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Mau Loa used to have a regular name; numbers like all of the other pride members of her time. This number was 007, as she was the seventh lioness in the pride. She stayed like this, blending in with the rest of her pride, until a new king, the second king in this prides history, came to power. He was terrible, horrible to anything or anyone who crossed his path. He would make meetings with the other kings in the area, and decide to make cub play-dates, but when it was time to leave to go to their pride, he would take all of his pride and steal territory from the kind prides.
But that's not why she has gotten this name. Mau Loa. Everlasting, neverending... why would a simple lioness get this name? Nightmare named only his most prized pride members things apart from numbers. Like his queen. Once he picked his queen, he was still in love with Mau Loa, or at the time, 007. He picked a beautiful young lioness to take role as queen, and her name was Sphinx. Sphinx soon noticed Nightmare staring longingly at Mau Loa while she was playing with the cubs. Sphinx did not take this very well, of course, since she was supposed to be Nightmare's special lioness. One night while Mau Loa was sleeping, she quietly, slowly stalked up to her den, with the other hunters and guards. Her teeth were bared when she opened my eyes to her face in front of mine. Mau Loa panicked, and froze, not able to move. Thankfully, 004, a sub-male lion at the time, woke up to see this as well. He saved her life from Sphinx. He asked Sphinx if she came into the den for more bedding, and being the lioness she was, how could she turn down the offer? Sphinx went back to her den, but all of this happened again and again.
It happened so often that she decided to tell Nightmare. She had no reason to be afraid of him, since she knew he still loved her. Nightmare seemed surprised that she was confiding in him, but he spoke without hesitation. He took her to the glowing river that separated two territories, and stuck a paw in, hooking a strange jellyfish on his first try. He told her to swallow it whole, and warned me not to chew it, for if it gets punctured, the effect will not work. Nightmare never told her what it did until she had already swallowed it. He told Mau Loa that the jellyfish would make her live on forever, and gave her the name Mau Loa, which means everlasting in Hawaiian; a word he picked up from his travels with his old pride. Mau Loa was afraid, terrified even, and started sputtering. Nightmare told her that she was going to be okay. She had calmed down a while after, and began to accept that she was never going to die, and would never be able to die. Sphinx could not hurt her, and that was the reason Nightmare gave her the jellyfish. She would, from now on, be a protector of the pride until the end, where she would separate from her own pride and prosper in another....
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