Caeli was born to the Pride nearly 400 years ago, during a time of peace and prosperity on Lochren. She was an only cub at first, and reveled in the attention from her parents. One morning though, about 150 years after she was born, her parents introduced her to her little brother, born during the night. She adored her baby brother and tended him like she was his mother herself. Her own mother and father seemed distracted throughout Caeli’s childhood. They became increasingly distant as she grew older. She desperately wanted to find a way to pull them out of it, but the solution eluded her. All of her attempts ended in failure. They simply seemed to stop noticing her most of the time. When they did notice her, they would reprimand her and tell her that there were more important things for them to worry about. It wasn’t until she was in her adolescence that she began to understand the rumors that flowed around her: Talk of Unrest in the Pride.
When she heard that Aeon, the Alpha, had been killed by his close friend, Arknon, her world began to come apart at the seams. When she was just 176 years old, her father joined the other warriors in the battle and her mother was beside herself. Looking back, Caeli fears that something was maybe not right with her mother’s mind. She was always upset about something, but perhaps that was what came of living in a time of such turmoil. Caeli tried to help her mother in any way she could, but nothing seemed to work. And then one day, 74 years after the start of the war, the horrible news came back to them that her father had been killed in the fighting. Her mother did not live much longer than it took for her to run to the lake. Caeli and her little brother ran after her, not knowing where she was going. When she realized what her mother intended, Caeli threw up a blind over her brother’s eyes, not wanting him to see what was about to happen. Her own vision perfectly clear, save for the tears in her eyes, Caeli watched her mother plunge into the icy, beautifully deadly waters of the Lake of Eternity. She cried out in anguish, stumbling to the ground, as the vapors rose from the water and air bubbles broke on the surface of the lake.
Her brother began to cry at her wail of dismay and she struggled to her feet, staggered back, and wrapped her paws around him. She removed the blind from his eyes and told him that their mother was gone. She wanted to scream and cry and be comforted, but she knew that her young brother was not mature enough to be that support for her. She instead choked down her own emotions and sudden terror and laid her cheek on the top of his head. “Don’t worry little cub, I will take care of you,” she said through her tears. “Mother and Father are both… away for a while.” She could not bring herself to tell him that they were both dead. She could not stand to see him in such pain. He was still so young. He should not have to experience this kind of torture at such a tender age.
She went in to the den with her brother later that night and laid him down in the back of the cave. She placed a small cloud of darkness around his eyes to allow him to sleep more easily. As she turned away from him, her heart heavy with unspent grief, she looked up into the deep purple eyes of Acacius. She had met him before her brother was born, when they were both small cubs. She had no closer friend than this lion. She could see that the fur around his eyes was wet. She stood, frozen to the spot, as he came forward to comfort her. "I am so sorry about your father, Caeli," he started to say. He looked around the small den. "Where is your mother? I thought she would be here with you..."
Caeli finally released the pent up emotion that she had held in check for hours. Her body was racked with the sobs that ripped from her chest. The images of her mother running into the lake would haunt her for the rest of her life. After what seemed like hours, she was able to choke out the awful truth about her mother's whereabouts. He wept with her then, lending his comfort to her in the form of shared grief.
"Please, don't ever leave me, Canie..." she sobbed. She feared he would be drawn off into the war like all of the other lions she knew.
His voice was a ragged whisper when he answered, "Never."
As the years passed and the memory of her parents faded, the scene of her mother’s death stayed vivid in her mind. She was saddened to realize that most of her memories of her mother were clouded by the vapors rising from the Lake that night. She would often go out and sit on the bank, watching the reflection of the stars on the shimmering water. She thought about the war, how senseless it all seemed to be to her. She thought about the suffering of the lions of the new Rebellion and of the Pride… all for what? Her chest hurt with the pain that she could feel radiating from the Lake. So many new souls have gone to rest there, but how many more had not made it that far? How many spirits wandered the Unknown lands causing more pain and heartache? She feared those spirits. What stopped them from coming here to the Pride and destroying them all? Had her father made it to the lake? Or was he one of the damned? Would she be able to tell if she saw him? Would the thought even cross her mind? She shook her head to dispel the disturbing thoughts that plagued her mind and heart. She felt chills standing her fur on end.
She stood and shook her whole body, nose to tail, as if shaking off water. The depression that settled over her just then nearly crushed her. The Pride was without an Alpha. Lochren was being torn apart by lions on both sides of the war. Her brother had left her five years before, when he was barely an adult, running to the rebellion. There had to be something she could do, something they could all do, to end the madness. She closed her eyes and laid down with her head on her paws, tears dropping into the Lake. As her sorrow shed itself in the form of tears, she felt a presence beside her. She opened her wet eyes and looked up at the form of a lion by her side. His coat was too dark to see in the gloom of the night, but his white mane gleamed in the starlight.
“Canie…” she murmured sadly, leaning slightly closer to him. He shifted his paws and then laid down next to her. His purple eyes reflected the light back out into the night.
“What are you doing out here alone, Caeli?” He asked her, laying his head down on his paws.
She did not answer him, but instead laid her own head back down on her paws. She gazed at the water again, all of the same thoughts whirling around in her mind. How to fix it all… How to end the pain? The only solution that came to her mind was that she needed to help as much as she could. She had to help end the suffering of others, however she could. And maybe, just maybe, she could inspire others to do the same by her actions. Her heart pounding now, from excitement more than anxiety, she jumped to her feet. This startled Acacius and he also got to his feel rather quickly.
“What’s wrong??” he asked her, real worry in his voice. The light in her eyes shone bright as she answered him. She told him everything about what she had been thinking about and feeling that day and about the conclusion she had come to.
He seemed to weigh his words very carefully before he finally spoke. “Caeli… This war is so much bigger than just you or me. There is little that any one lion can do—”
She cut off his words in her excitement. “But we can do it together, Canie! If we talk to the other lions and convince them that they can help too…” her voice trailed off as she looked into his face and saw the doubt there. Seeing that he was unconvinced, she said, “Well, I will just prove it to you then.”
“Prove it to me later, okay?” He nudged her toward the dens. “You have a mission in the morning.”
Scout training had gone very smoothly for Caeli, except for a few notable occasions. She loved going out and exploring the wilder areas of Lochren. The landscape was beautiful to her and the few nomads they met were friendly for the most part. Her most difficult challenge was to keep her mind focused on the task at hand, as she tended to let her thoughts wander as she flew. At this point in her life, she began to really notice the emotions of those around her and that also tended to distract her as she focused on them. She focused so hard on how other lions were feeling in her desire to help them, as she vowed she would do. Her empathy for them grew so much that she began to feel their emotions as a physical thing. Their pain became her pain, their joy became her joy. This started to affect her in ways that she had not foreseen. Her own emotions became clouded and unstable, as she had a hard time discerning when it was indeed her own emotion, or that of another lion. This confusion led her to begin to react to help a lion quickly, on impulse. But without the proper thought and care put into her actions, she rarely succeeded in easing another’s pain. More often than not, she made their situation worse than it had been before.
On one occasion, while out in the field with her trainer, they came across a small band of rebel lions. They were caught off guard and were definitely outnumbered. She could sense the hostility rolling off of the opposing group and felt it as a physical blow. Glancing at her mentor, she was surprised to see that he seemed to be frozen on the spot. If she didn’t do something then the rebels would hurt him. Impulsively, she threw out a blanket of darkness and covered the entire field in shadow. She heard her name called out in the blackness and was sure it was her mentor’s voice. A moment later she heard the sound of shattering ice and then her shadow vanished. One of the rebel lions also controlled the element of darkness and easily overpowered her own control of the shadow. She could see a pile of ice shards in the middle of the group of lions, lying where her mentor’s ice spear had slammed into a boulder. She had caused him to miss his shot by blinding him too. She should have only blinded the rebel lions, she thought with embarrassment. She barely had time to feel chagrin before the rebels charged at them. Fear tightened its hold on her chest and she could not find the means to react to the attack.
“Fly, Caeli!” Her mentor’s yell shook her out of her terror and she raised her wings into the air. Bringing them down with a great w h o o o o s h, she lifted off of the ground. She saw with relief that none of the rebels were winged lions, and so could not follow them. Their taunts followed loud and clear though.
She received a long lecture from her mentor following that event, but the only thing she could think about was the taunts that the rebels had thrown at her. They said she could not control her element, that she screwed up. Her face hardened, and then went slack. Oh, who was she kidding? They were right. She did mess up. She narrowed her eyes. She would do better next time.
