☼ Pride Territory & History ☼

[KizingoZaa II]

"If you live in the river you should make friends with the crocodile."

Stories tell of a Haven where lamb lays with lion. Where the lack of rules is the only rule. Where Insanity runs amok and refuge can be found from the rest of the world. Songs, dance, tricks and chaos are daily occurrences and while everything might seem a bit off, one thing is certain, boredom is not a possibility.

 

[KizingoZaa II]

Along the Eastern Coast of Africa, directly below Bahari'moto. Close to the island of Madagascar.

The area that the Kizingo'zaa call home is small but lush. Their section of the shore is a cove, surrounded on the in-land side by high, but climbable, cliffs. Most of the area inside the cove is thick jungle vegetation, marked by a network of springs and pocket meadows of wild flowers. The beach is naturally white, spreading out a good distance away from the protective cliffs before it meets the water. While there is a fair distance of clear water shallows, the drop off is still rather close to the shore. Because of this, cubs are not allowed to go swimming alone until their adolescent years.

The northern ridge of cliffs ends in a small jetty that shoots out right to the drop off. Its only wide enough for two lions to stand shoulder to shoulder, rocky and wet. Only adults are allowed out there, and even then they usually don't go unless its for a funeral.

Caves and tunnels riddle the cliffs in the northern and southern sides of the cove. These are generally where the Kizingo'zaa go when there's a storm coming, going up the "levels" when there's a flood, though it doesn't seem to happen often. Most of the time, the lions prefer to live out in the open, especially on their beach.

 

[KizingoZaa II]

Ages ago, before there were Story Keepers or Story Seekers, there was a pride whose nature was nothing like Kizingo’Zaa. It was a pride of warriors, proud and fierce, ruled by a strong and just king. However, as often happens in prides where ambitions run wild, there were many others who wanted the king’s throne. These others sought to remove the royal family from a throne they had held power over for many generations, and they chose to do so by sowing lies into the once-loyal pride.

It was not a hard task, upsetting the foundation the King had built his throne upon, because the times they lived in were some of the hardest they had ever faced. The pride’s population was booming, but their food supply was dwindling both from poor conditions and other prides moving in on their territory. Soon, the rumors began to spread, the lies took root, and the whole pride was in an uproar. Their once beloved king was suddenly accused of greed, selfishness, and heartlessness.

There was one lioness, however, that decided to take matters into her own figurative hands. She was a young, beautiful female who had given her heart to the king, and under different circumstances she would have been a fine queen. She was ambitious, like many in the pride, but she was not corrupt, and she knew the lies for what they were. On a day when many young cubs and elders were complaining about the lack of food in their bellies, she rallied a team of able lionesses for a hunting expedition. With the blessing of the King, they left, heading out to the farthest reaches of their pride’s lands – to areas they had visited little in hopes there were supplies left to them.

These parts of the pride lands yielded the scent of a herd, but they would only be found in the depths of a forest. The females set out in hopes that they would be easy to find, but the farther they got into the depths of the forest, the warmer it became. Many of the huntresses became uneasy, especially as the rest of the wildlife around them began to flee, but the head huntress pursued onward. Strange scents began to fill their noses, strange noises, and it grew ever warmer. The last of the females loyal to the head huntress turned away, but not before pleading with her to return. She refused, and the other huntresses left her – they barely escaped the forest fire with their lives.

The hunting party returned sullen, injured, and without a single scrap of food to show for their efforts. After the story began to spread, those few that sought to remove the King from his throne saw this as a perfect opportunity. They began to toss around ideas of how the King had sent his beloved to her death, how he was sexist, and it was only a matter of time before the females of the pride turned on him.

Even a King is no match for a crowd of angry females, and he was slaughtered. However, what the traitorous lions hadn’t counted on was the females seizing power. They moved the group onward, naming all males bastards for allowing the King to continue his reign, and began a nomadic life.

For months, perhaps years, the pride travelled looking for their new homeland – and everything about their previous life changed. However, there were a few among this group that never quite got used to what was happening, nor did they ever find much comfort in what had happened to their old King. Perhaps they were simply too loyal to the King, perhaps they weren’t ones to adjust to change, but for whatever reason, they broke away from the larger group and instead began to travel on their own.

This smaller group was happy for a time, living together like a family instead of a harsh militaristic pride with cruel leaders. They ate together, sang songs of happier times, and sat around telling stories to keep their spirits up. However, even they knew that they could not stay nomadic forever – they too needed a play they could finally call home. Of all of these, perhaps the most discontent was a younger male that had been born into the original nomadic group. He had once been a young, happy cub, until his twin sister had died some time in their adolescence. It was a harsh life they led, and not all lions were suited to it. After she passed, he was never quite the same.

Each member took turns going out to hunt for food, and one fateful day, when it was his turn to perform such a mundane task for his pride, he met someone that would change his life and the lives of his pride forever.

Perhaps it was the scent of a fresh kill that had originally attracted the female, but it was something else entirely that made her stay. At first, the young male thought she was a cub – a strange, little blue winged cub. Then, of course, he thought it was a hallucination – until she began to speak. She spoke of many things, of lands where his pride could live in peace, even told him where to go. She spoke of the sorrow in his life and how she would fix it. He listened, enrapt with her, this strange little goddess, even as she told him that fixing him meant breaking him a little more.

He passed a long time in her presence, and as he left, he felt a great weight lifted off his shoulders and instead replaced with something else that was almost light and airy. He believed her when she said he would carry a piece of her with him always, and that she would do the same for his pride. He departed with an uplifted mood and a smile on his face, his head filled with the words the goddess had spoken.

When he came back to his pride members, he told them of everything that had passed, and they set out to find their new home – the lands the goddess had spoken of. Eventually, they found them and became the Kizingo’Zaa.

In much more recent History, the pride has gone through turmoil and quite a bit of changes. It is probably fair to say that the Children of the Sands lost their way. Li Wei's blessing of the land did so much more than just drench the land in peace; it eradicated a culture that had been set up generations back and, unbeknownst to everyone else, also awakened Muhali, the patron goddess of the pride, out of her own self imposed insanity.

The muses quietened that day, and many distressed. The then Royal, Nili'Maua, gathered his parents, several of his siblings and other family members, and told the pride they would shoulder the responsibility to go out into the roguelands to figure out what had happened. Unfortunately, when the royals left for answers... they took with them the last shreds of stability left within the pride. The time was ripe for new blood to step up, and in the chaos and wreckage left behind, a new lion rose up to take the reigns and attempt to lead the pride in a new direction; Shandor.

The pride veered violently away from the old ways and instead adopted a lifestyle that favored thieving and trickery to keep themselves both hidden and alive, even if there were still those that still looked back fondly upon the old ways. By the time Nili and his family returned to the land (Sadly empty handed where information was concerned), the Kizingo'zaa had new leaders, and thus, unwilling to be the cause of more chaos to their pride, they settled back to watch and help where ever they could, even if it was not from a leading position.

Throughout Shandor's reign, the Old ways were looked down upon, but like with everything, there came a point where his reign ended. His son Puzzle attempted to bring back the old ways, and with his will to change again, Muhali step forth...

A new era began.