Lioness

WHEW her lore is old i should rewrite it

awakened: fracture, brass knocker / sobreviviente, tigerblood foo / cordyceps, cave lantern / aulder, destert strangler

"an extra lucky find awaits you if you gather in the right spot."

When Lioness was three days old, Renelia nudged her cheek and said, "Make our family proud, little lion."

Lioness blinked up at her with wide eyes. Renelia was a distant mother at best (more often a completely absent one- Lioness hadn't known Renelia was her mother until she heard two of the caretakers gossiping), and reassuring touches were completely unheard of for her.

Her father craned his neck to see around Renelia's wings.

"What's going on?" Lioness managed to ask, but Midas only muttered, "She'll do."

-

something something ritual i'm bored

-

Then there was only poison and pain.

-

Amid the haze of pain, someone shouted, "You've done it!" but Lioness was curled in a ball and couldn't hear him over the blood pounding in her ears and the waves of agony radiating from her eyes and pulsing through every bone in her body.

"Oh, stop wailing," the same voice spat, "you're acting like a child."

"Well, that's unfortunate," Renelia said from somewhere nearby. Lioness clung to the sound of her mother's voice, dispassionate as it was, like a lifeline, managing to barely open one eye and see-

Her brother, lying limp and still like he'd never been in life. Renelia was looking down at him with vague displeasure, as if he were a bug that had gotten into her food. She shook him once, twice, then dropped him on the ground.

His eyes opened, and through the glassy film of death Lioness saw eyes the color of freshly spilled blood.

With a horrible scream that wrenched out of her like [uhh insert something descriptive idk], Lioness leapt to her paws and hurled herself at her mother, only to be caught by someone much bigger than she was. She whirled and tried to break away, but the figure- her father, she realized in hindsight- sent her tumbling in the opposite direction.

More pain. Insert description here or whatever idk

"Hmm," Renelia said, frowning at her. "That's not ideal."

"Why?" Lioness sobbed. "You killed him, why?"

"We did this for your own good, little lion."

-

The next time Lioness opened her eyes, she was lying at the foot of a bone altar like an offering to some merciless god- though really, who could be crueler than her own family? The air was heavy with the sickly-sweet smell of incense, decay, and rotting carcasses, and she heard a terrible, fervent chanting.

She managed to lift her head, waves of pain crashing against the inside of her skull, and saw the hooded dragons clustered around the altars. It took her a moment, but then she realized- those were her Clanmates. That was her favorite nursery caretaker, and that was the nightmare dragon, and that was the terrifying dragon who the Wyrmwound sang to.

And that was her mother and father, sitting on either side of the altar, practically glowing with smug pride.

And on the altar itself was a thing. It smelled so awful that a vulture would turn its nose up at it, and flies swarmed angrily over the tattered flesh. It was so gory that Lioness almost threw up just from looking at it, and when she dropped her gaze to the base of the altar she saw streaks of blood running down the sides and pooling on the floor.

There was blood on her talons. So much blood, staining the altar's steps and dripping off the sides. Her claws were sticky with it.

Lioness caught a glimpse of movement in the corner of her eye, and she turned to see The Diseased One, the Bogsneak known as Netzach. As always, the mere sight of her made Lioness's heartbeat pick up like a frightened rabbit's until she could hear her pulse rushing in her ears. Some lion you make, Midas would have hissed, but she was too scared to muster up any courage. The only thing preventing her from bolting off the altar and throwing herself back into the Wyrmwound was the agony and exhaustion weighing her bones down.

The chanting died down to an anticipatory hush as Netzach climbed up the altar, her vulture settling on her shoulder. As Netzach came closer and closer, Lioness shrank into the altar, blood seeping into her fur.

Lioness looked once more at the carcass on the altar..

and saw blood-stained but familiar golden fur.




-

"Oh my stars, oh earth and sky, look- look."

"-the Hades would-"

"Sun and moon, is that a-"

-

The pain had gotten worse, and with it her vision had gone from blurry to blind. She was barely aware of anything around her, but when cool talons brushed her shoulder she screamed and thrashed away from them. As Lioness collapsed onto the ground, shaking, she

-

"Ve? You look like you've seen a ghost-"

-

"Can you save her?"

"I don't know- there's nothing physically wrong with her, but internally.. you know how I sometimes tap into a dragon's magic when I'm healing them? I tried to do that, but her magic... it's unnatural, that's all I can say about it. I can feel it writhing inside her skin like a parasite. It's not that she's connected to her Flight's magic- it's that the magic doesn't seem to fit. It seems- I don't know, wrong."