Bulletin 2.1.26

“Son of Adam,” said Aslan. “Are you ready to undo the wrong that you have done to my sweet country of Narnia on the very day of its birth? ”

“Well, I don’t see what I can do,” said Digory. “You see, the Queen ran away and—”

“I asked, are you ready,” said the Lion.

“Yes,” said Digory. He had had for a second some wild idea of saying “I’ll try to help you if you’ll promise to help about my Mother, ” but he realised in time that the Lion was not at all the sort of person one could try to make bargains with. But when he had said “Yes,” he thought of his Mother, and he thought of the great hopes he had had, and how they were all dying away, and a lump came in his throat and tears in his eyes, and he blurted out:

“But please, please —won’t you —can’t you give me something that will cure
Mother?” Up till then he had been looking at the Lion’s great front feet and the huge claws on them; now, in his despair, he looked up at its face. What he saw surprised him as much as anything in his whole life. For the tawny face was bent down near his own and (wonder of wonders) great shining tears stood in the Lion’s eyes. They were such big, bright tears compared with Digory’s own that for a moment he felt as if the Lion must really be sorrier about his Mother than he was himself.

“My son, my son, ” said Aslan. “I know. Grief is great. Only you and I in this land know that yet. Let us be good to one another.”

– C. S. Lewis, The Magician’s Nephew(1955; emph added)