That night had felt like a nightmare. There had been a time where Vitha felt like she had blacked out. The cooling body of her father underneath her paws, the sounds of screams rattled in her ears as the stars had fallen. The Great Kings of the past had turned their back on the Pridelands; how else could that phenomenon be explained?
Then he had arrived. That monstrosity, certainly the creature that had nearly killed her that night many moons ago. The catalyst for her cult, to protect her homelands. And they had failed.
The bitter tang of metal filled her mouth as she walked towards the tainted part of the Pridelands. Bodies had been moved, prayers granted and they had been returned to the earth to ensure the circle of life. The land here was still littered with the damage the stars had wrought; craters of various sizes had made the land uneven, and a bit unstable. The grass showed no signs of regrowing here soon, withered under the power of fear and taint of blood. She inhaled deeply, never wanting to forget this scent. That night, only a few days ago, had deeply changed her. Her cubs had been born the following night, the stress from losing her father triggering her labor. Vitha had felt a mixture of joy and disgust; was her father's death necessary for them to be born into this world? The weight of her task had left little room for feeling compassion for her children. Mkate had the task of watching over them as Vitha had left to attempt to clear her head. Her eyes glanced towards the border, not too far off from where the damage began. It was then that she noticed another; a stranger.
The snake slithered in front of the lioness, smacking its tail on the ground every now and then. The lioness's markings were stark, the golden eye-like marking on her chest and peeking from around her shoulders catching attention away from the fact that her real eyes were closed. The snake stopped its movement, and the lioness did as well. "Death touched this land," she said, her voice deeper than Vitha had expected. They were not close, and it was hard to hear her over the breeze that always seemed to greet these lands. Vitha drew closer, carefully watching her step. She noticed that the lioness was close to where her father had died, and a twinge of fury shot through her muscles before she willed herself to calm down. Coincidence, surely.
The snake slithered up the lioness' foreleg, resting just at the nape of her neck. An odd sight, how well the snake could blend into the lioness' markings. "Many a deaths," Vitha said, her voice coming out more acidic than she had anticipated. The red lioness did not react, as if she expected Vitha to say more. The silence grew between them, Vitha's intrigue combating with her newly grown distrust of nearly everyone around her. Her red eyes narrowed, and her chin jutted out in frustration. "And what of it?"
Another lack of reaction. Vitha was running out of patience. She had come here to mourn over her father in the spot where he had drawn his last breath, and this outsider was standing right next to it. In that moment, the black and red lioness' head bobbed upwards to the sky, and then back to Vitha, almost as if she was looking at her even with closed eyes. "Your father," she replied with little inflection. "Parents. Loners. One who lied." The snake shifted along her neck as each word was spoken. "The blood reeks of fear; this is no land of fighters. This was no war. This was the blood of innocents, and you seek to ensure vengeance."
"I seek nothing of the sort!" Vitha yelled, her rage beginning to unravel again. "I want to ensure safety of these lands, and they scoff at me! Call me insane, call me a liar, a trickster, a fear monger-er. And yet, everything I had warned about came true!" Her sides heaved as she yelled, not realizing what had transpired until she had run out of breath. The anger was screaming in her ears, her frustration at being ignored in a land that always seemed to offer sleepy respect had turned it's back on her. Innocents died because of that. Because of him.
"I seek death," the lioness replied. "And here I found it. And I will find it again; your lands are tainted." Beneath the overwhelming smell of death, she could smell her father here. Death always followed him, and she followed death. A simple trail, and yet not so simple to explain.
Vitha snarled at this stranger. "I will purify this land, regardless of the action I need to take. You must have the power of Sight; a power that is not mine, and yet I will not submit to one that thinks they know more than me. These lands are full of Seers, and yet none of them were able to foretell what had happened here. A useless gift, if it cannot protect those that you should protect." She would never admit that she used to grow jealous of those that had the gift, like Aoife. But after the failure of warning that night, she had cast aside any feelings of jealousy or desire. She had been focusing so intently on the closed eyes of the lioness, that the sudden movement of the snake had made her jump.
"We seek Death and Truth," the snake, Uqobo, replied. "The Truth you seek is not from us; the Death can be foretold, if you so wish it. Ukufa-funa only sees into the past and future of death; none of your seers must have been trained." The snake was back on the grass, shifting itself into a threatening position between the two lionesses.
Vitha focused on the snake before her, blinked. "... the truth I seek?" she echoed. It was a simple phrase, and yet she had never considered the truth. Only protection. She had glanced over at the lioness again, who had begun to leave.
"We will return when death does," was all she said, and the two left to return into the rogue lands.
The wind caressed Vitha's fur as she drew herself closer to the location where her father had died. A white paw dragged itself across the dead grass, the dirt shifting with the disturbance. "What I wouldn't give to hear your voice again," she said to the earth, letting her body slide into the tainted ground as she let her anger n** at the idea of 'truth'.
(1,114 words)