The Ballad of Mona Lisa

A rustling parts the nearby branches of a bush, coaxing you in closer. The smell of fresh blood is scattered along thorns that seem to draw you desperately in toward them. It pulls you in. You don't know why, but you find the digging of thorns in your pelt to be comforting even when drawing blood out of your flesh. The blood you smelt here was yours, the more and more you travel into this bush you find yourself forgetting you entered it in the first place. The mystery of it all continues to draw yourself in over and over again without remorse or recollection of the previous encounter with the bush. It's almost phantasmagoric, each time you walk in and out of this bush you seem to be drawing near what seems to be the end- but the end is no where in sight. You must be going mad! You're running in circles! The more you struggle the more the thorns cut away until there's nothing left, but bone. You feel your body grow weaker before crashing before the foot of the bush as if you never went through it to begin with. You're out of breath, confused and uninjured. What happened? In this state of weakness you hear faint giggling, laughter coming from every direction around you. You see her paws pass before your vision, blurring, but clearly identifiable as the chimes of golden jewelry follow. Her tail brushes along your chin as she circles you, having watched you struggle with the Thorns of Woe. Clearly, she's also had her fair share as your vison clears to view a large lioness with white spotting covered in scars and wounds from head to toe.

"Foolish feline.." She spoke in a rasp and hollow tone, "Have you not yet learned to traverse the thicket?"