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“Ow,” cried Lucy, rubbing at her stinging behind. “I am sorry, Aslan, I didn’t mean to be such a ninny about it. Peter is High King and I do need to mind him.”
“His concern for you will keep you alive,” Aslan said, ducking his head to meet her contrite gaze. “A war with the Frost Giants is no place for a Daughter of Eve to mix in, if she is not needed.”
Lucy’s bottom lip trembled. “I’m not wanted,” she murmured mournfully, dashing tears from her eyes.
“Is that what he said?” demanded Aslan, shaking out his ruff as if in disbelief.
“No,” admitted Lucy, looking shamefaced.
“Your brother wears a heavy crown, Queen Lucy,” said Aslan pointedly. “He bears the burden of final authority, and he bears it well. As High King, if he commands you to remain in the surgery tents, helping to heal the wounded, then you are best placed there, and sneaking off to join the battle is an unacceptable betrayal of his care and disrespectful to his understanding of the situation at hand.”
“I’m sorry,” whispered Lucy.
“Should you wish to try me,” said Aslan firmly, “I shall meet you again, further down this path, and offer you more than a single reason to remain.”
“No,” gasped Lucy, hands flying to her behind. “No, Aslan, no, truly, I am sorry, and I will return. Peter knows best- he’s been days planning this sortie with all the generals and things! I was just- I was such a ninny, thinking he’d left me behind because I’m just a child.”
“You are never just a child,” Aslan said, lowering his head to butt it against her chest. “You are Queen Lucy the Valiant, Daughter of Eve, Peter Pevensie’s younger sister.”
“Yes,” sighed Lucy, burying her hands in her friend’s fur and melting against him, taking what comfort he offered her, “yes, I quite forgot, didn’t I, sir? I won’t forget again, Aslan, truly. I am sorry!”
Aslan’s low rumble filled the dark clearing, the predawn light and singing chorus of birds both brightening and becoming more cheerful by the heartbeat.
“I must go,” Aslan said regretfully.
“Yes, of course,” said Lucy, withdrawing immediately. “I am sorry, Aslan!”
“Dry your eyes on my mane,” ordered Aslan gently.
Lucy took a handful of his long locks and wiped all visible signs of her distress on the author of said distress.
“Be very well,” said Aslan- another order, even more gentle than the first. “I will return to you.”
“Yes,” agreed Lucy, nodding eagerly. “I will remember, Aslan, I promise you!”
“Go now,” said Aslan. “Before Susan wakes with rising of the sun, and finds you missing.”
“Yes,” repeated Lucy, turning immediately to obey. “I am sorry,” she called over her shoulder, even as her determined footsteps took her quickly back to the tents, the peaks of which were barely visible in the low light, despite the sparkle everywhere of the North’s ever-present snow.
Aslan chuckled to himself, before turning, his eyes narrowing, and bounding off across the rocky hillside.
He had another Pevensie to set straight, before he joined the High King at the battlefront.
“Ooh,” snapped Edmund several minutes later, as Aslan crested a rocky outcropping without so much as disturbing a single rock to fall and alert the young teenager. “I know it’s ‘round here somewhere,” continued the teen in an angry mutter under his breath.
Aslan stalked his prey, each footfall as silent as the first, leaving no trace except the heavy sunken outline of his paws in the fallen snow.
“Tell me off for rearguard,” spat Edmund, clearly wound up and ill-tempered. “I’ll show him.”
And that was enough of that, Aslan decided, pouncing on the teen.
“Aslan!” shouted Edmund, shock and fear in his voice, as he was knocked to the ground.
Aslan batted at the human’s hind end exactly as he might have swatted an unruly cub, if he’d ever had one.
“Aslan!” yelped Edmund, followed by, “AS-lan!” in a wail.
Unlike Lucy, who needed only a reminder to behave, Edmund often needed convincing.
Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve had such strange differences between them, and never were two individuals more unlike each other than Edmund and Lucy.
…despite that they often took the exact same action, and often needed correcting in the exact same moment.
“Aslan, wait,” bellowed Edmund, attempting to stand.
Aslan growled and buffeted him back to the ground.
The boy was wearing armor, after all, and could well withstand the blows.
“Aslan!” shrieked Edmund.
“King Edmund,” thundered Aslan, willing for the entire world to hear the roar and know he dealt with the wayward youth. “Why do I find you here, instead of at your post?!”
“Assssslaaaaan,” drawled the young man, reduced to a hiccuping, gasping wretch. “Please- I- have mercy, I-”
“Show you mercy?” asked Aslan, rearing back. “Explain yourself, Son of Adam!”
“Aslan,” breathed the youth, looking up at him in shock from his sprawl upon the ground. “I- I- I-”
“Go on,” prompted Aslan evenly. “More words in your defense, King Edmund the Just.”
The emphasis on the last two words was not lost on the boy, as he winced and blew out a breath.
“I- Peter put me on rearguard,” spat Edmund.
“Where you must be,” Aslan informed the youth, ducking his head to glare. “For his plans to succeed.”
“I don’t want to be on rearguard!” shouted the youth, waving his hands in the air. “I’m good enough- the swordsmaster says I’m nearly his equal! I can be in the forward action, I can, Aslan!”
“You can certainly fight,” said Aslan firmly. “Did the High King inform you that his decision was based on lack of skill, King Edmund, Son of Adam?”
“Uh, well, no,” admitted Edmund, all the flushed anger in his face draining. “N-no, Aslan, he said- he said-”
“Go on,” prompted Aslan again. “More words in your defense, King Edmund the Just.”
Edmund’s mouth opened and closed for several long minutes.
The thing Aslan loved most about this particular Son of Adam was the way his mind worked.
He’d become something of an expert in sorting through the particulars of a situation and applying the checks and balances of honor and duty and the greater good, and finding himself-
Edmund groaned, falling limply to the ground. “I’ve done it again,” he half-howled in clear misery.
“Yes,” agreed Aslan.
“I’ve cocked it all up again,” Edmund cried, his hands turning into fist and his fists hitting the ground beneath him with the clang of armor against rock.
“You have not affected today’s outcome,” Aslan corrected him solemnly. “Yet.”
“Yet, yet, yet,” spat Edmund, clutching at his visor, now, and sitting up. “Oh, Aslan, I’ve been such a selfish fool! I’ve been so certain Peter meant to send me from the battle, to place me in the rearguard because he felt I wasn’t capable-”
“You have done your king a grave disservice,” agreed Aslan, nodding his great head and sitting, now that the boy had shown himself willing to live up to his name.
“I have, that’s the worst part!” cried Edmund, springing to his feet, and wincing at the no-doubt blooming bruises Aslan’s paws had left behind. “I have done him a disservice, he’s put me in the rearguard to lead the rearguard, hasn’t he? He trusts me with the leadership of the- oh, Aslan, I’ve done it again, with my blasted short temper and pride!”
“You have not yet done anything,” pointed out Aslan, lifting his head to consider the lightening of the sky, “that cannot be corrected with a change of direction and a fast pace.”
“Yes, of course,” said Edmund gratefully, turning in the direction he must go, for today’s events to unfold exactly as they ought. “I’m such a fool.”
Whether Aslan agreed or did not agree, he merely stood and paced to the king’s side.
Edmund put out a hand immediately, resting it on Aslan’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry to bring you out here, at this time, away from Peter,” he apologized.
“You are no less deserving of my time and attention,” Aslan assured him.
“But at this time, he could use you,” Edmund said firmly, his chin rising. “He draws such support from knowing you are near and you have faith in him.”
Aslan allowed this with a duck of his head.
The Sons of Adam ever needed such support.
“I will make my way to my post, sir,” said Edmund forcefully. “I thank you for- the reminder. The warning. And- for leaving me hale enough that I will not stiffen or lose the use of any of my limbs.”
The last was said with a wry grin.
No, Aslan had judged each blow carefully. “May they be the worst of your injuries today, King Edmund,” returned Aslan gravely.
Edmund’s hands clenched, as did his jaw. He nodded, once, eyes narrowed in the direction he needed to go.
“My apologies, again,” he said, stiff and formal. “My path lies this way, and yours- that. Be you well, Aslan, and pray allow me to tell my brother I was a fool.”
“He will want to hear it,” Aslan assured the youth. “He will not punish you for it.”
Edmund blew out an anxious breath before giving it up. “No, he won’t,” he said confidently. “For I shall find my way to my post, immediately.”
“Very well,” agreed Aslan, launching himself onto the large boulder that blocked his path. “Until soon, Son of Adam.”
“Until soon,” called Edmund, his feet carrying him very quickly in exactly the direction he should have gone when he awoke.
He would be in time, Aslan judged.
And so would Aslan.
He was rather known, he felt, for his impeccable sense of timing.