Knowing the Lion

Prompt bunny given by trustingHim17, who said she wanted to see if it bit me. Congrats, it did. Takes place in The Silver Chair.

One of the students—a small boy called Jack—peeped out from under the bushes. He'd been minding his own business when he'd heard Their voices, and he'd squirmed his way under the bushes, desperately hoping They weren't hunting him. They weren't; they were hunting some older students, and Jack just had time to feel sorry for them, and ashamed relief for his own safety, when—

The wall collapsed. The wall between the school and the moor collapsed, falling with a rumble and a roar that shook the sky. Jack stared at it, stunned.

There were three people behind it, three people in glittering clothes, with danger in their hands, but Jack couldn't look at them, he couldn't—because there was something immense, something golden, laying in the gap. It looked like a lion; and it looked, to the eyes of the child who'd played in Boxen, as if all the good imaginary things were true, and even better. Then Jack heard footsteps, jeering laughter, and all the ugly terrors of his grey, shame-filled world—and they were silenced. Jack didn't have to look at them to know why. The Lion would silence any evil thing.

And then the three ran forward; Jack saw them go by, out of focus, for all his focus remained on the Lion, the back of the Lion. And the three pairs of running footsteps turned into screams and lots of running footsteps, and Jack, in the confusion, slipped forward, towards the Lion. Closer, and closer, stumbling over the fallen pieces of wall, never taking his eyes off the Lion. The Lion grew so large. Jack wasn't afraid—not afraid of being eaten, even the small boy knew that was silly, when he knew the Lion. But afraid because the Lion was real. So much more real than the jeering screams, and even Jack's shame.

He stopped a foot away from the lion's back, standing on a large fall stone, and he waited.

The Lion said nothing.

And Jack understood that he could speak. "I know You...but I don't know You."

"I called to you that you might know me better, child."

It did not surprise Jack that the Lion could speak; of course He could.

"You must ask the question. You do not have much time."

Jack didn't know what he was supposed to ask; but wasn't that itself a question? "Please, Sir, what am I to do? How am I to know You better?"

"Go and find Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and give him a letter for his cousins. Ask them what they know of Me, and write it down. Then you will know me better; and someday many others will as well. Now go, child. The headmistress is coming."

Jack turned and ran—watching his step this time, dodging around stones, and darting back to the bushes. Just as he reached them he heard the scream of the headmistress; by the time he'd flung himself to the ground and wiggled himself into his hiding spot and back around—the wall was whole.

The sky was grey.

There was no Lion, no people in glittering clothes, none of Them. There was only the headmistress, crying hysterically for the police as she ran back to the main hall.

But there was a memory, too—of a great golden voice, and the command it had given—to find the cousins of Eustace Scrubb, and write down their stories about a Lion.

Jack couldn't wait to hear them.