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You wanted to tussle with Weeping Lavender Refresher, but she refused. She had a headache and just wanted to sleep. Ah well, maybe next time.
☆♡◇ ●●●●●●● [LORE] ●●●●●●● ◇♡♤⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️ [WIP]
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You approach the lavender and purple lioness, your eyes alight with interest. She's rather pretty, no? She seems to sense your interest as you pad close to her, and she cranes her neck faintly at you. Her eyes a dull, shimmering grey- a reflection of her mother's, Weeping Velvet Custard, who had welcomed you into the Spires initially with a smile and a purr. Would this lioness be similarly as welcoming? You kinda hoped so.
"Not interested. Goodbye." The lavender molly waved her tail at you, her ears pinned back against her skull. Ouch. Well, you stick around regardless. "You can leave now.. Or.."
She glances at you, and her posture shifts. Rather than standing coldly, unphased by you, she suddenly melts and allows her shoulders to rest. "My apologies. I shouldn't jump to conclusions like that. Are you here to learn?" You may open your jaws to reply, but she isn't facing you, she doesn't seem to care.
"Well, as am I. This place... Well, why don't I start from the beginning?" She cranes her neck to face you finally, patting the ground next to her with her tail. As you inch closer, unsure at first if she'd bite you and this was a trick, she sighs and lifts a pawful of snow. You flinch as she jerks it towards you, a blizzard formed from the clump until you're barely able to see a thing. Overhead, you can hear thunder through the heavy fall.
Lightning flares out infront of you, striking violently onto a tree. With that, despite the faint flame, the tree billows out, it's leaves trembling with energy as the bark shimmered and glowed. Though it was hard to make out, you could see the foliage crystallizing, almost turning to pure gold beetles right before your eyes. You blink, confused, and suddenly the snow has lifted. The tree is crystalline, it shimmers with light, with growth.
You approach curiously, your paws unbound unlike other visions experienced in the land. Beneath it you notice a faint pelt, pastel in hue- a mirror of the crystal. It's Lavender Refresher.
"Born of ice and fire, kin of sin, the heir reawakens rain. But only if nursed to capacity." Lavender Refresher's voice can faintly be heard over the light mewls of the cub before you. Without much clue, a muzzle buries into your back, disloding you and sending you sprawling sideways.
"You hear it, too? That voice?" It's Velvet, and she's staring into your eyes. Although normally the visions see nothing, it seems as though Velvet transcends this- or perhaps you've taken someone's place. Regardless, Velvet can touch you. "What are you doing here exactly? Was it you?"
"Relax, your highness. You're not the whisper she's seeking. Not yet anyways." Lavender's voice soothes any fears you may have experienced for that brief heart-beat. "But still, it isn't wise to get so close to a lioness or her newborn cub. You may as well rip your own throat out before she does it for you."
Just then, Velvet swiped at the air. You dodge, having heeded the warning, but the whisper in your place is wiped away, shredded into morsels that fade into obscurity. Velvet jerks with the motion, only to turn oddly towards the cub, staring it up and down with narrowed, suspicious eyes.
"Born of ice and fire, kin of sin." Lavender repeats the words as the cub vision of her opens her eyes, peering widely at her mother. Their eyes are the exact same shape, exact same color.
"The heir reawakens.. Rain?" Booming, a voice caressed your cheeks from somewhere overhead, though when you scanned for the source, you suddenly feel dull and empty. The land around is barren, but strikingly familiar. This tree resided within the Spires- but how had you missed it? It's glory was unlike anything you've experienced before- and yet, it was missing in the waking world.
"Rain is a death sentence for ice, and fire alike." Lavender cooed, and you turned to notice her ghostly, faint form just behind you. She pads up beside your shoulder, resting her muzzle close to your own as she whispers needed context. "This land, it's eternal winter. It's learned to preserve despite the frost. And yet.. It's unnatural, unholy."
"This land, the whispers. They're made of frost. You're just a little snow bud. How can it be so?" Velvet, you could hear her faintly over the breeze, her despairing mews not lost to you as she bowed her muzzle close ro nose at her newborn daughter. Lavender, the cub, squirmed and wiggled, reaching out short legs to grip at the lionesses' long, draping whiskers and pulling at them playfully.
"No matter. Kin of kin, there's an obligation." It was that voice again. Come to think of it, with how rough and sinister it sounded, you were starting to consider it was Cupcakes, the pride's former tyrannical leader. But they never showed themselves. How could you even hear them? Had they become some sort of God?
"At least when the soul has its purpose." Velvet echoed the whisper of Cupcakes, as though she were continuing her own thought pattern. Dropping down into the snow, she tucked her legs close to her belly, and with a nudge of her muzzle, she welcomed the cub into the warmth of her flank. Instantly, little Lavender wriggled forward to latch and immediately begin suckling.
"Purpose. Some lions never learn this word, others could hardly dream of their whispers aiding some grander scale. Most of us, though, we wish it'd never been conjured, wished the concept was lost on our species entirely." Lavender presses the back of your neck with her cold, wet nose, and suddenly the world is back to spinning with frost. Only this time, the next vision explodes infront of you with enough force to make you choke on your last piece of prey.
As you blink, you can see Lavender- a little older now, but still very much a young cub. Her pelt is crystalline and you can sense a magical presence just standing nearby her. Expecting the icy walls of the Frost-Bitten Eclipse's main camp, you're somewhat surprised to see an empty hollow. Unlike most other territory in these lands, the snow has not reached this stretch of Earth. Dead stone and weak grass were faintly visible in the hollow, and overhead you could feel the softest patter of raindrops, as quietly, little cub Lavender bounced around bundles of frost-bitten reeds, smacking at them until they'd showered the land with melting snow.
"I was too young to truly sense their presence. But the whispers aided me. As I was nurtured, as I was heired- the omen almost came true, in a sense. Where I padded, rain would often follow, refreshing the land and removing that blinding white snow, melting it away into ponds and puddles that dribbled into ice the further from me it reached."
Just then, you could hear a roar- it reminded you of your mother, calling you back home after she'd been looking for you for a bit of time. Irritation and annoyance fogged her concern, only to be shattered with shock as she approached. The lioness rushed towards the young Lavender, her jaws parted with frantic frenzy as she scooped her daughter up and away from the reeds. Dropping her onto her haunches harshly, Velvet spun her head around to stare in shock and awe at the glistening reeds, fresh rain still trickling down the stems in thick, glob like dew drops.
"Can you feel it? The tears of the moon? The breath of clouds?" Little Lavender seemed to be enthralled. Her eyes were shimmering with a mixture of emotions, her little tail flicking to and fro as she proudly stood before her mother. "Maybe this is my purpose, momma. Maybe I'm the one to cure the snow."
"Cure? What is there to cure?" Velvet sounded distressed, her brow furrowed with genuine concern as she stared down at the little lioness. You noticed her fur prickling along her spine, and her ears twitching with obvious discomfort at the comments. Despite her young age, it seemed Lavender had been groomed into these ideals- preaching of destiny when most cubs only thought of their next suckling.
"The cold, mama. The hard hunting. Isn't this amazing? The moon can clear it all away, she can bring home prey!"
"Lionesses bring home prey, and the snow is where said prey prefers to reside. Taking it away.. It'd take the prey, too." It sounded like something may have been caught in Velvet's throat, she was hesitating to a degree, but to what end was lost on you at this time.
"She wasn't open-minded, not like the other lionesses could be. They liked my ideas of retreating snow, the invitation of rain excited them more so than I'd ever seen from any creature, for any reason. I thought it brought about hope;"
"Rainwaters are easily exchanged for flood. Remember?" There it was, Cupcakes again, and apparently this time, the words stung her in a particular way. Velvet lunched down and scooped up the cub, who wriggled in her grasp.
"Just a little longer, mama? I almost made all the snow go bye from this spot. I wanna keep going!" Lavender swished her paws around, but to no avail. As Velvet turned towards where you were sitting, you could see the dullness in her expression, the restlessness, the anxiety. Her brow furrowed intensely as she padded past you.
Her voice loomed over you a moment after, but you couldn't see her, no manger where you craned your neck. Her roar was sinister, uncomfortable, almost backed by an otherworldly presence.
"Speaker of Misguidance, escort her through. This cub knows not of threats she toys with. Your teachings will be invaluable to correcting this.. Behavior."
Just then, you can feel the world shifting, your paws feel unsafe. Scrambling to stand, you glance around a moment later- you're back in the Spires, with the grown- the REAL version of Lavender sitting before you. Faintly, you can see The Oracle nearby, but you try not to stare too long at the scarred molly.
"I was heir once, for many moons, in fact. I was an adolescent when I first arrived here.. She carved a cave all my own." Lavender didn't motion anywhere, she must've been referring to her mother, Velvet- who you were getting a nasty impression of about now. "This place.. It holds the mysteries I've been seeking. The whispers, I can finally understand them, they're no longer so faint. They speak loudly to me here. They tell me to go home."
Lavender scuffs her paws, and you hold your breath. Knowing this pride, she likely wasn't about to continue with anything savory.
"But, this is my home. It's an extension of it. My power, well... What it once was, it ebbed away with time. I was too young to harness it, so I guess I just lost it." You realize now what she means. Once a cub of crystalline beauty, she'd been faded into something much more.. Well, something you're used to. Her pelt was still an unnatural, yet beautiful color- but it was carved of flesh and bone, you could hear her breathing, for the first time it seemed. "The Oracle taught me well. I've been here ever since. I truly, in my heart, have no desire to leave. The whispers feed me knowledge and that's prey enough for me a good collection of times."
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