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Lirael was the hunter without claws.
Reiki was the seer without eyes.
The day they were born, the pride's shaman Tio-La knew there was something special about her cubs. Their identical sunset-coloured eyes set them apart, marked them as touched by the sky. The little boy, Reiki, was born blind - though handsome and strong, he would never make a King, never be able to hold his own territory. His sister Lirael, though beautiful, was born without claws - never would she chase the wild herds on a long hunt, or fight to defend her honor.
The cubs were deemed as blessed, marked by the gods for some strange destiny. But as they grew, their blessings became a blight to them. Reiki longed to see the colours of the world, to run and play with his pridemates, to see the stars his mother told stories about. He longed to be a strong and fierce fighter, and dreamed of becoming a King someday - a dream he knew would never be a reality, as he knew he'd never be able to win a fight. Lirael too, grew miserable as her pridesisters went off to hunt, leaving her sat at home longing to go with them. Her will to fight grew stronger by the day as she swallowed her anger, her aggression had no outlet, no claws through which to channel it's force.
Both brother and sister grew bitter - their predicament did not serve to unite them, but only drove them further apart. Reiki spent his days in the quiet dark of his cave - the darkness made no odds to him. If anything, the world felt brighter when he was in the dark, alone with the riot of his technicolor thoughts, until he went mad. Lirael too retreated from the world, up into the high hills above the pridelands, a kingdom of rain and cloud. She managed to catch rabbits and birds to sustain herself, but it was meager fare - she longed to chase the wild herds to the end of the world, to fight for her life, to rip and tear. Her insatiable anger turned to madness too - she grew dark and bitter, torturing and killing any poor creature that dared wander into her lonely kingdom. Sometimes she would awake from strange dreams - dreams that would come to fruition within the day. She came to realize that they were visions, flashes from the future. Kings that were yet to rise. Cubs that had yet to be born. Empires yet to be built. But in her own future, Lirael saw nothing but loneliness and darkness.
For one long year brother and sister remained apart, each consumed by their own melancholy. During those long dark days in the cave, Reiki grew thin and miserable, and came close to death - that was when the spirits began to speak to him, whispers in a strange tongue he began to understand. At first he thought they were the voices of madness, those that sometimes filled his own head, until he realized they were the voices of the dead, his ancestors, speaking to him.
"You are lost, Reiki," came the voice of his mother. Reiki jumped back in shock. During his year in the dark, his mother Tio-La had passed away without his knowledge.
"Mother?"
"Yes, my son. I have joined the stars now," said Tio-La's spirit voice. "And the pride is in need of a Shaman. You have the gift, Reiki, the ability to converse with the dead. The pride is in need of you."
"No one needs me," growled Reiki bitterly. "What use is a blind old lion."
"Your sister needs you," said Tio-La. "Very much. She lives alone on the high veld, and is just as lost as you are."
"Lirael," said Reiki, remembering for the first time his sister's face.
"You must go to her," said Tio-La. "For she is the other part of you. Your mirror image. Without her, you will never be complete."
And with that, his mother's spirit vanished back into the dark.
The following day, Reiki set out in search of his sister. Though he was blind, he had no trouble navigating the steep hills, as if some strange sixth sense was guiding him back to his sister, the other half of him. Once or twice his spirit guides helped him navigate a particularly perilous pass, or led him across a deep river, and within a few hours he came to Lirael's territory. Being blind, Reiki's other senses had grown more acute, and immediately he sensed something eerie about these lands, a sense of black foreboding. He felt his sister's anger long before he saw her - a raw, tangled rage, all the colours of fire-orange and night-black.
"Who dares enter my territory without my blessing?" came Lirael's snarl as she beheld the stranger. "Do you not know these lands are cursed."
"Lirael," said Reiki gently. "How you've changed."
Lirael's face softened in surprise. "Brother?"
"It is me, Lirael. Our mother has passed into the stars, and the pride is in need of us. I ask you to come home."
Lirael growled. "What would the pride need with clawless huntress and a blind old fool," she said. "We are outcasts, Reiki. We must live according to our own laws. No one needs us."
"I thought so too," said Reiki. "Until a few days ago. Mother spoke to me in a vision, and countless others too. I can speak with the past, Lir, and I know that you can see the future."
Lirael snarled. "How do you know."
"The dead told me," he said. "You've been having visions. Of the future."
"The only future I have is this mist, and these hills," she spat. "I have seen it."
"The future is not set in stone, sister. You of all people should know that," said Reiki. "Return with me. Come home and let's prove to them what we can do, the blind Seer and the clawless huntress. Even you should see the irony in that."
They walked home together that evening, brother and sister side by side.
Back in the pride they took their mother's place as Shamans: Reiki conversing with the dead, Lirael predicting the future. They worked together as one being, one mind - their mother had been right, they were mirror images, rent from the same flesh, the same bone. And over time, their bitterness faded. Reiki came to realise he did not need eyes to see the brightest of colours - his Sight went far deeper than that. And over time Lirael's anger subsided into peace. She had once longed for chaos and war, and now wherever she went she brought with her a sense of deep calm, like still water. Since that day, they were never again parted, and lived out the rest of their days in peace, occasionally chuckling at the irony of their existence.
The Hunter without claws, the Seer without eyes.
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