Merope

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Chapter 6: Chatterbox
As the face backed up you realized it belonged to a youthful lioness adorned in jewelry made of golden flowers with brown and gold paint drawn along her body. "Hello! Sorry, we dont get many outsiders around here, I just couldnt resist a closer look! My name's Merope and I'm the junior priestess here in the valley! Ive come to fetch you outsider," she said all of this very fast and with a big smile... she also said it without stopping for a breath. You stand up and stretch as the chatty lioness rambles on about how cool you look, asking if its true that outsiders eat their own cubs and starve their lionesses and perform blood sacrifices to false gods... Wait a second, "Um... what?! No! I mean, maybe some, but I dont know of any who do!" You paused, "Do you guys?" "Oh! No! Of course not! Outsiders are the monsters, not us! Everyone knows that!" Oh. Duh, everyone knows that. You mentally roll your eyes, not sure if you can survive this furball of energy. You decide to try and get something useful out of her, "Youre the junior priestess? Priestess of what?" She gave a small laugh, as if that was a dumb question, "The valley and the dieties that watch over it of course! We tend to the land and make sure others do the same! We teach others in our pride how to honor the dieties that protect us and our home and use the healing techniques given to us by the dieties to help-" She was cut off by a muffled growl from a nearby pile of sleeping lionesses, one of them lifted their head and gave us an angry look. "We should continue this outside," you suggest. "Oh! Yes, of course! I'm supposed to bring you to my teacher, the Head Priestess, Zots!" There we go, she finally got to the point. "Come, this way!" She said and bounded out of the cave, stopping to encourage you to follow. You walked after her with a little less enthusiasm. Lets see this Head Priestess then, shall we?