3.

Edmund was safe. He had been rescued. Yet he didn't feel safe at all. Especially when he was taken to the greatest lion he had seen in his life. Not that he had many experiences around lions, but...in the zoo.

He knew these... creatures that had saved him were Narnians, they were nothing but kind to them. But what if he was wrong? What if they wanted to feed him to this lion?

"Fear not, for I shall not harm you" After everything he had seen in Narnia Edmund wasn't surprised about the lion talking to him.

"You are Aslan" Edmund said.

"Please, leave us alone." The lion said to his soldiers.

Aslan.

He was in front of Aslan. Alone with Aslan. The true king of Narnia. Edmund felt it in his heart. Just by hearing the lion's voice he could tell it was the wise and experienced voice of true and selfless power.

"I'm so sorry." Edmund said falling to his knees. "I'm so so so sorry" The tears had started falling down his cheeks and he couldn't stop them.

"I do not want to hear your apologies, son of Adam. That is not why I asked my people to leave us alone."

"Are you going to punish me?" Edmund was sobbing. How he hated to cry! He just hoped that no one was around to see him in that state.

"I shall not punish you". The lion's soothing voice made him to rub his cheeks and eyes, cleaning the traces of tears. "Now, stand up." Edmund did and he got surprised when one of the lion's front paws raised and rested on his right shoulder "I want you, Edmund, to confess what you have done and why did you do it."

It was not a question, Edmund noticed, it wasn't even a command. He knew that if he didn't want to, it would be okay not to answer. But he knew that wouldn't be the correct way to redemption. What he had done was wrong. His motives were worse.

And so, he said it all. How he felt, thought, acted, said, saw. All of it.

When he finished, his tears had already dried and there were no more to shed.

Both, lion and kid, had been walking for hours, but unlike when he was with the witch, Edmund appreciated every second that felt longer spent with Aslan.

"I can forgive you, Edmund, but yours and my family's trust you have to earn, the internal pain I cannot take away, the weight of the future consequences your actions may left you will carry. To solve all of that on your own, that will be your penance."

Edmund nodded in silence. He knew he deserved it and he would do whatever it took to overcome whatever he had to face.

"But... what about Enola?" He asked Aslan "And Tumnus?"

Aslan turned to him and looked at him in the eye.

"That will be your penance" Aslan repeated.

Edmund's eyes flooded with tears and he nodded in pain.

"Come here, son." the lion leaned down to him and Edmund couldn't avoid the need of spreading his arms around the lion's head as he cried his eyes out. "Through the power that rests on me as Narnia's ruler, I give you my pardon and absolve you from your actions"

Edmund felt warm filling up his chest as he rested his face in the lion's soft as the breeze mane. Yet his penance, like Aslan had called it, was something he couldn't stop feeling.

"But they need us" Susan looked at her younger sister with pride "all four of us"

"Lucy, it's too dangerous" Susan then looked at Peter with annoyance. Couldn't they all have a tranquil breakfast for once? "You almost drowned! Edmund was almost killed!"

Susan hated to admit it, but Peter war right. Narnia was no safe place at those times. Peter and she could have stayed but the journey back to the lamp-post was days away and none of the oldest siblings would be calm if the other wasn't accompanying their youngest siblings back home.

"Which is why we have to stay..." Edmund said lowering his head "I've seen what the White Witch can do..." There it was again that mysterious tone Ed had whenever he mentioned his time with the witch. It killed Susan not knowing about it." and I've helped her do it. We can't live these people behind to suffer for it."

God, his brother looked miserable, and the four kids in the table knew the reason.

Nothing of her had been mentioned since Edmund's return. Aslan had asked them specifically not to ask him about his journey. Yet, the absence of the little girl was felt whenever the fourth of them were together. Susan had talked to Peter about it and she knew that for him it wasn't like Peter would just not mention it ever again. It was more like Peter wanted to make justice in her name. That was his personal motivation to stay and fight for Narnia. He felt responsible of what had been of the girl. Susan knew that Aslan had told Peter what had happened with the girl, he was the only one besides Edmund who knew.

She wished she knew what had happened. Was the girl even alive? Could she be rescued? It didn't matter for Susan if the girl was in the most secured cell of the witch's castle, Susan would make a rescue party if it was necessary...but she was in the shadows. She knew nothing. But with a glance at Edmund she could only think the worse.

Lucy took Edmund's hand.

"I suppose that's it then" Susan said and stood up from the table.

"Where are you going?" Peter called her as she grabbed her weapons.

"To get in some practice."

Lucy had never seen the White Witch before. Lucy got scared when she saw did. Her skin gleamed white like ice, her lips red like blood, eyes so black like the night. Lucy was scared, even more when the woman commanded her brother's blood.

Fortunately, Aslan could never lose. Could he? He had led the witch away. Still her face was so unnerving, and Aslan's so defeated after they both walked out of the tent. Lucy was worried.

At night, Lucy realized she'd experienced a lot of emotions in one day: joy, sadness, terror, worry, that she couldn't sleep. It allowed her to notice when Aslan walked into the woods alone, though. Lucy had dragged Susan behind her. Of course, Aslan noticed their presence and accepted their company...for a while.

"Thank you, Susan. Thank you, Lucy" he had said to them "and farewell".

But they wouldn't leave so easily. They hide behind the bushes, the trees protecting them from the view.

The witch's army and the witch herself were reunited in Aslan's table. Their lion was being abused by the horrible dark creatures.

"Why isn't he fighting back." Lucy asked.

Susan turned around, she couldn't see anymore. Lucy, turned her gaze at the witch and remembered how she had looked in the daylight. What scared Lucy the most of the view was how beautiful the woman looked, dressed in black. It made it look all so much dangerous for their friend laying on the table. When the witch started speaking up for all their followers to listen, Lucy knew that the image would haunt her forever. The witch looked like a demon, with her whiteish skin and black, black eyes.

Lucy couldn't look at her anymore, her eyes going to Aslan. In his not only she saw his own pain, but En's, Tumnus', and every single Narnian that had fallen under the witch's clutches,

"...DIE!" She heard hugged at Susan and began to cry "THE GREAT CAT IS DEAD!"

Susan took slow steps after jumping down Aslan's back.

"He must have known what he was doing" Susan had said to Lucy earlier, that day, as the both of them were crying over Aslan's body.

He knew what he was doing, Susan confirmed when he came back to life. He was innocent, and the witch wanted power, never justice. Of course, he couldn't die by a selfless and pure action.

They had to help the troops who were already in the middle of the war.

Lucy and Susan herself didn't really know where they were heading as they sat on Aslan's back, but they blindly trusted him. Susan wasn't really surprised when she saw the witch's castle in the horizon, but once in the courtyard she felt the necessity to be careful in her steps. Who knew what could jump at them in the devil's house?

Soon, she found herself surrounded, but not by breathing people, they were all statues. The atmosphere was so sad and tense. All the Narnians who had rebelled up-front against the queen were there, and there was nothing they could do...

Lucy had started running when she saw the statues, stopping at each faun she found and Susan followed her. Finally, they came to a stop.

Susan saw it too, but it wasn't the faun what had really captured her attention in the statue. Lucy noticed it too and soon started crying. Susan put an arm around her. She thought that if it wasn't for the little body lying lifeless-like on the left arm of the faun she, Susan, wouldn't have started to crying so helplessly.

Now she knew what had happened to Enola. And her heart was just shattered into pieces. Such a young and happy girl, ending like this... She cursed the day she had wished to know what had happened to the little one.

Susan and Lucy's cries called the attention of Aslan.

He didn't say a word. The lion simply walked to the statue and blew at it.

Susan opened her mouth astonished, when the motionless hairs of both the faun and the young girl in the statue moved with the wind.

A cracking sound was heard and slowly Tumnus' face started to gain color. Life.

Tumnus groaned as his body started to unfreeze, just like the limp body of Enola sustained by his arm. He gasped and before he could fall to the ground with the girl, both Lucy and Susan took them in arms, respectively.

Susan on the floor, with young Enola resting baby-like on her lap, took a lock of hair out of the girl's face.

Susan's lower lip quivered when she heard Lucy and Tumnus. He was alright. Why wasn't Enola alright?

"L-Lucy!" She exclaimed "Aslan!"

Susan put a hand on En's cheek. She was frozen. Susan started to tremble when she looked at the girl's skirt dirty. Slowly, she raised it and saw her leg.

"Oh, God!" Susan cried "Lucy, your cordial!"

"I'm afraid that will only wake her up." Aslan's voice said "Ease the pain for a while. She's okay Susan. Calm down."

Susan's nod looked more like a shake.

"Lucy!" She repeated.

The girl in question was in a millisecond next to her dropping a pair of drops on En's lips.

Enola's cheeks slowly started to fill with blood. The paleness disappeared and just like waking up from a dream her eyelashes started to flutter.

"Why is everyone looking at me?" Enola asked with her eyes wide-open.

Then and only then, Susan started to laugh in joy.

So, I've heard that C.S. Lewis was religious and that basically Narnia is based in christianism, so, in Edmund's scene with Aslan I tried to put something of it in it.