Zekyu had never been too close with her parents. She had used her siblings to hide herself from them. And she knew that her father couldn't care one whit about her and she knew that her mother hated her. It was a somewhat mutual feeling.
The gray-red lioness padded up the frozen rocks into the cave, getting used to gripping to such a slippery surface. Ever since her cubs were born, the Wynter Pride was stuck in an eternal winter. Blinking her electric blue eyes, she sighed and lay down.
She could unsheathe her claws and rake it across her own face and let the salty red liquid do the hard work. She could even force the air going in and out of her body to stop and end it all. But Zekyu didn't. A red rose didn't just die. It withered it's way to the end.
That first cub that started this endless season was special somehow. The daughter of the mighty Zeti king didn't want anything to do with her own cub. Isabelline. The princess and the heir to the Wynter throne. Zekyu didn't want anything to do with her own daughter. Something was wrong with her.
But didn't her mother think the same thing?