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The setting sun casts long, lazy shadows across the sand. Picking your way down the beach, you splash through tide-pools, and even on dry land your pawprints fill in with shining water; all stained orange by the dying day.
You'd heard stories of this place; The Pride at Harbour. A sad, cruel, dying thing, ragged and mean and sunsetting as it's bitter king. But it seems peaceful here. The air is fragrant with salt-smells, and the sound of surf is gentle; like the rasp of your mother's tongue across your fur, in the earliest days of cubhood.
You decide to sit down for a while; not to sleep, but only to enjoy the scenery. Lions don't frequent costal areas like this- and you don't much care to get your paws wet- but the view is undeniable. The sand beneath you is warm, baked by a long, hot, summer day. The sun sinks, by slow degrees, and stains the ocean red, as though dissolving its the waters.
"Nice view," someone says, behind you; deep, resonant tones.
A shadow falls across you; you turn, and see a massive, thick-furred lioness, settling beside you. Her eyes reflect the last, red gleam of the sun. You wait, not a little uncertain, but she seems content just to watch the horizon until the show is over. The sky fades to a dusky, bordering colour; purple, bleeding into grey.
The lioness looks at you, finally, sideways. "You should leave," she says, very simply. "The patrols will be back soon."
You look at her, startled by the warning after such a long silence.
"I mean it. Derelict has the quarter today. If he's the one that finds you-" there is a pause. The sky fades from grey to dusty black. The strange lion's lip curls up; beneath it, her teeth are very long, and sharp. "Lagan will make a show of it. Go, now."
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Eriocheir always hung on the edges of Lagan's band of lionesses. She was already pregnant when she met the old king, and- without a pride or mate- explained she was looking for a safe place to stay while she nursed.. Lagan agreed to harbour her- on the condition that Eriocheir would lie, and say the cub was his. Old and growing frail, Lagan liked the image it would project, to be seen having mated with such a big, powerful young lion.
Eriocheir accepted these terms, and spent Lagan's waning days orbiting his pride. Her lack of real affection for the king was fairly apparent- which Lagan wouldn't have tolerated in his younger years, but as he grew older, he was nervous to truly challenge his stronger pridemates.
Eriocheir was too careful to flirt with Lagan's lionesses directly, but her real feelings were an open secret— as was the fact that many of them would have preferred the handsome, quiet lioness to their own king.
But Lagan- crafty even in old age- took revenge in his own way, paying special attention to Eriocheir's young cub, and molding her into the loyal, affectionate creature her mother only pretended to be. In this way, he doomed Eriocheir to one of two grim fates. To stay, and live under the rule of a lion she openly disliked— or to leave, and in so doing, leave her only cub behind.
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