☀️ - Omen ~ "The Warning" - ☀️
"Brought to this world as a warning, and remains as a reminder"
- 🐍 - Their Mentors Lore - 🐍 -
The dry earth split like a wound beneath Fang’s trembling paws. She cried out in terror as magma spewed from the festering chasm. Plumes of red-hot flame singed her whiskers even as she leapt back to avoid tumbling into the fiery abyss. The sharp hiss of steam grew closer until the lioness realized it wasn’t steam at all. From ash and smoke rose a scaled figure with blazing demonic eyes and fangs as large as tree trunks.
Fang.
It whispered her name, its voice a drawn-out rumble of unfettered destruction.
Fang… I am waiting.
-
Fang’s eyes shot open. She expected to see a roiling mass of searing doom. Instead, the familiar scents and sounds of her den soothed her senses. A nearby lioness nuzzled her flank, noticing her heavy breathing. A dream. It must’ve been.
As a cub, she had always been fascinated by tales of the great serpent Apophis. She begged the elders to tell her just one more scary story as the coals from the hearth grew dim. They’d oblige “just this once,” painting horrific pictures of a world wrapped in chaos. Grotesque reptiles– harbingers of death, doom, and decay– roamed the pridelands unchecked. Their worshippers conducted obscene rituals while those with decency left in their hearts cowered in the shadows. The idea of Apophis disturbed her, but she also felt a certain degree of fascination whenever she heard about the serpent’s power. How could one being spark so much fear in the hearts of the gods? If Anubis, Seth, and Bast were so righteous, why couldn’t they destroy the great snake? Was chaos really evil? It was a part of nature, just like order, stagnation, and light. Lionkind had been living under the rule of ‘good’ deities for so long. Wasn’t that in itself a form of tipping the scales?
These were the questions that plagued her while the seasons marched on in perpetuity. As Fang grew older, she began to voice her queries. This concerned the rest of the Sweet Souls Pride. They were a group of lions dedicated to preserving kindness and justice. Apophis wanted to destroy the world and recreate it in his own debased image. The others began to work tirelessly to guide Fang towards the light. They assigned her the role of broodmother, teaching her to delight in taking care of others. They praised her for her gentleness, reminding her that empathy was a prized quality for any lioness. Soon, her strange queries faded to the back of her mind. She was so preoccupied with her duties that she forgot all about her fascination with Apophis. Fang became a loving, intrepid mother figure. She was deeply invested in the lives of the cubs she raised and always made sure to act in the best interests of the pride.
Little did she know that the serpent’s influence had not vanished from her soul entirely. Instead, he was merely sleeping, waiting for the right moment to strike.
-
Dry season in June is a difficult time for everyone. The Sweet Souls live in the desert, which means the heat surrounds them in full force, drying up the oasis from a vast lake to a mid-sized pond. Water is scarce. The pride must carefully conserve their resources to ensure that everyone survives. With the rise of Apophis on the horizon, each lion must stay on their guard.
One year, the business of preparing for drought caused most lionesses to leave Fang to her own devices. She guarded the cubs as always, but something was stirring deep within her chest. The nightmares from her youth had returned. They became more frequent and more vivid. Sometimes, she swore she could hear that deep, rumbling voice calling her name even when she was awake.
Nobody noticed when the sleepwalking began. Fang didn’t want to tell the others about it. She was worried they’d be angry with her, or worse, scared of her. She kept waking up in strange places, moving closer and closer to… something. A certain patch of strange, charred earth. A pile of boulders split in half as if by some seismic earthquake long ago. One night, she was startled awake far away from her den and realized she wasn’t alone. A robed lion with a serpentine tongue was watching her from a few feet away.
“Don’t be frightened,” the stranger whispered in a soft, calming voice. “I’m a friend.”
Fang dropped into a wary crouch. “Who are you? What do you want with me?”
The lion, an adolescent male, sat back on his haunches casually. “It doesn’t matter who I am. Why don’t we focus on what I can do for you?”
-
Clad in jet black and crimson, Fang roams the pridelands with a smirk on her face. She’s proud to serve the serpent of destruction. The Cult of Apophis was the first group to ever truly answer her questions about chaos, balance, and power. They tell her she’s special; that she’s working towards something important. The deities most lions worship don’t know the true meaning of power. They don’t understand that ‘order’ is a synonym for oppression. All lions should be able to act in accordance with their deepest desires. Only Apophis allows for such freedom. When the cultists guided Fang to the dark pit where the serpentine entities had emerged from, she was excited. They had her breathe in the smoke and ash. She drank from a bowl filled with venom. Her nerves were on fire as she felt something strange take over her body and mind. When she opened her eyes, everyone was screaming. A creeping void surged from deep within the rift. Fang heard someone shout, “Is this supposed to happen?”
When her vision cleared, a tiny one-eyed cub lay on the ground before her, mewling softly.
“What was that?” she inquired with a cough.
The other cultists glanced at each other, uncertain.
“Er… it seems… Apophis left you a gift?” one of them suggested quietly.
The leader who had conducted the ritual lifted her head and pushed back her shoulders. “Yes. A gift, from the serpent himself. This cub is now your responsibility. You must ensure that it survives.”
-
Fang named the little one Omen. Despite her recent proclivities towards darkness and malice, Omen reminds her of the days she spent cooing over youngsters in the Sweet Souls Pride. She soon realized it would be too dangerous for her to raise Omen alongside Apophis’ servants near the rift. They seemed to care little for the trembling creature. Some of them even viewed her as useless and weak. Concern for her new companion drove her back to her former home at the oasis. Despite her refusal to remove her cultists’ robes and her insistence upon hanging an Apophis banner in her den, the members of the Sweet Souls Pride welcomed her back with open arms. They were slightly nervous about Omen at first, especially after Fang revealed the strange circumstances of her ‘birth.’ However, the others soon realized that the small creature brought out Fang’s empathy and reminded her what it felt like to care for another living being.
Omen doesn’t speak much, though she seems to understand what the other lions are saying to her. Her large ebony eye hovers in the darkness like a solar eclipse. She fusses when Fang isn’t in sight and doesn’t eat the way a cub usually would. Her surrogate mother wonders if she’s older than she seems. Fang only listens to the requests of her fellow pridemates if she feels the action will benefit Omen. This is how they tempt her into staying. Deep down, she knows that the cultists would’ve killed Omen the minute they felt she was no longer important to their mission. She realizes that the Sweet Souls Pride will keep her and the cub safe. There’s something clouding her mind these days. It feels like a wall or a mental block, preventing her from accessing certain thoughts or feelings. She wonders if her capacity to love was reduced by the corruption ritual. She can’t remember the last time she showed affection towards another lion besides Omen. It’s strange for her to imagine what she was like before she joined forces with the servants of Apophis. Was she happier then than she is now? The members of the Sweet Souls Pride insist that she was. She isn’t sure whether or not she should believe them. They always refused to answer her more complicated questions– the ones about true balance, nature, and the meaning of power. Was it because they feared her inner darkness, or because they themselves didn’t know the truth?
More importantly, is Omen a result of her connection with Apophis, or is she Fang’s last shred of kindness manifested into physical form? It doesn’t really matter either way. She’s dedicated to protecting Omen with her life, no matter what happens. If, at the end of the day, she’s forced to choose between the serpent of chaos and her newly acquired cub, she will choose Omen every time. Perhaps there’s hope for Fang after all.
-🐍-
(Some bitch randomly linking my lion and the proceeds to ignore me in chat.)
- Bought 6/14/24 from #390381 -
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