Timeframe: About a month or two after The World At Large
Kiran was growing, despite the harsh environment. Of course, he was a Firekin, even if his father was, technically, from the Pridelands. The lions of the other pride were smaller, yes, but his mother's bloodlines made him large enough. While he was training to be a medic, he was still learning how to fight, so that if the call came, he could defend the wards. As he walked along, taking a day of rest from his lessons, he spied a white blur coming toward him. Few lions in the pride were solid white, namely amid them being his mother and two of his sisters. Which the way this lion moved, it wasn't his mother, it was... "Arevik! Slow--" He didn't get the words out as she crashed into him, sending them both tumbling in the sand.
When she'd woken up that morning, Arevik hadn't been sure what to think. She'd had plenty of dreams before, of things that would happen, little things like her playing with her brothers and sister, once in a while her older sister with the white medic and some cubs... But this one had been different. This one had been... Bigger. She'd noticed the way Uncle Kosuke eyed her when she talked about her silly dreams, but now this alarmed her and she wanted his opinion on it. Instead, she'd run into her brother. "Kiran! Kiran, I... I saw something! Something in my dream this morning!" She got up, starting to move again. "I have to talk to Uncle Kosuke!"
The black-marked sibling stopped his sister, frowning. "Hold on, Arevik... What was your dream?" Their whole lives up to this point, on that cusp between still being a juvenile and becoming an adolescent, he had been curious about his sister's visions. The signs were there, naturally. Their mother had expressed something of a sadness, for mixed reasons - Her own mother had been a seer, like the Regent Kidondo, as they were brother and sister. But only two of Savitri's sisters had been seers, she was not one of them. It made the white lioness sad both because it had skipped a generation, and thus she'd not been given much attention by her mother, but also because Savitri had seen what it did to one of her aunts. It wasn't an unknown fact in the family, Kaanga's visions were incomprehensible and hard to decipher with reality versus vision. The pride also didn't favor seers much, so the family kept it secret.
The white juvelescent shifted, then sat down. She could trust her brother, he kept the secret like everybody else. But this vision-dream had been so... So REAL, and so... BIG. "A-are you sure?" She glanced at him, as he motioned with a paw for her to tell him. "It started in a desert... But not this desert... A different one. There were hills and some scrub bushes... And lions walk. There were LOTS of lions walking, with giant scarves made of tattered cloth. They had runes on them, strange runes... I couldn't understand what they said..." Maybe Fia would be able to tell her what they meant? If she could reproduce them for her...
The black and white lion let out a hm, sitting down. His tail twitched a bit, flipping from one side of his body over to the other and kicking up a bit of sand dust. "Where were the lions going? Maybe they were on a pilgrimage..." How many deserts WERE there? It made him wonder about the world past the borders, but he wasn't too terribly keen on finding out. If anything, Kiran had no intention of ever leaving the desert. If he needed some supply that was only available past their border, he would send somebody ELSE to get it.
Arevik shook her head. "They aren't going anywhere specific. They're just... Walking around a mountain. Sometimes a lion goes up to the mountain, but they never return..." She closed her eyes, tilting her head back. "And I was there... With them... Walking... Never stopping..." She opened her eyes again, jade orbs staring up at the sky. "Kiran, I think it's pointing me that way... Toward that mountain with the scarved lions..." She sighed. "I'd rather have had the dream where it rained so much, we had to dig holes to hold it all..." Now THAT was a dream. Why couldn't they all be so hopeful instead of confusing?
Kiran watched his sister, then got up and moved, sitting next to her so he could wrap an arm around her. "I'm sure it's just a dream, Arevik. Nothing more. There's probably no meaning in the dream with the mountain." He gave her a lop-sided grin. "Now the rain one... THAT'S a fanciful hope!" He had to wonder how fanciful, though. Uncle Kosuke had mentioned a dream about it himself, once. The male lion got up, nudging Arevik. "Come on, now, cheer up! We should get your mind off that dream!"
She tried to smile, but failed. "But it seems so real..." She sighed, getting up and following her brother. "Should I tell Uncle Kosuke? He knows what it's like to see things that are going to happen... And he doesn't have it happen only in his sleep, either!" Of course, she WAS worried she'd turn into something like their great-aunt and have visions so overlapping with reality that she couldn't tell the two apart. She knew well how Kaanga talked about fish. Would her family be able to handle it if she was like that?
He was thoughtful for a moment as he walked, then shook his head, the ridge of his growing mane flopping this way and that. "No, don't tell him. Don't tell ANYBODY." He looked at his sister, their matching green eyes meeting. "Let's just keep this particular dream between you and me for now, okay?" It would be their secret, for nobody else to know. Not yet. Kiran didn't want to think about how if it was true, it would take his sister away from him.
The young lioness nodded, this time able to offer her brother a smile. "Yeah, our secret..." And yet... She was unsure, still. What did the mountain-circling lions mean? Why was she with them in her dream? Was she meant to go there, to be with them? And when would that happen? The future seemed so certain, and yet so uncertain. She already didn't feel like she belonged, a sensation she shared with her mother when Savitri had been her age, so much so that she'd gone on a journey to find herself. If Arevik left to find herself... Would she return at all? Only the future knew...
