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It began with rebellion and ended with loss. In a pride that valued the males as fighters and hunters, and the females as caretakers and healers...Masa and Lail's mothers were viewed as strange and unnatural. Farah and Fariha were twin sisters, rogues who had grown up fighting and hunting with no brothers to rely on. They were strong, cunning, and not lionesses to mince words and dance around things shyly, like the lionesses of the pride. They were tolerated on the borders, simply because they did not truly disturb the peace.

Until Husni decided to court them. The young prince was awkward in his advances, not sure how to deal with them...but he loved them...both. The pride said it was a 'phase' that he would get over, something caused by the novelty of the two rogues.

He didn't get over it. Soon enough, the two lionesses were pregnant, and took places in the pride as not only his consorts, but as his most trusted lions-at-arms. The pride was outraged. How dare the prince change generations of tradition! How dare he overlook the strongest males of the pride for a pair of females he knocked up recklessly.

Husni fought against any who dared to oppose him, even after the cubs were born...A single girl to each mother...twins but for the fact they came from different wombs. The pride seemed to quiet down, and all was peaceful for a while in the desert pride. The two girls were given names to fit their pelts...Farah's daughter was Masa the Evening, Fariha's was Lail the Night. And then, when the cubs were old enough to toddle about, things escalated once more.

Farah and Fariha began to teach their daughters to hunt and fight...and the pride decided enough was enough.

The small family was attacked in the middle of the night, with the king's blessing...with Husni's father's blessing. Husni was told to take the cubs far away by his mates, to safety...Farah and Fariha would meet them at THAT place. Husni hesitated...but ran, Masa on his back and Lail in his jaws. Others tried to chase him, but outside the borders of the pride, they held no knowledge of the lay of the land. Husni did, having ventured about quite often.

He made it to the oasis where he'd met his mates, and waited, ever so patiently, with his cubs. Days turned into weeks, and Husni continued his daughter's training, so they would not be out of practice when their mothers returned. Weeks became two months. At last, Husni gave up hope.

His mates had been killed, and he was left with two very confused, very strong-willed daughters. Out of his grief, a plan formed.
The pride would pay. And his daughters, his beautiful two-mother twins, would be his claws.

And so Masa and Lail were raised to fight and to hunt and to kill. No lion that came near their oasis was spared. Masa and Lail learned as adolescents what all their training was for, and they accepted their fate. They grew to trust no one except each other and their father, who grew steadily insane as the weeks passed. Until he finally went out hunting one morning and never came back.

The two were devestated when they found his body a week later, buried in the sand. He had seen the oasis...but only in his mind. He had died...and by the smile on his muzzle, an expression they had not seen since they were cubs, he had seen his mates with him.

Masa and Lail left their father to rest, and set out on their own. They had a pride to destroy. Yet when they found their birth pride, it had already died. A sandstorm had taken every last life, and any that had survived were no where to be found. Realizing their father's vengance had been completed without them, they were lost.

And thus they set off...no direction in mind except 'away' and 'somewhere new'.

Eventually, they ran across three cubs, girls. And as far as they could tell, the three were dead. Until one of them stirred and proved she was alive. Masa and Lail took the cub into their care, discovering she was fighting illness. The two cared for the cub, until she finally defeated the illness. But the struggle had robbed the cub of her memory, and so Masa and Lail took her as their own and gave her a new name: Mika'il. They taught Mika'il all they knew about fighting and surviving, and she taught them to love another. Eventually Mika grew...

And adopted her own litter of cubs, abandoned by their mother. They watched Mika grow again, from an adolescent who knew nothing of being a mother into an adult who made them proud, in an odd sort of way. Eventually, Mika left them...

And Lail left Masa one night, likely in search of something. And now Masa is, for the first time in her life, alone.

And she has no idea what to do.