A/N: Hi, everyone! I'm alive still! Sorry this took so long in coming. Hopefully, the relative length will make up for last time's brevity—a lot's packed into this chapter! So read and enjoy! :D

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The sun ducked behind the clouds as Enna walked, and the temperature seemed to drop a few degrees in just a moment. She shivered and tucked her cloak warmer around herself, humming into her scarf, the moist warmth of her breath clinging to her cheeks.

As she rounded a bend in the path, she caught sight of a figure standing on a bluff a few hundred meters away. It was a man, she could tell, with a dark head and broad shoulders. He faced into the wind, his back to her, his cloak gathered loosely about him so it fluttered gently.

Curious, Enna turned off the path and went into the high grasses, climbing the gentle rise with one hand holding her skirts away from her dusty boots. "It is a lovely day, isn't it?" she asked, a bit breathless from the climb.

Aramir sighed, but didn't turn around. "Aye."

"Just 'aye'?" Enna said. "A bit cold and barren, that is true, but there is something beautiful about the land's plainness in late autumn."

Aramir only nodded, still looking blindly towards the east, the wind whipping tears into his stormy eyes.

Furrowing her brow, Enna stepped up next to him and looked in the direction he was gazing, trying to see what he saw. But the only things to meet her eyes were the brown grasses waving in the wind and the faraway grey sea. "I have wondered this for several months, now, Aramir," she said at last, quietly. "Why did you not take the last ship back to Calormen? I know your home is there, and…if you pine for it, you hide it poorly."

Aramir didn't take his eyes from the horizon as gentle flurries began to tumble from the overcast sky. "Ah…Enna, you sweet, unknowing thing…"

Indignantly, Enna put her hands on her hips. "I beg your pardon, sir, but I cannot help but be unknowing, as my lord will not divulge to me what I am unknowing about!"

Smiling dryly, Aramir at last directed his gaze to her. "A thousand apologies, my lady. What I meant was…well, I do not pine for my home. At least, not for Calormen."

"I thought Calormen was your home," Enna replied, a bit puzzled. She shielded her eyes as she gazed out over the prospect.

"It is," Aramir replied. "But…"

"But…?"

"Never mind. It won't make much sense."

Catching the hint of sadness in his voice, Enna glanced back over at him. "I have a brain, you know," she said dryly. "See if I can't make sense of it."

He looked down at her, his handsome, freckled face pensive, for a long moment before sighing. "Well, all right. Do you remember our conversation on the beach, back in September, when I…I tried to tell you that…there is a purpose to—to everything?" He shook his head. "Most likely not. Forgive me."

"I remember," Enna replied softly, and then mimicked exactly what he'd said. "'I just don't think that…well…I believe that we—if you will pardon my familiarity—are intended to stay here. Think about it. It is too coincidental to be a coincidence!'"

"You do remember." Aramir seemed surprised.

Enna nodded. "Should I have forgotten it?"

"No, no," Aramir mused.

"Anyway…"

"Anyway. When I told you that, I also mentioned something—someone—higher than ourselves, directing our paths."

"Yes," Enna said, dubiously.

Aramir turned back to face the horizon, his sun-browned face almost glowing. "I've discovered the name to that someone. And my home is there with him, in the East."

Enna put her hands at her hips, disbelieving. She hadn't accepted this foolishness three months ago, what made him think she would, today? We direct our own footsteps, she thought decisively. It is nonsensical to think that someone else does it for us. Do we not make decisions for ourselves? Do we not move the world as we alone see fit? Out loud, she suppressed a sigh and said, "And what do you think it is?"

"Oh, I don't think," Aramir replied. "Many Narnians have told me about him…listen, Enna, don't give me that look. His name is Aslan, and he is a mighty, untamable, noble lion. He and his father, the Emperor-Over-The-Sea, live in the East."

Enna couldn't suppress a snort. "A lion?" she gasped, trying not to burst out in unkind laughter. "How can a lion direct our paths? How can a lion be the son of an emperor? Aramir, you've been quite taken in, I'm sorry to say."

Quietly, Aramir replied, "It was your Peter who first told me about him."

Enna stopped laughing. How could Peter fall for such utter nonsense? Her level-headed, astute, discerning Peter! "That's ridiculous, Aramir," she said, all trace of mirth gone from her voice.

He turned back to look to the East. "I shouldn't have even said a word."

"You're absolutely right," Enna replied, scathingly. "I thought better of you, Aramir! How can you believe such utter drivel? I suppose you think he ordered Narnia and all the other kingdoms of this world, too…"

Aramir's silence confirmed her theory.

Enna scoffed. "Foolish man. To think that a lion—a lion!—could control Man's destiny…"

Suddenly, Aramir looked up, as if he had heard something. Enna watched his face intently. "What is it, Aramir?"

His face tightened with surprise, then slowly relaxed into a look of such awe that Enna whirled around. Coming up the bluff, the cold, snowy wind swirling its tawny mane, came a lion, larger than any beast Enna had ever seen before. She took a tremulous step backwards.

The creature proceeded up the rise, its great golden eyes fixed unwaveringly on Aramir, who stared back fearlessly. Enna continued taking slow, cautious steps backwards, teetering on the edge of the bluff for a moment before halting.

"Well done, my good and faithful servant," said a quiet, liquid, powerful voice. It took Enna a long while to realize it was the lion who spoke.

Aramir sank to his knees in the grasses, his head bowed low in a sign of humble submission. "Thank you, Aslan," he murmured.

Enna watched with dismay as the lion bent its tousled, tawny head to Aramir's and carefully, like a mother cat with her kitten, touched its pink tongue to his cheek. Aramir's face was obscured by the beast's wild mane, but she quite imagined that he'd be cringing with disgust.

Then the lion withdrew from Aramir—and turned to her. Its great, fathomless golden eyes bored into hers, and she took a hasty retreating step, tripping on a protruding stone and tumbling to the ground in a puff of dust.

The lion kept advancing, its red upper lip curled back over a long, sharp-looking tooth. "Daughter of Eve," it rumbled menacingly. "Acknowledge me."

Enna had her lips clamped together and refused to respond, closing her eyes and willing the beast to disappear.

"Acknowledge me," repeated the creature, in a voice that made Enna's very insides tremble. She continued to stare at the undersides of her eyelids.

Suddenly, she heard the beast move, and her eyes flew open just as its blood-red, fleshy lips pulled away from its teeth and it lunged forward. A scream escaped her mouth, but to no avail—the lion's powerful paws forced her to the ground, and a second later searing pain ripped up her shoulder as it sank its teeth into her flesh.

A second later, the lion stepped away. Enna could see through her tear-blurred eyes that its teeth and maw were stained with her blood.

"You, daughter of Eve," the lion growled, still looming above her, "are a wicked, prideful woman. For many years have I petitioned for your penitence, but you have disdained me. My wrath has been woken, you stiff-necked wretch!"

Enna clutched the wound with her good hand, the blood seeping through her torn clothing and between her quivering fingers, as she stared timorously up into the lion's fiery eyes. A weak word of protest escaped her lips, and the beast snarled in response.

"You have transgressed against me," it rumbled. "Your vices are many. Absolve yourself, woman! I demand redress!"

"I cannot," Enna choked, hot tears dripping down her cheeks. "I cannot!"

There was no answer, and she lifted her head. The beast, its deep, golden eyes grieved, was turned back to Aramir. "Hie back to Cair Paravel," the lion instructed, a faraway reverberation in its chest echoing its words. "Take the woman with you. See that she is tended to."

"Yes, Aslan," Enna heard Aramir respond. A moment later, and his warm arms encircled her, and he whispered a few soothing words into her ear as he helped her to her feet. Muffling her sobs with her good hand, Enna went willingly, leaning heavily on him for support as he aided each wavering step.

"It'll be all right," she heard him murmur against her hair. "Really. Aslan is a compassionate lion…"