What tale, stranger, have you for us?
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Well, he is, and he was-
it was dark, you know?
After our Mane died.
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It was the raging fires and heat of the Drought and the Famine when Shinemane was taken from the Pride of the Gleaming Waters. The river for which they were named was all but dried up, in the heat, and the fires came close and dangerously to their jungle borders. As Fireshade struggled with the reality that he may take up the title of Mane despite having not the mind or strength for leadership, and Viperstrike, getting on in years as he was, attempted to encourage him, things seemed grim.
Many lionesses left, dispersing to find other mates. Many cubs, they took with them. It was on a dark night, at the hottest time of the drought, that those loyal ones, those who stayed, say that a pale light shone deep within the jungle. In a pit previously unknown to them, they found Him.
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It was like a light, or
or maybe the moon?
in that deep, black pit-
it looked like it had been there for years
and there he came,
crawling out of it.
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"Where am I?" He asked them, sitting at the edge of the overgrown crater. The lionesses chattered among themselves.
"The territory of the Pride within the jungle, of the Gleaming River." Cloudstride, eldest and chief huntress among them, answered, as her youngers continued to murmur about his strangely colored pelt.
"I see," He said, picking up a single paw, moving carefully to stand, as might a cub who does not know his legs. "But where? I have come a long way, and I do not remember the journey." But this, of course, only set the younger girls to chattering again. Where had this thin-maned King come from, and why, and how did he not remember? But Cloudstride only shook her head and said:
"We are on the Land, as all Lions ought to be. Come back to our den. We can spare some meat." The girls peered, and whispered.
"And what shall I give in exchange?" Asked the stranger, who had given no name.
"Your strength," Declared Cloudstride, having judged him as he was, and found him lacking in none of the qualities needed of a Pride's Mane, "And your stories."
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Euphoros?
He wasn't always so red and gold,
when he first came...
he was violet, I think.
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