Happenings of Narnia

Chapter Eight: A New Leg of the Journey

Tennessee

Peter ripped a loaf of bread in half and turned half over to Lisa who took it in her paws and sat down next to him at the lunch table. The cub had been incredibly shifty around the King and Queen for the first, maybe twenty minutes of knowing them, then she had been completely trusting while bouncing off the walls asking questions about Cair Paravel.

And she had taken a turn that neither Peter nor Susan had expected, after all Susan had been the one to calm and comfort her, but the cheetah had actually taken more of a liking to Peter. Lisa followed him around, slept under his hammock even after she had been offered her own, and spent every second possible with him.

Susan had joked about this and told Peter that he had a new girlfriend, but Peter would only laugh at this and go on with his duties around the ship with Lisa following. It wasn't as large of a reaction as Susan thought it would have been, which meant that they had bonded with the cub as much as it had bonded with him. She seemed to bring out a more fatherly side of him, Susan wasn't sure what to think of this, but she was definitely intrigued by it. Sometimes she even felt that it would be very hard to give Lisa up to her mother if Peter continued spending all this time with her.

Lisa sort of had a wild personality that made her a perfect warrior when she grew up, maybe Peter liked her for this reason, but Susan was sure that her brother would make her just who she was meant to be if she stayed. Susan wanted Peter to be happy, but she knew that this wouldn't be the best thing for Lisa, unless of course she chose to come with them.

"Any milk?" Lisa asked looking at Peter with large brown eyes and taking a bite from her bread.

"No, but we have water," he replied pouring her a glass and setting it in front of her.

Lisa looked at it with slight disappointment and sunk her sharp teeth into bread.

"… So how long have you been away from your family?" Peter asked finding there was nothing else to say.

The cub shrugged and continued to eat her half of bread, "A few weeks."

"Why did that dwarf take you?" he asked swallowing his won piece of bread and wiping the crumbs from his face, thinking for a moment about what on Earth would prompt a dwarf to kidnap a baby cheetah.

Lisa shrugged again, "Don't know, Mum's waiting for me though."

Peter nodded and looked into his wine and took a sip, not his favorite drink, but he was almost expected to be drinking it, and so he did. Susan didn't like it though, she preferred water and lighter drinks. Just as he thought this Susan walked up behind them and sat down on the other side of Lisa.

"Is it good?" she asked looking at Lisa who was tearing a piece of the bread off with her razor sharp teeth.

She nodded and took a sip of her water and putting a fish down on the table, "Got that for you," she smiled.

Lisa smiled, baring two growing fangs and pulling the fish towards her.

"Where'd you get the fish?" Peter asked looking jealous that his pitiful loaf of bread was nothing to compete with a headless fish freshly pulled from the ocean.

"Went fishing, didn't you notice we were stopped for about ten minutes? We had seaweed stuck in the rudder, I think. I went fishing."

"Nice catch," he sighed putting his head in his hand, then sat back up, "Wait… if we got seaweed stuck in the rudder that must mean we're close to shore."

She nodded, "Should be about a half hour."

Peter stood up, "Good, I'll go get ready."

Lisa looked up from her fish, "Wur ou oin?" she asked nonsensically.

"Mouthful," Peter said, a gentle reminder.

Lisa swallowed and asked again, only this time it made more sense, "Where're you going?"

Peter gave a broken smile when realizing he would have to give up the cub in the next half hour, "I'm going to get ready," he said walking below deck.

"Ready for what?"

"To get my brother and sister back, and to bring you home."

"I'm going home?!" she asked with a toothy grin spreading across her face.

Peter nodded while looking at his feet and walked down the stairs.

A look of worry suddenly came over the young cheetah's face as she looked back up at Susan, "Does this mean I'll never see you guys again?"

Susan knew she'd be lying if she said anything else but yes, but she did anyway, "No, of course we'll see each other again…"

"Will Peter visit?"

"Y-yes… he likes you, you know he'll come to see you," she said trying to hide the lying tone.

Lisa seemed content with this answer so went on eating her fish, until about twenty minutes later when Peter reemerged with his shield on his back and his sword at his hip, wearing some protective armor underneath.

Just then was when the ship lowered its anchor and Susan took her bow from her back to indicate that she was ready to get her siblings back.

Lisa finished the last bit of her of fish leaving only bones and jumped down so she looked poised to run, like they had seen too many times in the war against the White Witch. This made a smile crease Peter's mouth, he was happy to see Lisa looked ready to go into battle with them even at her young age.

"Ready?" he grinned.

"Yesss," she growled in a determined tone.

"Good," he said walking down the rope ladder into the small life boat, the girls followed, then he began rowing the boat in, Lisa chattering nonstop, about what neither took anything in, they were too focused on Edmund and Lucy.

Susan clutched her bow tightly as she stepped on the pebbly beach and stood next to Peter, also holding his sword with pride, they two looked into the thick forest that lay in front of them.

They waited for any sort of sound, but nothing reached their ear so they walked forward into the forest, the mossy ground cushioning their feet, and their ears filled with the buzzing of silence. There was nothing but long, quick strides for the next half hour, until their feet began getting tired and they stopped to catch their breath.

"Do you hear that?" Peter asked setting the cub down on the ground at leaned against the large trunk of a tree and setting the cub, that had grown tired about five minutes, down.

Lisa perked up her ears.

"What?" Susan asked, the cheetah's ears still swiveling wildly atop her head.

"… Nothing," Peter sighed running his hand down a face destroyed with anger at being too late to save his siblings, "Absolutely nothing."

"It's a big wood," Susan replied hopefully.

Lisa put her nose in the air and sniffed. "Something's burning," she muttered.

"Burning?" Peter repeated.

"Yeah, like grass, or wood."

"Where?" Susan asked.

Lisa set her head low and took off through the trees, Peter and Susan exchanged delayed glances and ran after her, until they could smell it also. It was sting and it filled the air, but it didn't smell like it was on fire, it smelled like it had been burned yesterday or the day before. The scent became stronger and stronger until they were standing before a barren landscape, the floor of the forest was black and dead, the trees were singed and their bark burned right off, and it stretched on like that for at least a mile. They continued walking farther and father in until they came to a large clearing where they grass had been crushed by many people walking over it. Susan bit her lip and walked to the other side of the field, while Peter noticed a large amount of rope tied fallen around another burned tree that might have once stood tall and proud.

Peter bent down and picked up a piece of the bindings then looked around, "What happened to them?" he mutter, not expecting an answer.

"I only smell two people," Lisa replied, "A little girl, and a boy."

Susan looked up at her from across the clearing, "How long ago were they here?"

Lisa sniffed once more and said, "… Maybe a eighteen hours ago, maybe less."

"Eighteen hours? We need to pick up some speed," Peter nodded.

"Is there anything that might point us the way?" Susan asked.

"I ond umtan! I ond umtan!" shouted Lisa from a few feet away with her head in the grass.

"Mouthful," Peter reminded looking over at her.

Lisa took the object from her mouth, and said, "I found something," then picked it back up and brought it over to Peter.

Peter looked down at the tiny steel dagger that belonged to Lucy, "Her dagger! Lucy's dagger!" he shouted.

Susan ran over and took it from him, "That's not good."

"We know they were here!"

"No, I mean that's not good because this was the only thing that disappeared with them, they have no way to defend themselves now."

"Look look!" shouted Lisa looking back into the grass.

Peter and Susan walked over, the dirt was carved away by the dagger, spelling out "Glistening Eastern Ocean", in Edmund's writing.

"You're joking," Susan excalimed, "We just came from there!"

Peter shrugged, "Well we should get a move on then," then suddenly realizing they should get there quickly before anything else could happen that might be bad for them; the smile vanished from Peter's face and he stood up quickly, "Lisa, do you live close to here?"

"Yeah!" she exclaimed, "Yeah, right over that way!" she said pointing to the east, "Come on!"

"We need to move, quick," he said following her into the woods about a quarter of a mile, until they came to a small den of rocks, the opening facing the opposite direction.

Peter and Susan stopped abruptly upon seeing it, the entire landscape, right down the rocks, was blackened with fire, everything was dead, and there was a terrible stench of rotting in the air.

"Stop her!" Susan said before Peter could think of a solution, but he gave a sharp nod and caught the cub by the scruff of the neck.

"What?" Lisa muttered with two hard blinks.

"… I don't… I don't think you should go over there," he replied hesitantly.

"Why not?"

"Because I don't think your family's there…."

"Mum! Mum!" Lisa began shouting with a series of small cheetah chirps they make when looking for their mothers, but there was no response.

"Lisa," Susan said sitting down beside them, "It's going to be alright… I don't think they're coming back."

Lisa's large brown eyes filled with tears that rolled down the black streaks that ran down her nose.

"Come on, you can come with us," Peter said picking up the cub, his sister patting her on the back and walked back to the ship.

I felt so bad killing Lisa's family, I just needed her to stick around for a while, so don't think I'm a cruel, animal-abusing person, I'm not. Thanks for reading and please review!

Tennessee