Sunrise and sunset, moonrise and moonfall, the days went on and Sovanna-Kiya Praenglutha, daughter of Ogalutha, Princess of the Sun, grew from babyhood to childhood. She was curious about everything and stuck her nose in, or her paw, or chewed on whatever she could find. Ogalutha cared for Sovanna with the help of an old female carer. It was the same meda for Rathana when she was a baby.

But unlike Rathana who was a calm, quiet child, Sovanna could not sit still, rushing to learn this or that, never stopping, always getting into trouble. She would fight older children twice her size. Ogalutha thought perhaps she would mellow out after puberty, but it hit like a storm.

From curious to cunning, she pulled pranks on every male close her age and fought them, winning despite her being a head shorter than them. They would claim they let her win, but Sovanna was strong. Every day, she swung through the trees like primates. She walked the tree branches like the thorntails did when they hunted rodents in the night.

From dawn to dusk, even sneaking out a night, Sovanna would threaten older males into coming with her on her expeditions to prove stories. That was the only thing that made her sit still. Stories passed down through generations. Stories of ancient battles fought. Stories of Guardians of the planet Elgana. Stories that told of a powerful gem that could give knowledge to the Kaunlutha if they were worthy. For Kaunlutha, stories were almost as powerful as gems. Knowledge was a weapon and a gift.

So, on her sixteenth birthday, Sovanna-Kiya marched out of Rukkatukin, the stone castle and ruins that her family made their pride. Three towers, four stories high, surrounded her. One of them was her own private tower which used to be Rathana's. Rathana moved out to seek a suitor in Tumattamaku, the main region where all the other Kaunlutha lived.

"Sovanna!"

From the window, two stories up, her meda called waving a piece of linen in the air.

"Sovanna, come back here," she said, "Must wear the klipp around your chest. You, no longer child, gri?"

"Don't make me," Sovanna groaned. No other young Kaunlutha female wore a klipp, and she wasn't about to set the first example. Klipps were only for old females that were sagging in the front and wanted to hide out of shame. Besides, Sovanna's chest was invisible behind her fur still. Only if she would ever become pregnant, she might consider wearing those constricting things.

"Meda, I had a runner tell Trita to pull out the old stories and know how she's impatient make her wait, yeah?" Sovanna huffed and stalked away.

"Least put your oogs on," came another call, but Sovanna liked to feel the earth beneath her feet. Besides, her pawpads were as tough as if she had oogs on all the time.

With a roll of her eyes, she wondered if meda would ever stop being a meda. Medas whole purpose in life was to care for the youngest ones in the enclosure, but now with Kaunlutha dying out, Sovanna was the youngest. It was a miracle even back then that her mother became pregnant. Her father speculated the sun they worshipped answered their prayers. But the Kaunlutha who didn't pray or didn't believe in the good of the sun saw iceblood instead of a baby. It damaged their bodies.

Not everyone showed the symptoms of dry cough, blood eyes, and white tongue. Some lions didn't even know they were sick until one day their bodies would go rigid and they would fall to the ground shivering. A week later, they were dead.

Humans doing nothing. Human, Huamanoa. Sovanna sneered at the nickname for them. "Noa" was a kind of stinky bug that were nuisances during the hottest time of the year. Two moon cycles ago, she stepped on one and was stuck with the scent for a week.

Ahead, the spire on the sun shrine peeked above the conifer trees where tiny yellow berries grew in clusters on top. Sovanna felt her stomach growl and decided to take a detour. Surely, Trita was still struggling organizing the books on the highest shelf, picking out some good ones for Sovanna. But a birthday story was a special one, especially a sixteen-year-old birthday story. Sovanna was going to ask for the story relating to her grandfather, the last Kaunlutha to have the Ater. It was the magick gifted from the sun and taken by the frost, as she had been taught.

Through the trees, her fur brushed the leaves. She veered off north instead of west for a bit of change. Besides, the berries in that particular tree up ahead looked especially juicy. The yellow berries had many names—sunlight droplets, sun gems, solar nectar, and gift of Lutha. "Lutha" was the old word for "sun" in their language. Humans didn't understand their language, so Kaunlutha had to learn to adapt and speak Universal, the language of the entire planet.

"Lutha does sound like sun if try hard enough."

Sovanna narrowed her eyes, calculating the best way to get to the berries. They always grew on the skinniest of trees making it difficult to get them but all the more rewarding. She would have to climb on a nearby dip-tree and use its bendy, sturdy branches to get as close as possible and reach.

Gotcha, she grinned and with a growl, her mane rippled and sparks of orange light danced across the furs. In a swift movement, she was down on all fours and as she transformed into a lion, she ran. With a mighty leap, she latched onto a dip-tree, digging her claws deep in to the bark. She climbed and climbed until the branches were too narrow. Another growl and she was back as a bipedal lion.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. When she flashed her eyes open sunlight was rising from the horizon, basking Tumattamaku in gold. A gentle mist clung on the horizon giving it a hazy look, stifling the land beyond in fog. Behind that veil was where she wanted to go one day—the forbidden lands called the taiga. No one could see beyond the fog, but that was where the frost came from.

Her eyes fell on the black, dead trees at the edge of the taiga and the white coating along the ground. In an arch, coming toward the enclosure every year, the frost devoured everything in its path. The fumes of blue and gray smoke sometimes came out of the fog. Every Kaunlutha suspected that was what caused iceblood, but the Humans and their science assured them that iceblood had nothing to do with the stuff coming out of the fog.

Sovanna didn't trust Humans much. The only Human she did trust was the doctor, Oolid, who was there when Rathana and Sovanna were born. Something had gone wrong during Sovanna's birth though. She would ask her father or Oolid, but neither would say anything about it other than that she let out a mighty roar that brought everyone hope.

Apparently, her first roar made everyone think she was born to save them from the frost.

What does Papa say? she thought. She lowered her voice and said, "Tall legends. Tall stories. Why believe them, Sovanna?"

Her ears twitched atop her head. It was called the lion's sense. They could tell when they were needed by someone. Sovanna was running late when she had promised she would be a responsible adult once she turned sixteen. The berries would have to wait.

"Savat!" she swore. She had heard her sister use it once and didn't know what it meant, but it was satisfying to spit out.

But Sovanna decided to chance it because such big, juicy berries were a rarity around this season. They didn't usually become this ripe until mid-leaf-let when the colorful leaves would let go of their branches and make way for new leaves.

She rocked her hips back and forth, swinging the dip-tree and used its bendy branches to try to reach the sunlight droplets. Arching her back, she pumped the branch forward and whooshed past the berries. As she flew back towards them, Sovanna grabbed a pawful of berries and stuffed them in her mouth as the dip-tree continued to swing.

The juicy sweet nectar dribbled down her chin and she let out a groan at how good these tasted. It was like eating bananas with a hint of honey sweet and raspberry tang. It didn't matter she had breakfast five minutes ago. She had room for this gem.

"Oh, savat-savat, I love these so much," she said around the mouthful and swallowed, instantly salivating for more. And there was another yummy pawful waiting for her. It was the best birthday present she could ever imagine.

Apart from getting a new story for my collection, she thought with a grin. No Kaunlutha in their right feline mind could ever pass up this berry opportunity. Trita might scold her and tell her to scrub the shrine floors tomorrow, but Sovanna would scrub the floor ten times over for two big mouthfuls of sunlight droplets on the same pass.

She heard wings beating far away.

A large bird here?

She arched her back to ready for the swing and searched the sky over her head, but it was pale blue and empty apart from a few small birds. Large birds didn't live in the enclosure. Maybe she would see a hawk or two in the distance, flying into the fog, but they never came around here.

Even if they did, and threatened us, I'll knock them up. I can beat up a hawk.

With a confident smile, Sovanna swung forward. She whooshed through the air and passed the berries, but as she was going back the other way, paw at ready to grab the second pawful, something large crashed into her. The dip-tree dipped hard backwards, crashing through the canopy. Sovanna yowled as she fell with the branch, back first, through other tree branches.

Snap, snap, crunch.

She couldn't tell what was on top of her, weighing her down, but she could hear him.

She heard someone screaming, "Great Guardians, I'm so sorry!"

One thought amplified in her mind.

"You ruined my birthday!" she shouted and shoved him off of her with all her might. She glimpsed a pair of brown wings as he went howling, crashing through the jungle. In a split second, she thought she had never seen a human-like with wings before, but there was no time. She would soon hit the ground.

Sovanna let out a roar that made the jungle shiver and tried to snatch any tree that came her way, or any thick branch in the vicinity. But each claw met air or grazed the bark. The jungle floor came rushing at her.

Should've gone to Trita, she regretted. Sovanna twisted her body to land on her side and avoid four broken legs. She squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for impact.