Ra

Backstory:

Tw: Animal abuse
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[ Born into a nomadic pride of lions, she spent her first year of life exploring the savannahs and deserts with her pride. She was quite a friendly cub, she would always prance and play around with any rouge lion the pride would meet. This eventually led to her capture, she would make a mistake that would change the entire course of her life.
[ She was a year and a month old when she was captured by humans. It was a silent night and the brood mother had fallen asleep on duty, this allowed Ra to sneak away from the pride unnoticed. She stumbled across a burly poacher cutting the horn off a rhino. She ran over to the poacher and rubbed up against him.
[ The poacher assumed Ra was the hybrid of a cheetah and lion and decided that she was much too rare of a find to only sell her fur. Instead, he grabbed Ra and shoved her into a cage, already filled with dead endangered birds. He brought the cage to his truck and drove off, abandoning the traps he had previously set out. He brought Ra to a Poacher's trading post, took her out of the cage, and held her by the scruff. He paraded her around as her newest find, as the other poachers looked on in awe. Eventually, they stopped at a stand that was looking to buy exotic animals for animal tourism. The poacher gladly sold Ra to the man working behind the stand for a hefty sum of money.
[ As night began to fall over the trading post, Ra's cage was picked up and brought to another truck. Her cage was thrown in the back of the truck. Ra had no idea where they were going, she clawed at the cage, scared. She didn't understand that not everything was her friend, some things were dangerous. The truck drove for what felt like hours, it probably was hours, but Ra had no way to tell. Once the truck stopped, the cages began to be unloaded. Ra was able to catch a glimpse of where she had been taken. There was a small, green field with a wooden fence around it, beside that was a rickety wooden shed. The area was loud, the air was filled with screeches from birds, whinnies from horses and zebras, growls, and snarlings of all different types of animals.
[ Ra cowered in the back of the cage, her ears pinned down to her head. Her cage was opened and flipped over, forcing her onto the cold stone ground. A chain was thrown over her neck and quickly tightened, a human holding the other end of the chain pulled her towards another cage. This time the cage was metal and quite a bit larger. It looked like it was designed to fit an adult male lion. She was thrown into the cage, a small bowl of water and meat kibble waiting in the back for her. Seeing the food and water made her realize it had been days since she had eaten. She sniffed the food, it smelled like spoiled, rancid meat. She hesitated but eventually began to eat it, ignoring its disgusting taste. After eating, she turned to face the metal bars at the front of the cage. She pressed her face up against them, trying to see as much as she could.
[ She looked out into the area and was stunned by what she was looking at. In front of her were cages, stacked as high as the roof, filled with exotic birds, foxes, civets, hyenas, and many more smaller African animals. She turned to face the left, there she saw wooden stalls. Inside the stalls were horses, zebra, deer, pigs, and even a young giraffe. To her right were some more cages, mostly filled with larger cats, then there was a pathway, leading out of this wretched place. Ra sat, struggling to process the horrors of this place. She was pulled from her thoughts by the sound of her cage opening and a human hand reaching in and grabbing her. She was pulled from the cage by the chain still hung around her neck. A leash was attached to the chain before the human pulled her out of the shed.
[ Ra was brought to the small field and forced to listen to the human. She'd be forced to sit, roll onto her back, and perform small tricks. If she refused or lashed out, she would be struck on the hind by a whip. This would happen every day for months, the routine would continue. Sleep, train, drink, train, eat, sleep, it became a pattern she grew used to. Once she had become docile enough, the humans began to put other humans near her. The humans would dress her up in showy gems and brightly dyed cloth. They'd take pictures with their cameras, pet her, sit on her back, and some even paid to give her treats. Though the treats were stale, they still tasted much better than the meat kibble she had grown used to. She would rarely get to interact with other animals, the only times being when they'd take another lion out for pictures, or wave birds in front of her face to prove she wouldn't bite.
[ Everything changed when she was 4 years old. A local animal rescue had caught wind of the animal tourism company. They were disgusted by the things they heard about them. They set up a plan to rescue the animals, and luckily so have it, Ra was working the day their plan struck. The animal rescue came in, the tourism workers were arrested. Ra played half asleep, tied to a fence. Though she heard the yelling humans, she couldn't bother to look and see what it was, that was until the yelling grew closer and closer to her. Once the yelling was only a few feet away from her, she opened her eyes to see a gloved hand reaching out towards her. She attempted to swat the approaching hand but as she lifted her paw, she felt a sharp prick in her hind. Ra shot up to see a red dart poking into her. She snarled at the humans, bringing herself as close to the fence as she could. Her head spun as the humans grew blurrier until eventually, everything went black.
[ Ra awoke to find herself in a wooden box, she could hear wheels spinning under her as she peiced together she was in the back of a truck. She looked down at her paws which were wrapped in bloody bandages. The pain that had been in her body for years was gone. It felt amazing. Suddenly the truck stopped, causing the wooden box to slide around. The back of the truck was opened, bright lights shining in and blinding her. It took a few moments for her eyes to adjust and by the time they did, her box was being lifted by a small group of humans.
[ The box was placed on the ground and its door was lifted. Before she was a sprawling savannah, exactly like the one she lived in before she was captured. Ra darted out of the cage and began to run. She hesitated for a moment and turned to face the humans who had released her here. She took a step towards them, stopped, and turned. It was time for her to live a life without the humans, it was time for her to be a normal lion.