Thanks to all readviewers!
This is sort of in my weird little Last Guide AU (tl;dr Narnia has a psychopomp named Adethrel; read more in the Last Guide chapters of Amber), though I'm not binding myself to anything in it because I had some ideas I don't know if I'll keep. Also, uh...warning for non-graphic child death, because Jadis is cruel. In fact, this was intended to end with something about how it was the last such execution performed because it was so cruel that no one ever dared cross Jadis that badly again, but the story just did not cooperate with that plan. Seriously, what even is this thing, I do not know. It sure is a thing. One of the things of all time.
Prompt: Pick a point in time and tell a tale where the Stone Table makes an appearance.
The White Witch ruled Narnia with an iron fist.
When Narnians betrayed her, it was her preferred habit to petrify them in her castle, that she might look on them in triumph whenever she pleased. But sometimes, early in her reign...sometimes stone was not enough to suit her. Sometimes she had chosen a harsher penalty.
And so Adethrel—or some several parts of her—stood here at the Stone Table.
Treason against the Witch by Narnians was no true treason at all, of course. The runes engraved on the Table did not gleam in Adethrel's sight as the family of beavers were placed on it, just as they had not gleamed for the other handful of the Witch's Narnian executions. There was no change whatsoever. Unless...as the squealing sack of prison-born kits landed next to the rest, there was perhaps a slight tremble of the stone.
It was a table, an object. It had no emotions. But Adethrel could not shake the certainty that Someone here was weeping over what was about to unfold. The snow left cold patches of sorrow on her garments, and she understood.
I weep for all My children, Firstborn, whispered the Wind that tossed the snowflakes. Those who die, and those who slay. Bring these little ones to Me with all haste.
Adethrel swallowed hard. She had been called for little ones before, but never so many so young at once. Guide and Witness, and sometimes the Witnessing was the hardest. She planted her crook solidly in the frozen ground, and leaned on it as her knees threatened to buckle.
"Even now," the Witch announced, "you may yet be spared. Renounce your loyalty to the Lion; pledge your fealty to me, and you shall die years hence in prison rather than here and now."
There was no sound except the squealing kits in the sack.
The Witch shrugged. "Let it not be said that I have never offered mercy. Very well, then. So be it." She pointed her golden wand at the Table. Light flashed and ice crackled as the sack froze solid.
The squealing stopped.
There was a muffled sob from one of the beavers. "Courage," whispered another, though her voice cracked. "We'll see them soon. The Lion has given and the Lion has taken away."
"Praise to him in sun and storm," came the response in five broken voices. Adethrel's mouth moved soundlessly with them—she could not speak. A gust of wind whipped fiercely across the hill, driving snow into the air. The Witch laid down her wand and picked up her knife.
Adethrel split, if it could be called splitting.
She was a single being with many images, and each victim here, save the smallest ones, would have their own individual Guides. The six called to the remaining beavers stepped toward the Table, waiting. The seventh threw herself forward with a gasp, not trusting her feet, so that she landed half-slumped over the stone, next to the silent sack.
Cloth and cold and ice made no difference to the Guide—she existed on a different plane, and her hands reached straight through to find the horribly small hilts. She drew them by feel alone, for her sight was clouded by tears and snow. One by one she drew them, five tiny blades scarcely the length of her finger. One by one the infant shades appeared, and she gathered them safely in her skirt. Carefully rising to her feet, she gripped the blades in her right hand.
"Here are the blades you have forged," she whispered to the kits. They were too young to speak or understand, but there was form to be observed. Her right arm swung, and a slash of light opened in the air. "And here is the path that is chosen."
The hand that held the blades took up the other side of the skirt, and Adethrel fled through the light.
In a usual Guiding, the passage between death and judgement was filled with scenes from the life of the deceased, a final opportunity for reflection and perhaps even repentance. Here, there was nothing but a single blurry image of a smiling beaver, huge because the eyes that had seen it were so small. And the passage was hardly more than a score of paces long, the measure of a life of only two days.
Adethrel and her precious cargo were through it in seconds. The light at the other end led to a forested mountaintop, dotted with flowers and bathed in warm green sunlight. She had been here before, though not often, and her feet knew the path along the stream.
He was there, as He always was, and she fell to her knees beside Him. She took the kits from her skirt one by one and slipped them into the little shallow pool of the stream, where the water was gentle. They sank beneath its surface.
Adethrel turned to the Lion.
"Firstborn," He said, as He had said to her before in this place, and raised His paw above the pool. "You bear the blades they forged in life. All innocents are Mine. I draw them to My heart, and not one shall be lost. For their sake, I command you to act in their stead."
"I hear and obey," she replied after a moment's hesitation—for doing this never grew easier—and drove the tiny blades into the paw. Five small drops of blood flowed into a single large one, and that one fell into the pool.
Red swirled in the gentle water, spreading over the kits. Their eyes opened. Their noses twitched. They rose to the surface and began to paddle about the pool, squeaking in confusion at this strange clear wet thing that somehow held them up.
The Lion took a few steps back. He blew a long, soft Breath over the kits, and lay all the way down so that His chin touched the ground. Squeaks of confusion turned to sounds of curiosity, and then squeals of joy as the kits waddled out of the pool and discovered that the giant golden Being was even better than the clear thing.
Adethrel was dimly aware that the Lion was everywhere and she was elsewhere, that the six judgements were concluding and her images fading back into herself. But as she felt the other beavers approach this place in spacetime, she could not bring herself to move, to depart as she usually would. Even when the Lion turned, tiny beavers chittering excitedly and clinging to His mane and back, to greet those who came running with glad cries, she could not tear herself away from the joy and love of union and reunion.
Please, she begged silently. She did not know how to put into words what she felt, what she wanted. But she knew He would understand. Please.
Daughter, came the voice she so rarely heard, the one that seemed to come from the earth and sky and everything in between all at once. You also are Mine, for all eternity. Rest. Be restored.
Adethrel did not know if she grew smaller or the Lion grew larger. But as she leaned toward Him, she was caught up in waves of tossing gold. Warmth and light and love wrapped her safely round, and all was well.