Forgiven

[Caira Ayryn]

Merik bounded into the Endless Dunes atop the shadowy lion, and to the lion's relief, it was sundown. There was no moon in the sky, only a bed of stars, pricking the blanket of black with little white sparks that littered the sky. In the middle, there was a particularly bright strand illuminating certain branches of the sky  but it was not the Milky Way, that he might see from Earth, for the cloud of assorted stars and planets was smokily undistinguished in shape.  

The cool breeze filled the mane of his sweeping golden hair, and Merik tasted the icy hollow air of the desert. So many skyless nights he had spent in that frigid, glacial jail cell below the earth. The thought of these tortured memories made his skin crawl with anger and disgust, which flourished with a fierce blaze in his eyes. They rippled through the night, just as a shadow might, it hovered over the dunes in a strangely mystical way, for it left not path of the print of a paw on the sand. Suddenly, he heard a noise, and turned his head, the lion halted at once, jouncing its rider uncomfortably as his body flung forward. 

When his eyes had rolled back into place, he wincingly noticed what the hold up was, and Merik felt the chill of fear creep over his skeleton with more bite than that of the air, for he realized he was perched atop a monster. 

Over the horizon, there was another, the shadow lions were one of the Endless Dunes' most terrifying predator. They were entirely territorial, and upon this realization, the Prime leapt off Caira's beast at once, which had started a low rumble in its chest as the other beast approached, Merik noted, in the darkness, that Caira's was a male, and the one drawing near to them was a female. 

He blinked as his hands fell to the watery sand and looked at the confrontation blossom, he particularly looked at the tamed lion he had ridden. It looked completely different than the shadow lion beasts he knew as Chimera type hunters, that can and will rip the head off of any unprepared human if it gets the chance. Caira's beast was smaller in proportion, and it's eyes, though Merik suspected originally -that is before the conversion of loyalty- they glowed a different shade of light. Then there was the lioness, large and beastly, with vicious spews of raging orange light came from her extravagant maw. Something about her was so very savage.

Compared to the she-lion, the male looked like a tabby cat, though Merik suspected this was not the case, for soon, a pale blue light grew on his shadowed face with vibrant menace. His size had increased too, as though the dark magic of the night was there to feed his black form. The mighty lion was now larger than the female, and the male was twice that. The beastly encounter however, was not over, they padded in circles around one another, the male emitted a low growl, as though warning her to back away from him (and Merik) or force him into battle. The female, seemed to agree, for her eyes were not blind to his sheer size, and her ears seemed to have heard his unspoken message, but then, she seemed to find he had another use, and his form was tackled to the ground, the power of their collision alone, caused the earth below Merik to not only shake, but erupt with spouts of sand.