Finding the lost lion

Issues Surface

I kick the pebbles with my feet as I walk next to Gallagher.

"What should we do?" I ask him.

"This is not my place to decide. Our father may be conniving, but he is loyal." He answers.

"Lucky for you. You're a boy. You got the magic, all I get to do is fight and listen to a magical letter of lava swirling around on my hand." I sigh.

"All great things come, in  their own time." He answers.

"Ghal, I wish you were the eldest." I sigh.

"I can't help it Evangeline." He says, shifting into his lion form, which has the windiest of manes beginning to sprout.

A strange sounding horn trumpets from ahead of us.

"Susan's horn." He says, sprinting with me just behind him.

Peter is already there, fighting a wolf.

Gallagher shifts back into his human form, revealing a well tanned, well muscled teenage boy with unruly blonde curls piled atop his head.

"That's Maugrim, captain of Jadis's secret police." He explains to me.

I wince as Susan almost falls out of the tree.

"You did good, Evangeline." He says, ruffling my own unruly locks.

"We lost Edmund." I tell him.

"He'll be fine, Jadis is falling since father's return. This Blasted winter is finally ending." He says.

"Finally Ending?" I ask him.

"We've. Been stuck in winter for the past 100 years, sis." He says.

"That's a long time." I whisper back to him.

He elbows me. "Hush up, Peter's being knighted."

I look on as Aslan takes Peter's sword from him and taps both of his shoulders.

"Arise, Sir Peter Wolfsbane." He decrees.

The gathered crowd applauds.

"How come we never got any cool names?" I ask Gallagher.

"Aslan never really liked us." Is my twin's response.

I nod, the truth of the statement a little jarring.

Half the party departs en route of a another wolf, missed the reason behind it.

"Princess Evangeline, Prince Gallagher, I wish to speak to you." Aslan says, sounding formidable.

Everyone falls silent and stares at us.

"We're doomed." Gallagher says as he exhales.

We follow Aslan to his tent.

"You go in first." Gallagher insists.

"No!" I scoff, "you go in first."

"So, you're the Eldest, you go first." He says.

"He likes you better than me, always has." I answer frantically.

"Come, both of you." Our father's annoyed rumble commands.

We slide through the flaps side by side, keeping our eyes trained on the floor and steeling ourselves for his mighty roar of disapproval, or disappointment, or any emotion really.

Instead, Aslan asks me, in a calm, level voice, "Evangeline, do you know how long you have been gone?"

"At least 100 years, sir." I answer him, my eyes studying the grass blades below my feet with an artist's eye.

"You've been gone for 1,000 years." He says. And he's serious, because he never ever tells a joke.

But instead of getting yelled at, he wraps his arms around me and Gallagher.

"My children." He sighs.

I glance to Gallagher, who is just as freaked out as I am.

"To be reunited once again." He hums.

He releases us and dismisses us, shifting back into his lion form.

"Do you know what that was?" My twin asks me.

"Nope." I answer.

"Evangeline!" Lucy shouts, running towards me. "Evangeline!"

"What is it Lucy?" I ask her, chuckling.

"The song you sang, can you sing it for me again?" She asks.

I hum the lullaby once more.

"That's where I knew it from, I knew it was familiar." She laughs, hugging me.

"Thanks Evangeline!" She laughs.

As one Pevensie leaves, another arrives.

"Evangeline?" Peter asks shyly.

"Yes, Peter?" I ask him.

"I was wondering....." he starts.

"Uh- I was wondering if maybe you wanted to uh- umm.... have a picnic with me?" He asks.

"Sure Peter, I would love to." I answer him, his face scarlet.

He walks away, crashing into a fawn carrying a stack of crates.

I laugh and help the fawn father everything up as Peter stammers an apology.

Gallagher is watching me with a concerned look on his face.

"You do realise he's just some boy, right?" He asks me.

"He's not just some boy." I retort.

"Oh yeah, I forgot, he's sir Peter Wolfsbane. Oooohh." He says sarcastically.

"He's going to be King someday." I answer Gallagher's childish response.

"Of the country you witnessed the creation of." Gallagher says, gesturing wildly with his hands.

"Just because you left for 1,000 years doesn't mean your not 1,000 years older then when you left." He says.

"You are literally making no sense right now Gallagher." I say, unsheathing Telmar and doing some air thrusts.

"Your majestically, His majesty Edmund has arrived." A random squirrel says, interrupting our argument.

"Edmund!" I shout, running to Embrace him at the same time as his siblings, all of us colliding in one big group hug.

"I missed you too." He grunts.