You lie out under the stars, paws in the air. River that Freezes Over came by to join you. You both have fun watching the lights and chatting about nothing in particular.
You came back from a territorial dispute feeling stressed. River that Freezes Over bumped shoulders with you and offered to hang out and share a meal by the pond. You relaxed as she told you a funny story of that day.
River that Freezes Over approaches you during a nap and starts kneading your shoulders. Aahhhh. Awesome day.
~
"Gather around cubs and I'll tell you a tale, that proves you can be special"
~
^ Left this for you, for incase you collect these! If not, feel free to delete! c:
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“You know,” Blazing Fire in Dead of Night murmured,
“I would have expected you to be more excited today.“
“Today’s not really important,” River that Freezes Over said, staring at the snowy ground beneath her paws.
“Even though the whole pride seems to think otherwise. Imagine, Sun That Sets in Fiery Flame actually said good morning to me!”
Blazing Fire smiled at her. It was just like River to act normal and natural when the rest of the pride was excited.
Even when she had been just a cub, only a fluffy little bundle of onyx fur with white streaks, she hadn’t been a great one for drama. Her mother had been grateful, of course; all her other cubs had been prone to tantrums.
Still, Blazing Fire thought, there was a difference between being merely laid-back, and being uncaring.
“Most cubs, “ she said,
“are quite excited to go see the Falcon. It isn’t every day you get to see a Falcon’s Eye in action.”
“Oh, but nothing’s going to happen,” River said, almost as if she was challenging the snowy landscape beyond the warm den to defy her.
“How do you know?”
“Oh come on! Isn’t it obvious?” she said.
“I’m not very special. Even my coat’s just black and white! No sane lion could actually believe that I’ve got a mutation.”
Blazing Fire stared at her. Now there was something she hadn’t expected!
“River,” she said.
“To believe that, you must have got two mutations; blindness and deafness!”
“I-”
“Listen to me,” Blazing Fire interrupted,
“ I honestly believe that you’re one of the most important lions in this pride. Haven’t you noticed that you’re the only adolescent? That besides the cubs, who are far too young to be much of anything, you’re the only member of the new generation? Don’t you wonder why Sun That Sets snubs you more than the rest of us? And why you’re the only one that Frozen Land in Leaf-Bare’s given that Hoopoe Feather decoration to for her birthday? Which me let me tell you, cost quite a lot of silver beetles. Hoopoe birds are the Sun That Sets of the bird world!”
River tried to reply, but Blazing Fire’s outburst had shocked her into silence.
Blazing Fire always had a smile on her face, and a twinkle in her red eyes, but she never told lionesses how she felt about them, River, for one, had never felt bold enough to ask. Had Blazing Fire really felt that River, was special, or was she just lying to make her feel better?
“Speak of the devil!” Blazing Fire suddenly said, gesturing her head at a white lion heading toward the den. He would have been almost invisible amidst the snowdrifts if not for the pinkness of his eyes and muzzle.
“There’s Frozen Land in Leaf-Bare right now.”
With a groan, she stretched out her muscles and leapt to her paws.
“I suppose he’s taking you to see the Falcon right now. He did say yesterday that he was worried about a snowstorm blocking the mountain pass. See what he says about you not being special!”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
River tried to ask Frozen Land. She really did. But somehow the words refused to come out of her mouth, instead staying stuck in her throat.
She blamed it partly on the desolate feeling of the pass. There was no encouragement to be found in the towering mountains all shrouded in snow, and the jagged black cliff faces that stretched between them, where nothing but moss grew. River blamed it partly on the snow. Inside the pass, it had piled up into soft, heavy mounds that you could barely wade through, and flurries were still falling from the sky. And she had to admit that Frozen Lands himself wasn’t exactly helping.
“All those other kings doubted River Pride could produce a mutant. We’ll show them, eh?” he grinned.
”You come from a good line of strong, mighty lions, going all the way back to Diluvium Vir Fortis. Now he was a king! Taught me all I know, and that’s an awful lot. And in his days there were so many mutants in the pride that if you tried to list them, you’d be talking till sunup to sundown!”
River gave him a strained smile. The wastelands were unimaginably different from the pass, although just as gloomy and forbidding. The endless landscape, with hardly a tree to be found, was dry and arid; the ground underfoot was full of pit and cracks, and her paws kicked fine golden dust into the air. Way above her head, little black blots wheeled about in a cloudless blue sky. In a place like this, they were probably vultures, waiting to descend upon some unfortunate animal that couldn’t stand the cruel conditions.
A sudden screech broke through the air, and River nearly jumped out of her skin. Frozen Land just smiled expectantly at the sky, watching as one of the blots broke off from the rest and seemingly hurled itself out of the sky. As it fell closer and closer to the earth, River saw the lean brownish form, and realized that it wasn’t a vulture. Only as it spread its wings wide, and landed with its talons outstretched on a withered old tree before them did she realize that that it was him. The Falcon.
He looked exactly as Blazing Fire described him in her stories; a tall, proud sentinel. His glossy plumage, smooth black talons, and gleaming gold eyes made him seem like some sort of god, a spirit of the wastelands.
Frozen Lands bowed before him.
“Mighty Lord Falcon, I am King Frozen Land in Leaf-Bare. I come to ask of you to look at this lioness,” River stiffened, “
With your Falcon’s Eye, and see what you may see-”
“Enough,” It squinted at River.
“Beetles first.”
Frozen Lands wiggled his shoulder blades, and the rather beaten-up herb pouch,which seemed to be wiggling too, that had been slung across them with a leather strap, slipped off. He carefully picked it up with his teeth, and presented it to the falcon. The falcon flipped up the flap with his foot, and quickly scooped out the agitated silver beetles inside. He curled his scaly toes together, and the beetles stopped moving. He tossed the empty pouch back onto the ground, and shifted his attention to River, staring unblinkingly directly into her eyes. For a moment the golden orbs seemed to cloud, the pupils contracting to tiny black dots, and he stared right through her, or rather, at something in her.
Then his eyes refocused and he shook his head, ruffling his feathers.
River’s heart sank. She knew what that shake had to mean, she had known it all along, she was just a plain lioness with plain black and white fur. Frozen Lands would probably chase her off the year she turned two. Which was a pity, because she had kinda looked forward to having cubs-
“She has something.”
Frozen Lands thrust out his chest, and gave a joyful roar that startled a flock of vultures a mile away from their carcass.
But River was too dumbstruck to speak. How was this possible? Was the Falcon wrong? But the Falcon was never wrong. Blazing Fire had said, in one of her stories that,
“The mighty falcon is never wrong.” And Blazing Fire was also always right. And so the Falcon must be right. She-she must be really be a mutant!
“I always knew you were special!” Frozen Lands shouted joyfully.
~
Written by Puurfect (#77681)
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