The only way to Narnia
By Strega

It would not be the first time the lion had eaten a child, but he had never eaten three in one day before. 'Hm,' thought the lion as he watched from the trees, 'All three of those little ones would fit in my stomach at one time, I am certain. Now how to go about arranging it?'

His first meal of human had been just more than a year ago. The little traveling circus had fled the city when the first bombs dropped, yet somehow one had managed to find its way into the big top in the middle of the show. Amongst the screams and confusion no one had seen the cat dart through the burst cage bars, and everyone swiftly assumed the lion-tamer was likewise amongst the bits of body scattered around the crater.

So the lion made his escape, belly drooping with his still wriggling meal. By the time he coughed up the clothing and other indigestibles the circus had moved on and in the chaos and excitement of war the lion disappeared into the rural brush. Though he had happily eaten his former owner, for whom he had little love, he was soon forced to admit that the man had taught him a great many useful things.

It had pleased the tamer to teach him language, and the clever lion had soon learnt not only to speak proper (if growly) English but to read as well. It had become part of the act, a fierce and feral lion sometimes delivering threatening lines and other times silly ones. The lion became an actor and quite well-read. The former had been useful in that it allowed him to convince the tamer that he was safe to be around. Sooner or later the lion had planned to educate his master on the intricacies of a big cat's digestive tract, and though the eventual meal was rather hurried and joyless at least he had a full belly when he made his escape from the circus.

He had even managed to spirit away a few books in the chaos, and when he set up a den in the depths of a copse of trees he would stretch out with one held open by a padded paw and read them again and again. His favorite of all was two books from the Narnia series: it amused him to imagine that great-maned Aslan, who admitted to swallowing up children and men and even countries, had lured many young ones other than Lucy, Edmund, Peter and Susan to his lands. It was merely that most of those children came to Narnia and never left it, remaining instead as lion flesh and fertilizer without the benefit of as much publicity as the Pevensies.

By the time the bulge in his middle was gone and his hunger rose once again he had evolved a plan. No one in this countryside knew that a lion was loose, and that was the way he would keep it. No picking off sheep from well-guarded flocks; instead, he would watch for lone travelers displaced by the war. Many came and went on their journeys from ravaged city to some imagined safe haven or another. The clever lion, who well knew human language, would sneak from refugee camp to refugee camp, listening and learning, and when he found someone who would not be missed that person would abruptly find themselves in the moist and inhospitable confines of the lion's stomach.

The lion would creep just as carefully away, muffling his belches, and lie up in his den until he was hungry again. Stray dogs were a frequent treat as well, but nothing amused him as much as dispatching a surprised human down his gullet. They were the lords of this land, sure that only other humans were worthy of being called enemies, yet one by one he devoured them, grinning his fanged grin as they kicked and wriggled in his drooping gut. Many of them never saw their doom approaching and never knew what had eaten them, just that they were suddenly being digested. After all, from the perspective of a meal one stomach is much like another.

Everything he coughed back up, clothes and shoes and hair and whatever else didn't dissolve he buried with meticulous care, just as he buried everything that came out the other end. He'd found a good little hunting-ground here and if he had anything to say about it he'd keep it for a long time. This war was the best thing that could have happened as far as a hungry lion was concerned.

A couple of times he'd torn the clothes from humans and mounted them, for lacking a lioness the urge did rise. He found he did not much like humans for that, though, since even as he mated he must also keep them from making any noise. Killing them beforehand was boring, and it proved annoyingly difficult to work his jaws over one end even as he arched over the other. After two women and one man disappeared post-coitus down his throat he decided it was more trouble than it was worth and went back to merely eating them. There were other ways to scratch that itch that did not require a risky distraction from his primary goal of secretively filling his belly.

One rare and entertaining meal was the time he caught a man and a woman mating and crept close enough to engulf both heads before they knew he was there. Down they had gone, still entangled, his jaws stretching to their limits to accommodate the double meal. Afterward he lay there for longer than he really should, belly oddly distended with two lovers whose lust for each other had lasted surprisingly far into the encounter. When they had finally stilled the lion uttered a smug belch and lay there grinning. It was to date the only time he had eaten two humans in one evening, much less at the same time.

Then the children showed up, and the lion found himself a new diversion.
They were from several families, all separated from their parents, and as far as he could tell at least one was an orphan. The first night he merely crept close and listened, and though the two boys and a girl appeared quite tasty to his well-trained eye he did nothing. The remains of a large dog were still making their way through his guts and he did not yet know if the children, unattended though they seemed, would be missed.

The next night he saw them again, this time joined by a third boy, and the lion hatched a plan.

He could most likely ambush them at their lonely little fire and he was certain he could fit all four into his belly at once, though he would be gorged almost to immobility by such a large meal. He was increasingly sure no one would note their disappearance - the sheer number of refugees continued to favor him since their comings and goings meant keeping track of who might or might not have been swallowed by a lion was impossible. He'd made a good living picking off refugees and these children would soon add to the crowd of people who had vanished down his throat.

Merely pouncing and eating did get dull, though, and it amused the lion to try something different. It would give him a welcome chance to talk to someone for a change, for one thing. So late that night he crept into their camp, softly padded paws silent on the dirt, and dropped at their campfire a backpack he carried there in his teeth.

He could not remain to see them find it lest someone spot him once it got light, so he had to hope for the best and skulk back off to his hidden den.

The very instant it was dark enough the next evening, and perhaps a bit earlier than that, he made his way back to their camp. He was genuinely hungry now, but he never hurried when he hunted, and most certainly he did not hurry now. He wanted to watch first.

He arrived to find the children clustered around the fire and reading aloud from the books he'd put in the pack. Hillary was eagerly reading from the Voyage of the Dawn Treader and the other three we in a tight little group as the oldest boy - the lion thought this one was named Jeremy - read from the final chapters of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. The lonely, bored children were entranced, and from the sound of it they were on at least their second reading, though they had the books now only for a day.

The seed had been well and truly planted. On his way back to his den the lion sniffed out a slender man in worn-out clothes sleeping in a ditch and swallowed him with little ceremony. His meal was kicking its last in his belly as he settled down to sleep.

He spent the next two nights near the children's camp, watching and listening, learning their names and backgrounds as best he could as he silently rehearsed his lines. He groomed his mane into sleek magnificence, for he must look his best when the time came. When the children fell asleep after long and fevered discussions about the books he padded back to his thicket den and slept away the days. Even in his dreams he imagined how he must stand, regal and proud. The tone of voice he must use. It would be his greatest role: it must be perfect.

Eventually he coughed up a half-digested boot, a belt buckle and a wad of torn linen. At last he was hungry again. Time to see how well he could perform on stage.

He crept up on the children's camp as he always did, even approaching from downwind in the event a dog had joined their little band. Always aware that he might find an adult in the mix and need to alter or abort his scheme. His luck held, though; there were the four children still, and still discussing the superiority of Narnia to their war-torn land.

He would show them Narnia. Without hesitation, with his head held high and proud he strode into the firelight. "Children," the lion intoned in his most benevolent growl.

"Daughter of Eve," he said gravely as Hillary scrambled wide-eyed away from him. "Sons of Adam," he rumbled benevolently as Thomas, Jeremy and Kendall backed in panic toward the bushes. "You have nothing to fear from me." With that he sat with his head upright and his tail curled around in front of his paws, still as a statue yet bright-eyed and aware.

"Run," whispered Jeremy, but the lion did not move a whisker, for he saw the dawning hope in the eyes of the other three.

"Aslan," Hillary said in an awed tone, and a smile broke across the face of two of the boys. Jeremy remained dubious, but the lion was patient. He would not deviate the script just yet.

"Yes, children," he said with utmost gravity. "There are few Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve among my - " Line, the lion thought. Not Subjects, not Followers, what was my - "People. Even here, distant from Narnia, I sometimes hear the cry of lost Sons and Daughters, and so I have come."

"Oh, take us with you," the youngest, Kendall cried. "Take us to Narnia. It is so very awful here."

"Yes, take us," said Thomas and Hillary together. "We don't need to be kings and queens, we just want to come to Narnia."

"But that's just a story," Jeremy said, but the lion could see that even he was losing his suspicion. Hope was creeping onto all four faces, even his. The lion very carefully did not smile. Though they were close enough to grab now, none of his iron muscles flinched. Instead he lowered his head and assumed an expression of grave sadness.

"I cannot," the lion growled. "There is no safe way to take you there. Of the many worlds, here I am least known, here I come least often. While I can come and go from here, I cannot take you with me safely."

The lion cursed inwardly. He had overdone it with that last line! That was the weakness of rehearsing without someone to critique him, and his critic was long since digested.

He could only wait and hope that what should have been a thread of a clue and was instead a brick would not be too obvious.

"So you just came to mock us," Hillary said with a spark of anger in her eye. "To tell us you cannot help."

This line, or one very like it was also in the script. No need to ad-lib just yet.

"Truly, daughter of Eve, I came to do no such thing. Here I am not as I am elsewhere, but here I can still bring hope. Even on this world -"

"But we don't want to be on this world!" she cried, the anger in her eyes replaced by tears. "Please, please take us with you."

A less hardened creature would have felt remorse for what he was about to do, but in the world of animals the vulnerable young are the first targets a predator sought. The lion felt nothing but hunger and anticipation. He was sure one of them would pick up that clue. One did.

"Safely," Jeremy said suddenly, his time reading Junior Mystery novels clearly well spent. "So there is a way, it's just dangerous!"

"The only way to Narnia from this world is through me," the lion rumbled. "I cannot open a door as I have done for others. I can only take myself. There is no safe way for you to return with me."

"Tell us, tell us," Hillary and Kendall cried out together, but Jeremy had already worked it out.

"He has to eat us," he said slowly. "Swallow us whole. Then he goes back to Narnia and coughs us up...if we are still alive."

"It is my nature to be a lion," mock-Aslan said quietly. "And lions eat meat. In the time it takes to return to Narnia, seconds though it be after I swallow you, you might be burnt by my stomach juices. You might get it in an eye, in your mouth. You might be scarred or if you do not hold your breath and instead inhale it, you might even die. It is too dangerous."

"It is dangerous here!" Hillary said. "My mother died, Kendall's father died in the bombing. There aren't enough police here in the country, people fight over food and sometimes they just disappear."

"In times of war men grow desperate and cruel," said the lion, who remained silent on the subject of disappearances. He was the chief cause of those in the area and he was after all here to engineer four more. "But wars do pass, in time."

"Aslan, please take us," Jeremy said, and the lion knew he had them.

Desperate and alone they had swallowed the story in the books and truly believed it to be fact. Aslan had come and he would save them from this wretched world.

It took a great effort to not appear smug, but he had rehearsed the expression he would assume. The lion lifted his head, grave and a little sad, and spoke.

"Very well, children. It will have to be very quick. Each of you must grasp the waist of the one before and walk forward, and I will swallow you down. When the last is in my throat I will remove myself to Narnia. I cannot promise that you will be entirely unharmed, but there are healing magics in Narnia." He did not dare say any more lest even a child wonder why he hadn't brought that up before, but it should help remove any last minute hesitation.

Amazingly, it worked. Trust in the innocence of children, he might have said if his jaws were not busy. No sooner had he yawned wide than the children, arrayed from youngest to oldest, thrust themselves in. Trusting Kendall was the first, wincing in distaste as he leaned forward and pushed his head into the saliva-slick folds of his gullet. The lion didn't even have to swallow, for the next in line - Hillary, it turned out - actually gave his shoulder a shove that popped it past the tightness at the back of the lion's jaws. Just that quickly Kendall was to the waist in throat and Hillary was still pushing him in, anxious to follow her to the promised land.

Little did they know that their promised land was not Narnia but the guts of a clever and greedy lion. He need only stand and let them do all the work! Thomas was next, and in his haste he grabbed Hillary by the hips and actually pushed her bodily into the lion's throat, climbing in himself as fast as space became available.

Finally the lion had to swallow, for he was packed from fangs to belly with children and it had gotten too tight for them to squirm any deeper on their own. It was gag or gulp, but a great rolling contraction of his swallowing muscles gripped both Kendall and Hillary and sent them into the accommodating wetness of his stomach. Thomas was gripped as well, seized by the arms he had thrust down the lion's throat and pulled in to mid-chest. The lion felt his lower canines scrape hard over the boy's ribcage and noted the resulting twitch of pain, but he had reached the point on the boy's body that no amount of alarm would save Kendall from a gurgling digestive fate.

The only issue left was Jeremy, who unlike the others hesitated. Already the lion had more than an adult man's weight of meat in his stomach and a half-grown man in his throat, so he was not in a good position to chase the last one down if Jeremy fled. He swallowed again, taking pains to seem reluctant to do so, and carefully licked the trace of blood from his fangs before the boy might see it.

"Hurry now," he mumbled past the feet slipping into his gullet, "For I must away to Narnia lest your friends run out of air. You must choose now." With that he opened his jaws once more. "Go or stay."

Jeremy leaned forward and brushed the lion's tongue with his chin, but at the last moment pulled away. Or at least he tried to. The lion felt a mighty belch bubbling up from the mass of tangled children in his belly, a belch sure to disgust Jeremy as it erupted in his face, and a padded paw reached out quick as lightning. He didn't need to run to catch a child whose head was in his mouth, and Jeremy abruptly found himself in a lion's gullet to his armpits.

Unlike the others the boy went rigid, then began to struggle, but it was much too late to flee. The lion tossed his muzzle upward, gathering in Jeremy's rump, and with a single great gulp he sent the boy on his way. He felt the bulge shift beneath his mane as the legs slipped into his maw, the smooth flex of muscle as the strength of his throat left the young man no choice but to join the others. When his rubbery black lips closed over the boy's ragged shoes the lion was smiling gently.

As Jeremy joined the others in a lion belly the big cat stretched himself out. The ponderous bulge in his middle was the biggest one yet, bigger than the lovers, bigger than the hulking fat man he'd laboriously swallowed a few months back. Four squirming children now aware - some more than others - that their trip tonight would not be to Narnia. They were bound for nowhere more fanciful than a trip through the innards of a big cat.

The belch he'd smothered with Jeremy's body finally made its way up, blowing out his lips and sending droplets of saliva flying. A lot of air had gone down with his meal, and the whimpering complaints of his dinner were releasing much of the breath from their lungs as well. A second and third belch bubbled forth, and though his great lumpy belly remained much the same he felt his stomach grow tighter with each burp. There was less air now, and as it fled the acid rushed in to fill the void.

A minute after the final gulp the struggles in his belly were nearly done. Sometimes he had to restrain strong prey as it wriggled, pressing his paws against his gut, but not this time. Individually the children were too weak to cause even a mild ache as they thrashed, and tangled together half their force was spent against the others.

One last contented burp and all was still. The slow gurgling process of digestion was beginning, and the cat was well-fed and smug. It might be the only time he got to talk prey into walking down his throat, but they had - and four of them at that! Each of the children would have made a decent meal, and collectively he was as least as full as he had even been. It would take a week to digest them all, and it would be a chore to get back to his thicket without leaving a broad swathe of belly-drag trail.

He would rest for a few minutes, then set out for home. The play was done; time for the actor to rest. Just a few minutes....

The cat blinked awake, logy and slow. Surely he had just closed his eyes for an instant. Had he slept? Full and sleepy as he was it was hard tell, but it was still night. That was a good thing. Still time to leave this fire and its scattered possessions behind and digest his meals in the solitude of his lair. He must remember to pick up his two books on the way. He thought he saw the pack he'd used to deliver them next to the dying fire.

Two brightly shining eyes looked back at him from beyond the fire. The lion blinked; the other eyes replied with a blink of their own a second later. Though the light of the ebbing fire impeded his night vision he gradually made out the form of another great cat stretched out behind it.

Could it be another cat who'd escaped from the circus? He knew those beasts, though. He thought he saw that swell of a mane, and he was the only male lion there. Yes, definitely a mane.

"It was clever of you to lead the children on," the other lion rumbled, and the lion was doubly taken aback. First that the cat knew what he had done, and second by the sheer rumbling power in the voice. "Few would think to do that."

"Thank you," said the lion, who couldn't think of much else to say. "I have to admit it was my best trick ever."

"Mm," rumbled the other lion, and stood up. It wasn't until it stepped closer to the fire that he realized how large it was. This other lion was massive, larger in every dimension and at least a full foot taller at the shoulder than himself. Sleek though it was the muscle moving beneath that tawny pelt must make the great cat heavier than he was at the moment, even though his weight was doubled by the slowly digesting children in his belly. He had never seen such a massive, yet perfectly proportioned beast.

And its mane! A gloriously golden mane surrounded that majestic face, those amber eyes. Massive paws with perfect black claw-tips carried all that weight with smooth grace and power. It paced past the fire and sat two body lengths away. Rudely close, really, for the poor gorged lion had to haul himself back to a sitting position if he didn't want to crane his neck upward. The movement forced a wet belch out of the gurgling depths of his gut, and the lion tasted acid. He must have slept longer than he'd thought for the meals in his belly to be digesting so.

The more he looked the larger lion over the more he was impressed. So proud and confident and, for lack of a better word, lionlike was this cat that after a moment the lion realize that he was not looking at a mere lion. No, this was a Lion, the very archetype of the breed. So golden and regal and solid that everything else around began to seem that much less colorful, that much less real. He could not ask the Lion to move back a step, though it had come forward to crowd close. He might as well ask an entire mountain to move aside for his benefit. Instead he dragged himself half a body length back to restore the separation.

Across from the majestic counterpart the lion thought of what to say. Little of import occurred to him. "Did you escape from a circus, too? I would know if a cat like you had been at mine."

"No," rumbled the Lion. "I am not from near here. I visit here only rarely, under very special circumstances. This is not my place." The great cat swept a paw briefly along the ground, pushing a little shoe that had somehow not been swallowed with its owner.

"Only when children cry out in need," the lion said jokingly, for so huge and magnificent was his counterpart that he could easily pass for Aslan himself. He was stunned when that piercing amber gaze met his own and the huge cat spoke with complete seriousness.

"On every world there are children of Man in need," the Lion rumbled. "I cannot be everywhere, and it is not my role to save the helpless. There will always be war, and famine and plague. Men are rare among my people; though one or another has come to follow me, it is not the needs of the children of Adam and Eve which bring me to this place."

"Are you an actor too, then, Aslan?" said the lion, humor still in his voice even though he was impressed by the performance. The size of the cat, and its intense aura of determination and authority it radiated were almost frightening even to another lion, and this cat knew the role as well as he did!

"If I must be," the huge cat rumbled. "But on this world, and others, only one thing can bring me to play a role. Can you guess what that thing is, lion?"
The lion looked his larger kin over with dawning worry. The golden-maned cat seemed to look right through him, to accuse him of some sin.

"Someone taking all the prey and leaving you none?", said the lion, for he began to realize that even were he not weighed down by his bloated belly this huge cat was far more than he could handle. "Perhaps I could cough up -"

Too fast to follow the enormous cat leapt forward, and the lion saw only a flicker of paw as it descended on his skull. Even with claws still sheathed the sledgehammer blow smote him to the ground. It was long seconds before he recovered enough even to lift his head, and all the while the larger cat was talking.

"Only one thing can bring me here in anger," the Lion snarled. "Not the tribulations of men, or women, or even the children. I cannot help them all, not on this world. But there is one thing I will not tolerate."

A massive paw slammed the lion's head back against the ground as he tried to lift it. Though it crashed like a thunderbolt against his cheek he somehow knew the greater cat was withholding much of its strength. Either of the blows could have killed had it so chosen.

"I will not have my name being used to tempt the children of Men to their doom," snarled Aslan.

"You can't really believe -" mumbled the lion, only to peer blearily up into that lancet gaze. The golden Lion really -did- believe, and such was the authority it radiated that he began to have doubts of his own.

"Please," the lion said, only for a huge paw to slap him back down again. Muzzily he looked up into the fangs of the enormous cat.

"The only way to Narnia is through me," the Lion rumbled with infinite dignity. Even now its mane was perfectly coiffed, not a strand out of place. Its eyes glowed with authority as its paws pulled the lion close. "I was too late to save these children, but at least they will be put to rest in Narnia."

"And so will you," the Lion said, and the smaller lion could only thrash futilely as the great jaws took in his head. The heat of the golden lion's gullet was like a furnace, and his weakened struggle was not nearly enough to keep those jaws from working their way further over him. The throat squeezed tight as the enormous lion swallowed, and gullet muscles far too powerful to fight gripped and carried him deeper. Already his mane was pressed flat and sodden with drool, the slick coating of saliva lubricating him for easier ingestion. Bit by bit, unhurried and with no sign of strain, the golden lion was eating him alive.

Eventually those jaws must reach the great bulge of child-filled belly, but he was sure now that even that would not stop them. Very soon now he would provoke in the golden lion much the same sort of belch his dinner had provoked in him. For all he kicked and fought, there was no stopping it. Even if he weren't slowed by his meal, he was as helpless in the great lion's jaws as the children had been in his.

In this late hour he was no longer sure: was it merely an unnaturally large and deluded Lion, or was this truly Aslan? What would it be like, to be digested by a god?

He was about to find out.