A/N: I'm back! Sorry—there was the visit to PA, the monthly writing challenge in September, and then three successive relatives in the hospital, as well as a friend. This was a week where I've crossed state lines on three separate occasions, and will once more on Monday. I cannot make any writing consistency promises through October, but I will update this as I can. Also, not mine.

Hafid studied his friend‟s face and asked, "Is it done?"
"It is done."
"Grieve not, kind friend, and follow me."
~ Og Mandino

The cold hit Susan like falling into water, but Huan's warm breath blew over her neck and she didn't shiver. A moment later sunlight filled her vision, filtered through green leaves, dancing on silver tree trunks, and she smelled again the fresh scent of Arwen's home, the water of the river.

"Well, well, well, that was close! Of all the parts of my job, I hate this part the most. Doors are works of great craftsmen, and to do them in a hurry—are both of you all right?"

A snort sounded from behind Susan, once again warmth washing over her neck and shoulders, and then the pressure lifted and Huan's head appeared beside her. He nodded, his great shaggy head moving with slow deliberation. He looked towards Susan, that steady, brown-dog gaze unblinking.

"I am—well," Susan reassured both of them, taking a moment halfway through to make sure she meant it. Huan leaned into her shoulder. "Only that was quite evil." Shuddering, she leaned back into Huan. He felt solid, like all the evil in the world would not move him.

"Yes, it was. There's nasty things in this world. As there are in every world, and between worlds. But they'll all be conquered in the end."

"You know that?" Looking up, Susan studied the face with its glasses. "You've been there."

"Not yet. I will be there when my task is done, though I've no idea what I will do. Are there doors to be opened there? But I've read of it. You probably have too. At least the end of your world."

The end—Susan scowled. "The apocalypse, you mean, and all the theories about it? That isn't a clear story. People said the war—both wars—were the end of the world. Still the world goes on." She could hear an echo of the professor in the words, the world goes on. And her heart suddenly ached with that knowledge; it would be so much easier if it didn't.

"Humans—and other species—often see mythical ends of the world before it truly ends. When it ends, everyone will know it. That at least is clear in the telling of the story."

"Very little else is."

"That begs the question, doesn't it, of what we're meant to take away from the telling?"

A hint of every literary teacher Susan had ever had stood in that question. She twisted her fingers in her skirt, wondering how to answer. She'd grown used to being behind the Doorkeeper, but it was suddenly worse, because Huan was there this time as well. Would he think her stupid?

"Good wins," the Doorkeeper said, not waiting long for her answer. "Evil doesn't. It will be the story of every world, every last battle. There will be sacrifice, pain, and seeming triumph for evil—but good wins, and glory follows."

Glory. Red banners flapping in the wind, armour shining, Peter's crown on his head, Lucy's smile, Edmund's elegant script writing down justice for the oppressed—

Where was the glory now?

Bright music, a red skirt flaring as it swirled, red lipstick—

No, now, these past days, it was Nancy's sudden thanks, Beth giving way to weeping in a way that released the pain, Hester's unflinching truth—

At first glance these things were hard and mean, but a little glory remained in them. And the promise of the unclear tale was that all the glory in all things, hard or beautiful, would be revealed.

Blinking, Susan came back to the world she was in, breathing in the air that embodied life, the long, clean growing of a world both steady and strong. "Glorious," she echoed, and felt a tear run down her cheek.

"Worth living for," the Doorkeeper added quietly.

"It's easy to agree to that here," Susan admitted. "But I am not sure about going home."

"You'll deal with that when you get there."

Thanks.

"But first I must make a door. And you, Huan—you can wander here. Rest. We'll fetch you when we need you."

As he turned towards a tree, Susan interrupted with, "But what about Queen Arwen?"

"She's not born yet."

Sometimes the Doorkeeper's answers frustrated Susan, but this one hit her like a sock in the face. Peter telling us about Aslan's How, and how there were old carvings in it, that yet, as Edmund pointed out, were younger than us—

It is not an easy thing to be outside of time.

She watched the Doorkeeper absently as he wandered from tree to tree, touching a few of them and muttering. He finally found one he liked—and it had nothing to do with size, for he'd touched two trees of that size already—and put his hand into his jacket pocket.

Far into his pocket. He thrust his arm in up to his elbow, and still the fabric did not bulge outwards. When he pulled his hand out again, it held a small hammer, perhaps the length of Susan's palm, as well as a long slender spike. Both were made of a black metal that gleamed.

The Doorkeeper went back to the tree and took the handkerchief out of his breast pocket and began running it gently over the tree, starting at the roots and going as high as his head.

"What are you doing?" Susan asked. She walked forward and instantly missed the warmth of Huan at her side. But she heard movement. When she looked back, the dog had followed her, eyes fixed not on the Doorkeeper but on her. She smiled at him; smiled, partly to comfort him, and partly because—

There was love in his eyes, the love of a follower for a queen, a protector for the helpless, and of a dog for its human.

Love.

Visible love.

"What does it look like? I'm making a door."

Coming back to herself with a start, Susan turned back to her first companion. "But does it need to be clean, to be made?"

"Dirt invites evil."

Dryads' roots reaching into the earth sprung to Susan's mind, and though she didn't think she could win an argument with him, she opened her mouth to defend earth—

"Poorly said. Poorly said. Dirt out of place, on things not meant for dirt, well, things out of place in general, they invite evil, don't they? Only in a broken world are things in places where they are neither welcomed nor doing any good."

"Oh."

"In its place, of course, it does a world of good; dirt is a world, come to think of it. There. Now." He folded the handkerchief and put it back in his breast pocket. Shifting only the hammer to his right hand, he began gently tapping the tree.

"Funny, isn't it, what sound does. Some folks—like the Lion you know—don't need sound. Or touch. He can speak a word, and the worlds fold themselves to His word. He can create a door that stands on its own, with no roots in a particular world. I have no idea how He does it. But for mine, they must be rooted in the earth, and reaching towards the sky—to encompass all the world. Houses do that too; one with foundations under the dirt, and roofs reaching upwards. And then the noise I make, and the touch of a metal from another world, invites other worlds to peek in and see this one, as it were." He finished tapping out a square around the place he had cleaned, and exchanged the tools in his hands so the spike was in his right. "Then we shatter the barrier." He placed the spike in the middle of the square. He tapped it once.

Cracks split across the bark, filled with white light, running in all directions from the spike. They stopped at the square's barrier; and then the bark fell away. Blackness roiled within the square, taller than Susan's head, and she could feel the cold from where she stood.

"A permanent door," its maker said with satisfaction. "We shall be able to come fetch Huan whenever we need him."

A whine interrupted him; soft but high pitched, and Susan turned. Huan sat, then lowered his head to the ground on his front paws, looking sadly up at the two of them.

"I know, I know, you're a protector who likes to stay with the person you follow—and you were made to follow—but you're not welcome in her world. She will be back. And she will need you. But you need rest too. The goodbye you said before this one—you'll see them again as well. You'll fight beside at least one of them. But till then, recover your strength. Run in the forest; swim in the river; always check the door. Hear all the echoes of time, here, and remember what it is when all things were still good. They will be once again. Isn't that the lesson Aslan's Queen is supposed to be learning?"

"Can't I stay with him?" Susan asked. Though this wood did not have Arwen—and it seemed diminished, somehow, as if a power were missing from it, or had not yet been added to it—still, it rested her heart.

The Doorkeeper snorted. "Only if you can survive being a rootless time traveller. And you can't."

Looking back at the dog, Susan's heart ached; she knew what it was to be left behind. Kneeling by his head, she set a gentle hand on it. "I will be back, Aslan willing," she whispered to him. "And there is little danger in my world, except from myself."

He fixed a look on her—a warning look, of compassion but authority—and nodded.

"I will see you again," Susan promised once more. A promise that would hold her to living, till she could return.

"Then let us be about your own tasks, Aslan's Queen."

One deep breath, and Susan stood. "Where will the door take me?"

"To your own home. I will come by when your next task is assigned.

"Goodbye, then." Walking straight towards the door, refusing to look back—it took courage. But somehow having Huan there reminded her that courage existed, and hard things could be faced.

This time, the dark was not quite so cold.