Mayan the Ancestor

Mayan was the first lioness to ever join the pride, and the first to ever give Alphalo a chance. She has stayed by his side through every obstacle, when other lionesses saw Alphalo as too weak or ugly and left, Mayan remained. When droughts and famine wracked his tiny territory, Mayan soldiered the hardships with fire in her eyes. Without Mayan, Alphalo could not have created the flourishing pride that carries on to this day.

She was a serious lioness who didn't take kindly to nonsense. As a young lioness she was very weak, and her birth pride was often pushed around. When it came her time to leave to find a new home, she promised herself she would train and become strong so she could protect those she came to love. She eventually did just that, through years and years of hard training, but she never loosened her unwavering determination to improve herself and the pride around her. Mayan was much more militant than Alphalo, but their balance was what kept the pride together. Where Alphalo was content to have a pride and enjoy its presence, Mayan whipped a bunch of ragtag wild lionesses into strong and able huntresses and protected the pride when her weak but lovable King ran into an insurmountable physical challenge. Mayan, Usiku, Capri, Jua and Senti were the original hunters that formed Alphalo's pride, and their descendants flow through the pride to this day. Mayan was their leader, and the pride's protector.

She is succeeded by her two daughters, Nyota and Dunia, who are stronger by birth than she was at the end of her life. Her muzzle gray and her muscles slowly beginning to wither away, Mayan finally retired at fifteen years and nine months and died peacefully in Alphalo's arms, surrounded by her friends and family.