The days of the famine seemed to run together. At least, for the adolescent seer they did.

Fear and dread were always prodding in her mind since the days the famine started. There were hints of good that echoed somewhere in the back of her head.

When Ayanga had visions, it was hard to stop them. Some were easy going, mellow in nature, but there was an un-clarity that was hard for her to understand sometimes. Others though...instilled a certain fear into her mind she could only find the answer to them with her sister by her side.

Today...today something felt off. Maybe it was the feeling of the viking she had returned home from looming in the back of her mind? It kept eating at her thoughts, leaving an almost permanent frown on her light facial features.

Ayanga found herself not focusing. It was a sign an oncoming vision. She grew still, eyes blanking. She swayed as she sat, her mind in a haze.

First, there was a sense of confusion. Gibberish echoed in her mind. Unseeing eyes widened as her head twisted, trying to find the source of whatever was speaking to her. No one was around, but that didn't mean Aya didn't continue to try. Her heart was beating faster in her chest, pounding against her ribcage, causing a physical ache.

To anyone around her, Aya would appear lost in thought. With the plague that seemed to roam the lands, it was considered normal to an extent. Lions weren't focusing in general. No one would dare question the acts of the adolescent. They would think she was just experiencing the effects they were having as well.

Just as soon as the confusion entered her mind, the haziness fell. Her gray world began to focus before her body started to fall. Her eyes were wide as something else seemed to fall over her. The shadowy figures that played in her mind were indistinguishable. She covered her eyes to try and hide their shapes, but even in the darkness she felt them before her. What were they doing? Who were they? Why...?" There were so many questions in her mind that she found herself trying to answer, but always they were coming up short.

Betrayal.

Sakari.

Sakari would know the answer. She always knew the answer to these strange feelings Aya would get.

"Ayanga?" A voice said from behind her. The thrall approached, worry evident in her pink eyes. She knew the two similarly marked twins of her daughter were different, but to what extent she didn't fully know. "What's wrong sweetheart?"

Silver eyes flashed red. A guttural snarl emitted from her throat. Her claws unsheathed as she turned around quickly, swiping at the new voice. Those shadows. GET OUT OF MY HEAD. she found herself screaming, feeling her paws hit a target.

The shadows faded.

A roar echoed in her mind.

Aya focused just in time to see her grandmother reaching a paw to her face, covering her eye.

"Grandma!" She shouted. Racing over to the pregnant thrall. "Grandma...I'm...I'm so sorry! I didn't mean for that to happen. You just..." Ayanga found herself pausing, trying to remember what just happened. She was coming up with nothing, and her she was, her thrall grandmother suffering at her paws.

Astrid winced. She had never been struck before, not ever in her life. And here her grandchild was, lashing out, for a reason she could never fathom. The pregnant female stumbled a few steps back, fear evident in wide eyes, sunken into her face.

From the foliage near them, Ciro stumbled, his paws leading him away from Njia, to find the source of the roar that caused him worry.

Astrid. Ayanga? His mind whirled, trying to put two and two together. He hadn't seen Astrid in a few months, so it was the surprised to find her belly swelled with cubs. Aya he had just recently returned home from that failed viking, but she was still able to gain her reaver status.

"What happened?" Ciro asked to both females.

Astrid shook her head.

Aya looked down in shame.

He could put two and two together. A strike from the adolescent to the thrall...but the question remained, why?

Worried eyes glanced towards Astrid, the paw still held to her face, covering her right eye. He took a step towards her, only to have the thrall scuttle backwards.

"Astrid?"

A paw dropped from her face as the lioness was quick to turn on her heels, and flee the scene (as best as she could, with the heavy belly in toll).

He turn turned towards Ayanga, who had yet to bring her attention to the Captain.

"What. Happened?" He asked sternly.

Aya cringed. "It's nothing...Ciro..." She couldn't tell him what happened. Her sister was already getting strange looks in the pride for practically spilling the beans to teh War Lord about her visions. Aya hadn't been present during that time, but there were whispers she caught that mentioned about the two seers.

"Nothing huh? Sure didn't look like anything." The captain scolded the young reaver. "I don't know what went through your mind, but you will never. raise your paw to a thrall again. Do you understand me?" Even though Ciro had been born in the pride, he was raised pretty modernly. Female reavers never bothered him, and the concept of thralls pained him. He broken his own vow of never gaining one when he capture Ruka. Sure he did it so his Captain at the time wouldn't put his mangey paws on her, but look how the world turned out because of it!

"Now, if you excuse me. I have my children I need to go feed, and you best come up with a way to apologize to your grandmother." He felt his temper rising. "Otherwise, I will take that reaver status from you so fast and put you in the same rank your grandmother has held." Could he do that? He didn't know, but he would certainly attempt it if decided to strike another thrall, family relations or not.

"I understand..." she murmured, still looking away from the Captain. That rock looked particularly interesting on the ground right there.

Ciro shook his head, turning away, back to the corrals where he hope the dead carcass would still be lying.

Njia better not have dragged it back by herself.





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