Kradse, The Lord of Thieves.
Kradse was always a troubled cub.
Born from a vast pride, other cubs would always make fun of him for the color of his fur, or his lack of markings. But that didn't matter to Kradse, for he was the son of the king of thieves. In his mind, he was superior in every way.
He deserved the best resting spots, the best food, the best toys. So what he wasn't as big as his primitive brother? So what his mutation was much more scarce than the others? He was still better than them, mostly because of his intelligence.
He would crack open tortoises for his other pride mates all the time and always figured out how to get hyenas off his tail when he wandered too far. He always knew it would rain days before clouds even came and came up with the best hunting strategies.
Yet, something else lingered in his mind.
His mother assumed it was just from the constant pestering from the other cubs. But no, this was something different.
Kradse always loved the way it felt to crush beetles under his paw. The way the gooey guts spewed out of its exoskeleton was satisfaction.
He played tricks on young leopard cubs, telling them that if they climbed onto the top of a buffalo's back, they would find one thousand gold beetles on top. That usually ended up with the cubs getting thrown into the air before hurdling back to the ground with a deafening snap. All Kradse did was laugh.
Whenever he managed to catch a bird, he would pin it to the ground and rip out its feathers one by one while it writhed in agony before finally ending its suffering.
He would rip out the organs of rabbits and hyrax while they were still alive just to listen to their screams.
Usually, these actions were always met with punishment afterward, but only if anyone found out what he was doing to these poor creatures. Life should be treated with respect, after all. But that didn't stop Kradse.
Something always stirred inside his mind, yet it was always hard to tell what. Perhaps he just wasn't having a good day, or maybe he was plotting something devious again.
Kradse later grew up to be a good-looking adolescent, with his mane starting to grow out and his muscles becoming more pronounced. Soon it was time for him to become the leader of a pride, just like his older siblings.
It seemed as Kradse grew, so did the amount of jokes he told and their dark nature. His family always brushed them off as the edgy remarks of a teenager, but knowing Kradse’s sadistic ways, these remarks start to seem genuine.
Although he's done some horrible things, He would never try to hurt another lion.
Right?
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