The Trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?
-Ode to the West Wind, Percy Bysshe Shelley
Lucy sighs, shifting on her side to watch Peter as he sleeps soundly. The tip of his nose is pink with cold, but he doesn't seem to be bothered by sleeping on the ground in the snow. And Susan, for all her fussing earlier, is asleep as well. The Beavers have led them far away from where Edmund was last seen into a dry (but very cold) little hole in the ground, barely enough room for the three children and two beavers to lay down. From where she is laying, Lucy can see the moon again, peeking out from behind the clouds.
For how tired she was when they stopped, Lucy cannot sleep now. She cannot think of anything but Edmund, and his coat still hanging on the back of the chair in the Beavers' house and how very cold her hands are right now. She wonders where Edmund has gone and what he plans to do, and she wonders if she can do anything to help him. She sighs again and closes her eyes, but she can't fall asleep. It's too cold, and it's too cramped, the ground too hard, Peter and Mr. Beaver both snore loudly, and Edmund. Oh, Edmund.
Peter snorts in his sleep, turns over next to her. Even though her eyes are closed, she knows his arm is pressed against hers, and when he moves he takes his body heat with him. Lucy opens her eyes, drawing her coat closer to herself. The moon is out from behind the clouds completely now, casting silvery shadows into the cave, making Peter's blond hair look gray for a moment. A darker, more solid shadow moves across Peter's face near the entrance of the hole and Lucy's heart jumps. She's sure, for a moment, that it's the Witch. Or maybe, she thinks hopefully for a second, it's Edmund. He found them! He's alright!
It's neither, Lucy realizes, shaking. She catches a glimpse of a long, silvery tale as the shadow passes by the entrance of the hole again. Lucy sits up, her heart pounding, and steps over Peter carefully into the snow and the moonlight.
It's only snowing a little, big fat snowflakes like when she first came to Narnia. They sit peacefully in the fur of her coat, which drags in the snow, leaving a trail behind her with each step away from the cave she takes. The shadow passes in front of her again, dark and solid and real, and she looks up to see who is casting it, but she only sees the tale again.
She follows where she thinks she saw it and just on the other side of the bushes, sits a lion, beautiful, silver in the moonlight. His paws making prints in the snow. He is glittering in the snowy moonlight. He's so beautiful Lucy can barely breathe.
She doesn't consider for a moment that it might be a wild lion. She can only think of the great clouds of breath that billow from the lion's nose and mouth. He seems completely unbothered by the snow and the cold, his tail twitching. He looks alive and very warm and as part of the snowy landscape as the waterfall. Lucy steps towards him, and he fixes his eyes on her. Great big intelligent eyes. She's only a few feet from him with her hand outstretched when she thinks better of it. It's a lion, after all. He could eat her up, or anything, and then Peter and Susan wouldn't know what had happened to her. Lucy stops, but her hand stays outstretched in front of her.
The lion laughs softly and Lucy jumps. The last thing she was expecting from the lion was a laugh, a chuckle. Like Peter's shock when Mr. Beaver spoke for the first time. But there was something very animal-like about the laugh, Lucy thinks. He's not a tame lion, and she must be careful. "Hello," Lucy says cautiously, putting her hand down. She is very afraid, her fingers and toes are numb from more the cold, her stomach fluttering.
The lion laughs again. "Hello, child," the lion says. When he speaks, it's the same animal-human voice that he laughed in, and it warms the space between them. Lucy smiles, her fear forgotten, overcome with a feeling she can't recognize or name, only it feels like it did before, at the Beavers' house –like the first day of summer holidays. "Hello, Lucy," the lion says.
"Hello," Lucy says again. "Are you…?" her voice gets caught in her throat. She swallows. "Are you Aslan?"
The lion laughs again, shakes his mane, snow freeing itself from his silvery hair. "I am."
"Are you here to help my family?" Lucy asks, thinking about Edmund again. "My brother…he doesn't have his coat."
Aslan laughs again. "Edmund is safe, my daughter," he promises, and Lucy's heart slows down its frantic pace just a little. "I am here to help your family, just as you are here to help mine."
"The others…" Lucy says, remembering Peter and Susan, asleep in the cave. "The others will want to see you." She turns to go. Aslan is watching her closely, and says nothing. She turns back. "You mustn't go anywhere," Lucy says. "Peter will want to speak with you about…about Edmund. We have to get him back."
"You will," Aslan promises again, and Lucy relaxes even further. "But not yet. In time."
"Why not yet?" Lucy asks.
"Not yet," Aslan repeats. The moon goes behind another cloud, and Aslan disappears, as if he were never there.
Lucy blinks.
She is laying down, Peter and Susan pressed close on either side of her, in the hole in the ground. The very early morning sun is shining in Peter's face. She feels very cold and very stiff. Mr. Beaver's whiskers tickle her cheek as he whispers (so quietly) in her ear: "Wake up, but be still!" The sound of jingle bells, Mr. Beaver out of the cave, and the thought that he's been caught, Peter stiff behind her, and then, she remembers, Aslan, silver as the moonlight.
"Peter," Lucy says softly, but quite suddenly. Peter jumps and looks at Lucy with imperious blue eyes, urging her to be quiet. "Don't worry. I saw Aslan. He promised everything would be alright."
But then, they're out in the sunlight, Father Christmas very jolly and very solemn, with a big red coat and bright red cheeks, and the thought of Aslan is chased out of Lucy's mind.
A/N 1: The title is what-I-remember-from-AP Latin for "Lion of the Moon." I did my best I won't apologize for it. The epigraph is the final two lines in Percy Shelley's poem Ode to the West Wind, which I read in my Frankenstein class. You know that, but I would like to draw your attention to it again, because That Is Straight Up Narnia, to me, and at least, it's what I had in mind when I wrote this piece even though I read the poem after I wrote this.
A/N 2: Week 11 for 52 Short Stories in 52 Weeks is to write a story that takes place during a full moon. Even though this takes place during lww, I was thinking a lot about vdt, especially Eustace's undragoning during this. Also, I always want to write more about Aslan about the kids seeing him, how he interacts with them, how they feel about Aslan. It's important. Possibly the most important thing ever.