The wind was wrong.

  It didn’t gust or dance. It curled in strange directions, as if unsure where to go.

  How can the air feel like it had forgotten how to breathe?

  The worried lion cub crouched on the edge of a rocky plateau. From here, he could see the jagged valley below, leading out to a wide, sandy expanse. No prey. No water. No shade. Nothing new.

  The beetle beneath his paw skittered uselessly in the dust. A small one. Barely worth the energy it would take to eat. Still, he nudged it toward his mouth anyway.

  As he chewed, the wind shifted. Again, it didn’t blow or dance to a natural current. It twisted, almost spiraling in on itself like a clenched paw.

  When the wind no longer makes sense, do not chase it. Do not fight it. Hide. Wait.

  That’s what the pangolins had told him while they raised him in the Cliffs. Again and again.

  “It’s time to hide,” Monu thought, eyes darting across the broken plateau, searching for cover.

  But the rocks here offered more heat than shelter.

  Sensing danger the cub curses to himself, "Of course, Monu, you idiot. You ignoe the teachings the one day there's danger!"

  As the brown-furred lion cub moved toward a less exposed part of the cliffs, the breeze jolted toward him, from directionless to deliberate.

  The wind is no longer lost.

  It's Focused.

  That was when he heard the stone shift behind him.

  Monu turned quickly and saw a lion cub his own age descending the narrow ridge path. Step by measured step.

  The new arrival walked as if the wind belonged to him.

  Not as if its around him, or behind him, its almost like it was him.

  His fur was dark gray, almost silvered in the sun.

  Monu hadn’t seen a lion like him before. Not since his short time with the pride.

  This cub had a thinner frame than Monu. Far less bone pressing from under his skin. His paws left no trail behind while he inched closer.

  The wind shimmered faintly around his legs — not with heat, but with pressure.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  The wind was on a leash.

  This gray toned cub said nothing at first. Just studied Monu with quiet, tilted curiosity.

  Then, dryly:

  “A lion... in the Cliffs?”

  He stepped forward slowly.

  “Either the wind is playing tricks, or it’s found a sense of humor.”

  He circled Monu. Not with menace — with calculation.

  “You wear the local menu well.”

  He glanced at Monu’s ribs and revealed a half-smile.

  “I assume there’s no one else foolish enough to join you here.”

  A flick of his tail caused the wind to stir.

  Dust curled gently around Monu’s paws, as if it was greeting him.

  “Not many survive long in places they don’t belong.”

  The sly newcomer lifted his paw, casually causing the wind to thicken in response adding a low hum building in Monu’s ears.

  “How can he control the wind?”, Monu wondered.

  “Survival,” the gray cub said, voice cooling,

  “has its own kind of merit.”

  He turned slightly, then added over his shoulder:

  “My name is Severus. What is your name?”

  Monu didn’t speak.

  Didn’t move.

  Monu controlled his breath. Not because there was no fear, but because fear hadn’t done him many favors in the past.

  The threatening cub watched him. A flicker of something unreadable passed through his expression.

  “You don’t speak. You don’t move.”

  He took a slow step closer.

  “Do you even feel pain, you tired-looking meerkat?”

  Monu stayed silent.

  Severus narrowed his gaze.

  “Maybe you’re deaf. Or just stupid.”

  Severus lashed in the direction of Monu and the wind cracked.

  A gust struck — quick and sharp — across Monu’s chest.

  He staggered slightly. Blood dripped on the stone floor.

  But he didn’t fall.

  “Breathe through all harsh things,” the pangolins had taught him.

  “Pain possesses. Presence does not.”

  He stood. Centered. In control.

  Then, Monu calmly explained:

  “I feel pain and I speak just fine.”

  He paused.

  “Questions aren't common, visitors are even less so”

  Severus blinked, somewhat surprised he could talk at all after his fierce strike.

  Monu met his eyes.

  “My name is Monu.”

  Severus studied him now — not with contempt, but with interest.

  “Are you trained? You act as if you were never wounded…”

  He stepped back slightly, thoughtful.

  “What clan are you from?”

  Monu didn’t answer.

  “You’re clearly not from the Outer Dens,” Severus continued.

  “So what hole did you crawl out from?”

  A flick of his tail stirred the dust again as he began to ponder this Monu creature.

  “Do you even know what’s happening in the lowlands? In Fossa, or the Broken Altar?”

  Monu looked at him with a flat gaze.

  He didn’t recognize the names.

  Didn’t even know why they mattered.

  “I don’t know those clans or those places,” he said simply.

  Severus let out a short breath that was part scoff, part laughter.

  “Well. That explains it.”

  He turned to go.

  “My vision brought me here to get more power.

  Instead, it brought me to someone who doesn’t even know how to address power when he sees it.”

  He didn’t turn all the way — just enough for Monu to see the side of his face.

  “You're quiet. Thin, and probably dumb. Unclaimed by any clan.

  Raised in the Cliffs, of all places.”

  He clicked his tongue, amused.

  “Wasting another breath on you is too costly for me.”

  He began to turn away, but paused again — as if unable to resist finishing a lesson.

  “A word of advice, since you seem so new to the world you're pretending to be unmoved in:”

  He glanced back, this time with the full weight of his gaze.

  “Speak when spoken to.”

  “It might save your hide from collecting unnecessary scars.”

  The wind responded to his voice, coiling up dust at his ankles.

  “You’re not as forgettable as you look,” Severus thought to himself.

  With that, he turned fully and vanished over the ridge in an uncontested victory prance.

  The wind settled.

  Not gone — just distant, like something watching from behind the cliffs.

  Monu stood alone in the stillness. The blood on his chest had begun to dry.

  He turned and made his way back down the narrow paths toward the inner Cliffs,

  following worn, secret routes that would lead him home.

  The Pangolins lived in the shadows of the stone. In hollowed dens, behind thorn-curtained ledges where no lion ever looked.

  They did not rise as he approached.

  But they noticed the blood.

  The elder sat in the center of the cavernous abode, surrounded by stillness.

  He looked older than roots.

  And in the Cliffs, living long meant you were tougher than a drought.

  Monu sat across from the elder in the dust, his breath still uneven from the climb back.

  “The wind brought a lion cub,” he exasperated.

  “Gray… loud… and mean. Not here for peace.”

  “He looked my age — but he controlled the wind.”

  Monu’s voice cracked slightly

  “He didn’t just walk with it. It moved when he moved. It hit me like it was his paw.”

  Monu paused as he shook his head.

  “How is that even possible?”

  The elder didn’t move.

  For a long breath, he was just another shape carved from the cave wall.

  Then his eyes opened — dry, dark, and steady.

  “It is possible,” he said, “if some things older than lions are beginning to stir again.”