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ASHLEY, GODDESS OF DEATH
[TW: Suicide]
Legends say that 150 million years ago, two brothers reigned over the Sunmist Kingdom; Stardenburdenhardenbart, or Starden for short; a melanistic male lion and Spark, a lion with no tail. Though both were kings, Starden always stood out and Spark's jealously started to grow. One day, Spark took one of Starden's lionesses and made her spawn a litter of cubs. One of which was marked with Starden's melanism, but not fully.
She looked like half of her body was torn with black tint. Spark decided to keep the rare cub and nicknamed her Ashley. One day, Spark was demanded to show his new cubs to Starden. Little did he know one of his wives was the mother. Spark knew that if a cub wasn't worthy, it would get killed by Starden. Before the ceremony, Spark did a ritual to change Ashley's base color, which was fawn. He knew that she wouldn't get accepted if she came in without any bright or divine colors.
Divine! That's it! He summoned a greedy Goddess, Divine, and asked her to put her mark into his cub. Divine said she would, but with a condition. Upon death, Ashley would get the Curse of Divine, which makes it so that she would feel her fur completely burning until she is fully skinned. And after that, her skin would begin dropping off until she was barely a lion skeleton. That process would take around 3500 years, and upon becoming a skeleton, Ashley would be demanded to sink in an endless lava pool forever.
Though knowing the consequences of these actions, Spark let Divine spawn her coat on Ashley, and so she did. Ashley was beautiful — a cub everybody would want to see. Then, it was time for the festival ceremony. Upon arrival, all of Spark's cubs were accepted, as upon birth, they received coats touched by the 5 Gods of Light; such thing didn't happen normally with Ashley.
When it was Ashley's turn, everyone was surprised to see such a pretty cub. Without thinking twice, Starden granted her a place in the pride as the princess. However, when everyone least expected, Spark leaped — grabbing at Starden's throat and throwing him at the ground. The lioness crowd cheered as the two males fought bravely. Eventually, Spark could no longer take it and cut his own neck with his sharp claw.
While everybody was in shock, Spark roared and took over the throne as an actual king. In fear, half of the pride left while few stayed. For years and years, Spark reigned over his pride with harsh manners. Ashley eventually grew, and Spark refused to grant her a full name as she was the heiress. Ashley tried to explain that royalty also had their titles, but Spark didn't give a fuck.
Eventually, a young male with no seeming potential called Moss challenged Spark for all of his evil deeds and wished to claim the pride. Enfuriated, Spark initiated a duel against Moss. However, he was extremely old at that time, and though Moss was unstable, he still managed to weaken his opponent even more. Eventually, Spark surrendered and left the pride, never to be seen anymore.
Moss took over as the new king, and differently from the past two, he was kind and caring, taking care of the pride with his own paws. He fixed some of pride law and changed the pride's name from Sunmist Kingdom to Sunmeadow Pride. Eventually, peace was restored. He removed Ashley from the princess role as she didn't want it since the beginning and gave her a proper name; " ".
The 5 Gods of Light: Heavenly, Astral, Divine, Sunrise and Sunset were satisfied with the new leader's attitudes and removed the curse from Ashley's life. Moss renamed himself Mossmane and ended all the travesty that was left in that world. He invoked new laws and manners for all 3 prides to follow, and the following years, these rules were never broken.
Ashley was granted immortal life from Divine so that she could always guide lions through their death.
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