Hello! This is my first fanfiction (ack!), so, enjoy!
Pre-LWW, post-MN. Polly meets the Pevensie kids at the zoo one day. I haven't read MN in a while, so I wasn't sure how to write Polly. Ack.
Polly peers into the lion exhibit at the zoo. She usually never comes to the zoo, and certainly never comes on her own, not at her age. The zoo was not real. Every time she passes an exhibit, she winces as the animals gaze at her sadly. They don't know any different life, but they know something is missing from their lives.
This life in the zoo is simply a copy of the real thing in the wild. While the zoo is good in its own sense, the real thing is much, much better.
Polly wonders if lions in this world will ever end up in Aslan's country.
She has come because it has been so long since there had even been a murmur of news. She just wishes to see a lion again, one last time, though this lion is fat and lazy and stares at her as if saying Yes? What do you want? But she can't blame the lion, so she just stares back at it.
"A lion! A lion!" a little girl shrieks gleefully, rushing towards the lion exhibit on her stubby six year old legs.
Polly Plummer glances at the girl and smiles. The little girl is pressed up eagerly against the bars of the lion exhibit, as if she can't get enough of it if. Her blue eyes are filled with such joy and wonder that Polly thinks the girl would never grow up, not really.
An older, blonde boy hurries after the girl. "Lu!" he says desperately. "Don't run off like that again! You almost gave Mother a heart attack."
The girl shrugs brightly, if shrugging can be considered a bright movement.
Two raven haired children pad up behind the boy and the girl. The black haired girl, probably about ten, purses her lips together in a straight line, as if she doesn't approve of Lu's running off, either. The younger boy, probably around eight or so, clutches the bars of the exhibit and leans in, watching the lions.
"It's not doing much," he points out. "It just lays there. Aren't lions supposed to do something?"
No, Polly wants to answer. Lions aren't supposed to do things; they cannot be controlled like that. If they want to do something, they will. If they don't, they won't. At least, this refers to one lion in particular.
"But he is doing something!" the littlest cries. "See?"
All four squint into the exhibit, and Polly studies their eyes. The oldest is watching the lions with curious, somewhat hopeful blue eyes. The dark haired girl examines the creatures with doubt. The young boy is smirking as he studies the lions, as if pleased to find they continue to lie unmoving. And of course, the little girl's eyes radiate pure happiness.
"I don't see anything," the youngest boy finally says, not trying to hide the smug tone in his voice. "They're fat old things."
"They're watching us, Ed," says the oldest boy, trying to give his sister credit.
Ed, the little boy, jumps away from the exhibit. "They're boring."
"Oh, stop it, Edmund," the raven-haired girl scolds.
The little girl hardly seems bothered by her brother's statement. She smiled as she watches the lions flick their ears to swat flies or yawn.
Polly sighs. She wishes, not for the first time, that she had her own siblings, if not to play with, then to have. Because she wants something she can keep forever, something that won't slip through her fingers. You can't let go of a sibling, not really, no matter how hard you try.
Lu suddenly frowns. "They don't look very happy, Peter."
"Well, Lucy, they're behind bars," Peter, the oldest boy, says diplomatically. "I don't know of many happy creatures behind bars."
"They don't know the different, Peter," says the other girl. "They're animals; they don't really have feelings about that."
Polly wants to tell the girl that if animals could talk here they would tell her that, yes, indeed, they do have feelings, and would she kindly be more thoughtful towards them in the future, thank you very much. But instead she bites her lip and silently asks the lion, Can you talk? It only swats away a fly.
"Why are they behind bars?" Lucy asks, her eyes very sad.
"Because if they weren't, they would be dangerous. They might start attacking us and hurting us, and that would be awful." The oldest girl points to the fattest, ugliest lion. "See? He'd be very vicious."
The little boy, Edmund, bursts out laughing. "Funny, Susan. That lion couldn't catch a snail if he tried."
Susan scowls. "Then why do you think they're behind bars?"
Edmund sighs dramatically. "They're behind bars because…" He considers this for a moment, and Polly wonders what his eight year old brain could possibly be thinking about. "Because they're scared of being out of the bars. They're scared of being free. They're scared of the insecurity of life out of the bars, where things actually change and happen. That's why they're behind bars."
Polly is amazed at the boy's intelligence and thoughtfulness and seriousness in his answer. There is a moment of silence as all the children—and Polly—think this through, but then Edmund ruins the moment by snickering, "Of course, that lion'd be scared of his own shadow." And he's back to being a normal boy.
"Lions don't think like that," Susan says. "They're not like us."
No. They're better, Polly feels like saying.
"Come on," says Peter, "We should get back to Mother. She was buying us lunch when Lu ran off, so I bet she's worried sick."
All the children begin walking away, but little Lucy lingers for a moment, watching the lions. They watch her back, blank but unblinking. Polly can't see anything special in their gazes, but suddenly Lucy gasps, as if she's realized something, and turns and hurries back to her siblings.
"You know," Edmund is saying, "I think I'd like to go see the beaver exhibit next."
Polly has always liked beavers, too. But they don't compare to lions, even the lions in our world. She smiles. There's just something special about lions.