Amaryllis

Amaryllis was very lucky. She was adopted very early in her time at the Giving Tree. She had seen many miserable cubs in her time there, sitting and crying. Some of them remembered their parents.. and couldn’t forget how they had left them. Many of them had been abandoned by their mothers, or their mothers had been killed by their fathers.

The senile old monkey who ran the place didn’t do a good job of taking care of the hundreds of cubs who were abandoned every day. The monkey didn’t care much what happened to the cubs after they were adopted, either. She heard some died only an hour after arriving at what they thought was their new home.

But when a young king and his lead lioness came, telling the monkey that they were looking for a young female to take home, she knew that they were different. The king was scarred, but his paw was warm when he reached out his paw to welcome Amaryllis to the pride. And his lioness wasn’t vain and extravagant like others Amaryllis had seen come before. She was simple, having only some plants decorating her face.

Amaryllis had had visions since she had arrived at this place. They would come at random times in the day, and only the day, when the sun burned brightest. Sometimes they were brief. Flickers of female lions made of fire and sunlight. Sometimes they were longer, and the lionesses would talk to her. But even as she knew that it was good that she was finding a good home- she shook. Because this was what the lionesses had foretold…

(Written by the lovely SplotchyBeet484)