Disclaimer: if you recognize it, its not mine. Gabriel, however, is.
I had been in Narnia for nearly five hours. At the present moment, I was standing in front of a large cave. Smoke rose from the top of it, and Oreius had told me to stay outside, explaining that dwarves may not take too kindly to a human. Still, it looked warm in there, and I wished that I was inside with him.
I leaned against a nearby tree, Dogwood by the look of it. Oreius was in the cave nearly ten minutes before he came out with an armful of equipment.
"Try these," he said, throwing me a blue tunic, silver breeches, and a grey jerkin, "they should fit." I nodded, and stepped behind a tree to dress myself.
I shivered in the cold winter air. "When will it get warmer here?" I asked, buttoning up my new tunic. I almost heard Oreius tense.
"We do not have summer here." He replied stoically. I felt slightly taken aback. Back at home I had always loved the summer and spring months, when I could run and play outside. Anything was better than being indoors and in reach of my dad. Did I really want to stay in a place that was always wintry and cold? A place that would resurface so many painful memories just because of the weather outside?
"You don't have a summer, or spring, or fall?" I asked, pulling the breeches over my legs, and nearly falling over in the process. I wasn't the most graceful human.
"No," Oreius began, "but it was not always so. We had the most glorious summers before the witch came." A cold feeling chilled my bones, and was not entirely caused by the endless amount of ice and snow around me.
"Witch?" I questioned, pushing the hair from my face as I tried to put my left boot on while balancing against my makeshift dressing room/tree.
"She claims to be the queen of this country. She is not, however. Aslan is our true ruler." He replied. At the mention of that name, I came out from behind my tree. My cold feeling had been replaced by a glorious warm one at the mere mention of that name.
"Aslan is the true king?" I asked. Oreius nodded.
"He has been away for a while. I expect he will be returning soon." He stopped my array of questions by thrusting a bow at me, as well as a quiver full of arrows.
"Do you know how to use these?" He asked. I had taken archery in school, and the teacher told me that I had the best aim that he had ever seen. "You were born to be an archer!" He would say each week. At that moment I was very glad of my training. I nodded my head.
"Good. Strap this on then." He said, handing the quiver to me. After strapping it on my back, he handed me a slightly rusted sword.
"As for this sword... do not use it unless you have to. I don't want you getting that close to a battle if I can help it." He said. I took the blade and strapped it around my waist as he instructed how.
"Come now," He said, "we do not have that far to travel." He said.
"I feel like I am going to drop already." I replied as he began to lead me westward.
"You humans tire so easily." He said.
"Will there be a place for me to sleep?" I asked. Oreius didn't turn around, but I could tell that he was smiling.
"Do you think that I am going to leave you out in the cold, young one?"
Not Far? We walked for hours. I was so tired, that I did not think that I could make it twenty more feet. It was a beautiful thing, then , when Oreius said, "Look, there is the edge of the forest. We are nearly there."
I suddenly heard a deep growl from behind me, and didn't really have time to react as I was pummeled to the forest floor. When I looked up, I came face to face with a large grey wolf. I heard the sound of Oreius drawing his sword.
"Be still, Centaur, or I'll rip out her throat!" He warned. Yes. The wolf could talk.
"Gather round!" He yelled, and nearly ten other wolves closed in around the three of us.
"Now tell me... are you from around here?" He asked, his hot breath sticky on my face. I could tell that he had just had a fresh kill. I panicked. Did they like outsiders here?
"Y... yes." I lied. He looked into my eyes.
"You're lying." He replied. I shook my head.
"No I'm not. I am from the... Shuddering Wood." I prayed that I had the name right. Apparently I did. He growled, and closed his teeth around my neck. I felt tears gather at the corners of my eyes.
"She wears dwarfish attire, Maugrim. Perhaps she is a dwarf." One of the others suggested. The wolf, Maugrim, removed him paw from my chest.
"Maybe. But still... I have never seen a dwarf of your nature." He growled. He beckoned for three of his companions to come forward. I got hurriedly to me feet.
"Take her to the queen." He said, and sped off Southward. I felt teeth sink into my flesh as two wolves bit down hard on my wrists and began to drag me forward. I looked back for Oreius, only to see that he was gone. He had deserted me. I gave up all hope, and let myself be led from the clearing.
Then, quite suddenly, I heard twang...zip! An arrow buried itself into the side of the wolf on my left. That was one wrist free. Twang...zip! The other fell dead beside of its companion.
Before I really knew what I was doing, I had whipped my sword out of its sheathe, and had shoved it into the chest of the third wolf behind me. Another arrow from Oreius claimed the last one. I had never killed anything before until that moment.
The centaur galloped toward me. "Are you alright?" He asked. I glanced down at my profusely bleeding wrists.
"I will wrap them, come here." He said. I nodded. While he wrapped my left wrist, I cleaned my sword with my right hand.
"I will clean them when we get to my home."
"Thank you for saving me, Oreius." I said. He smiled at me.
"You could have handled it, had I not been there. You did very well with your sword, Gabriel. It is of second nature to you it seems." He said. I allowed him to wrap my right wrist in the strips of cloth, and he stood.
"It is nearing sundown. Let us be on our way." He said. I sheathed my sword again, ignoring the pain in my wrists, and followed him to the clearing once more, where we set out again. The place to which he led me would be my home for the next year of my life.
a/n: Okay, I have some questions to answer. This fic is going to involve the Pevensies, because it is a Peter/Gabriel fic. I'm very sorry that I failed to mention that in the beginning. Thank you for all of the reviews, I am very excited that you guys like this story! I'm sorry that it took so long to update, I just got back from a Christian youth conference (and it was wonderful), but I should be getting a few chapters up this week, if my job allows me to. Thanks!