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Every new beginning is some other beginning’s end, as the saying goes, and for the Kunanda’Nakhun – they marked the ending of a legacy by the name of the Purahka.

The Purahka pride was one of ancient origins, flourishing in a land lost over time on the tongues of storytellers, though a variety of names now exist for it. They were renowned for their strength and tact, breeding some of the most skillful hunters and warriors existing at the time. Outwardly, they had the strength and force only dreamt of in stories. Inwardly, they were crumbling at the core.

As is customary among many of the royal bloodlines of ancient, long forgotten prides, the royal family had led itself to inbreeding for many hundreds of years. Near the end of their reign, the royal family had begun to produce weak offspring that were more often than not troubled of the mind. Only years before the end of the Purahka, the pride saw its last true king and queen – two young cousins who, despite their misfortunes, were deeply in love. Sadly, because of her sickliness, the queen died giving birth to her one and only cub – a son that would one day become the last heir to the throne of the great kings. The king named this son Idbar’Shamat, a cub that was considered unlucky from the day of his birth, and a cub that would one day grow up to spread his bad luck like a wildfire.

When Idbar was little more than an adolescent, his father died from the grief and madness that had swept over him at the death of his beloved queen, and Idbar was named the new king of Purahka. It could be blamed on the fact that his father never paid him very much attention, or on the fact that his genetics had made him slightly mentally unstable, but young Idbar was a lion with a taste for blood and gore. He often stirred fights among his own pride just to see a pair of lions rip one another to shreds or he would give someone an impossible task with the threat that failure meant execution. Unsurprisingly, females were more often the victim of these games than the male warriors simply because of the preference in Idbar’s demented thoughts. Idbar himself went unchallenged for a very long time despite the whispers stirring among the members of the pride. He would continue his merciless rule until the fateful day that he pushed those tactful lionesses just a little too far.

Idbar had seen quite a few of those two-legged creatures in the forest of their lands early one morning and his twisted mind immediately decided he should pit a group of lionesses against them in order to test their strength. Most animals, by instinct, steered clear of these two-leggers, but Idbar had a rather corrupt thought process and a little less instinct than one usually came by with lions. With a wicked grin, he gathered up a particularly crafty group of lionesses and told them they must bring back a two-legger or they would all be exiled to the far reaches of the pride lands where there were larger and more violent creatures than these two-leggers themselves. Now this may have seemed little more than his usual game, until one takes into account that one of these females was none other than a lioness, Vipatti, who had professed her love to Idbar – the lioness that many believed he would take as a queen since no females remained of royal blood. Perhaps he had just been testing her, trying to make sure she was worthy of ruling with him, but whatever the reasoning behind his thoughts, it all ended in disaster.

Not long into their hunt for these two-leggers, the lionesses began to feel uneasy. The animals of the forest were stirring more than usual, frantic and unnerved, and the instinct of the lionesses themselves screamed for them to leave. Many turned back, becoming to unnerved and unsettled by their own instincts, but Vipatti kept going – and so did those loyal to her. As they went deeper into the forest, deeper into the heart of this evil feeling, the surrounding area began to grow warmer. Ahead of them they could see light flickering, great light – but they could also hear the screams of two-leggers. The last lions with Vipatti turned away, begging her to come with them, but Vipatti would not be turned away from her one chance to prove herself worthy of Idbar.

These lionesses began to head back out of the forest, but as they went, a roaring noise began to build up behind them. When they finally turned around to look, the forest had caught fire – probably from something those two-leggers had done. They began to run, knowing it was already too late for Vipatti, trying to save their own lives. Once they had passed the edge of the forest and found the rest of their group, they had all suffered scorches and burns from falling limbs and twigs. They did the inevitable and went back to face Idbar. When he was confronted, for long moments he sat in silence, almost as if he might grieve for Vipatti. Then, with a sudden burst of rather maniacal laughter, Idbar condemned them all to exile while exclaiming that Vipatti just wasn’t cut out for a Purahka way of life.

Outraged, the lionesses of the pride all came together and developed a plan to dispose of their young, corrupt king. By now, even the males had begun to disapprove of Idbar’s actions but they still did nothing. It was no matter, for as the night fell over the lands of Purahka, the tactful hunters the pride was so renowned for formed together for their greatest hunt – their king. They surrounded him on all sides with the shadows as their curtain, knowing that more than one of them could fall from fatal wounds. As he noticed that first pair of yellow eyes staring at him from the darkness, he began to laugh and he continued his laughter even as they fell in upon him with claws and teeth.

Many say that they carved him up, left him intact, but mangled his body with a wound for every sin he had ever committed against a lioness. Others say that they ripped him to pieces and threw him to the scavengers, letting the lowest creatures of the food chain have a meal fit for a king. Whatever the case, he was slaughtered, and since then no male has taken the throne. From among the lionesses, two queens were chosen to rule in his stead and the males of the pride were condemned for being almost as guilty as Idbar himself. Throughout Idbar’s reign of terror, not a single one of them had stood up for a lioness, be she family or friend. They had allowed him to torture and slaughter at his whim and they would pay for it in this life and the next and for as many lives as it took for them to repent their sins. The males that chose to remain with the reformed pride that these lionesses now called the Kunanda’Nakhun believed the lionesses were right and accepted their place in hope of one day being saved from their sins.

The lionesses fled their homelands, seeking a place far away from the tainted land of Idbar, and for many years they were a nomadic group. The original lionesses that overthrew the king died and left their children to lead on until many generations later found them nestled in the heart of the jungle with their new way of life already the norm.

Many have come to believe that perhaps that this historical legend had its events exaggerated as the story passed down from generation to generation and that some of the minor details such as names and locations have been lost to time entirely. Regardless, this is the history they know and follow, despite any exaggeration.