Pherenike - Chapter 26

The old lioness, no longer needing to hunt for her food, wandered her enclosure carrying large chunks of meat thrown in by her keepers, searching for someone to share it with. She bumped into the walls, then roamed to the opposite side in search of something to take care of.

Everyday, she dreamt of the times when all her daughters were alive. In her dreams, she saw the plains of Karhama.

Eventually, she went mad. The old lioness, in a final act of insanity, bit all her remaining cubs. After the death of her cubs, she refused to eat and starved herself to death.

Atalanta’s father was the only surviving child of the last litter born to the queen who starved to death. He survived his mother’s ferocious bite to the stomach and, being very small and weak, came under the care of Atalanta’s mother. Under her protection, he grew to adulthood.

As soon as he reached maturity, Atalanta’s father mated with her mother, the very one who had raised him like a cub. It was a love dictated by fate for Atalanta’s father, and an absolute match for her mother.

They were everything to each other; there was no need for competition.

Atalanta’s mother, born in the court of King Karhama, never knew the endless Karhama plains. Her father, born in the large enclosure of King Evdokia, never knew the land beyond the sea where their species originally lived.

They never experienced running through the fields of Karhama, nor did they see the sun setting over the distant horizon with their pride. In fact, they didn’t even know their own pride.

They never lacked water or food. They were strangers to thirst and hunger, never struggling for survival.

Their lives were a spectacle, yet they were content, for their eyes were always fixed on each other. The sun was in each other’s eyes. In their enclosed world, they saw every sunrise and sunset in each other’s gaze.

The Evdokians, who revered but did not truly understand lions, believed in the legend that lions mated with leopards to produce offspring and thought that lions could never mate among themselves. But Atalanta’s parents bore many cubs out of love.

Their offspring were sent as ‘gifts’ to distant lands or given as presents to the king’s subjects. They gave birth to offspring again. Those children also became wonderful ‘things’ and left.

But Atalanta’s parents were never separated; it was the king’s decree.

The king would sometimes watch the loving interactions of the male and female lion outside their spacious enclosure.

Then one day, seemingly tired of the love of these little creatures, the king gifted Atalanta’s pregnant mother to the Vassilios family.

A pregnant beast in Evdokia was considered very auspicious. The greater it is if it was a revered animal like lions and wolves. General Vassilios had recently won another battle; it was a fitting gift.

In place of Atalanta’s mother, the king put a new female lion in the enclosure with her father. This new lioness, recently arrived from Karhama, was much younger and much more beautiful with its golden-fur. She would be capable of bearing many offspring in the future.

The courtiers often thought the young and beautiful lioness, admiring the majestic male lion, was a better match for Atalanta’s father than Atalanta’s mother who occasionally dismissed him.

However, Atalanta’s father rejected his new mate.

He began to endlessly pace the same path from where Atalanta’s mother was first taken away to the door she last exited through.

This behavior mirrored that of the queen of the plains, his mother, before her death. He, like his mother and siblings with different fathers, had never struggled for survival. He was unaware of the pains of living in the wild.

He had never wandered the plains for weeks in search of a sip of water, never ambushed innocent herds of deer. He never experienced the humiliation of being rejected by the females and driven out of the pride like his unchosen brothers.

He had never harmed even a small prey animal to survive. He just adored the people who fed him, looking at them with the kindest eyes.

Atalanta’s father was the first to kill those same people.

The massive beast broke out of its enclosure. He overturned the king’s garden as it searched for Atalanta’s mother. It roared as if calling her name.

His teeth broke while smashing the gate, and his head, struck by a club wielded by a deceased guard, was bleeding profusely, with half of his golden face soaked in blood.

But no one could stop him. The lion was considered a sacred animal of the goddess, and this male lion was the king’s most cherished animal. The lives of certain animals in the court were valued far more than those of many humans.

Atalanta’s mother knew there was a world beyond the enclosure. She knew somewhere lay the Karhama royal palace where she was born, the sea she had crossed, and the roads of Lykke where the procession had passed.

She learned about the endless plains from stories told by her deceased grandmother. She had seen and heard all these things from beyond the moving bars of the enclosure.