Username: irockwaffleking
Lion name: Khei
Lion gender: male
Pride: The PantheonPride status: Traveler from the land of snow
Prompt: (exactly 1000 words not including title)
Khei's Journey
Khei had heard the whispers of Yuki-Onna since he had been a cub. A lioness paler and colder than the snow that fell over his home. Black eyes that pierced and a small black mane that held that same intensity. Red cheeks that reminded him of flowers he had once seen brought from a far off land. Flowers though were delicate, fragile petals crumpled by soft paws, Yuki-Onna was cold and cruel and merciless. She had no paws but hovered instead, allowing her to move swiftly and silently across the snow. No warning when she…
Well admittedly Khei didn’t know. It was uncertain what exactly she did. Some said that she would appear and breathe her icy breath across you and in the morning they’d find you frozen. Others said she would lead you off your route so you got lost in the endless swirling snow. Others said they wouldn’t find you, just a place in the snow where your paw prints had stopped. As if somehow the landscape had swallowed you whole.
And so young Khei had grown wary of longer travels in the snow. He would look over his shoulder to make sure she wasn’t following him, moving without paws. As he aged however his fears slowly melted like a snowbank in a warm sun. No other lions lived where he did, the closest pride being the far away foreigners. Her story always nagged Khei. An itch in the back of his mind that appeared when he went on walks alone or when moonlight fell across silent snow banks.
Khei had always loved how the snow could look. At sunset a glow reflected in a million tiny crystals or at night, a soft moonlit shine. But he found himself remembering that traveler who came from so far away. The one bearing flowers he called, “tulips” and stories of wonders such as “grass fields,” “frogs,” and, “fruit.” He remembered how the traveler had told him that Khei’s eyes had reminded him of long stretches of grass fields in autumn and it had both shocked and excited him that a landscape could be something other than snow and slender trees that bent in the wind. “You should come see my land some time” he had said.
As Khei had looked at his reflection in a sheet of ice and saw his yellow eyes. Khei wondered what a land filled with golden hues could be like. To travel he would have to go farther through the snow banks then he had ever been. He went to the king telling him of his plan of adventure and was given the king's blessing. The whistling of the wind that night as he slept for one last time before his journey reminded him of her. It felt like a taunt.
I am a Lion not cub He thought to himself.
I won’t be stopped by a legend Khei wasn't sure exactly how long the journey would be. The traveler said roughly a week before ice and snow would give way to grass and dirt. And so Khei pressed on. Four nights he slept comfortably under stars that were the only familiar thing in uncharted land.
However The fifth night as he began to settle under an old and tall pine he saw something down the hill from him. A flit of movement so quick it must’ve been a snow bank shifting or a shadow from a tree. It
had to be.
The sixth night he saw her. As he settled by the side of a large jagged stone he saw something strikingly black amidst the snow banks. A black mane, the individual’s head turned away from him. Khei felt his heart turn heavy as it dropped down inside him. His erratic breathing audible over the wind. Even though she couldn’t possibly hear him from that far away he felt at any second she would notice him. Her own breath would be icy and controlled as it turned him into…. Khei couldn’t think of it. Eventually he feel asleep there, watching to make sure she didn’t move even an inch closer.
Khei was dreading the seventh night. He hastened his pace in hopes of reaching the foreign land before night fall but to no avail. Dusk settled calmly but with finality, as if declaring a death sentence. And as he looked for a place to rest he saw her. Without paws she floated softly above the snow. Graceful for a spirit that could kill. Khei might as well have been turned to ice already as he stood frozen in fear so powerful his only movement was a slight trembling in his limbs. She slowly approached him then paused and gestured over to the side.
And there Khei saw a lioness quite obviously dead but so peaceful she could’ve been sleeping. If it wasn’t for the ice that covered her or the way her body did not rise and fall he would’ve run over to wake her up. But more shocking was the lion’s appearance. A pale white with a black mane and foreign tulip cheeks. Yuki-Onna had been alive. He looked over to her spirit now, somehow even paler than her living form. The only difference was the lack of paws and the fact that she moved. Yuki-Onna spoke now, a voice so quiet yet somehow almost deafening over the roar of the wind. “Take me home.” As she spoke it she looked to the dawn rising on the horizon. The light slowly pushed away the curtain of darkness to reveal a field of grass. She hadn’t been trying to lead travelers astray, she had been trying to bring them to her. So she could be buried in a land of flowers and fields, away from the cold that killed her.
And so gently, as the sun dawned over a night he never thought he’d survive, Khei picked up Yuki-Onna. A lost lioness rather than a vengeful spirit, and brought her to land of sun.
