White Lion

Chapter Seven

After running around a little to test the limits of my new abilities, I ran to the scourge of all the noise.

The battle.

I dove straight into the heart of the battle, where I used my new strength to take out as many of my mother's soldiers as possible.

As a phoenix lit up a wall of fire to give us time to fall back, I raced to the rocks. Where I fought more of Jadis' troops.

Until I saw her.

She was fighting Peter after leaving Edmund on the ground, dying. But she flung him to the side when she saw me.

My mouth formed into a smile, revealing two wickedly large fangs.

Peter's face flickered through many emotions. Confusion at who I was, anger about what Jadis did to Edmund, fear at what could happen, and sadness. I was dead as far as they knew.

But he seemed to recognize me, his eyes widening in disbelief.

I growled.

"Hello, Madi," she replied, confirming Peter's theory.

I circled around her for a moment, but when I pounced, I landed on her chest.

Her scream was one of the nicest sounds I'd heard after what she did to me. I snapped her neck. She was dead.

I paced away from her, falling over, breathing heavily. I looked to a gash in my side, courtesy of my mother.

Aslan rushed to my side as enemy soldiers retreated, "It's alright, little mouse."

Lucy gave me a drop from her healing cordial, fixing the hole in my side and returning me to my human state. My non-dead human state, that is.

"You're alive," Susan breathed, "We thought-"

"We saw you die," Peter finished, "How-"

I sighed, "Deep magic. What this world was created with. It's good to be back."

"Well, we should get going," Aslan said, "We have a coronation to plan."

Before anything happened, he attacked me, immediately making me shift into a lioness. We playfully attacked each other on the ground for a little while until I shifted human again, having difficulty holding the new form.

As everyone sorted the coronation, I grabbed a dress that wasn't stained with my blood and practiced shifting.

Eventually, my lion form was comfortable.

So before we all had to gather in the throne room, I returned human.

Aslan led me there with him, past all the talking, excited Narnians gathered.

Each Pevensie sibling stood by a throne as Aslan prepared to crown them. I stayed by his side.

"From the glistening Eastern Sea, I give you Queen Lucy, the Valiant," Aslan announces, "To the great Western Wood, King Edmund, the Just. To the radiant Southern Sun, Queen Susan, the Gentle. And to the clear northern sky, I give you King Peter, the Magnificent."

Everyone erupted into cheers as their crowns were placed on their heads.

Lucy's was designed as silver flowers woven together. Susan's was gold. Edmund's, also silver, was a small crown. Even larger and in gold was Peter's crown.

Edmund and Lucy were King and Queen. But Peter and Susan were High King and Queen. I didn't really understand the difference other than they were older.

"The Protector of Narnia and the great Lioness, Princess Madi, the Brave," I was given no crown, only my sword, which I thought I had lost at the stone table.

Aslan continued, "Once a King or Queen of Narnia, always a Ling or Queen of Narnia."

I smiled softly as everyone cheered. I sat at the back of the party that followed. How could I celebrate?

Besides, I could not dance. I had tried, and I would always fail miserably. It was sad. I had eventually given up.

I instead had taken up sword fighting, archery, hand to hand combat, axe throwing, and dagger parrying, all of which I excelled at.

I was also excellent at horse riding, on a saddle or bareback. After a while, Jadis stopped forcing me to try to dance. She understood my talents were of better use elsewhere.

Jadis. My mother. She may have been the White Witch, the Empress of the Lone Islands, but she was still my mother.

And I killed her.

My mind kept replaying that moment. The way she said my name like a taunt as she twirled the remnants of her ice spear in her hand.

The way she snarled as she tried to attack, as she tore my stomach open. The snapping sound her neck made after she screamed.

"Come join us," Peter argued, trying to drag me into the dance.

"I don't dance," I stated, "And how can I celebrate- I just killed my mother."

Peter jokingly laughed, "To be fair, she killed you first."

"I'll join you in a minute," I said, walking to the balcony to see Aslan leaving across the beach.

I ran down the steps to go and see him, but he had vanished.

"Dad?" I asked.

It was like a whisper in the wind, "Goodbye, little mouse."

After quite a few years, we were all grown up, some of us almost unrecognizable.

"Someone's seen a white stag!" Lucy exclaimed, rushing to the stables.

I still didn't make a habit of wearing dresses, just practical riding clothes. So I had no trouble racing ahead of the other Kings and Queens.

Especially since I shifted into a lion to get a better scent on the stag.

"I feel like I've been here before," Lucy said, looking around to see a lamppost, "Spare Oom?"

I had no idea what she was talking about.

"What?" Peter asked as I caught a scent in the trees.

I stalked closer and closer until pine needles brushed into my face and I was human again somehow, "Here!"

There was a strange scent here, mixed with the pine and the stag. Moth balls and cotton. Not typical Narnian fabric.

Something was so strange about this place that seemed to be made of wood. So strange, but so familiar.

Like I'd been here before, in a dream or another life.

We all stood on each other's feet a few hundred times as we kept pushing through the thick cloaks and pine needles until a door burst open.

We all fell onto the floor in a pile, facing an old man in a night gown holding a candle in one hand to find his way out of the dark.

Memories flooded back. Ms. Macready. Professor Digory Kirke. The four years of my life I'd spent in this mansion, not Narnia.

"There you all are," the professor said, "Now what were you all doing in the wardrobe?"

"You wouldn't believe us if we told you," Peter said.

Professor Kirke smiled, "Try me."