Perspective: Freya Van Daalen
Freya's night was, quite frankly, the worst of her life.
There was no glamour in it, no bravery — only pain, sweat, and the metallic taste of despair.
The cold wind sliced through the cracks of the makeshift cave she had found for shelter, and the floor — hard, rough, covered with roots and stones — was her bed.
She writhed on that miserable ground, her body trembling between contractions that came in shorter and shorter waves.
With each spasm, she let out a low growl — a sound born of pain and rage.
"Damn this game…" she thought, teeth clenched, claws scraping the ground. "Damn this game and its insane developers."
She didn't know what was more absurd — the fact that she was about to give birth inside a virtual environment, or that even here, the pain was real.
Not as a copy.
Not as simulation.
Real.
Heat surged up her spine as her belly convulsed in violent spasms, her entire body reacting as if waging war against itself.
Sweat streamed down her golden fur, her heart pounded furiously, and for a moment she swore she could taste the salt of her own tears.
But what tortured her most wasn't the pain itself.
It was the anger.
A cold, sharp, rational anger.
"I'll sue every one of you," she thought between growls and gasps. "Every single one, you bastards…"
Her mind went to lawyers, courts, contract clauses, and those unread "terms of service."
She thought about every document she had signed before entering the Black Tower.
She thought about the hell she now endured for a game that had promised nothing more than "total immersion."
It was the height of irony.
A woman who had once been a teacher, a mother, and a warrior — now reduced to a cornered lioness, giving birth alone in the middle of the night.
The pain was intense, but not as catastrophic as her first, real childbirth.
And that confused her.
She couldn't tell whether the game was somehow filtering the agony…
or if it was simply her new body — stronger, harder, made for battles — that endured it better.
In truth, it no longer mattered.
The only certainty left was hatred.
Hatred for everything that had brought her to this point.
She breathed heavily, panting.
Each breath made her abdomen contract again.
She felt the small body moving inside her, life insisting on being born even amid chaos.
And no matter how stubborn her pride was, she was afraid.
Afraid of what was coming.
Moonlight slipped through the cave's opening, silvering the floor covered in dry leaves.
The distant chirping of crickets mingled with the muffled echoes of roars coming from the forest.
For a moment, Freya closed her eyes, trying to focus on her breathing.
Inhale… exhale… inhale… exhale…
Then something changed.
A smell.
Heavy. Dense.
It cut through the air like a blade.
Instinct answered before the mind could.
Her body stiffened. The fur on her back stood on end.
She knew that smell.
She could taste it in the back of her throat, like rust.
The same stench she'd felt days ago — right before Aslan had almost died.
The invader.
That damned beast that had trespassed on their territory.
Her heart pounded.
Her pupils dilated.
Even weakened by the pain of labor, her body began to vibrate in readiness.
She raised her head, eyes fixed on the cave entrance.
The night seemed darker, heavier.
The forest's sounds had stopped — as if the world itself were holding its breath.
Then she realized.
The scent didn't belong to a single body.
There were more.
Others.
Large. Breathing heavily. The muffled sound of paws crushing dry leaves.
The invader wasn't alone.
Cold dread ran down her spine.
The labor, the pain, the blood — all of it now felt like a perfect trap.
She was cornered.
Wounded.
And surrounded.
Outside, in the shadows of the forest, destiny approached.
And Freya knew: this night, already the worst of her life, had just found a way to get worse.
What followed was chaos.
A storm of roars, screams, and dull, thunderous impacts that shook the ground beneath her.
The air inside the cave pulsed with the rhythm of war — each echo hammering through her chest like a beating drum.
Freya tried to stand, to force her body to rise from the ground and run toward where Aslan was.
She wanted to fight beside him, to tear apart whoever dared come near.
But her body refused to move.
The pain returned — stronger, sharper, crushing her in shorter intervals.
She groaned low, a sound halfway between fury and anguish.
Her paws trembled, the muscles in her abdomen tightening so violently she thought the ground might swallow her whole.
The roars outside mixed with her own breathing.
Each echo that crossed the air made her flinch.
Each one carried the fear that it might be the last.
That the next silence would be final.
His silence.
Aslan…
She bit her lower lip, eyes brimming.
His name crossed her mind like a bitter whisper.
The pain didn't stop.
Another contraction hit — she arched her back, claws digging deep into the soil.
Her body knew — it was time.
And yet, her mind couldn't let go of what was happening outside.
Of him.
Of the sounds of battle growing weaker and weaker.
Aslan was still fighting — she was sure of it.
But for how long?
Fear blended with anger, and anger with helplessness.
She wanted to be there — to fight beside him, to die beside him if she had to.
But all she could do was breathe and endure.
Time ceased to exist.
There was only pain.
An endless loop of pain, breathing, and silence.
Then the battle sounds stopped.
For an instant, the world held its breath.
The wind died.
Not even the leaves stirred.
And in that heavy silence came the final contraction.
A violent spasm — sharp, almost cleansing — and then… a cry.
A tiny, high-pitched cry — weak, but alive.
So alive it filled the entire void of the cave.
Freya gasped for air, tears gathering in her eyes, her body trembling and exhausted.
Between her front paws, a small, wet body squirmed.
Tiny. Fragile. Perfect.
For a moment, nothing else existed.
No pain, no fear, no guilt.
Only that delicate sound and the rhythm of her own heart trying to keep up.
But the silence that followed was too heavy to be comforting.
It smelled of blood and death.
Freya lifted her gaze.
Moonlight still filtered through the cave's opening, and now she saw it — the ground stained with dark spots of fresh blood leading outside.
She knew whose blood it was.
And she knew what she had to see.
With effort, she rose.
Her legs trembled, her body still ached, but she walked — staggering — toward the light.
Each step was a battle, the cold wind slicing through her sweat-soaked fur.
And then she saw him.
Aslan lay on the ground.
His massive body sprawled across blood and leaves.
His once-golden mane was now a mix of red and earth.
His chest rose and fell in shallow, ragged intervals.
He was alive.
Wounded — but alive.
Around him lay three motionless bodies.
The invaders.
The beasts that had brought hell to their home.
They were dead, shredded as if the earth itself had punished them.
Freya approached in silence, her paws sinking into the mud.
She wanted to help him.
To say something.
But she didn't know what.
Didn't know how.
Then she saw movement.
Tiny. So small she thought she was hallucinating.
The newborn — the fragile cub who shouldn't even have had the strength to move — was crawling out of the cave.
Its tiny paws trembled, eyes still closed, body barely holding itself up.
But it kept moving.
One step.
Then another.
And another.
The mother watched, frozen.
Her heart pounded, wild and uneven, her entire being suspended between awe and something deeper — a feeling ancient, primal, impossible to describe.
The cub reached the father.
Pressed its tiny nose against his chest.
And for an instant, everything stopped.
The wind fell silent.
The world dimmed.
The moonlight flared until all that remained was white.
A sharp, endless white —
as if reality itself had dissolved into light.
And then, the world simply… disappeared.