[A] By the Call of the Lion [Pevensie Plot Part One] [Finished]

It seemed so surreal, that for a moment, she couldn't quite believe it was happening. It had been a year since Susan had felt anything like what she was feeling now, could it really be magic? She had long since given up the chance of ever making it back, back to that place. They were in England, on Earth, where they belonged. Why else would they have stepped back through the wardrobe that fateful day? Why else would they have returned to being children, with lives filled with school and frivolous behaviors and feelings they had all given up years ago in Narnian time? Why else except to return to normal?

This was clearly not normal, however. One minute, she and her siblings had been in the Train Station, waiting. And in a fleeting moment, that world had dissolved around them to reveal another, this world. Susan shut her eyes, as if they deceived her, as if she refused to believe. Why couldn't she accept that she had returned, returned to the place she, in her mind, had abandoned long ago? Was it a hidden longing she had squashed, now rising again? Was it fear, of how she would look to her siblings after telling them repeatedly, "We're in England now, and we're just going to have to accept that."? Or perhaps, most of all, it was how she would feel when she saw Aslan again.

Aslan, that noble lion, who was not a tame lion by any means, who had helped secure Narnia from the White Witch, and place the four Pevensie children on the Narnian throne. Aslan, whose very name had brought that feeling of a delicious smell, or a delightful strain of music to her upon hearing it for the first time. Aslan, who, with a single glance, could see right through her very being, into her soul, and peer through all that she had done and said, and all she had left undone and unsaid. It was quite a marvelous feeling, which, at the same time, was quite a terrifying feeling.

All of the sudden, a deep pit seemed to form in the bottom of her stomach. A balled-up feeling of guilt and remorse and all the feelings one feels when one has done something terrible. That is how Susan felt at that very moment, and it seemed that nothing could do to change that feeling. As if by that very notion, the deep pit seemed to open wider, and the balled up feelings twist tighter. And the cycle of agony followed itself from head to tail again and again, dragging Susan down in a pit of guilt and remorse, and making her look and feel very ill indeed.

A small tug at her hand brought Susan out of the misery of her thoughts, if even for a brief moment. Her instinct was to slap it away, and whirl out of its reach, but then she remembered that similar sensation on the Train Station just moments ago. Instead, Susan looked down to find her sister, Lucy, pulling on her hand. "Come on," the younger girl whined. Susan noticed the look in her sister's eye, that look Lucy got when she was simply dying of curiosity. Susan had to admit to herself, she, too, was curious about where they were.

Susan looked down at her younger sister, and all of her negative feelings seemed to wash away. She smiled, a real smile, feeling as a smile she had never experienced since the four of them had left that magical land a year ago. It felt good to smile like that again, like the kind of smile that wipes away all one's cares. And that is exactly what this smile did. That deep pit at the bottom of her stomach had vanished, and Susan felt...she felt joy in her heart. Joy, elation, happiness, all because this could be that place, that place where all those emotions seemed to wrap themselves around her in a magical feeling of contentment.

Edmund, in his usual, matter-o-factual way, asked, "Where are we?"

She just laughed, and her smile widened. Susan said nothing in return, but grabbed onto the hand that had been tugging hers a moment ago. Glancing down at her sister, she smiled and giggled again, hoping Lucy would figure out what she meant. That she meant for them to go racing down the rest of the cave's length, until they reached the light, and from there, to whatever was out there. No doubt the boys would be just two steps behind them all the way, ever curious as they were to find out just the same. The question on all of their minds.

Was it true? Could it be that they were back, back to that place again?