The dark lioness hovered over the fresh corpse of an antelope. It was the first large herdbeast her instructor allowed her to work on, and she was near intoxicated by excitement. While her parents had spent months out on an ambitious viking, Mitama had plunged headfirst into her lessons as a Priestess. She had found a lioness who was... similarly minded enough that Mitama could learn from her, and then expand those lessons into her own craft.
Many did not consider the lioness to be sound of mind, but there were tangible, real connections between her thoughts and desires. Nothing she did was without purpose, even if the world around her did not understand it. The minds of others were of no great concern to the bone-marked lioness. After all, they were all focused on living and dying valiantly. It was admirable, but Mitama craved so much more than just life and death. There was so much more to it that no one understood, and she would not be satisfied without knowing all the secrets death kept closely guarded.
In her youth, she had experimented on lizards and rodents, and as she grew her experiments grew wilder and more ambitious. Her instructor had attempted to control Mitama's rampant desires and deep fascination with death, cautioning her to revere and treat it with respect. But, how could she get the answers she desired by simply asking? They had not worked before, and she doubted that they ever would. Mitama had learned that the only way forward for her was to follow her muse, give in to her greedy desires. She was a Priestess now, and if the world did not respect her for it then <********> them.
She would whisper to their ghosts when they departed from the land of the living.
Mitama tore open the gut of the herdbeast with her teeth. She did not yet have the finesse of more skilled lions, and in her fervor it did not matter how she opened the carcass, merely that it was opened. Intestines spilled onto the cold ground, and she dipped her paw into the cavity. Still warm, a good, fresh kill. Some family would come to pick at the remains when she was done with it. A bloodied paw withdrew from the body, and with a concentrated look upon her face Mitama dragged her paw along the ground. Blood was smeared across the surface in lines that only made sense to her. Stories that only she could read dripped across the stone.
Furiously, she circled the body, blood spattering carelessly as she rounded to the creature's head. They eyes had only just lost their light, and she could see the shroud of death overtake the orbs. "I will hunt you again," she promised the carcass, and carefully lifted her paw over the creatures eyes, dripping blood onto each one to seal the promise.