread over her like a blanket. His paws were on her shoulders, his chin resting over her heart, his great sweet eyes locked on hers. She smiled at him.

"Oh Aslan," sighed Lucy. It was so comfortable… to be out of pain, in this embrace. She didn't want it to end. She threaded her fingers in his mane. "Will you stay with me?"

"Have I ever left you?"

Lucy laughed. "Dear me, no! But I'm so comfortable now, and it has been such a long day…"

He purred. Aslan often roared, and growled, and even laughed. But to hear the Lion purr was the rarest and sweetest sound imaginable.

"Were you scared, my Child?"

"Oh yes, very. But not of dying. I can tell you now, dying is no trouble, really."

Aslan was smiled.

"But it was so loud, with everyone running to and fro like that, and I wished Peter and Edmund would have stayed with me and Susan instead of leaving us."

"They feared for you, Daughter. They sought to find your cordial and save you from death."

"They needn't have feared," Lucy smiled, looking into his face. "Dear Aslan, how I've wanted to be with you in your own country!"

Aslan raised his head and touched his nose to hers in a kiss. "Lucy, Dear One, I have wanted this too. But you are not there just yet."

"Why," Lucy wondered, "Where are we then?"

"Child," Aslan smiled. "Look around you."

She looked.

On either side of her lay Peter, Susan, and Edmund, asleep in grief, their faces etched with tears. Scarlet coverings that Lucy recognized from her own bed were tangled about her brother kings and sister queen. Susan's face was pressed into her hair. Peter's hand held her fingers to his lips. Edmund's arm lay behind her head. They were piled onto the bed with her. She could see them, touch them, smell them… She was as alive as they.

Lucy drew a gasping breath.

At the sound, her brothers and sister woke. At first they stared dully at one another, shared pain in their eyes. How many hours they had been like this, Lucy couldn't know. Then Peter's face, haggard and white, turned to her. He stared.

"Lucy," he whispered.

Susan and Edmund looked up.

"Lucy!!!"

They fell on her. Peter, Susan, and Edmund didn't seem to be able to get over saying her name, shaking and crying and kissing her, and sobbing to one another that she was alive, alive!

Lucy found herself crying as well.

"Oh Aslan!" Peter lay a quivering arm across the Lion's back, his blue eyes locking with great golden ones. "Thank you, thank you so much!"

"You are quite welcome, My Children," Aslan rumbled in his great, velvety voice. "Never fear that I should not come for my beloved ones, to lick away your tears." He who knew her heart nudged Lucy so that she might look into his face. He fixed his eyes on her troubled gaze. Then Aslan bent and whispered in her ear, "And know that when all has been done, and the time is right, you shall be with me in my own country." And he lay his head down on her heart.

Lucy lay still, feeling the strange weakness of her body as Susan, and Edmund, and Peter embraced and murmured over her, and Aslan searched her eyes. It had been so lovely… to be without pain. To see and hear and feel only the Lion and nothing else. It would never be the same after this. She should always remember the moment when she thought herself never to be separated from Aslan again. Lucy would always want that moment back. How would she live without it?

Then her siblings snuggled their faces up to hers, their hands sunk deep in the Lion's mane, and she knew. Her time here was not done. One day she would be with Aslan. As would her brothers and sister. She had been first to set foot on the threshold of Aslan's country, just as she had been first to see Narnia. She has left Narnia for a time, just as she must leave Aslan's country for a time. And she had come back to Narnia with her brothers and sister, just as one day she would come back to Aslan's country with the Peter, Edmund, and Susan. The four of them together, just as it should be.

It was enough, for now.

The kings and queens and Lion had been resting quietly with one another for some time when Susan spoke up. "But Aslan Dear, how did you do it? We couldn't find Lucy's cordial anywhere!"

"Gentle Queen," Aslan replied. "I carry with me a healing far greater than the juice of the Fire Flower. I have no need to carry it in a bottle. But as you are human and must hold such things in your hands…" He snuggled down into Lucy's arms. "Lucy, what do you find in my mane?"

Lucy's fingers closed over something cool and solid in the silky mass of gold. She drew out her hands, and found in them her healing cordial. "Why Aslan!" She kissed his nose as the others exclaimed.

"Wherever did you find it?" Susan demanded, taking the bottle to examine.

"In the Pond of a Thousand Depths," said Lucy.

Edmund cried out. "What?"

"Yes Edmund, that's why I asked you to come swimming with me. My cordial slipped from my dress pocket when Willow Wing was flying me back from the Plains this afternoon, and it fell into the Pond. I knew I shouldn't dive so deep alone, and I thought you should like the challenge."

She wondered why Edmund suddenly went so white, and leaned his head upon the Lion.

"Child," Aslan said gravely. "The bottle you dropped lies at the bottom of the Pond still. When your brother Edmund slew the lizard, the poison creature's blood flowed into the water, mingling with the cordial and rendering both dead. For healing and death cannot entwine. There must be one, or the other."

"Then where did you get this?" Peter wanted to know. And he held up the bottle.

The bottle of diamond, with the stopper in the shape of a gold Lion's head, it's etching of a glorious sun rising behind twin mountain peaks, and her initials in gold above all, was exactly like that given to Lucy by Father Christmas, even to the level of the sparkling red cordial.

"Dear Ones," said Aslan, smiling into their faces. "Have none of you guessed where all of your Gifts come from?"