Perspective: Freya Van Daalen
Freya was freaking out.
Not "a little nervous," not "anxious," not "trying to process what happened."
She was completely losing it.
It had been at least twenty minutes since she started running in circles across the savanna — her paws pounding against the dry earth, heart racing, breath short and ragged.
The rhythmic thump of her steps — thud, thud, thud — raised small clouds of golden dust, but even the physical effort wasn't enough to calm her mind.
Each step was just another spin inside the maze of thoughts tormenting her.
She was trying to outrun herself — but that was impossible.
Wherever she went, the thoughts followed.
"What did I just do?"
She roared at the wind, more out of frustration than anything else.
But the wind, indifferent, only threw her roar back as an echo.
The worst part was that she knew exactly when the breakdown had begun.
It hadn't started today — it started the very first day she realized she was trapped inside a body that wasn't hers.
And since then, it had only grown.
At first, she wanted to freak out because everything was just too absurd.
She was a lioness.
A wild animal — hunting, sleeping on the ground, licking her own fur to stay clean.
That definitely hadn't been part of the deal when she decided to play Black Tower.
But somehow, Aslan — as always — managed to hold the chaos together.
Always with that look of his.
That maddeningly calm, steady look that seemed to say:
"Don't worry. I've got this."
And against all logic, she believed him.
Because he always looked like he actually did know what he was doing.
So she let it slide.
Stopped thinking about the absurdity, stopped trying to understand, and just went along with the flow.
But after last night…
there was no "flow" strong enough to contain it.
Freya had no choice left but to break down for real.
The last man she had ever been with — the last man she had truly been with — was her first boyfriend.
The one who vanished when she needed him most.
After that, her love life had become a desert — dry, barren, and empty.
Occasionally someone would pass through, but never long enough to leave footprints in the sand.
Dating had become synonymous with disappointment.
Romance, with headaches.
Men… with problems.
So out of all the things that could possibly happen inside that game, sleeping with someone sat at the very top of her "absolutely impossible" list.
But life — or the Black Tower, which clearly had a twisted sense of humor — had decided to prove her wrong.
The lioness within her…
that wild, lurking entity that had always stayed quiet, observing, breathing alongside her but never taking control…
had finally taken command.
And the result was chaos.
Total chaos.
She and Aslan — or rather, the lion Aslan — completely lost themselves to their instincts.
And no matter how hard she tried to rationalize what had happened, there was no denying the obvious:
she had slept with him.
Or maybe it was the lioness Sith who had slept with the lion Aslan.
Freya could no longer tell where one ended and the other began.
The confusion was complete.
As she ran, she tried to process everything.
Dust rose behind her; the wind tore through her fur — but none of it brought clarity.
If anything, it only made things worse.
"What do I do now? How do I even look at him?"
She didn't even know his real name!
They'd known each other for only a few days.
And everything they knew about one another existed inside the game.
And within that game, they'd spent the night together.
"Oh, God…" she thought — and then realized even the expression sounded strange now, inside a mind that was half human, half beast.
The worst part was that, deep down, she knew he wouldn't look guilty or ashamed or anything like that.
Alessio was the kind of man you could never fully read, but there was something in the way he looked at her — even without words, without speech — that said clearly:
"It's fine. Everything's fine."
And that, more than anything else, drove her insane.
So she did what she always did when she didn't know what to do.
She ran.
And she kept running.
And running.
And running.
As if the wind itself could tear the shame, fear, and confusion out of her body.
But with every lap, nothing changed.
She was still a lioness.
He was still a lion.
And last night had still happened.
And as much as she tried to deny it…
a part of her — the part that roared, that breathed deep, that felt the world through her body — didn't regret it.
In the end, even a lioness's body had limits.
Freya finally stopped running after nearly five hours.
Five hours of pure escape — not from something physical, but from something much harder to flee: her own thoughts.
The body that had once felt made of pure energy now burned in every muscle.
Her paws trembled, lungs ached, chest rising and falling in a heavy rhythm.
When she finally slowed to a walk, the feeling was almost sweet.
The warmth of the ground beneath her paws, the dry wind blowing through the tall grass, the weight of her body moving slowly…
It was pain — but the good kind.
The kind that meant life.
That brought a strange sense of relief.
Her muscles protested, but also pulsed with renewed strength — a mix of exhaustion and vitality, fatigue and power.
She breathed deeply, feeling the hot air of the savanna fill her lungs.
That pause — that simple act of walking aimlessly — was the closest thing to peace she had felt since this all began.
But peace, in the Black Tower, never lasted.
Without realizing, Freya kept walking.
Her instincts took over — steps guided not by thought, but by habit and muscle memory.
She didn't know exactly where she was going; she just followed the path her body chose.
And so, almost like in a dream, she returned to the same place.
The massive, gnarled tree stood before her.
Its dense crown cast a familiar shadow over the cracked soil.
The place where they had slept — and where everything had happened — looked exactly the same.
But nothing felt the same.
The air was heavier now, charged.
Every leaf, every whisper of the wind, every scent carried memories of the night before.
And Freya felt her heart — or whatever served as a heart in that feline body — tighten.
She stopped.
For a moment, she thought of turning around and running again.
But her body refused to obey.
Her paws were too heavy. Her muscles burned.
Running wasn't an option anymore.
And even if it were…
he was there.
Standing beneath the tree's shade.
Aslan.
He watched her in silence — motionless, yet imposing.
The wind brushed through his golden mane, making it shimmer under the afternoon sun like fire.
His honey-colored eyes were fixed on her — intense, calm, unreadable.
Freya felt her whole body tremble.
There was no judgment in that gaze.
No guilt.
Only a calm she couldn't understand — and perhaps for that very reason, found infuriating.
She had spent hours trying to forget him, trying to make sense of what she felt, trying to rationalize the irrational.
And now he was there — as if nothing had happened.
As if that night hadn't turned her world upside down.
She wanted to roar.
To scream.
To say something — anything — that could break the suffocating silence between them.
But she said nothing.
She couldn't.
Even if she tried, the words would come out as meaningless roars.
So she stood there — still — staring at him.
And he, in turn, stared back.
Two predators.
Two beings trying to understand where instinct ended and thought began.
Two players trapped in something far beyond a mere test.
And in that instant, Freya realized she had come full circle.
She had spent the whole day running from him — only to end up right back where she started.
Literally.
And maybe, in some way, symbolically too.
The problem wasn't Aslan.
Nor the Black Tower.
It was inside her.
And he — standing there, silent, with that steady, unshakable gaze — seemed to know it perfectly well.