Taken by the wonderful Leukothea.
•••
"How dare you have an affair outside of the pride, and with a lioness, no less! You are a disgrace to us all!"
"B-but father! Mother said I-" the desperate lioness was cut off by a furious paw smacking her cheek painfully, startling a yelp out of her.
"Enough of what your mother said! In case you have yet to notice, your mother is dead! Her words mean
nothing!"
A gasp escaped the young female's parted maw. How
dare her father say such things! He had no right! However, as much as she wanted to yowl and cry for him to take back his words, she bit her tongue, just as her mother had taught her all those months ago.
Do not let him get to you. Do not let him see that he has won. No, she would not succumb to her father's harsh words. She was better than that.
As she held his gaze silently, her father and king trembled with rage. He would not tolerate such utter defiance! "From here on out, you are now
banished from these lands! To return would mean a fate worse than death, now suffer!"
Her calm demeanor did not break. She did not let her fury show. She maintained her mask as she held her head high, stared her father straight in the eyes, and stated: "Goodbye, father." And with that, she turned and padded off. Not once did she look back.
~
Living on her own was much tougher than she imagined. She spent her days wandering about, searching for a home. Lions would attempt to woo her, only to realize she had no interested in the opposite sex. Most would leave her alone after that, but there were some monsters and perverts that forced her to mate anyway. Luckily, the majority of those little
'incidents' did not result in pregnancy. The two that did, however, were miserable.
The first time she got pregnant, she did not realize it until nearly two months into the gestation period. A small pride took her in, not wanting to leave a pregnant lioness on her own with nowhere to go. She gave birth to a stillborn and two severely underweight cubs, one of which died that night. Her third cub, a female she named Hope, died within the week. It was during that time that she - quite literally - lost all hope. She left the pride, but rather than traveling like she had before becoming pregnant, she simply found a nice patch of grass to lay on and wait for death. She spent three days in that same spot, wishing for her miserable life to end. It almost did, if not for a spunky lioness and her friend stumbling upon her.
While she had never believed in love at first sight, she had gone so long without a partner who loved her that the moment she laid eyes on Summer she knew she wanted her more than anything else. From that moment on she vowed to follow the lioness to the ends of the earth, even after the other lioness, Tihnem, was introduced as Summer's lover. And after nearly a month of traveling together, she joined their relationship and the duo and the third wheel became a trio. Her and Summer and Tihnem all loved each other as mates, and they would not have traded the world for their polyamorous relationship.
When she wandered off early one morning to surprise her partners with a freshly-caught meal, she was attacked by a lone lion and forcibly bred. Summer and Tihnem chased him off before he could kill her, but the damage was already done, and no amount of comforting could prevent her from getting pregnant once again. And so they took care of her, making sure she did not over-exert herself whist also giving her space when she needed it. They protected her without hovering, which was the best thing they could have possibly done. And when two healthy cubs were born, they swore to raise and protect them together, as a family.
They named the cubs Jasmine and Judas, after her mother and Tihnem's father. The two grew up with three mothers, but it did not bother them. They were just like any other cubs: full of life and happiness. That is, until humans came and lit their fires and set the entire forest ablaze. By the time she had woken up, Tihnem and Jasmine were dead, having been burned without even so much as a whimper. She yowled and cried and tried to sprint towards them to die with her beloved partner and daughter, but Summer would not let her. The lioness finally convinced her to help get Judas out of the forest fire and they ran, never to return to the dreaded woodland again. Once they were safe, they wept for their lost family. It was a tragedy that affected them greatly, and they knew they would never forget what happened.
The next time they crossed paths with humans, Judas was an adolescent, and him and Summer ambushed the poachers and slaughtered several of them out of vengeance. Nothing could prepare them for human weapons, however, as the next thing she knew, she was watching the last of her beloved family fall limp at the hands of cruel fate. She did the cowardly thing to do and fled.
It was almost an entire day before she stopped running and collapsed, unable to continue. That was how Vindemiatrix found her: exhausted and devastated. He gently guided her back to his pride, tended to her wounds, and listened to her story. When he offered her a position in his pride, she accepted, not having anywhere else to go. She requested to be assigned the role of broodmother, as she had minimal hunting experience and a strong maternal instinct, and he approved. When he asked her name, she would not tell him, because her old name was tied to too many awful memories that she wished to suppress. And so she gave herself a name that she felt was fitting.
Broken Queen.
Leaving Vindemiatrix’s pride hadn't been a mistake, even after several years of living there. No matter how much she longed for the protection of others and the company they provided (even if she rarely spoke with the other lionesses in the pride), she did not regret leaving. She had needed to escape. The lifestyle of a pride simply wasn't for her, and Vindemiatrix had accepted her decision and offered her a safe return should she ever wish to come back.
However, just because being a vagabond was what she wanted didn't mean it was easy, or even ideal. She had spent the first several nights alone and hungry, with only the freezing rain to distract her from the loneliness at night. She scavenged for most of her food, unable to hunt for herself anything larger than a lizard. More than once she found herself sickened by the rotting food she had eaten, but still she carried on, determined to make it on her own.
After nearly a year of wandering across the desert and through a forest she never thought would end, she stumbled into snow. Literally. She had only ever heard stories of snow white as clouds above, never having experienced it first-hand. But as soon as she set foot in something so cold it almost burned her paw and looked down to see ground whiter than the speckles dotting her pelt, she knew this was snow. She glanced around, finally taking in her surroundings, curious as to why it snowed in this strange land and not her former home. Was this land cursed? Or was it blessed with the beauty of snow that few lions were ever lucky enough to experience for themselves? But then it hit her: the scent of an incoming storm, wild but steady and reassuring all at once, a scent which sent shivers down her spine and yet she could not fathom why. But why would there be rain in this winter wonderland? She had thought it impossible for it to rain while there was snow on the ground, but maybe she was mistaken. After all, weather was not in her expertise.
Now curious, she trudged on, wanting to know how far this strange biome stretched across the land. The scent of rain only grew stronger the farther she padded along, drawing her nearer and piquing her interest even further as she sought out the source. While normally she would have taken extreme caution while wandering through an unknown territory, she felt secure in this place, as if no harm would come to her. It was comforting.
Upon feeling a sudden shift in the air as the world seemed to grow colder, she immediately grew wary, but quickly brushed it off as her mind playing tricks on her. After all, temperatures did not drop so suddenly, especially not without cause. So she continued on her journey, oblivious to any dangers that might lurk just outside of her vision. That is, until something crashed into her side, knocking her over and into the snow with a startled yelp. For several moments all she could feel was her body temperature slowly dropping as she lay in the freezing earth, but then it seemed to occur to her the situation she was in and she immediately began to kick, reinvigorated and on the attack against the stranger. Suddenly she felt an unsheathed claw snag what felt like a clump of feathers and she hesitated in her attack, completely dumbfounded as to what sort of bird was massive enough to pin her so easily. She twisted her body uncomfortably to get a better look at her attacker and immediately let out a soft gasp as she locked eyes with what could very well have been one of the most stunning lionesses she had ever met, complete with a pair of wings bright as the snow beneath them.
Not wanting to scar the lioness’s perfect fur, she immediately sheathed her claws and kicked at her exposed belly, hoping to use just enough force to throw the attacker off and gain the upper hand while remaining gentle enough to not damage any internal organs. She wanted to know more about this winged beauty, but to do so she would need to first calm her down, which did not appear to be an easy task. However, she was incredibly stubborn once she set her mind to a goal, and befriending the rain-scented lioness was her new goal, no matter how difficult it may seem.
When the lioness finally let up and the snow began to chill her to her bones, she stood, seemingly unaffected by her attacker’s defensive stance.
"
Who are you?" the stranger had asked, to which she had no answer. Who was she? She was no longer the lioness she once believed herself to be, nor was she the lioness she had claimed to be upon joining Vindemiatrix's pride. So then what persona would she bear this time? Who would she pretend to be with this lioness? Which mask would she don to conceal her true identity, to conceal the broken mess that once called her body home?
"Jasmine's Hope," she finally replied, feeling as though an immense weight was lifted off of her shoulders at having come to terms with her mother's and her first cub’s deaths, enough so that she was determined to honor them in taking their names to form a new identity for herself.
Eventually she would learn the stranger's name to be Leukothea, and that she was a goddess from another world. It did not take much for her to fall hopelessly in love with the winged beauty, and soon enough they became partners, and the hope that she had lost all those years ago returned to her and renewed her faith in the world. For the first time since losing her family, she felt as if she could move on and start anew. She finally felt happy.
