The darkness of the night had nearly fallen, and the sky was brilliant behind the trees. Fon Youn watched it lazily through half-lidded eyes, thoroughly enjoying the spectacle nature presented for his entertainment and appreciation. It seemed no one else in the pride was inclined to appreciate the view as he was, and that did sadden him a little, but if they were too boring to understand that there could be pleasure found in something as simple as watching the sun as it set, then he was not interested in spending time with them anyway. Or so the adolescent told himself with a faintly disdainful sniff.

The day had not been particularly eventful, he reflected. There had been no occasion for him to further his acquaintance with any of the pretty young shrine keepers he knew, but at the same time he had not been called upon to do anything particularly dull or strenuous. In other words, the lion had been allowed to indulge himself for the entire day, and that suited him just fine. He was not one of those who found inactivity boring, as he firmly believed that he could generate fun all by himself, and as such did not need activity to be entertained.

His eyelids seemed to grow heavier as his gaze dropped to the shadows which were lengthening in the increasingly scarce light of the coming night. As he watched them it almost seemed as if he could see them moving. Well, of course some of them would move. Not all of the shadows belonged to stationary objects like trees and stones. Some of the shadows belonged to other members of the pride, or to the monkeys which occasionally assisted in certain tasks, or even to plants and foliage moved by the faint breeze.

Still, as Fon Youn watched the shadows shift and stretch he was put more in mind of the ceremonies the pride held at which loa were called and invited to inhabit poupes like himself. The shadows seemed to twist and dance like the lithe members of the pride who sought to honor and wake the loa. During the ceremonies Fon Youn always found himself hard put not to pay more attention to the sinuous movements of the dancers than to his role in the goings on, even though his was more important by far.

This time, with no real leonine figures to distract him, the mind of the yellow eyed adolescent wandered, but not to the mundane, earthy matters that usually held his attention. Instead his mind was blank and somewhat fuzzy while his senses seemed both to sharpen and dim at the same time. He was aware of his surroundings - incredibly so - but even as they registered in his mind something else superimposed itself over what he knew to be real. It formed from the shadows he was watching and became something more than what they had been before.

As Fon Youn watched the shadows took on new shapes, collapsing and then re-forming until they were very obviously showing themselves to be the shapes of lions. Because of their uniform coloration Fon Youn could not make out any lion among them as familiar, but he did not try too hard to do so, despite the curiosity which now burned in his brain and his breast. He had been training all of his life to take loa into himself and grant them possession of his person so that they could continue to be of assistance to the pride, and he thought he knew the best way to deal with what he was seeing.

What he was seeing, of course, were loa. He was positive of that fact, for there was nothing else to explain it. At least not in his experience. He had taken hallucinogenic concoctions before in his life and they had not produced this effect, nor had they made him any more receptive to the possession by loa that he had hoped to invite. Something else had caused this, but he did not care what it was at that moment. He was more interested in keeping his mind open and tamping down his personality as much as possible to make it easier for the loa he was seeing to assert themselves.

However, it did not seem like the loa were particularly interested in doing so. They were speaking to each other, and though Fon Youn was unable to make out what they said to one another he could see from their posture that they were known to each other, and intimate acquaintances. It took several more moments of voyeurism for him to realize with some relief that he was not spying upon an amorous meeting between two lovers, but a meeting between people who might have been siblings, or else very close friends. Once again he had to force himself not to wonder who they were. He would find that out later, he expected without much dismay or distress.

Fon Youn's expectations were doomed to not to be met, unfortunately. The shadow figures began once more to collapse upon themselves and twist and torque their way back to their true and original shadow forms. They were longer now, and beginning to blend into the general darkness which was typical to dusk. Fon Youn realized that the figures had become somewhat indistinct as he watched them, too, just as the shadows had done. Perhaps the reason he had lost sight of the loa was that the shadows whose appearance they borrowed had become too indistinct to hold a form.

"Well," he drawled softly to himself. "That was certainly unexpected."

He knew, of course, that he really ought to tell someone of what had just passed and what he had seen and experienced. One did not catch fleeting glimpses of loa and keep the news to oneself. There were many who would be interested to learn of his near-possession, not the least of whom was his mentor. Fon Youn sometimes did not think he fooled that canny old poupe when he claimed to have been possessed, however briefly. It would be really, really excellent to be able to tell him that he had seen loa, even if he had not been taken over.

Moving with an energy typical to a healthy adolescent male Fon Youn got to his feet and padded off through the pride. Anyone who was familiar with him would wonder and worry, for there were few things in the world which could cause the insouciant poupe to do more than stroll or mosey under ordinary circumstance. The thought of spreading gossip pleased him almost as much as his visitation.