She awoke to the sound of harried footbeats, the sound of some beast in a full, somehow dire gallop. She couldn't tell the identity of their owner by the sound, but the hurried pace piqued her concern. What was this beast doing, and why? Varea rose from the pool of water that she often relaxed as, taking but a moment for her legs to stabilize and solidify before giving chase. Was this an intruder or a friend? Either way she had to know. This was the edge of her territory, and passerby would have to announce themselves. The footbeats grew closer, slower, and more tired as she approached, and what greeted her eyes when she rounded the bush came as a surprise. Standing twenty paces ahead of her was a large lioness, a tribe member from the plains, with a mixture of cerulean blue and greyish-black fur, a soft glow emanating from the three yellow rings about her blue front legs, her golden gaze glowing back from the corner as she swished the yellow star that adorned her tail side to side. The lioness knew she was being followed, and turned to face her pursuer with a fierce gaze and sharp fangs bared in a snarl at first -- but perhaps Varea was not whom this cat expected to see? The warning melted off her face as she collapsed into a crouching position, breathing heavily. Varea was not one of them. "May I ask who are you, and what are you chasing through my territory?" Varea asked as she sat upright, wrapping her long, fishlike tail around her haunches as she twitched her ears to listen for the response. The lion paused to catch her scent, then smiled. "You are female yourself ... and you offer me such kind words. You will have to do; come closer...." "I am not going to approach your fangs, if that's what you're asking," Varea scoffed, folding her fin-rimmed ears flat against her head as she flattened her collar against her shoulders, a clear defensive warning. The glowing yellow markings on the lioness were a clear sign of the electrical energy harbored in her body, more than enough to easily electrocute Varea should something spark a fight between them. "You don't understand...," the lioness responded. Her lower body shuddered, then she stepped aside to reveal a single egg, a blue shell roughly half the size of her head emblazoned with a large, four-pointed yellow star on either end. "Is that your child?" Varea inquired as she stared at the egg. The lioness stood up and took but one step back, then began nudging the egg forward. "Look, I don't have time to explain. They'll catch up with me soon and I have run too far already. You will have to do...." "You cannot be offering me your own child!" Varea objected. "What is going on here? Explain yourself!" The forest's winds carried a new scent towards them, warning of something carnivorous and male, and approaching fast as the lioness approached to within clawing range and stared Varea down. "I am being hunted, and they will not stop as long as I draw breath. Yes, I can scent that you have never mated nor mothered before, but you are the only female I can ask this favor of in such a short time. He needs a mother...." Varea considered. To give such a request was unheard of, but the urgency in the lioness's voice was no deception. "Are you really asking me ... to take your own child from you?" "No," the lioness shook her head. "I am asking you to take him, and raise him as your child." The wind began to echo sounds of several approaching footsteps; two, possibly three beasts, with a clear hint of aggression in the scent that blew downwind from them. "But how can you expect me to raise him when my body cannot nurse?" The lioness approached to within biting distance, then spoke softly into Varea's ear. "After he's hatched, eat the star from atop his shell. Then you will understand everything." This was no morbid request: The leftover shell from an child's egg is a special food that only the birth parents are allowed to consume, as the act of eating it (or perhaps the nutrition of the shell itself) is not just a common symbol of the parental bond, but in some cases is actually required to create that bond in the first place. Varea could faintly recall mention of her own mother having done the same for her. "Please, there is no time," the lioness repeated as she rolled her egg against the fin adorning the end of Varea's tail. "You must promise me...." Varea sighed. "Alright, I'll do it," she answered. "But on one condition only." "Name it, but quickly," the lioness nodded as she glanced upwind. "Tell me the name of your child," Varea began. "Since he is of your body, that right belongs to you." "Rae," the lioness answered, as if she had such an answer memorized already. "His name is Rae. The last light I can ever be allowed to see in this world." "Then I swear, by my life I will raise your Rae," Varea answered as she wrapped the egg carefully in her tail fin and stood up. "Not [i]my[/i] Rae...," the lioness smiled. "[i]Your[/i] Rae." Harsh voices drifted over on the wind, growing louder; the intruders would draw within vision range any time now. "Now get the two of you to safety! I will stay here to face them...." "Farewell," Varea nodded as she turned away and prepared to chase downwind to safety. "Do not cry for me," the lioness bode. "Neither of you." Varea took off, and not five seconds later a party of three lions, two subservient males under the command of a fierce huntress, each of the same blue and black fur, the same golden eyes, ears and tail as this hunted mother, approached. The two males sat down while the lead, the female of the party stood upright, commanding her attention. The two lionesses looked so much like each other that one might claim they were identical twins. "There you are," the huntress greeted. It was no friendly welcome; she wasn't addressing the lioness as an equal, but more like the way a cat addresses a mouse prior to eating it. "Tired of all this running, are you? Good. Now where is that egg?" "I do not know what you are talking about," the lioness answered quietly, but everyone present knew this to be a lie. "Oh yes you do. What did you do with it?" The huntress asked again. "I might have offered to let you live if you had only given us the egg to be destroyed ... but that offer has now expired. You know we will find it. Before or after we have taken care of you...." The hunting party did not notice Varea in the uphill distance, sheltered among trees and shrubs, silently watching this exchange as the breezes blew their conversation up the slopes. "You are really intent on killing me?" The mother asked. "Violating your own code of --" "Do not dare to reprimand me about honor!" The huntress shouted back. "We were equals, right? Not just rivals, but friends. The best pair of huntresses our clan ever had...." "Do not pretend to talk about our clan!" "When I was injured, did I not bleed?" "No . . . you didn't," the huntress answered with an annoyed gaze. "But you showed a lot of skill to fool everyone with your imitation of it. You never were one of us, and never could be. You did not court and mate with our leader, you seduced and raped him. You are not protected by our honor!" "Only a scorned lover could use those words," the mother answered. "Are you forgetting that our egg was conceived not of my body alone, but of your king's decision?" "Silence!" The huntress commanded. "Is that why you personally excommunicated him? You did not see fit to merely snap off his tail, but personally chose to devour it yourself?" "I will not barter with an imposter, nor will we suffer your bastard offspring to live!" The mother sighed. "Now prepare yourself!" "So," the mother sighed again. "If you are going to send me back to my maker, I suppose I should slip into something more comfortable first...." The hunting party, fangs bared, readied themselves to pounce upon her as the mother took a wide stance with her four legs as far spread as she could manage. The mother's body began to shake. Her fur quivered and rippled unnaturally, not due to the caress of the cold breeze but due to changes from inside. Blue and black fur melted and disappeared against the grey flesh of her hide, and the features of her face vanished from the form as she reared back, the bulk of her body shifting from an equal distribution on four legs to an upright shape with most of the bulk concentrated about the hips. Her body weight poured into her tail, replacing the yellow star with a thick, vaguely reptilian tail crested in a large vertical, almost fish-like fin coated in fine black scales. "What ... the ... ?" The two male lions shuddered back a step while the huntress stood her ground, with only her eye betraying the fear of what was now unfolding before her. The opposing figure grew to a height two full heads taller than the hunting party now, and in place of the mother's two front paws it now bore thin arms bearing a pair of spikes near the shoulders, with finlike wings dressed in a coat of fine scales adorning the forearms, and one large, slightly hooked claw on each hand. With one large dorsal fin flowing down its back, standing on two legs that bore three deadly claws apiece, swishing the tail back and forth, and peering back at them through two yellow eyes flanked by bulbous, almost cylindrical ears, the mother opened a mouth filled with razor-sharp cutting fangs and released a deafening, gutteral roar. Her transformation was complete, and the hunting party no longer stood in front of a fellow lioness now. No, the figure which towered over them in jet black scales, bearing a red chest and yellow waist, and with a star-shaped emblazon upon its head was none other than a deadly sand dragon, as the mother outstretched ler legs and tail, followed by her winglike arms, and roared again. Even the huntress was forced to step backwards in the presence of such a beast, and Varea, at her distance, could only swear her surprise in the name of the Aurora. The mother tilted her head down to face the opponents smaller than her, then took just one step towards them as she opened her eyes to glare upon them. "I have not had to assume a different form in some years...," she growled in a voice a full octave deeper than she bore as a lioness, lashing her tail from one side to another, raising her arms as she assumed a ready-to-strike posture. "But since you will not yield any mercy, neither shall I!" "Prepare to die, dragon!" The huntress announced before ordering her two males to attack. The dragon mother easily drew blood with her first strike, knocking one of the males aside in a single powerful hit while her fine mesh of scales rebuffed attempts by the two others to discharge their fangs into her. Sparks flew and coursed over her skin with no effect; the lions' electricity was no good here, and the dragon answered these lions with a searing blast of mystic blue flames. The lead huntress reprimaned her two counterparts for their foolishness as they fell to such attacks, then leapt at the dragon and struck with her own fangs. The dragon blocked this with one of her wings effortlesly, but something about the huntress's fangs was different from her counterparts, because when the lioness touched down, the dragon found herself with one arm covered in a layer of biting, paralyzing frost "There, you see?" The huntress commanded of her two counterparts. "Dragons are not invincible -- she cannot withstand ice!" "But we don't have any ice!" The males complained; indeed, the ability to channel such energy through one's fangs was a prized gift for which only the highest-ranking hunters were allowed to posess. "Did you not confirm your skills before you left in pursuit? You are on your own here," the dragon threatened as she tried (to no avail) to free her arm from its paralysis. "So be it. I can take you myself!" The huntress charged at the dragon and sank her fangs directly into the beast's opposite leg and the cold bite took effect. The dragon shrieked in pain as she stumbled to the ground with two limbs frozen, then the huntress leapt at and crashed into her frozen arm headfirst, snapping it off from her impact before repelling off of it. The dragon swiped at the huntress with her remaining arm but in vain, while the lion came down upon the dragon's head and sank her fangs directly into the back of the dragon's skull. Her dragon body shook as the huntress's powerful fangs bit down hard upon her, releasing freezing air with each breath as the dragon fell to the ground with the huntress pinning her head against it. The dragon could not speak with the ice quickly encasing her jaw. Indeed, she could barely even breathe as the huntress's freezing energy quickly spread through her from the inside out. Her scales were quickly losing their definition, and frost was beginning to form across the fringes of her whole body. The two males awed upon the victory of their commander as the huntress felt the beast's pulse slow and eventually stop between her fangs, signalling the individual's death, with now a visible layer of ice coating the entire, colorless body. "What are you waiting for?" The huntress asked through her grip on the frozen dragon. "We will finish her off now -- scatter her body to the winds!" With a yank of her fangs she snapped off the block of ice that previously formed the dragon's head, set it aside from the rest of the frozen creature before smashing her claws into it, causing it to shatter into a flurry of tiny, lifeless, featureless grey icicles. The males winced as the huntress continued demonstrating, shearing and smashing the other arm, followed by dorsal fin and tail, pieces of leg, leaving only a frozen lump of body behind to slowly melt and rot away. Her job finished, she turned to her two counterparts. "Am I doing everything myself?" The huntress asked, perhaps rhetorically. "Now for the egg. Pick up the scent!" The males sniffed around the area, catching a minutes-fresh trail of a water creature which pointed uphill. "That way. A water creature. And her scent is very fresh." And the hunting party chased this trail uphill. For ten minutes they weaved between one tree and another, climbing as they went, until they reached a large pond near its summit. Varea sat upright against the water's edge, clutching the small, warm egg in the wrap of her tail. "A party of lions," Varea greeted. "What reason do you have for this intrusion?" The huntress stepped forward, with a careful smile upon her face. "Please, forgive our entrance and entertain us one favor. If you will return that egg to us we will be on our way." "What arrogance you have," Varea scolded. "Do you think I am blind to such a facade? I saw how left this child's mother to rot and decay in the open fields. You did not even pretend to be hunting for food. What makes you think I would give this child over to a murderer?" "The mother was no concern to you, Showers," the huntress turned. "Give us that egg and we will leave you in peace." Varea glanced down at the egg; she could sense the young life stirring within; it would probably hatch within the week. Recalling what the mother had told her prior, she looked back at the lions and gave a final answer. "No." "What was that?" "The life within this egg was entrusted to me," Varea stood up, carefully keeping the egg wrapped amidst her tail as she did so. "I swore such promise with the child's life, and my own as well. So if you plan to separate me from MY child ... you will have to take me first!" "You are willing to die for this?" The huntress taunted. "Don't be stupid. You know you are vulnerable to our fangs. This fight will be over before it even --" [b]POW![/b] The two other lions stared in shock as Varea struck their leader in the face with such a powerful blast of water that the huntress had flown backwards nearly twenty feet before landing. "I said...!" Varea threatened the other two lions. "...me first!" The two lions nodded to each other silently as their huntress continued to tumble and roll nearly another ten feet, then they charged directly for Varea. But Varea saw this coming and evaded quickly, leaping backwards to land and slide across the surface of the lake's water. The two lions halted at the edge; they could swim, yes, but Varea's ability to stand on the water's very surface itself put her at a distinct strategic advantage here and both sides knew it. Varea crouched down, then sang out a shrill cry that echoed across the lake. The water reared back from the bank, exposing the silt along the bottom of its shallow bed as it formed a into a solid wall behind Varea. The two lions looked back in fear as wall of water towered to a great height, then inexorably toppled forwards and charged straight at them. The massive surge swept everything away -- tufts of grass, loose pebbles and rocks, shrubs and small trees, and the two lions right along with it. When it cleared, one of the lions found himself trapped against an uprooted tree, the second lion lay unconscious against a boulder, and the lead huntress could be seen scrambling back to her feet so she could bat the water out of her ringing ears. Varea and the egg were nowhere to be seen. "Show yourself!" the huntress commanded as she staggered forward, barely enough strength to remain on her feet. There was no response, only silence, as the displaced water soaked through the ground and began trickling back towards the lake. Varea was nowhere to be seen. "Where are you!?" The huntress demanded again. As if in direct answer to this question the ground beneath the huntress's feet opened up and swallowed her into a large, deep, muddy sinkhole, as streams of water quickly returned to the lake and gathered together, combining into a cloud of vapor that condensed and coalesced into a familiar shape of four legs and one tail, with one yellow-starred egg cluthced securely in its translucent grasp. The huntress, buried up to her shoulders and neck in this mud, looked back at the form and identified it: Not only did Varea have the ability to walk on water, but her body was like a living embodiment of water itself, which she could disperse and reform as she saw fit. "Take your losses and leave this place now," Varea answered as the huntress struggled to free herself. "I told you before; this child belongs to me and you will not harm him." "This isn't over...!" The lead huntress shouted as she continued trying to free herself. "Yes, it is," Varea answered as she turned to face the welcome approach of a friend, a very large water serpent with ruby-like scales on its plated tail and two long, ribbonlike ears flowing down alongside its back. "So what is the cause of this disturbance, Varea?" The serpent asked of her. "It is taken care of now," Varea nodded as the serpent glanced over the three injured lions. "Let us return to our Sanctuary, and I will explain on the way." * * * The child hatched within not two days, early in the morning as it was, with Varea's surprise being the sight of tiny claws cracking through the blue shell, followed by the blue, wet-furred head that poked out moments later. The lion cub was small, and within a minute the shell was in tatters, and the newborn cub gently mewling to Varea. Varea gazed down upon the small cub; a coating of light blue fur on its face and upper body, a black collar adorning its shoulders, its hindquarters and feet jet black, and with a tiny yellow star at the tip of its black tail. "Rae...," Varea spoke softly, catching the attention of the newborn as it clung to the warm feel of her tail. Varea sighed calmly as she sniffed the pieces of the shell, noticing the distinct, if subtle, male scent about it, just as the mother foretold. This was her first witness to a newborn's hatching, and she had a promise to keep. Varea gently picked up a large piece of the empty shell and crunched it in her teeth. The shell did not register any particular taste to her, but as the child's mother had requested, she proceeded to eat the fragments. Before she even realized it she had not just polished off the entire thing, but found herself grooming the face of the newborn cub as he crawled over her tail to nurse from her -- and much to her surprise, successfully. Indeed, even though it was readily apparent to everyone that the child was not related to her by blood, she was nonetheless the one who would be called mother. Varea winced with a smile as the child let out a small spark of electrical energy, just enough to be felt. Perhaps one day he would posess the energy of a powerful lion....