Mistweaver
Mistweaver History
The Valley - Long before a group of nomads settled into the lands of the Mistweavers, a small meteorite fell and struck the African soil, leaving a large crater as a scar. The rivers changed course and swept into the hole, flooding it. After many years, other inhabitants took up the southeast-bordering area called the Pridelands and soon after, the floodwaters slowly retreated to the far eastern side of the crater where it formed a small lake. On the third year of the Pridelands generation, a small group of nomads consisting of five lionesses and one young male cub moved into the land. Settling into the caves that had been carved out from the water, a new pride began to grow. They called the area Weaver Valley or The Valley of the Mists. Once crossing into adulthood, the young male cub by the name of Wasa mated with two of the older lionesses. These two produced young shortly afterward to start the first generation of Mistweavers that would carry on until the last of the true blood was passed onto a single male.
This new pride believed in the rain and drought. When things were good, it rained and brought green vegetation for the prey in which the pride fed. -But when wrong was done in the pride, the rain would cease to fall and the drought would settle in, killing everybody slowly and depriving every bit of life of it's energy and will to live. This belief created both a line of rain and droughts through the beginning of the blood line, when Machwa, a lioness of drought mated with Osheka, the king of the second generation and a lion of rain. This combination would place a shroud through the bloodline and bring its downfall.
Throughout the second generation, most hopes were set upon bringing the pride up to it's fullest. This generation's king was Osheka, a rain lion. His father, Wasa, the first male to the Valley, had died before Osheka could take his kingship properly. Things were looking up for the most part in the pride, but when a lioness of the first generation mated with Osheka, she would pass the drought into the bloodline. Osheka's queen, Tasa, then gave birth to two sons. One called Jito and the other Kijito; each name in the pride had a special meaning as well as a special place in life. Jito, meaning 'Big River', would become the king being strong and flowing with clarity. His blood lineage was hoped to pass on through many upcoming generations.
However, Jito's brother, Kijito, meaning 'Small River', wasn't expected to live very long. Soon after discovering this, he mated with an older lioness in the pride named Rasha, who had also produced the first queen, Tasa. Due to unknown circumstances, Kijito's two daughters never lived past their first birthday. His bloodline would never be passed on. The two deaths are shrouded in mystery, only in dark shadows would any know the cause of their death. -And those people are few and far between.
It was Machwa, having given birth to her son Kiangazi around the same time as the two daughter's births, that she knew that Kiangazi would never be king and much less have permission to mate. So with washed paws, she caused the death of Kijito's two daughters in the cover of the night while Rasha, the mother, slept soundly. With their death, she could assure that the soon-to-be king would have to allow Kiangazi to mate with Kunge's, the current king's, two sisters, Kinyam and Maji. Thus the bloodline of the drought would be passed on to not only one, but also two or more generations.
With the last of the first generation deceased and the second slowly fading, Kunge as king found himself at a dead end in the bloodline. It was only he, his two sisters Kinyam and Maji, and Kiangazi left. Not wanting to closely breed and spoil the blood, he allowed Kiangazi to mate with his sister Kinyam. -And with high hopes of a female offspring, Kunge's planning worked well. Soon after, Kinyam gave birth to a single female cub that was named Kauta. Kunge as uncle would mate with her on her first birthday and repair the dead end in the blood.
All would have worked right if his sister Maji wouldn't have mated with Kiangazi as well without consent. The damage being done, Kunge accepted the young that were born as if the whole episode had been planned. Maji had given birth to two cubs, one male and the other female. They would be named Kivumbi and Tatia. Kauta bore her second litter with Kunge, giving birth to two cubs as well, one male and the other female. These cubs would be called Mvua and Kosha. The male cub of rain, Mvua, would take the place of Kunge when he died and his queen was to be Tatia, the female cub of drought. The first bloodline through the drought would finally make it to royalty.
With only a few left in the pride, the newly crowned Mvua could only watch as another group of lions moved into the Mistweaver's Territory to the west of the crater. This pride was known as Pride Firebrand. This new movement placed much stress on the Mistweavers. Bordered by two prides; the Pridelands to the southeast and now the Firebrand to the west, the crater laid in the central axis of the two lands to provide a natural barrier between the two. -But this also meant that the territory would be tested by all prides and caught in the middle of it was the Mistweavers. Mvua lost bits of his lands to both prides, but the most important lost was the hunting grasses to the Firebrand and King Malaki. These grasses would later become property of the Outsiders. Having taken Tatia as his queen, Mvua mated to give birth to two males of mixed drought and rain blood which would be the cause of the downfall of the whole generation, unbeknownst to the entire pride. These two were Mkana and Mtega.
At the time Mkana and Mtega were produced, Kosha, the king's sister, would mate with Kivumbi and produce three female cubs to be named Teka'Maji, Wadi, and Sokota. It was planned that Mkana would become king after Mvua passed on and that his queen would be Teka'Maji. The bloodline of the drought had grown and passed on into Mkana and Mtega. Mtega would soon justify his own movement into kingship by force.
With the passing of his father, Mkana moved into kingship, leaving Mtega to only watch with growing envy and rage. Mkana knew of the drought and the rain, and thus, believing his younger brother as a strong drought of bad blood, denied Mtega everything - including the right to mate. Mkana wanted to sever the growing lineage of the drought, denying the fact that he carried that same blood as well. With Teka'Maji as his queen, Mkana mated with her and she bore a male cub named Ukungu. Mkana mated with Wadi as well, giving birth to a single female called Shacha who would be the future queen. Sokota, the younger of her two sisters Teka'Maji and Wadi, was denied the right to be bred with. Mkana thought she possessed too much of the drought in her blood as well being that Sokota looked much like her father, the great grandson of Machwa. She accepted this and spent her years of adolescence hunting for the pride, risking entering both the lands of Fire as well as the Pridelands - the penalty for hunting in the Firebrand was of death. At the time Malaki moved into kingship in the Firebrand, it was also time that Mufasa took the place of his father as king, leaving his younger brother, Scar, with nothing. This situation was much like what Mkana had done to his own brother Mtega.
It seemed like a year of treachery and evil plots for each pride. Mtega had now deceived his brother's orders and had seduced Sokota to mate with him. Convinced that this was a good deed for the Mistweavers, Sokota consented to it and became pregnant with a single, female child. Before this birth, the stress between the Pridelands and Firebrand grew and Mkana had little time for the pride, being that he was to keep eye on the territory from attacks on either side. This is when Mtega made his move and murdered his brother in his sleep for the throne, not caring who saw or knew what happened. Dark clouds rolled over the land for the next month before Mufasa was killed by Scar. The Pridelander's heir, Simba, was assumed dead.
When Mtega took the throne, he denied Ukungu and Shacha future royalty, a right that was given to them by Mkana. At this, he took Sokota as his queen and when the future daughter, Ukame, was born, she was to become the heir to the next queen. At this time in the Firebrand, the king's sons were born. One was named Moto and the other Mvuka. The Mistweavers pride was still stunned by the death of Mkana as well as the surprising death of Mufasa. The Mistweavers watched with little care as Scar took the throne in the Pridelands, leaving the former glorious land filled with hyenas. The lack of concern would backfire on the next generation, a time where the pride grew thin.
Still wrapped up inside his own veil of being king, Mtega lost the throne as easily as he had taken it. For Ukungu, Mkana's son who was formerly denied the privilege of king, had grown older. Mtega only allowed Ukungu to stay for breeding purposes, and perhaps not even that. This grave mistake would cost the foolish king, for on Ukungu's second birthday, the true prince killed Mtega in revenge for his father. He took the throne and demanded that Shacha take Sokota's place as queen. With still angered nerves, and feeling justice was still undone, Ukungu banished Sokota and Ukame. He reasoned that Sokota had taken part in the murder as well, while in truth it was Wadi. No one will ever know why Wadi helped Mtega kill Mkana, nor will anyone ever know that she did it herself. Wadi played as if she knew nothing, and soon all eyes pointed to her sister, Sokota, as the killer. So with her cub, Ukame, who had been denied being princess, was banished to the far west of the crater where water was bad and food was scarce.
Left with only his queen, her mother, and Wadi, who was aging, the avenged King Ukungu took his father's place. The pride was small with the banishment of Sokota and her daughter, so the king and Shacha mated, giving birth to a male cub that was to be named Kipwa.
At the other end of the crater, Ukame, now nearly grown, watched through months as her mother's mind grew more crazed. Sokota finally snapped and went in an all-out murder run to kill Wadi, Ukungu, and Shacha. Sokota and Wadi each perished while fighting to the death, the only killings at the time. Months then seemed like years as Scar's power and alliance with the hyena's began to deprive the Pridelands of it's former beauty. To the west, Malaki's son, Moto, had taken control after Malaki's death. This was a time of drought, harsh winds, and dry weather that began to evaporate every kind of water source, the last bits lying in the inner lands of Weaver Valley and few parts in the Firebrand. The hyena's looked further, merely looking over the valley. In a fight to save it, both Ukungu and Shacha died trying to hold them off. Ukame could only watch from afar as the king and queen made helpless attempts.
With the king and queen's death, both Ukame and Kipwa forgot about the hate between them and together fled the lands that so many of their kin had called home. After many years had passed, both headed back together in search of the expected Valley, but on the edge of another pride's territory, Kipwa was slain by another rogue lion. Ukame made the rest of the journey back herself, but found to her surprise that Simba had returned and there was also a new face as king in the Firebrand who she later found was named Nguvu. Even more startling was that not only had her former lands returned to normal, but they were also inhabited by other nomads who claimed the lands theirs and called it simply The Valley of the Mists. All of these nomads were
lionesses at the time, having grown up and made stories of their own in the Valley.
Much had changed and was new to Ukame, the way of the land as well as the life. Ukame carried Kipwa's young, unknown to everyone but herself when she finally appeared and made her home in the familiar swamp of long ago. She bore two children, a male and a female, naming them Sisimka and Maliki. It is Ukame's hope that the old ways of the Mistweavers will return, but only time will really tell. Until then, Ukame begins to form the Mistweaver's current few inhabitants, her children growing up alongside the few nomads. With such an uncertain future, the last of the true Pride could end up in shambles or prosperity.Return to Top