Perspective: Freya Van Daalen
Freya simply didn't trust men.
At least, not men who weren't her father.
And that wasn't one of those impulsive decisions born from a single bad experience.
It was something old — carved deep into her soul — a choice forged by years of disappointment, abandonment, and broken promises.
She remembered perfectly when it began.
She had been eighteen.
Young, naïve, and, like so many girls her age, in love.
Back then, she believed love was enough to fix everything.
And when she discovered she was pregnant, her first reaction was fear — but soon, fear gave way to hope, because the man she loved had promised to stay.
He had held her hand, looked her in the eyes, and said:
"We'll handle this together. You're not alone."
She believed him.
Maybe because she was foolish.
Maybe because she was too young to understand that words were cheap.
And perhaps that's why it hurt so much when, the very next day, he simply disappeared.
No message.
No note.
No goodbye.
He was just gone.
Freya searched for him for weeks, clinging to the hope that something terrible had happened.
But the truth was far more mundane — he had simply run away.
Years later, she got a call.
A distant, bureaucratic voice told her they'd found his body in Ibiza.
Overdose.
Five years had passed.
Freya was home when she got the news.
It was late.
Her two little troublemakers — her kids — were already asleep.
She said nothing.
Then, quietly, she thanked them for the information and hung up.
She didn't cry.
She didn't scream.
She didn't feel a thing.
Maybe because, deep down, that version of her — the dreamy girl who still believed in promises — had already died alongside him years before.
From that day on, Freya decided she didn't need men.
And, in truth, she didn't.
She raised her children on her own.
She worked, taught, cared.
Endured sleepless nights and endless days, but never regretted it.
She was enough.
And any man foolish enough to step into her life inevitably ran away at the first sign of responsibility — usually the moment he realized her children came as part of the package.
So Freya stopped trying.
Stopped expecting.
And, over time, even forgot what it felt like to rely on someone.
But now…
Well, now things were different.
Even if she'd never admit it out loud — and even if what was happening technically couldn't be called a "relationship" — there was no other word that fit.
Somehow, absurdly, she was in something that resembled a marriage.
A rather wild one.
Because, of course, she was no longer in her human body.
And neither was Aslan.
They had become a pair of felines.
Real felines.
Freya still couldn't explain what had happened.
One moment she was stepping through the gray portal, feeling that same wave of vertigo the game always triggered when changing scenes — and the next, everything was different.
She was standing in the middle of a vast golden plain, a sun-scorched savanna where the wind whispered through tall, dry grass.
And when she looked down, all she saw were paws — elegant, golden, graceful.
Her body was that of a lioness.
And before her, lying with calm majesty, gazing across the horizon with golden eyes that seemed to hold centuries of instinct and wisdom, was him.
The lion.
Even transformed, Freya would have recognized that gaze anywhere —
the eyes of a man who thought too much and spoke too little.
The eyes of Aslan.
She didn't know if the game was mocking them — turning Aslan, "lion" in Persian, into a literal lion — or if this was part of some mysterious test about "Essence."
But honestly, it didn't matter anymore.
The fact was simple: somehow, they were now a pair of felines —
a king and queen of the savanna.
And, as absurd as it was…
Being a lioness was… exhilarating.
Freya couldn't deny it.
It was thrilling to run across the savanna — the hot wind tearing through the air, propelling her body forward with a force that bordered on ecstasy.
The feeling was incomparable to anything human.
Each step made the earth tremble.
Each leap defied the very limits of her body.
And, deep down, a part of her loved it.
The wind coursing through her golden fur.
The rhythmic pounding of her paws against the dry soil.
The heat pulsing through her veins as if she were part of the land itself.
It was an experience beyond anything she'd ever known — even compared to the Pilates sessions she used to pride herself on, or the classes where she'd pushed her body to its limits.
Freya had always taken pride in her physique — flexible, strong, agile.
But now, comparing it to this lioness's body, her human form seemed… limited.
Simply inferior.
This feline body was a biological masterpiece.
Every muscle felt carved for a purpose — to hunt, to run, to leap, to kill.
And yet, even with such strength, there was a harmony that words couldn't capture — everything perfectly balanced, ready to respond to any impulse.
She could feel the energy humming beneath her skin, the latent instinct in every fiber.
Her speed was unbelievable — fast enough to cross fields in seconds — and still, her body demanded more.
It was as if she had been born for this.
As if, for the first time in her life, she was truly alive.
But it was also terrifying.
Because if the lioness's body was ten times more capable, her mind was ten times harder to control.
Moments after awakening, Freya felt a wave of impulses flood her — wild, intense, almost violent.
She didn't know what she wanted to do first: attack… or surrender completely to the moment.
The lion before her — Aslan — lay there, motionless, majestic, watching her with golden eyes that seemed to see straight through her.
And for a second, she felt an overwhelming urge to leap at him.
But she didn't know if it was out of aggression…
or something far more primal.
Only the faint remnants of her humanity kept her from giving in.
That fragile voice of reason whispering that she was still Freya — still a mother, still a woman, still herself.
Even so, the instinct roared inside her.
She longed to run across the horizon, to cry out to the wind, to bare her fangs and her power.
It was a feeling she had never known before — something wild, untamed, free.
The complete opposite of her ordinary life — her routines, her worries, her responsibilities.
In the real world, she was the woman who made grocery lists, who paid bills, who picked up toys from the floor.
Here…
she was pure strength.
Pure instinct.
And that terrified her.
It terrified her because, for the first time, she understood what Alessio had meant when he spoke of "risks and rewards."
She didn't yet know what rewards this madness would bring, but she was already tasting the risks.
Her body craved freedom.
But her mind…
Her mind was starting to wonder how much longer she could keep control.