Sapphic Masaya

At night in the savanna, a young cub walked alone. She had been abandoned by her pride, left behind because she was too young and weak. It had been a brutal summer; no rain had fallen in months. The world was lean, and they simply couldn't feed her. She should have been dead already, but unknown strength had kept her moving, following the light of the glowing red moon. It was under this glow that she stumbled across a caldera - the cold remnants of a volcano - a dark rocky scar across the Sahara. It stood there before her, a rift in the Earth like a gateway to the Underworld. The smell of old smoke seemed to still dustily cling to the air.

An unknowable force seemed to pull her forward, the same force that had been fueling her long walk through the blazing heat. Lava rushed through the earth, jumping in rivulets across the caldera. The chasm opened like a mouth before her, yawning wider and wider until it almost consumed her vision. And then it spoke. A voice like rustling ash broke the silence - the voice of a long forgotten goddess.

"I see myself in you, child," the goddess began. "The world has cast you aside, left you burnt and broken for carrion, but yet you have continued on in spite of that. Strong. Unyielding. Proud." With her words, the wind began to pick up, swirling the ashy remnants around the cub's feet.

"Young lionness - I offer you a choice. You can have peace. Come with me now and you will never have to face the struggles of the world again. Or you can have power. I can give to you what once was mine if you simply drink from the fire. But know this: the fire will bring you power, but it always demands payment."

The young cub bowed her head and drank from a pool of lava that did not burn.

She is more than just a queen - she is prophecy and divinity made flesh.