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Nobody is quite sure where Dake's queen came from. One day he ruled alone and the next she was simply there.
She was certainly nothing special to look at her, a light cream pelt and common marks - but there was something otherworldly to the pride's new queen. She kept mostly to herself, remaining for the most part in the comfort of her own private clearing just off from where the bulk of the pride slept. The lionesses whispered to themselves, gossiping about this strange lioness who had insinuated herself at their head. She was involved in the occult, one said, summoning the spirits of their dead at night in her clearing - they told tales of bright lights and gut wrenching noises in the silence of the dark. Her pawsteps, it was said, were guided by the spirit of her sister who perished when they were cubs.
When it came to queenly duties she was far from proficient. As to heirs she was worthless, she gave Dake no cubs which he could abide and he killed them... in fact, it's said that Dake didn't truly begin to murder their cubs and the strange lionesses he brought home from his wanderings until Raze had first stepped foot on their land. Perhaps, the lionesses whispered among themselves in voices laced with fear, she had bewitched him and was using him for her dark rituals.
It was Raze who selected Robb, laying her paw against the great wanderer Taergal's tiny son. With a turn of her milky, strangely seeing eyes towards her king the pride's future was secure. Dake raged, their heir must be of HIS blood and no other's - but Raze remained steady.
"Your blood will rule," she told him, "if not in the way you anticipate."
And Rule it would. Dake's precious daughter, the ever sadistic Persephone gave birth - and the son of her daughter was born with stars in his very fur. Dake knew as he beheld the cub that Checkmate would reign after he was gone. Raze was content; Dake's heir was secured, his bloodthirsty daughter was removed from succession and Checkmate would be raised by clever Margery and taught by gentle Robb. The next era, she reflected, would be peaceful after so many brutal moons of bloodshed.
Content, she set her milky sights on her last cub. Training the pride's next seer was her top, and final, priority.
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