THE LION, THE CAT AND THE TURTLES

Based on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird

and

The Chronicles of Narnia
by C. S. Lewis.

CHAPTER FOUR:
What Aslan Said

Susan Pevensie had been twelve years old when she had first stepped through the strange wardrobe and been brought to the land of Narnia, the land of the Dwarfs and Fauns, the Dryads and River-Gods and Talking Beasts. It had been a magical and marvelous time, filled with adventure and wonder of the sort that few people in this world ever get to experience, and at the time Susan had been quite sure that no matter how old she grew she would never forget it.

Even after her sudden and unexpected return to her own world from Narnia, she -- along with her brothers and sister -- had been convinced that she would always remember it. She'd remembered the battles, the parties, the tournaments, the fair castle Cair Paravel. She'd remember the Mermaids and the Centaurs, the dear old Beavers. And she'd always, always remember how it had felt when she, Peter, Edmund and Lucy had been crowned Kings and Queens in Narnia.

And above all... Aslan, the great lion, the King over all Kings; as wild and ferocious as a thunderstorm and yet as mild and gentle as the softest summer rain. Aslan, who was not (as Narnians were fond of saying) a tame lion, who always came and went exactly as he wanted and was often hard to predict and impossible to understand, but could always be relied upon. Susan knew, as surely as she knew anything, that she would never, could never forget him.

What had happened to that young girl who knew these things so firmly, and how could she have proven to be so utterly wrong in her belief?

Susan Palmer (formerly Pevensie) looked at the odd gathering of guests in her living room and almost wished she didn't know the answer to that particular question.

For the first time in years, probably because she was suddenly having unknown visitors, Susan realized just how overcrowded, filled with things, her apartment was. It was actually fairly large, but seemed much smaller because there was so little free space anywhere. Her living room alone had more chairs and pieces of furniture than one woman could possibly need, the walls were so crammed with pictures, paintings, framed photographs and kids' drawings (the carefully conserved artwork of children and grandchildren) that it was almost impossible to tell what color the wallpaper was. Trinkets and souvenirs and "conversation pieces" filled up shelves and tables and the top of the television.

She didn't even know what she needed all those things for anymore. She had just gotten into the habit of not throwing anything away, and it showed on her apartment. Some of the things she had here were several decades old, and hadn't been looked properly at by anyone for almost as long.

The only guest clearly not concerned about knocking things over was the cat; probably because he was the only one small enough to move about with complete ease. While all the others had hurried to find chairs and sit down before an accident could happen, the cat spent some time sniffing around and examining the room with great interest. Despite the fact that the cat was completely normal-looking; the sort of house-cat you could find just about anywhere, Susan found her eyes drawn to him more than any of the other, more bizarre-looking guests.

An actual, talking cat. Yes, he was much smaller than the Talking Cats she had known in Narnia, but there was no mistaking that sharp, intelligent look in his eyes. Or, for that matter, that typical feline self-importance when he claimed to be "the Chosen of Aslan."

For a brief moment, Susan had been twelve years old again and back in Narnia.

Now, she was sitting in her own living room with what was probably the oddest bunch that had ever set foot inside that building: Three gigantic humanoid turtles wearing belts, masks and carrying strange weapons; a smaller but still huge humanoid rat wearing some kind of robe, a normal-looking tomcat that spent his time in roughly equal parts acting like a normal cat and chatting up a storm... and a young woman, in her late twenties or early thirties, who looked like as far as she was concerned, this was all completely normal.

"And now you know our story, Mrs. Palmer," said the rat -- Splinter -- who put Susan in mind of some of the older Centaurs she had known in Narnia; wise, gentle and kind, but with a definite edge to him that suggested that he wasn't someone to cross. "We apologize for intruding on your home like this, but I hope you understand why we needed to."

Susan nodded, trying to pull herself together. "I... understand. It's just been so long," she muttered. "I'm sorry about that crying scene out there.... and about my reaction on the telephone earlier." (She glanced at one of the Turtles, who had identified himself as the same "Mike" who had called her earlier in the day.) "It just came so... well... for decades, I've been convincing myself that it was all just a dream, a silly childhood game..."

"Why'd you wanna do that?" said Mike, looking genuinely curious. "If it had been me who got to hang out with a talking lion in a magical land..."

"I never got to 'hang out' with him, as you put it," said Susan. She felt old again; old and tired and overwhelmed by everything. "He was more... I don't know. He showed up from time to time, but mostly only when we needed him. No," she corrected herself, "there were other times as well. But he never stayed for very long at a time."

"Okay," said Mike. "Scratch the 'hang-out' part. Still doesn't explain why you wouldn't wanna remember something like that."

Susan sighed. "I suppose it started the very last time I saw him... that was when everything started to go wrong."

It was at the end of Susan's second visit to Narnia -- after the crowning of Caspian the Tenth, whom Susan and her siblings had helped gain the throne that was his birthright. It was early in the morning, just after breakfast, when Aslan had asked Susan and Peter to walk with him, a little way away from everyone.

"Your time in Narnia is soon at an end," the Lion said in a quiet voice, as soon as they were far enough away that they wouldn't be overheard. "You must now prepare to return to your own world."

"Already?" Susan felt the disappointment well up inside her. They'd only been in Narnia for a few days this time around, and she had been looking forward to a longer stay, now that the evil Miraz was gone and everything was coming out all right again.

"Every journey has an ending," said Aslan, slowly turning his huge head to look at them both. "Children, there are a few things I must tell you -- and I must tell them to you now. Once you have gone back to your own world, the two of you can never return to Narnia."

And these words, spoken in such a mild and gentle voice, hit Susan hard. The disappointment she had felt just moments before paled next to the sense of dread and despair that now hit her, literally taking her breath away and leaving her completely unable to speak. She might even have fallen down, if she hadn't at the last minute grabbed hold of Peter and steadied herself.

Even Peter seemed shocked. "Never?" he said.

"Never," the Lion answered. "Understand this, Son of Adam: No living creature can ever truly belong to more than one world. You were brought to Narnia so you might, for some time, know it... But it is not your true home. And as you are growing older, it is now time for you to know your own world, as it is time for your world to truly know you."

"No!" Susan wanted to shout it out, but it had come out more like a very undignified croak. "Aslan, you can't tell us to leave Narnia and never come back!" Her voice grew louder, stronger, even as tears gathered in her eyes: "We've done everything you asked, and now you're rewarding us by kicking us out?!"

"Daughter of Eve...!" said Aslan, a slight roar lurking underneath his voice and threatening to emerge, and Susan knew she had gone much too far.

"Yes, Aslan. Sorry, Aslan," she said meekly. Of all the times she had been chastised in her life, this one ranked as the single worst. Aslan said nothing more, and it was over in mere seconds, but that hint of a roar directed at her felt ten times worse than an hour-long screaming session from anyone else would have.

Peter just looked at her, seeming like he wanted to add something not-very-nice, but apparently thought better of it. Instead, he turned back to Aslan. "I... think I understand," he said, somewhat hesitantly. "I suppose we've had our time, right?"

"My dear son," said Aslan. "Your time, and everyone else's, has always been right now. It's up to everyone to spend it wisely, whether it they live in Narnia or elsewhere." He paused, looking at both Peter and Susan, his eyes lingering slightly longer on Susan as if he wanted to make sure she was getting this. "We will all see each other again, but it will not be in Narnia. This land will be closed to you forever after, and there is nothing you, or I, can do to make it otherwise."

Peter nodded, as if he understood. "What about Edmund and Lucy, though?" he said. "Won't they come back to Narnia either?"

Aslan looked at him. "That is part of their story," was all he said.

"That means they are, doesn't it..." Susan muttered. She knew it was probably a bad thing to be jealous, but she couldn't help herself -- she, Queen Susan the Gentle, famed and beloved for her kindness and generosity, was feeling horribly jealous of her brother and sister. They could still return to the land that she herself would soon be banned from.

"Be of good cheer," said Aslan, as if he had guessed what she thought. "Once a King or Queen in Narnia, always a King or Queen. Do what you can, with what you have, where you are, and no-one can ask anything more of you."

It was some time later when Peter and Susan returned to the others. The last part of the conversation with Aslan had mostly been about practical things about their journey home and how everything was to be arranged. He might have said a few other things, but Susan -- try as she might to be of good cheer -- hadn't really been in the mood to listen, and if Aslan has noticed this, he hadn't said anything about it.

She wasn't at all sure she managed to fool her brother with her insincere smiles as they walked back.

"Come off it, Su," he said. "If that fake grin of yours gets any wider, your face is going to split in half. A fair sight that would be, for the Narnians, as their last glimpse of the beautiful Queen Susan." He chuckled, but then grew serious again. "Look, I'm sure Aslan didn't mean that you weren't allowed to be upset that we can't return to Narnia."

"But why can't we?" Susan sighed, letting go of her smile with some relief. "We're younger now than we were when -- I mean, last time we were in Narnia, we were here so long that we were all grown-ups in the end. During all those years, nobody told us we were too old. Not to mention, I'm no older now than you were when we first arrived, so I don't see how it can make any sense anyway! Why is it all right for you to visit Narnia at the age of thirteen, but when I'm thirteen, I'm suddenly too old?"

Peter shook his head. "I don't make the rules, Su," he said. "I think we just have to accept that some things have to end. Our time in Narnia was wonderful, but it's finished now. I think what Aslan was trying to say was that it's time to live in our own world, you know, succeed on our own terms. Not use Narnia to escape from our lives there. I know how you feel, but --"

"Oh, you do, do you?" Susan interrupted, speaking a little more harshly than she had intended.

"Of course I do. I just went through the exact same thing as you did, remember?!"

Susan didn't answer. For one brief, fleeting moment, she resented her brother; he was the High King, he always took everything in stride, he never did anything wrong and never felt anything that he shouldn't. How could he know anything about how she felt right now?

But the feeling vanished almost as soon as it had come. She couldn't blame Peter for this. She couldn't even blame Edmund and Lucy. None of this was their fault, not in the least. It wouldn't be right for her to spoil their last moments in Narnia together. She couldn't blame the Narnians either -- she supposed she owed it to them to part from them graciously.

So she put on a brave face and didn't mention any of her true feelings to anyone. When Caspian later offered her horn back, she told him to keep it -- as fit her image as the kind and generous queen, but in reality it was mostly because she didn't think she could bear having anything from Narnia with her to remind herself that she couldn't ever come back.

"Wait, what's this horn you're talking about?" said one of the Turtles -- Donatello, if Susan remembered correctly.

"Oh, sorry," said Susan. "I kind of forgot myself when I was talking. For a moment there, I'd forgotten you weren't Narnian creatures."

"I'm from Manhattan," Klunk offered, having grown bored with his exploration and jumped up in Mike's lap.

Susan held back a smile. "Well, the horn I was talking about was one of my dearest possessions back then, and one of Narnia's greatest treasures... in fact, Narnians used to call me 'Queen Susan of the Horn.' It was a magical horn that I could blow in if I was in danger, and help would always arrive. That was how Caspian called us back to Narnia that second time. He blew the horn and I was pulled back to Narnia together with my siblings."

"Lemme get this straight," said the third Turtle -- Raphael -- who had been silent until now. "At first, you come into this Narnia place through a wardrobe, and then, after havin' spent several years there you came back to this world. Then, one year later, you go back to Narnia because some guy blows a magic horn, and then you're kicked out -- am I missin' anything?"

"That's a very crude way of putting it," said Susan. "But yes, I suppose so. After that... well, I suppose I just wanted to forget everything. Call it a sort of petty revenge."

"You felt betrayed and hurt," said April. There was a sense of understanding in her eyes, and for a moment, Susan wondered what this young woman had been through in her life.

She decided not to ask, though, and simply nodded. "Mostly. Now that I think about it, though, the coming and going between worlds always did something odd to us. The longer we stayed in one world, the easier it became to forget about the other. And all the things I learned in Narnia... they didn't stay with me here. That made it easier to pretend none of it had ever happened. There couldn't actually have been a land with talking animals and other things you only find in fairytales. But..." and here she looked at Klunk again. "Here you are."

"And in need of your help, Mrs. Palmer," said Splinter. "Please. You are the only one who can help us find Leonardo."

Susan felt ashamed of herself. Queen Susan the Gentle, indeed -- here she was complaining about things that had happened over fifty years ago, all while these creatures were looking to her for assistance. They were probably worried sick over their lost family member. "I would like to help," she said silently. "But I don't know how. I can't open doors between worlds."

"Aslan believed you could," said Splinter.

"Aslan..." Susan sighed wistfully. "I don't know what he thinks I can do. We didn't exactly part on good terms."

"I do not believe he is angry with you," said Splinter gently. "I believe he misses you. As any father would miss his children."

"Can't we just find that wardrobe again?" said Mike, obviously trying to make light of the situation. "Ya know what happened to it?"

"Not in any great detail, I'm afraid. I think it was sold on an auction after its original owner lost his fortune and his house. I have no idea where it is now, or even if it still exists."

Susan smiled slightly remembered the old, loveable Professor Kirke. He had been heart-broken to see his old home go, and had even recruited the help of Peter to go around with a camera to take pictures of his house and most treasured belongings, so that he would at least have some photographs to remember them by. The memory was both silly and sad at the same time.

"You must know a way, Mrs. Palmer," came Splinter's voice, pulling her out of her memories. "Even if you might not remember it, you know it. You just need to find it."

"What Master Splinter is too polite to say;" Raphael interrupted, "is that we're not leaving until you find some way of gettin' Leo back, so start wringin' your brain."

"Raphael...!" Splinter snapped, but without very much force to it.

"Well, maybe we can find another wardrobe?" said Mike, who obviously felt that the subject of wardrobes wasn't quite out-debated yet. "Hey, yeah! If one wardrobe works, why not another?"

"Because," said Susan with a sigh, "that wardrobe was special. One of a kind. It was made out of wood from a tree that hailed from Narnia. You... couldn't..." She heard her own voice trail off as, all of a sudden, Aslan's voice came back to her -- as strong and clear as if it had been only minutes since she talked to him last and not years:

"Once a king or queen in Narnia, always a king or queen. Do what you can, with what you have, where you are, and no-one can ask anything more of you."

Could he possibly mean...?

"...Couldn't what?" said Mike, waiting for a continuation.

"I think I have an idea;" said Susan, casting a glance at the picture of herself and her siblings from so long ago. "It's absolutely absurd, but..."

The Turtles, Splinter, April and Klunk all leant closer as she paused, as if afraid that the idea would vanish if they kept too much of a distance from her.

"Please tell me that your next words are going to be 'but it just might work,'" said Donatello.

Almost despite herself, Susan felt a smile well up from inside.

"Have I mentioned how stupid this is?" said Raphael as he leafed through one of the oldest, dustiest photo albums.

"Not for at least twenty seconds," said Donatello dryly, putting down his own photo album and reaching for a new one from the pile. "Do you have a better idea, Raph?"

"Any idea would be better than lookin' at family photos!"

"We're not looking at family photos, we're looking for pictures of the wardrobe."

"I'm sorry I can't say just where the pictures are," said Susan apologetically, looking up from her own photo album. "My husband was a passionate amateur phoptographer. He was always taking pictures, and then re-arranging them and placing them in different albums... I haven't really looked through any of these since he died, five years ago."

"Oooh, who's this? She's pretty!"

Susan gazed at the page Mike held up. "Oh, that's me at the age of... let's see... I must have been in my late twenties. I'd been married for a couple of years then. That means that you're holding a much too recent album... try looking for an older one."

"These pictures kinda makes me wish I'd known your family," said Mike as he reached for another album. "They look like nice people."

Susan nodded. "Oh, they were. Or are, the ones who are left. Husband's gone, of course, and my oldest son... Let's see... yes, that's him there," she said, pointing out a tall, dark-haired man with a mustache in one of the photos. "He was named Peter after his uncle, he went to war and never came back..."

"I'm sorry," said Mike.

"It's all right. He died a hero, or so they tell me." Susan smiled, a little sadly. "But, those aren't the pictures we're looking for. We need older ones. I wish I could remember which albums my husband put those really old ones in..."

Silence spread in the living room, the only noise being the turning of cardboard pages as the Turtles, Splinter, April and Susan meticulously went through the huge number of photo albums and pictures in Susan's collection. They all knew what they were looking for, but had very little idea of where they would find it.

(Only Klunk -- who had no hands to turn pages anyway -- was exempt from the search. True to his cat nature, he had decided that if there was nothing he could do at the moment, then he might as well not do anything, and so he had curled up in Mike's lap and fallen asleep.)

It was fascinating, really, Mike thought, how much of a life you could sum up in a few pictures. Susan hadn't said a lot about her life outside of Narnia, but even from looking through a fraction of the pictures in the albums, most of them no doubt taken by her obviously photo-mad husband, Mike could already sum up quite a bit of Susan Palmer's life: She had been born in England, but had moved to America in her early twenties, and there she had met her husband, married and raised three children -- one boy and two girls -- who had all eventually married and had children of their own. They seemed like a happy family too... well, not insanely and abnormally happy, like families in old sitcoms or anything, but just normal people who knew how to appreciate the good things in life.

There was, in short, very little that Mike could see of the sadness and bitterness he had heard in the woman's voice when she told about her last moments in Narnia.

Either Susan Palmer was the world's greatest actor, or...

"I think I found something!" said Donatello.

Mike looked up, seeing that everyone else had stopped their own searching through photo albums and were looking at Don. Klunk stirred and yawned.

"Are these the right pictures, Mrs. Palmer?" said Don, holding up an old-looking photo album, having opened it on a page displaying an unnatural number of pictures of an old wooden wardrobe. The pictures were clearly old, and the wardrobe itself was markedly unimpressive, with a certain, well, home-made quality to it.

Slowly, Susan raised herself and, almost like in a trance she reached for the photo album. "It's the one," she said. "I would know that wardrobe anywhere." She carefully removed one of the pictures from the album -- a straight-on shot of the front of the wardrobe -- and placed it gently on the table in front of her, so everyone could see. "These photos are just about the only things I have left of the Professor," she said, a little sadly. "After he'd died in that train accident, I discovered that he'd stated in his will that I should have his photos. He was quite insistent upon me keeping them, too... I wonder if he ever suspected...?" she trailed off.

"All right, so now we know what the wardrobe looks like," said Raph, leaning back in his chair after having examined the picture. "Now what?!"

"I got it!" said Klunk excitedly. "What we do is take copies of the picture and put up wanted posters! 'Have you seen this wardrobe? Report immediately to Susan Palmer! Do not attempt to apprehend this wardrobe yourself, as it is armed and dangerous and --' ...what?" he added as everyone looked at him.

"We really have to start being careful with what we watch on TV when you're in the room," said Don with a sigh.

"I believe Mrs. Palmer has somewhat simpler solution in mind," said Splinter.

Susan nodded. "I remembered something that Aslan once told me. You should always do what you can, with what you have, where you are... and we don't have the actual wardrobe itself, but we do have a picture of it."

"Oh, great," said Raph, his voice oozing sarcasm as he raised himself from his chair. "Perfect. We got a picture, yeah, that'll help! Hey, maybe we can get a pair of scissors and cut out a tiny little door in the picture, and then we can all walk through it, one by one, go on, there's plenty of room for us all --!"

"RAPHAEL!" Splinter snapped. "You are a guest in this house, and you will behave!"

"Well, I'm sorry, but I'm worried about Leo, all right?" Raph said, a little more subdued. "Master Splinter, he could be in trouble, and all we're doin' is sittin' around here and lookin' at --"

"Enough!" The voice was sharp and loud enough that everybody turned to look at Susan again.

The old woman had raised herself from her chair, having drawn herself to her full height for the first time Mike had seen, standing surprisingly tall and straight and with a fierce, almost regal look in her eyes. Seconds before, she had just been a melancholy old woman whom Mike wouldn't have bet on would last half a second against a warrior like Raph; now, though no real physical change had taken place, she looked strong and steadfast, and Mike was almost sure that if Raph had been foolish enough to hit her with a sai now, the weapon would break in two.

Susan spoke again, and her voice had gained a core of solid steel. "I realize that you are worried about your brother, Raphael. Therefore, I will forgive you your lack of manners. But you will not speak like that in my presence again! Old and worn I may be, but I am still Queen Susan of Narnia!"

Uncharacteristically but quite understandably, Raph backed away. Armies would have backed away, Mike thought, half-impressed and half-scared. Instinctively, he grabbed Klunk and held the cat close to protect him.

Susan turned her gaze to the picture on the table. "I," she said, "am Queen Susan of the Horn, ruler of Narnia under my brother, the High King Peter, and under Aslan, the great Lion! And in the name of Aslan, I request the gate to be opened!"

For a couple of moments, nothing happened. Then, to Mike's surprise, the picture came to life, the tiny doors on the wardrobe slowly parting and swinging aside, a blinding white light streaming out from inside the wardrobe and filling the apartment.

"Hey, not bad..." was all Mike had time to say before the light filled his vision entirely, and he felt something -- or someone -- pulling him up from the chair and through the air. He held tightly onto Klunk as everything else seemed to vanish.

TO BE CONTINUED...

Author's Notes: In case anyone's wondering, I got Susan's and the other Pevensies' ages from the "Narnian timeline" written by C. S. Lewis, which was never actually referenced in any of the Narnian books but is accepted as canonical by most "Lewis scholars." According to this timeline, Susan was born in 1928, and the first trip to Narnia was in 1940, making her twelve years old at the time (Peter is thirteen, Edmund ten and Lucy eight). She was thirteen during her second and last visit to Narnia, and twenty-one during the events of The Last Battle, which according to the timeline happened in 1949.

It's an interesting challenge, writing Aslan. In the books, he's an unmistakable Christ figure, but I've toned this part of him down just a bit, presenting him more as a more neutrally god-like "king of a realm." There are several reasons for this: but the most important one is because the symbolism of the books get a bit too heavy-handed for me at times (particularly in The Last Battle) and I didn't want what is basically a fairly straightforward, none-too-complicated crossover between two canons I enjoy to be bogged down with a lot of heavy-handed religious symbolism.

On the other hand, you can't completely ignore the Christian overtones to the character either, because they are part of what makes him who he is -- and completely going away from them would be to seriously misrepresent the character. So I'm walking a pretty thin borderline here, trying to make him as... Aslan as I can without at the same time blatantly presenting him as Jesus.

Whether I've managed or not, I'll leave up to you to decide -- but one thing was clear to me from the very start, and that was that I couldn't write a TMNT/Narnia crossover and not include Aslan. So even though he's not a major character here, he'll definitely continue to be around, whether it's in flashbacks like here, or in the story itself.

Next chapter, we'll see Leo meet King Rilian (and his friend Puddleglum!), and we'll also find out more about the mysterious Red Lady.