Scuffspade clung desperately to the leg of his quarry.
The White Stag turned his head back toward his captor. "You may let go."
"Not until you've granted my wish."
"I will fulfill my oath. There is no need for these theatrics."
The Badger hugged all the tighter. "I hold on."
The Stag sighed. "What is your wish?"
"You know," Scuffspade snarled.
"And you know that I cannot grant it."
"Are you not the granter of wishes?"
"Am I the Emperor that I may overrule His set order?"
The Badger shook his head. "If it is to come, then there is nothing to overrule."
The Stag stamped his free hind hoof. "You know well there is, even if you will not say it. Ask of me what I may grant."
"I wish that Aslan would return," Scuffspade repeated.
The Stag attempted to free his leg from the unrelenting grip upon it, but could not. He huffed in consternation, but answered not a word. They stood a while there on a precipice overlooking Cauldron Pool, thundering on when the land lay bound in ice and snow. A strange pair of sentinels they made: the tall, majestic White Stag and the Badger wrapped around his hind leg.
At length, the Stag turned his antlered head again to the Badger. "Aslan will return in time. What then do you seek?"
Scuffspade glowered at the repeated denial of his request. He turned his face away from the Stag, his gaze alighting on the landscape below… and softening. "I want to see it for myself," he finally murmured. "I want to see this accursed winter lifted at His coming. I am old, Stag, and do not want to leave this world like this."
"Do you know what it is you wish?" the Stag asked gravely. "Would you postpone that final voyage and endure what is to come? Would you wait with patience though the waiting grow long? Would you keep spring in your heart through winter surrounds and counsel failing hearts to take courage? Would you cling to the promise of His coming, come what may?"
Scuffspade's snout wriggled, but he nodded. "I hold on."
The White Stag lowered his head further and Scuffspade released his hold to stand up properly. "Ask of me what I may grant."
"I wish to see with my own eyes Aslan's return."
The Stag pressed his forehead to the Badger's. "Your wish I grant you, that you will not see death before that day is accomplished." He released the touch. "Look to the east, Badger, for He will come from over the Sea."
Long indeed was the wait. Spring became as a distant memory. Despair buried the land like snow; hearts failed in waves. Those who dared to speak were hushed by their fellows or silenced in prisons of stone. Scuffspade watched as friends fell one way or another to the Witch, as the very old froze in the bitter cold, as the precious promise faded nearly into myth among the young. But Scuffspade did not watch only. He lived, and so long as he lived, he held to hope. Though listening ears grew deaf, he held to the charge to stir up courage. Though sorrows were heaped upon his dearest friends, he held – only barely sometimes, it's true – to the promise of a future to come. Though he once languished broken and cold in the Witch's grasp, he held to life and to spring. Though his patience faltered, and that more often than he should have liked to admit, he held to the assurance that Aslan would return in time.
When that time came, ninety-odd years after he made his wish, the ancient Badger held tight the paw of the Lion for whom he had waited.
Prompt: Since everyone knew that the White Stag would give wishes if you caught him, there must have been previous chases. What did at least one Narnian plan on wishing for?
Thank you to: John Jude Farragut for the much-needed constructive criticism regarding the ending. I appreciate it!
Please review!
