And why would that stop you from coming to me?

[nevertame]

Is your faith shaken? Do you need to do some soul searching? Just want a listening ear?

Feel free to dive into action threading here. Just tag with any location of your preference and Aslan will come to you in some way, shape, or form.

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][god is a place you will wait for the rest of your life

[oshutup]

As he saw Lucy leave, and Edmund, Peter knows where they are going, to who they run or walk. Waiting until nightfall, waiting even until it is later than he should be leaving, he exits the house. There is a note on the table should his siblings wonder, or Caspian, or Reepicheep. Shadow is not a Talking Cat, but he tries not to assume about any creature in this City. Perhaps the feline can read and might appreciate the notice as well. Maybe not. It doesn't matter much.

In any case, his own steps fall firmly, not running, though his stride is full and he can see each of his exhales on the winter air that remains.

The beginning of the wood gives him cause to stop and he stares at it, as if looking will make him feel less wary and uncertain of what he approaches. It doesn't. For as always, Peter Pevensie has questions, questions he is not sure he is allowed the answers to but ones that he may very well ask anyway.

Remembering a certain Telmarine's smile at breakfast, he knows something is amiss. What leaves itself to further figuring out is why? Was it so terrible? And worse, he swallows hard while walking into the wood at last as he thinks a bit darkly I want to trust you...but that isn't enough is it? Not for the first time, the blond realizes dispassionately that for all his years, for all his adventures and experiences, triumphs and failures, he knows very little in the scope of everything, and it's simply not enough.

][god is a place you will wait for the rest of your life

[nevertame]

Unlike Lucy, Edmund, or Luna, Aslan does not approach this one with great announcement or silent footfall. His relationship with Peter Pevensie differs because Peter Pevensie is very different from the rest. He is the eldest, the one who stands first not because of his age but because he has shouldered the responsibility. The fact that the others argue this does not escape Aslan but neither does it change much about the nature of this High King. Questions and a yearning for the truth remain. He would not be gifted, elected, prescripted, and all other titles without it. So Aslan waits for Peter to find him, deep in the wood, where he sits by a cold stream that the first to be knighted Sir Wolfsbane must cross to meet him. When he sees that face, a face he knows so well from his first arrival at his camp to when he walked through a door in the air to a quiet moonlit evening on a beach, the lion can only tilt his head and breathe.

He knows why Peter is here.

He will do his best, what is required of him, to ease the High King.

][god is a place you will wait for the rest of your life

[oshutup]

Upon first spotting the great lion he bows his head before looking up again and peering across the stream that runs with a quiet and steady course--reliable. It takes very little time to cross the water, walking through it and only feeling its cold over a distance. This night is not as cold as others have been.

They will have spring again and soon.

As he knows to do, he kneels, arms at his sides, head lowered again and feeling like a child who has been told it's for your own good one too many times.

][god is a place you will wait for the rest of your life

[nevertame]

"Rise, High King of Narnia," Aslan says in a cool but firm manner that knows decorum and procedure. His tone softens for the second part. "Walk or sit with me at your leisure, Peter Pevensie," he invites the young man, golden eyes full of warmth and a sense of knowing.

You are frustrated. I do not blame you.

][god is a place you will wait for the rest of your life

[oshutup]

Given permission, he stands, shoulders squared, eyes bright as he moves closer. The offer to do either is a generosity that he politely accepts, remaining on his feet as he pauses to the right of one golden shoulder. He wonders at his own upset, more violent than their first meeting on the beach when it was mostly something quieter, more sadness than frustration. Now he isn't sure what it is, knowing only that it isn't good. It makes him feel sick and not at all himself, but he does his best to keep some stoicism on his side, even before he who seems to see everything people might not want him to.

Where to start?

He has no idea.

"Lucy is very happy," he says after a while, but he doesn't sound as glad as he wants to be.

][god is a place you will wait for the rest of your life

[nevertame]

That Peter comes closer is easy to acknowledge, and Aslan does so with a gentle nudge of his head to the blond's side. Yes, he is upset, the great lion will not argue this nor argue its source. His concern is well placed.

"She has been wanting to see me and not mirage for some time," says the lion with another nod. "And you," he asks, golden eyes staring into blue ones.

][god is a place you will wait for the rest of your life

[oshutup]

He wants to want to see the great lion, as he did in Narnia so desperately, but with too much want and not enough faith. In the end it was Lucy. It is always Lucy and he holds no grudge to the youngest for this. He loves her for it and the Valiant stands above envy. There is no room in him for such bitterness at this point, not to her at least. He did feel it before and it made him feel as if he was a terrible person, not fit to be anything at all, much less a king. Trying not to step backwards, he remembers himself and his place, and why he is here at the lion's side instead of at the house, or on a train in England.

Don't lie, he reminds himself.

"I didn't think I would ever see you again," he admits, foolishness at the edges of his heart and the tip of his tongue. "Before that night at the beach, and then," he pauses, swallowing the wrong words. I didn't know if I could believe that... Glancing to the side, the slight furrow if his brow says much. I don't mean to doubt...but when I do I'm not sure that I am sorry. "...well I am glad to see you," he finishes lamely.

And then there is the ever present question.

What has happened to my friend who dreams of setting to explorations across an impossible sea with every intention that must be good?

What is happening to me?

][god is a place you will wait for the rest of your life

[nevertame]

I said Narnia would come to you in your time of need.

The lion doesn't say these words because he is sure Peter knows them. If he does not know them now he will come to learn them on his own, sooner or later, and that is the best way to understand. To untie the Gordian Knot on his own rather than be told how to do it. Was that not how the young man from Finchley won his first battle at Beruna? He was not told how, only that he must, and because of it here stands a great man today. Even great men have doubts. Aslan knows this and does not fault him for it.

"I am glad to see you too, Peter," he says in a low purr before a wet tongue slips out to lick his sword hand. The surface is rough and like sand paper as any cat's, but the gesture counts all the same. Subtle, wild, and still loving.

"You're worried. Ask me your questions," Aslan urges.

][god is a place you will wait for the rest of your life

[oshutup]

A gesture of gentleness, yet nothing tame, Peter appreciates more than he is able to let on, but there is the faintest look of understanding there. It is only there for a few moments, but that it was there at all seems to be in his favor, or so he would hope if it was such a conscious thing.

"Caspian," the name leave a strange taste with him, the detachment of three words separating him from the person himself, the person who does not seem to remember at all. "He seems to be...missing something." And happier for it, the blond admits mentally but the concern remains for what was done to make it happen, and if so, at what cost.

There is, even after that, the other thing.

What was so terrible that you took it so wholly away, or made it so? Accusation has no place here, not in the face of he who has given them all so much--and taken it a small voice interjects but he pushes it as far from him as possible--and even now provides a subtle comfort.

][god is a place you will wait for the rest of your life

[nevertame]

Aslan looks at Peter silently, then he looks away. It isn't the same as averting his gaze because the great lion has no reason to do so. Instead he focuses on the trees and the way the wind moves between the branches, however subtle the air may be. He hears them and they are relatively well, in good health. All things have their time and place. He looks to Peter Pevensie again, knowing exactly what he means when he says he seems to be missing something. He knows there will be no accusation in his tone but the question remains the same.

What have you done?

"He is missing what was not his to have in the first place," Aslan says calmly.

What needed to be done.

Then the lion's brow furrows. On a creature so wild and untamed it may not look expressive at all, but he and Peter have known each other for some time. It pales in comparison to a thousand years, to two thousand years, but the High King still knows him better than most and it accounts for something.

"We should never be so convinced in what the future holds. It takes away the possibility for change, the eagerness to hold will."

Do you understand?

][god is a place you will wait for the rest of your life

[oshutup]

Aslan speaks as he always does, with a certain calm that belies the majesty of his being in an almost understated way that somehow leaves no question as to his place as king of kings. It does not hold every question at bay, but it does provide what the eldest Pevensie seeks, for the moment, an answer, one, which is better than nothing. He must remember that things can always be worse, always be more muddled than they already are, and he must be careful to take what he can get. These things, he notes away in repetition, as a dim mantra beneath the pulse of his heart.

"Thank you," he says because he does not know how to say that he understands. He doesn't, not to the degree that he desires understanding in itself, and he will not lie. He loves the great lion, for all that he is hurt every time he looks upon him, and he trusts him, for all that he does not quite know anymore how strong that trust is.

This will have to do for now.

He reads the expression in the lion's face easily enough and he offers, in return, the slightest upward curve of his mouth, even if his eyes remain somewhat sad.

I understand as much as I can.

And I wish I understood more.

][god is a place you will wait for the rest of your life

[nevertame]

There is no need for Aslan to address what he knows Peter has already done with the help of one wizard. This parallels that, he thinks the High King already knows by spoken word alone. There is no need to bring up what has been done and done for the better. The Just should never have seen what he saw. He does question Peter's judgment to withhold the idea of what Edmund saw for himself, but they are brothers and what Aslan knows is for neither of them to know. They will have lived together for many years and as such, they will die together. It is not the same as knowing what waits for a friend he will not see after leaving this place. He will not be there when he is made a father. He will not be there when he is in mourning and alone. He will not be there when he dies. But when time rises and Peter is tasked to shut the door with a golden key, Caspian will be waiting.

These are not things for them to know.

Just as what draws the High King and the Telmarine King together is not for the great lion to address.

Just as why high heels and nylons are truly innocent things in the face of something sadder and more tragic is not for him to explain.

All these things lie beneath Aslan's majestic stance. He will always be strong for them because he knows they will need it someday. In the meantime, he brushes his head against Peter Pevensie again. It is the same as saying your thanks is unnecessary, but you are welcome all the same.

"Let's walk you back to your home," he nods.

Yes, he knows, Peter has taken to calling it home.