Icien

Wrin > Haira > Taika > Icien
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Matope > Kosa > Icien > ?

Icien will be the third sorceress to grace the Joka Pride. Though she was chosen young, at two and a half years, so were her predecessors, and like Kosa and Matope before her, she set herself to studying hard, though she knew that unlike her mentor Kosa, she would have a few years to learn. Her detailed story and heritage can be found below.

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Icien is the granddaughter of Haira, who is herself the daughter of one of the Joka Pride's early lionesses, Wrin. She inherited her mother's red eyes and dark tones, but brought them to even greater extremes.

She is the apprentice to Kosa, who is the great-great grandaughter of one of the original Joka Pride lionesses, Theluji, and great grandniece of the powerful sorceress Matope, the younger half-sister to Vuli and Baridi, and the last cub born to her mother Asubuhi. Icien began her training at 2 years, 6 months old, exactly nine years younger than Kosa, with an expected four years to train.

Having dedicated herself during her first heat, Icien was banned from breeding, lest a pregnancy distract her from the earliest and most intensive of her studies. She had to learn quickly and thoroughly, to prove her dedication, and to show that she could do it, as Kosa had studied quickly, knowing Matope's death would soon come (and it did, arriving in the sixth month).

Icien had to learn anatomy, herbs, moon cycles and all about the seasons and weather of the Joka Territory. During this intensive period, Icien was required to fast and consume only the water that was given to her. As there could be no reprieve from studying, she spent each night alone in the animal graveyard where Kosa usually slept, avoiding cold winds by sleeping under a tattered hide she had pulled from some long dried carcass.

The only subject on which Kosa relented was that of the spirit world, about which she told Icien, "first study that which would be lost without my teaching. The spirits will come to you when you are ready, without my influence," though she assured Icien that unless some accident befell Kosa, Icien would be prepared before the time came.

She wasn't.

During the fifth month of her studies, Icien was studying bones in a smaller graveyard out on the savanna, trying to figure out how hyenas were put together, when she dropped into a dead sleep. Kosa's familiar, Toc, ran for Kosa, and brought her to the graveyard, but Icien was gone. Kosa nodded to her companion, stamped some patterns into the dust on the ground, then lay with Toc to wait.

Muttering at herself for having fallen, Icien stood, thankfully not sore, but still wincing. She opened her eyes, and her stomach turned. She sniffed the air. This was not the pride's savanna, however much it looked like it, and there was no sign of the hyena skeleton she had been looking at. Everything felt simultaneously grey and dreamlike, and oddly energetic, like bright colours of electricity were snapping across the ground below her. She sniffed the dirt, but it was barren of scent, of the dung herds left, of snagged hyena fur in the nearby grass, and of any trace of other lions.

Icien took a breath, and knew she was in the spirit world.

She turned in a circle, scanning the empty expanse of savannah. Circling twice, she confirmed that there was no trace of life, though it looked identical to home. Even the bones were gone.

Turning around again, Icien jumped, then snarled at the beast before her, that had somehow snuck up under the eerie but clear sky, on a stretch of savanna with no trace of footsteps.

The beast's long ears twitched, and it stepped back, pawing the ground nervously.

If Icien had not already decided she was in the world of spirits, she would have been cemented then. The lion before her, if it really was a lion, had the face of a hare, an enormous hare, along with its twitching nose and sensitive ears. His body looked as strong as any king's, and his claws were sharp, as evidenced by the bleeding hyena draped over his shoulders and the punctured skull he carried.

He stepped back again, but this time Icien followed, trying to get a better look at his big round eyes and catch his scent.

The rabbit-lion turned and ran. Icien sprinted after him, but whether it was because of the rabbit in him or something else, she lost him even before she slowed, eventually dropping beside a clear pond. Energy worn down and fur slicked down with sweat, Icien know it was more important to drink than to worry about spirit water. She splashed in the pond for good measure- it wasn't as cool as she had hoped, but at least it rinsed some sweat away.

A reflection appeared in the water opposite.

Icien stilled, then raised her head, only to meet the shoulder of a white lion turning away from her, and slowly padding around the corner of a rock outcropping, barely thinking to note that this didn't look as she remembered the Joka Territory she had come from.

She followed him around the turn and up onto the steppes, where she froze yet again.

Finally there were skeletons, enormous, hulting skeletons, with bones as thick as her own were long, and heavy tusks protruding from the immense skulls. It was an elephant graveyard. Icien had always thought they were just myths.

"You are here," said a low, calm voice.

The white lion stood before her. He was even duller than she had first imagined; even his eyes were white. If she looked closely, Icien thought she could make out the traces of some long faded markings, but she couldn't tell if they weren't just dirt and dust that had settled on the lion- no, the king- before her.

Icien took another deep breath of the clear spirit-world air, steeling herself in preparation for the conversation coming.

"I am, Majesty, though I am not sure how I came here."

His flickered forward, so subtly that Icien almost didn't notice. He was amused.

"I called you here, and sent a spirit to guide you to me."

Icien shivered. Something in his voice and stance, and the way the air seemed to reverbrate around him showed that he had the power to do so, yet something else quashed her fear.

"What do you need from me, King..."

"Joka."

Barely stopping herself from gaping, Icien dropped into a bow. Though Joka the First was king only two reigns previous to Qileo, many generations of lioness, including her own children, had come and gone since his death. Her grandmother, Haira, had spoken of Joka's rule often, though even she had been very young at Qileo's coronation.

"Enough. I feel how you honour me. I brought you here only to give you a gift, to help you command power and acceptance as my pride's new healer and enchantress."

Joka turned and bit into his shoulder, as through he was scratchiong an itch, then ripped away his own hide, throwing it over Icien. A glowing layer of light masked what would be his exposed musculature.

"Take this token, and return home. My messenger will show you the way."

The hare-lion appeared from behind a rock, and approached Icien. She fought not to jump back as it touched noses with her.

It took off in a sprint. Icien followed, but could not keep up for long, eventually giving up the run to instead follow his scent trail out into the spirit savannah, now obscured by heavy fog. She followed the trail until it seemed to stop, and though she felt like panicking, Icien fell to her knees. She had been moving for a long time, and however lost she was, she needed to rest before she could go on.

Icien woke to the sound of sniffling, and leapt backward when she saw Joka's messenger-beast. No, wait- it was just a regular rabbit, but right in her face, closer than she'd ever seen one alive.

Straightening up, Icien looked around. A few more rabbits hopped over, sniffing around her ankles, and each making eye contact with her, at least once. Beside her was the pelt of a white lion, still flecked with a little blood, but also a familiar glowing.

It was real. Her first trip to the spirit world had happened.

Icien laid down once more, to steady herself, noting that the world indeed smelled like her territory once more. The oddly bold rabbits pulled the hide toward her, several climbing over her back to drag it into position, two braving her teeth in order to shroud her with the mane, obscuring her face with a hood cut from the face of the spirit lion, his Majesty, King Joka.

She stood once more, and gazed through the eye slits, only to be pleasantly surprised by a familiar figure dozing nearby.

"Kosa, you found me!"

Kosa rolled over, then trotted to meet Icien, seemingly unfazed by the pelt.

"You have returned! It was so long, I was beginning to think the spirits would keep you there." She looked down to the rabbits, still following at Icien's heel. "And I see you've met someone- or someones- important."

Toc, the strange white deer that accompanied Kosa, appeared from behind a patch of tall golden grass, dropped his nose, and sniffed the group of rabbits, who quickly crowded him in greeting.

"You'll know their names soon enough. Come back to the cave and rest."

Icien's training seemed to speed up from that day. It was as though she retained information more strongly, and ideas about the spirit world made more sense than they ever had, filling her mind with images of places she had never seen. Their trips to the spirit world revealed even more. Teeka, Dola, Vula, and Biya, as they had indeed made themselves known, showed Icien to the deep reflecting pools, away from the dangerous poppy meadows, and around every landmark of the spirit plane that overlapped the Joka territory.

Slowly, Icien began taking over more of Kosa's duties as her master grew older.

Kosa announced that Icien was ready to be the pride's new Sorceress the night before she died, and Icien's first ceremony alone was that to walk Kosa into the spirit world, one last time.

(TBC?)