Disclaimer: As always, not mine.

By popular demand, the "Sentries" stories. I am bound and determined to have this arc done by the end of March. This is chapter one of six. Take heart! I have not forgotten you. :) Also, I am completely at a loss as to what genre this is. Tragedy? Friendship? Horror? Drama? Ideas? The only real happy chapter will be the last one...


"Fair Consorts, let us now alight from our horses and follow this beast into the thicket," Peter said happily, glaring off into the woods where the stag had disappeared. "For in all my days I never hunted nobler quarry."

"Since when do you hunt at all, dear Brother, save the trolls of the north?" Edmund asked. His adoption of the courtly tongue had not slackened his sarcasm over the years.

"Nonsense, dearest Edmund," Lucy cried with a laugh. "Just last winter, our noble High King led a very successful hunt."

"I remember no such notable event as our Peter leaving the castle to do anything but practice his sword play," Susan said half-seriously, eyes crinkling in mirth. "What did he catch?"

"The largest head cold I have seen in years!" Lucy finished.

The Horses and Edmund burst out laughing. The High King's ears turned red, but he held his head high as he dismounted. The others followed him. Their merciless teasing was as good as saying "even so let us do," and they all knew it. They disappeared into the thickest part of wood and there was nothing their mounts could do now but wait.

And wait.

And wait.

After an hour had gone by, they began shifting uneasily from hoof to hoof. "They should not have been gone this long," said Peter's mare.

"Now, Rosalind," Philip countered, barely able to keep the worry from his own voice. "Hunts usually take a lot of time.

"Yes, but not this much."

"If it did, they would have come back and told us so," Alkippe added with an indignant toss of her head. "I know Queen Lucy and she'd come back and tell me."

"The yearling is right, Philip," Marshall said. It was clear Susan's often joked about "only one true beau" was just as worried for his friend and monarch as the others were for theirs. "Much as I hate to admit it."

"Don't worry," Alkippe said bitterly. "I won't let it go to my head. And I'm not a yearling, thank you very much."

"This isn't getting us anywhere," Philip butted in, swatting them both with his tail. I'm going to have to keep an eye on them, he thought. Both were unused to really working with their Majesties and both were bitter rivals besides, what with Marshall's demand for respect and Alkippe's distinctly third generation attitude and hatred of authority. "Now, I agree that they would have told us if they were going to be gone longer than a few minutes. That doesn't mean there's danger."

"Yes, perhaps they just lost track of time," Marshall said.

Another fifteen minutes passed. "I have a very bad feeling about this," Rosalind said, sounding as close to tears as a horse can get, talking or no.

"They should have been back by now," Alkippe insisted.

"We should go after them." Marshall this time, and Alkippe nodded, ears back, eyes wide.

"We were told to stay here," Rosalind murmured half-heartedly.

"Something's not right, though, Ros. Wouldn't Peter have sent some kind of message back to us? Susan wouldn't leave without word like that."

"Marshall, that's enough. No one can think with you stirring up panic."

"We're not panicking, Philip. We need to go after them."

"Something's not right," Philip said suddenly, head shooting back and nostrils flaring. "Something isn't right with the wind."

The others stopped as the elder horse danced about. "I don't feel or smell anything," Rosalind said.

"I've smelled it before," Philip told her. "It's not a bad smell."

"LION!" Marshall screamed, rearing and flailing his hooves in the air at the sight of wild golden fur darting through the trees.

The other three went on guard, backing up and tensing, preparing for battle. The golden mass moved slowly closer, then chuckled and moved into the clearing. "Be still, my children," the lion said with a voice like sweet dew in the morning. "I am not here to harm you."

"A-aslan?" Philip asked, taking a hesitant step toward the great Lion.

"Yes, dear Horse," He answered.

"Aslan? Truly?" Alkippe whispered, looking more cowed than she ever had in her entire life.

"Oh, Aslan, thank goodness you're here!" Rosalind said. Peter had made her his Horse due to her good sense, after all, so naturally she was the one to get straight to business. "Their Majesties have gone into the thicket and they've been so very long and we don't know what to do. Can you help us, please?"

Aslan smiled sadly at her. "I cannot help you, dear one, for I have come bearing news to you. They are gone."

Marshall broke out into a cold sweat and Philip froze. "Gone?" he said, feeling as if his breath had been stolen. "What do you mean, gone?"

"They have left this realm. They have returned to their own worlds, where they were meant to spend their lives in the first place."

"Spare Oom?" Marshall asked, still shivering violently for fear of his Queen. "I thought that was a myth."

"No myth, but great truth," Aslan said. "You will not see them again. It would be best if you turned back to the castle. The others have already been told."

"But…" Rosalind was heartbroken.

"They can't be gone," Alkippe moaned. "They were just with us an hour ago. We have to see them again. They've only gone after the stag, Aslan, please—" Her voice broke into an open sob and she ducked her head, ashamed.

"Be strong, dear ones. I promise you shall see them again, one day, in My Country. Until then, you must be patient, and be strong."

"We didn't even get to say goodbye," Philip whispered brokenly, staring into the woods.

"Go home," the Lion insisted, nuzzling their shoulders with his enormous head. "Be watchful."

"I'm…staying…here," a small voice said into the silence.

The other horses froze and stared. Rosalind? Sweet, gentle Rosalind, show any sign of contrariness whatsoever? "I was told…to stay here," she continued firmly, not meeting Aslan's eyes. "It wasn't spoken, it was an understood order. It counts. I was told to remain here until High King Peter comes out of the woods. And until he does—" She laid down in the grass, head tall and proud, to prove her point. "—here is right where I shall stay."

"Then I'm afraid, my child, you will be waiting for a very long time," Aslan said gently. "An eternity."

"Then I shall wait an eternity."

There was a soft, almost imperceptible rustling sound and the others turned to find Alkippe laying in the grass as well. "You will not wait alone," she said firmly. "They'll return, someday, and we shall be here when they do."

Marshall and Philip moved almost as one, lying down beside each other and in between the mares. Peter's Horse, then Susan's , Edmund's, and Lucy's, arranging themselves as unconsciously as their riders always had. They did not say a word, but the obstinacy was clearly written in their eyes.

Aslan chuckled again and shook His head. "You four ought to have been born mules. Is this how you really feel?"

"Yes," Alkippe answered for all of them, and Rosalind raised her eyes to the Lion's.

"Then you shall wait in peace." He blew his warm breath on them and left.

And some say that, because of that breath, as each passed in life, their bodies passed into the hands of stone and ice. Some say they can still be found, waiting at the edge of the wood for four Monarchs who would not return for thirteen hundred years and never find them anyway. They will awaken from their silent vigils when those Monarchs once again lay their hands on stone bridles and call their names into the Hunt.