Cairidan,
Lion of Prideless
Played by dusk

The gloominess of an Aesseldaren winter provided little comfort. Cairidan remembered the days of his youth, wide-eyed and peering out across the meadows dusted in blistery white. The jungle had been sheltered from the bitter wind, tangling canopies of vines steadfast against the onslaught of snow weighing down on her gnarled, tangled vines. The glistening blue flowers that bloomed around his paws began to fade, shriveling yet not quite dying—as if they were sleeping. And above all, Cairidan could remember the silence. Each word, each last call of birds as they swept across the sky to head for southwardly lands, muffled by the snow that littered the ground as if it were hungry for every conversation.

Here, the lake still shimmered. The sky was not nearly as pregnant with snow, though its gloomy overcast mimicked an enlightened night. As he trailed across the line of the shore, where snow had not quite touched, he could hear the boisterous yet muffled bantering of the pride that lived along its massive shore, distant yet distinct, completely avoidable. Cairidan turned in the other direction, and began to follow the shoreline where it lead to blissful silence. But even that silence, too, was swiftly razed by gentle heaving breaths, panicked, frightened, a tamponade reminiscent to sweet little sobs. And yet, as he approached, the silhouette's shoulders did not tremble the way a did when a lioness cried.

She sat there, staring into the glistening lake, just as Cairidan himself had done now countless time. Except, unlike the beast approaching, she had submerged herself into the water, allowing its brutal cold to swallow her almost entirely. Cairidan's nose twitched in displeasure at the idea, remembering keenly how the rains of this land often made him far more wet than he would like. “You're going to catch a cold, woman,” he stated rather gruffly, yet not quite unkindly. His tone was even, matter-of-fact. He remembered the many times his sisters would dare him to wander out into the snow, and as soon as he'd fell into a snowbank high enough to reach over his head, he'd always been subjected to a runny, wet nose.

Art by AleTie