19. Tapestry
In the beginning there wasn't a story. But there was a Lion—threads of Gold, holding their own light, started this story. A woven Lion, with His mouth open in a song.
A song began the story.
The story was told in a tapestry, woven in Aslan's country by one of the greatest weavers. She would sit and listen as she wove, listen as new people came in and told their stories.
Under her fingers a solid block of white, with black threads for the snow-touched trunks of trees, and the darkest of black for two cruel eyes under a silver crown. Four threads entered at the edge, different from each other, but harmonious as a whole; and with them, before them, and after them the Gold that had been at the beginning. The snow threads became a part once more, and not the whole, and the story wove on.
Some threads were long, like the rust-coloured orange of a long-lived Dwarf. He lived through the sea-blue King's time and further. Some threads were cut short, like the shining silver-white of the King's wife, woven from the outside and coming in for only a short time, in the time of the tapestry.
But oh, how her time mattered. Her silver ran in all the kings who came after.
On and on wove the threads—but all things must come to an end, even stories. The weaver listened, the weaver wove, and then, one day, after the last story had been told from the mouth of a pure white unicorn, the weaver knotted the threads.
Then she smiled, for she loved her work, and picked up threads for her next tapestry. One that began with a red-haired girl whose name ended with an E.
A/N: I thought of writing a story about a particular tapestry that the Four hide behind at various times, but…not today. Instead I remembered a poem in one of Corrie Ten Boom's books. It isn't attributed to anyone, so I don't know the author:
My life is but a weaving
Between my God and me.
I cannot choose the colors
He weaveth steadily.
Oft' times He weaveth sorrow;
And I in foolish pride
Forget He sees the upper
And I the underside.
Not 'til the loom is silent
And the shuttles cease to fly
Will God unroll the canvas
And reveal the reason why.
The dark threads are as needful
In the weaver's skillful hand
As the threads of gold and silver
In the pattern He has planned.
He knows, He loves, He cares;
Nothing this truth can dim.
He gives the very best to those
Who leave the choice to Him.