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Clean
Descendant of First King Vance
Snebbel adores snails. She has always felt an extraordinary connection with the gastropods, much to the confusion of the rest of her pride. But they accept her obsession, and though some may be loathe to admit it, a few others have come to find the snails rather endearing and cute as well.
Stories from the Life of Snebbel:
~~~~~~~~~~
(Also in Stories from the Life of Haraya)
Haraya was already annoyed as she approached the pride’s resident nutjob. Hiefe had sent her to deliver a message to Snebbel, a lioness notorious for her extensive obsession with SNAILS, of all things. It wasn’t that Haraya was grossed out by them or anything else, but she simply found it ridiculous. There was never a moment when Snebbel wasn’t covered in multiple snails, and for what purpose?
Apparently, just for the sheer joy of it. Snebbel beamed at Haraya as she approached, despite the murderous scowl that permanently adorned the face of the princess.
“Why snello, Snaraya,” the older lioness spoke whimsically, the corners of her eyes crinkling with mirth. “What snings you here?”
Haraya grit her teeth, resisting the urge to snap at the elder for her ridiculous way of speaking. There was a zebra agate snail on her head. It must have arrived there from her snout, if the glistening trail of slime was anything to go by. Haraya grimaced in disgust, though not really because of the substance itself.
She lifted her head to adopt a stiff, haughty posture above the other lioness, who remained laying casually on the ground. “I am here on royal business.” She cringed a bit internally at how self-important that had sounded—she was trying to come across as disinterested, not entitled—and lowered her head a bit and adjusted her tone before continuing. “King Hiefe has asked me to pass on a message to you. He would like for you to speak at the next pride gathering, passing on some stories about your great great grandfather.”
Snebbel tilted her head in amusement. Despite the significant separation and the fact that she had never actually met the lion in question, she knew exactly who Haraya was talking about and why their King would desire for her to speak about him. Her great great grandfather was First King Vance, the Founding King, a lion who every member of the pride revered despite the generations that had passed between them.
The entire pride was deeply involved in the tradition of passing on oral history, but the direct descendants of past kings would know more about their ancestors than most. Outside of smaller family units, most pride members didn’t need to be told about obscure, inconsequential stories such as the time great grandpa kicked a fallen bees’ nest at his cousin and then had to frantically shove her into the water hole when it became apparent that the grounded nest was still in use, while being mercilessly stung himself. Those stories were mostly passed down from parent to child, who then would become a parent and tell their child, and so on and so on.
(As it happened, Haraya was ALSO a descendant of First King Vance—that being the reason she was qualified to be called a Pride Princess—but, frankly put, the Pride at large would not want to hear any stories from her, nor would she want to tell them.)
Snebbel’s ancestry was likely the only reason she was still respected as much as she was despite her eccentricities. Not that any other lion would have been harshly mocked for it; as a whole, the pride was very accepting of just about anything, particularly under Hiefe’s rule. But a lion of non-royal lineage might have been teased to their face a bit more than Snebbel was (not that she would mind).
She had actually been fairly normal for most of her life. Sure, she had always liked snails and often carried one or two around on her body, but it was only recently that she had begun speaking solely in “Snailese” and changed her name. She used to be called “Ebbel,” but she grew older and crazier and eventually declared that she was changing it, and while everyone was confused, nobody told her she couldn’t.
Haraya looked down at her now, covered in slime trails that oddly seemed to run neatly between the faint, cream-colored spots along her sides. Those spots were the defining marking on the coat of First King Vance, and Snebbel was now the only lion in the pride to possess them. None of her cubs had yet inherited the spots, so it was beginning to look like she would be the last in her family line to bear the iconic marking. This was another likely reason for her to be continuously respected despite her blatantly insane behavior, and Haraya held back an irritated growl at the thought. She was pretty sure the reason Hiefe had chosen her to carry this message was to test her ability to play nicely with her other pridemates.
“I’m snorry,” Snebbel said with an entirely unapologetic smile, head still half-sideways, “but I don’t snuderstand the snestion.”
Haraya unleashed a furious growl. Maybe it was actually a way to test her patience. She knew exactly what the crazy lioness was playing at. Remembering Hiefe, she took a deep breath and tried to play along.
“…Hiefe would…SNIKE…you to SNEAK…” she took another large breath, disgusted with herself for stooping this low, “about…Vance,” she settled, refusing to utter another word beginning with sn-. The current bane of her existence grinned smugly, and Haraya fought to keep her gold-tipped claws from tearing into her slimy jugular region.
“I don’t snow much about my sneat sneat snandfather,” Snebbel said thoughtfully, increasing her head tilt, “but I snuppose I can tell some snories my snother told me.”
Haraya let out an irritated groan. Snebbel tilted her head in the other direction.
“Snhat?” She asked, widening her eyes innocently. “I snought that’s what you snanted to snear.”
“It is. EXCELLENT. See you there,” Haraya snapped, chasing her words with a growl. She then lowered her voice to an almost threatening tone—scratch that, it was actually threatening.
“But you listen to me. I don’t believe for a SECOND that you’ve actually gone this crazy. I know that you’re just messing with everybody with the snail thing for fun because you got BORED!” Haraya hissed. “It is SICK that you’ve transformed your life to this degree PURELY for the sake of PISSING OTHERS OFF!”
Snebbel kept smiling, her expression not having changed much since the beginning of their conversation. “I’m snorry…snecause I got what?”
The princess’ body was entirely stiff by this point, tensing to resist the need to MURDER THIS BITCH. She was NOT going to say it, she was NOT. She was NOT going to say that she was SNORED.
She remained stiff and subtly hyperventilated for a moment, before calming herself quicker than one would think possible and relaxing as much as she ever did.
Haraya squinted at Snebbel, then asked, “…Did Hiefe put you up to this?”
The snail-lover smiled even wider. “No. But I bet he snew it would go like snis.” She tilted her head up to look directly into Haraya’s eyes. “You didn’t kill me. Good job.” She let that hang for a minute before correcting herself. “I mean snood snob.”
Haraya was frozen. As she processed that, she started to feel her anger at Snebbel bleed away. Who could blame an old lady for trying to keep herself entertained in creative ways? If she was honest with herself, she wanted to laugh. But she wouldn’t. She simply sighed, her head drooping, then turned to stride away with her tail held out stiffly behind her, just in case the gastropod freak decided to try something else.
“I look forward to hearing the stories you have to share,” she said emotionlessly. Snebbel grinned as she walked away.
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