Finally, after much too long, she had escaped from the cruel prison of a pride that she had been forced to call ‘home’.
From the time she was a cub, Mailuuka had been raised by, and among, rough, crass, horrible and violent lions. Their original members, she had eventually found out, had been devastated by a plague that swept through the pride members more than a generation ago. Those whom the plague had not killed, it had left infertile. Ever since, the pride members had made it their practice to steal the cubs of other lions to keep their own ranks in steady supply of fertile members, since the plague liked to make regular reoccurrences from time to time, according to the things that she had heard over the years. (Thankfully it had never reared its head during her stay…)
In fact cub-napping was even a coming of age ritual for the male lions. Before they were allowed to choose a mate, or mate at all, they were required to cub-nap at least one young lion to bring back to the pride. They could raise the thieved cub as their own, or give it to fellow members, though most kept the cub for themselves, or presented the young lion almost as a prize to whatever female they were trying to impress.
Stolen cubs were more often than not treated as a slave class within the pride, even as they matured. They were never considered the same as cubs born within the pride, never treated equally themselves no matter how many cubs they bore for them, or how often they fed the pride.
Mailuuka's place had been at first a prize, presented to a pale lioness as a gift from her suitor - the lion who had ripped her from her sister's paws. The kidnapper and the pale lioness, they had served as her 'family' until they produced their own cubs, which were of course fawned over and given everything while she herself was ever after reduced to something to be pushed around, insulted, and bullied at any and all whims of her new 'siblings'. The fact that she was forced to play baby-sitter at times meant nothing to the younger cubs. She had no respect in her youth, no joy after she was taken from her real family.
And then later, as she grew, seeing that she was strong, and not undersized despite the relatively poor nutrition she was given, Mai was charged with being a huntress, required to provide for the pride, but given little herself, to make sure she was never strong enough to fight or escape, or fight to try and take even a scrap more than the share that she was given. And she was always given her share last. Such was the place of slaves....
During the nights, when her kidnapper family slept, she dreamt of her real family, the happiness that she had once had, longing for them, and wondering if they were even still alive.
Her mother had been kind, if somewhat absent-minded, and her siblings had been fun to play with, especially her older sister Kai, who was so dark she always called her Shadow. She had been happy as a cub, if naive, but all that and more had ended when she was stolen away.
She remembered how they had come in the night, silent as death itself - that night still gave her nightmares even though she was grown, and they often left her sitting up from her sleep, shuddering and panting with exertion of a kind other than physical.
Mai was more than glad her past was behind her, being left in the dirt and dust as she started out on her quest to find her true family, who hopefully was still alive….
She hadn’t seen exactly what happened that night, and her only real memories of it were of having some pleasant dream or other under the stars laying in the soft grass, when suddenly the roar of her mother woke her. A yelp had followed, and she to this day was never sure if it was her own, or belonged to one of her siblings. They had tried to take her brothers, but they were older than both her and Kai, and they had fought, and the lions who had taken her, killed them. Somehow her sister Kai had managed to avoid that fate – she hoped – or at least, had not been taken along with Mai.
Kailayna had desperately tried to hold on to her sister while their mother had been occupied trying to fight off the raiding lions. She hadn’t succeeded. Mai had always wondered if it had been Kai’s dark coloring that saved her that night. There had never been a single spot of color on her sister aside from the blue eyes that matched her own. She could have easily hidden herself in the dark once Mai was taken. Things moved too quickly for Mai to be saved, but Kai was smarter than her, and had the chance to realize what was happening, and most likely would have hidden herself.
Mai always liked to think that even if their mother had been killed during the encounter when she was taken and her brothers slain, that Kai at least would have survived. So it was with that hope in her heart, and thought in her mind, that she had started her slow meandering path back towards the home she’d barely known.
It had been so long now, she honestly wasn’t even sure where exactly they had lived. They were never a part of any pride that she could remember, and the landscape they lived in, its only distinguishing features had been a snow-capped mountain in the distance, and grasslands all around, with the occasional herd of antelope or zebra wandering through for their mother to pick off. It had been a happy life, a rather easy one, before she was taken, but finding her way back to it she immediately knew would be a task that wasn’t easy. Without being from a known pride, with known lands, and not knowing what had become of her sister, it wasn’t an easy task. But she had no other.
There was nothing left in her life now except hopes and dreams, which she had barely even dared have when she lived among her captors. Luckily, she had never been forced to conceive by them, and so had no ties to make her want to stay in that terrible place, so when her chance had come to escape, she had taken it.
When out on a hunting party consisting of only herself and two other lioness’, she had pretended to stalk their quarry – a small herd of zebra – right along with the other two, but when the opportunity came, she had not hesitated. The other lioness’ went for the kill after a straggler, and she had beat feet in the other direction. They had brought her north, she knew this much. So she ran south, as fast as her feet could carry her, as long as her breath lasted. She had never looked back from that moment, and never would.
WC = 1,201
