A/N: This is for a very special lady, who took the time (after reading another piece of mine) to let me know that I was a sacrilegious and misled individual. Charli800, thank you again for your review. I do appreciate it. After seeing that you, too, were a fan of C.S. Lewis's fine work, I thought I'd jot a bit. This one's for you. Here's hoping you don't find it as irreverent as the last.
A man in a robe was sitting on a mountaintop, accompanied by a larger-than-average golden lion
A man in a robe was sitting on a mountaintop, accompanied by a larger-than-average golden lion. Odd choice of company, but it's best to give them the benefit of the doubt. They were watching the sunset in companionable silence, the man humming tunelessly to himself.
The lion yawned hugely, and settled into a more comfortable position.
"So I hear it gets better."
The lion's eyes swiveled to look at the man in the robe. "Oh?"
"Yes. You know, after it happens. You can sort of... come and go, or something? It was a bit difficult to understand."
"I see."
Silence once again fell between them, and the man stretched his arms before flopping back across the ground.
The lion's tail twitched. "But you're still afraid."
"Yes. Of course. Aren't you?"
The lion snorted. "Some leader I'd be if I wasn't. Only a fool does not fear. I would not have my people led by a fool."
The man closed his eyes. "Nor I."
The sun sank a little lower on the horizon.
The man shifted slightly. "So... they're really going to shave you?"
"I guess so. Better than being nailed to anything."
"Yes, well, I suppose that's true. Still, it seems a shame." After a moment, the man sat up and sighed. "I still can't believe he'd--"
"Best not to think about it. Let the world happen, or some such."
The man laughed. "Always so full of wisdom."
A gentle rumble of a chuckle rolled about in the lion's chest. "You're one to talk. You'd wax poetic over a stick of half-melted butter if the mood took you."
"Ah, yes, but you'd never catch people thinking I was some kind of divinity!"
The rumble became a deep, belting roar of a laugh.
The man looked perplexed. "What?"
When the lion finally stopped laughing, he snorted gently. "Nothing."
"No, really, what?"
"It's nothing, I assure you. Just a... rumor going about."
The man huffed. "You and your thrice-accursed mysteries."
"Said the pot to the kettle."
"Oh, lick your whiskers."
The lion made a great show of cleaning his face. When he had finished they lapsed into another long silence.
"Do you think it will hurt?" the lion asked, and then felt foolish.
The man answered anyway. "I... think so, yes. I hope not too much."
"I hope not too much," the lion echoed.
The last few rays of sun danced across the forested hills, the plains, and out to the sea. There, they pirouetted and twirled in a cascade of sparkling waves before they vanished into the water.
The man and the lion sat in the darkness for a moment, neither saying a word, both unmoving.
One of them spoke. "It's worth it, though."
One of them answered. "It has to be."
A moment later a young boy, big in the ears and long in the legs, scrambled up over the rocks calling a dog's name.
The mountaintop was vacant. The dog wasn't there.
Frowning, the boy loped unsteadily off in the other direction, calling out in the dark.
Searching for a friend.