63!AU Ari Haswari. Possibly going to beyondthewardrobe.

[tinylioness]

I do have -- what is the word? Imagination. Whimsy. Yes, whimsy. More whimsy than Ziva; she is such a practical child.

But I have anger in equal measures. I do not wish to face this lion, the one who you say could see into my soul.

If I had any request of you...

...perhaps I could see my mother? It has been a long time.

Comments

[thegreatlion]

Some journeys must be begun before the destination is clear. It is the paths you take that matter most. Draw near, do not hide yourself away within your anger.

You are wary. You must be wary, Daughter of Eve, lest you allow your fear to draw you away from all that might do you good.

No one else may know what you might find here, but I will tell you now that you will find a great many things. Some which will stay with you, and others which you must one day let go of.

[tinylioness]

I have cause to be angry, and cause to be wary.

[thegreatlion]

Of that I have no doubt, young one. Few emotions appear without cause. It is how you deal with these emotions, and what you take from their cause, that matters most.

[tinylioness]

My father brought me to watch a man die, and he said that emotion is something I should never show.

He wants me to be able to survive.

[thegreatlion]

It takes more courage and bravery to shed a tear for a stranger than to shield one from a friend. Though there are times when either may be required, your emotions are what make you human. To ignore them would be a folly greater than to ignore the rattle of a poisonous snake or the roar of a hungry lion.

Expressing oneself and surviving do not go hand in hand. You may run to the ends of the earth and back again, but you will no more escape your emotions than your feet will escape you for the strain you place upon them. Why, then, should you hide away such a vital part of your being?

[tinylioness]

[ 'Wary' doesn't half-describe her attitude right now. She has learned, ever-so-slowly, to hate her father, as she realized what his plans were for her. She loves her mother with the desperation of one whose fantasy will never come to life -- she loves with the depth and breadth of a child who's imagined more in a mother's small gestures than was ever meant to be there.

She has spent nights cold and alone in the wilderness, with nothing but a map and an empty canteen for company. She has survived on her own because of her father's training, and through it she took comfort in the thought that someday, somehow, he would take a Palestinian's bullet.

What Aslan is saying is a foreign language to her. ]

If I told my father that someday I would rejoice in his death, he would laugh. And would that be better than the life I live now?

[ She's far too old for her twelve years. ]

[thegreatlion]

Dear heart, you need not always express yourself in words when the words do not suit your cause, but you must always be honest to yourself most of all.

[He can see and feel the age, and the rage, within her. But Aslan merely shakes his mane with a gentle movement and steps closer, his golden eyes resting on the young one before him. Old inside, she may be, but young and still there was hope for her yet. There was hope for all things in Aslan's heart, children more than anyone else.]

But this conversation is one so dark and serious for such a day. Look how the sun shines, how the wind whispers. It is time, young one, that you learn the world is much more than darkness, anger and fear.

There is a time for all things, and now is a time for learning what it means to laugh and play. [To dance in the moonlight with fauns and race through the fields on the back of a centaur. Some people Aslan brought to Narnia in its time of need. Others he brought in theirs.]