Joumagi

"The Blood Moon brings chaos, destruction... but also new life for us. Aeros bids our assistance, and we are so very willing to help with our new-found freedom..."

Magali's Theme | Joulan's Theme | The Third's Theme

MAGALI'S TALE

Two days before his luck changes, for good and for bad...

He's pacing around in his small cell, as he has every day for the past 100 years (give or take - one doesn't really know how much time passes on this lonely planet). The well worn path is so familiar but there's nothing else to really do here. 3 steps one way, turn, 3 steps back, turn, over and over so many times that the cold stone beneath him is slightly indented with the echoes of his pawprints.

Magali is humming a familiar tune from his childhood, in pace with his pawsteps. It's a melancholy tune that he's sung so many times that it feels a bit barren around the edges, but at least it breaks up the silence. He must be looping the same notes over and over again for an hour before someone (he wishes he could see who) shouts at him to shut it. So he does. He pads over to the warmest corner of his cell (warm, of course, being relative) and finds his thoughts drifting to freedom. As they always do. Such a pity that this pitiful planet comes with a life sentence. He'd do almost anything to see the skies of other worlds one more time. Ah, the dull green hues of the unknown lands, where he and his father ran across endless plains and forests. If only he'd been more careful. If only he hadn't gotten caught...

- - - -

A quiet childhood was Magali's lot, and a fairly lost one at that. He grew up with just his father and they wandered the unknown lands together, hunting and fighting to just survive. His father was a ruthless lion, a hate elemental just like his son, the one to just dive on in and keep on fighting until he was the only one left standing. Magali saw the chaos that could happen, the danger of just running in, and decided right away that he would always plan ahead. No point in getting uselessly caught.

Magali's element was a tricky thing for him to work with. As a lion that really preferred to pause and think, the constant feeling of hate for the situation the universe had put him in really wasn't helping matters. Yes, he'd use it to trap a lion in their mind for a bit and escape, and in the heat of battle it was good to have a bit more courage, however ill-created, but he tried to use it as little as he could. He wanted to keep a sound mind, thank you very much, and the ever-present darkness tugging at his thoughts was helping nothing.

The two, father and son, kept alive by stealing from lions more well off than them, at least in the few that they met in their lonely travels. It all went well (or as well as the life of an angry lion and his motherless cub could be) until a regular old fight went wrong. The lion in question, a fellow with huge goat horns, was really affected badly when his dad used his element on him. Magali didn't know why, he didn't understand what had happened or what was going on, but the battle raged until it didn't. His father was dead, and Magali threw out his element to cause a distraction and ran away, fearing for his life as well. Eventually, when he could run no more, he hid underneath the relative safety of a small rock and frowned at the dead, muted grass around him.

He lost track of time, he cried so many tears. He hated the lion that had taken his father from him. He hated him! But when he had attacked him with his element, he had felt something - that had been a lion that had been attacked with the hate element endless times before, and it had changed something inside of him.

Whatever dark powers Magali had been given, he had even more of a reason to want them gone now. The simpler powers like water and fire could hurt a lion outwardly, but he doubted they could ever do as much damage to the mind as he had just seen. So the hate became tinged with regret, with even a bit of sympathy. If he could ever get rid of his power, the silver lion thought as he stared forlornly down at his paws, he absolutely would.

Magali brewed in his dark thoughts for what seemed like forever until, eventually, a kindly older lion showed up, tried to talk to him, help him out... Magali vividly remembers the fellow's striking green eyes and oddly comforting smile. Raijin was his name, wasn't it? He sat with him for a bit and talked about the hope for future times, the thoughts of the world being better some day. He offered that Magali come along with him. Maybe if he ended up going with the stranger, it would all have gone so much better... but father was gone, and he was a lonely, lost lion with no trust for anyone in the world. Raijin's words seemed like lies painted in gold, made to tempt him into letting down his guard.

So he ran off again. When the older fellow got distracted, he turned and ran, ignoring the shouts to come back behind him. He was on his own now - and he would survive just fine without false hope.

There was a long time where he just wandered around the unknown lands, not really wanting to get involved in anything. One day, though, he ran across a lion who was listening as he made up a story out loud. Magali had assumed he was alone as he sat by a pool of murky water, but then someone else appeared and he made to scramble away but she said something he really hadn't been expecting.

"That's pretty good, you know."

This friendly lioness liked his stories! She liked them! He didn't really know what to do, but they talked for a bit, and then later she came back and they had yet another conversation. This just kept on going and going for several years before Magali started to notice that something was up. There was something about that look in her eyes. He didn't think she was being completely honest, and it was probably dangerous to stick around... so he left. He ran away, hid in some cold corner of the unknown lands. He wouldn't see her again until they were both on Z-99. Magali still remembers the moment on the prison planet when they locked eyes, when he saw all the fury inside and panicked -

- - - -

No -

No, he thinks, and flicks his tail over his paws as if that will drown out the memories of his short life. Nothing changes the past, and father was a brave lion but he was obviously too headstrong for his own good. (This is why you plan, why you should have planned, don't ever get caught off guard -)

Magali distracts himself by making up some fantastic tale about a golden fish and three lost lions who all wanted it for themselves. It doesn't have a happy ending. Pity. Nothing really seems to these days, anyway. Case in point - he's sitting here in this cell, literally talking to himself. "Ah, perhaps you're going crazy, Magali," the silver lion whispers. It's a testament to how far he's fallen that he doesn't find that fact too disturbing.

Time crawls by. Magali paces, he hums age-old songs, and he tells stories that no one would understand. That's okay.

They're not for anyone else anyway.

JOULAN'S TALE

Joulan isn’t, and then he is, and the sudden shock of existence, of the knowledge of himself and his creation and a hundred thousand other facts and thoughts (not all of them his own) overwhelm him. What he knows, right away, is that he feels a deeply-rooted hatred for the place that he’s currently trapped, a place where he's never been before now. Is that odd? He is new to the worlds and he is full of fire and rage and a deep urge to burn the nearest flammable object.

There’s another lion screaming inside his head. “Shut up!” Joulan snarls, annoyed, before he realizes - in his head. The blood mood had sent him here, he knows that much, but had it sent him into the mind of another lion as well? He tries to move his paws to feel his face, to try and understand anything at all, but someone else is trying to move them too and the two clashing minds send them sprawling on the floor.

“You -“ the other lion hisses in their voice. “Who are you and what are you doing in my head? Telepathy lion, eh? Well get out!”

Joulan instantly knows that he despises his new mind-partner as well as everything else that’s been sent his way so far in his young life. “Not my fault that the moon sent me here! You’re stuck with me just as much as I’m stuck with your pathetic hide!” He manages to get a paw up to his - their? - face and feels it a bit. One horn, good, he likes how ominous that’ll be. Only one though, that’s odd...

They have the thought at the exact same moment. In unison, they scramble over to a small puddle of water in a corner of the room. What they see is not what either of them were expecting.

There’s a solid divide down their face, straight in the middle, a sudden skip from white to red. Joulan sees the silver half’s eye widen and knows that he is the other half. The imposing half. The better half. He scowls at the shocked look on their face and without his bidding, they turn and pace down a path that, in thoughts not his own, are so very familiar. One two three turn one two three turn one two -

“By the worlds, will you stop panicking inside that silly head of yours and just TALK TO ME!” Joulan roars the last three words, increasingly angry with this mysterious lion by the second. Instead of a response, the other lion freezes, and in another mad skirmish for control, they slam face-first into the ground.

They just lie there, both a bit too stunned by the heavy hit to move, and Joulan, reigning in his emotions, thinks inside their shared mind. I’m Joulan. Reflection element, sent by the blood moon. Useless element, brilliant personality. As you can obviously tell, I’m brilliant, dangerous, and hate being stuck with a scared fool like you. How about yourself?

Magali, comes the reply, far faster than he expected. Hate. I hate it. I'm merely trying to... ponder my options, thank you very much. And thankfully, unlike you, I prefer to let my actions speak for me rather than my words. It's obvious that he's trying to put up a front, trying to push away the fear. They do share the same mind, after all. Joulan can see everything.

And your actions landed you where? In one of the most secure prisons in all the worlds? Some pretty bad ‘actions’ led you here, eh?

You’re one to talk, hatespeaker! Couldn’t even pick the lion the moon sent you to, could you? You’re a plaything of fate.

I am NO ONE’S PUPPET, coward!

Moonborn scum!

Spineless prisoner!

ENOUGH! Something finally cuts through their mental feud. Or rather, someone. The two instantly quiet, but the voice does not speak again. That’s when they realize that they’ve been lying there for quite a while, head squished against the hard stone beneath them. Grumbling under their breath, Joulan lifts their head up.

The stone below has cracks in it. “How...” Magali whispers. Joulan refuses to admit it, but he’s in awe as well.

The moon has blessed us, whispers the third voice. Now is our chance!

They may have instant dislike for each other but both lions know that they want out. Out of this prison that has trapped one for so long and stuck the other with him. Joulan doesn't hesitate and Magali is too confused to stop him. One red paw slams into the wall, and hard metal crumbles around them. Apart from a faint tingling in their paw, they're fine. The wall, on the other hand...

"Go, snap the bars!" cries Magali in triumph, not willing to question such a streak of good luck. Whether this be some odd accident or plain old good luck, he knows he needs to be free. Today is the day I run once more! Joulan hears him think.

With one mind they turn to the curved bars of bone that has held Magali in for years and with a few strong swipes, they are free. Free!

"Now we find a way out of here, eh, trapped cat? Nothing and no one in all the worlds can hold us down," Joulan growls, face twisted into a menacing grin.

As they run, they put their feud aside. It will return, yes, but only when they are safe - and free. For now, their one goal unites them more strongly than anything else could. For now, they are one. For now, they are Joumagi.

The Pride's gonna regret putting them in here.

THE THIRD'S TALE

Why has the moon sent him here, to these two endlessly bickering children? He may be new but he feels like he has the knowledge of centuries within him. The endless circles the others are going in are ridiculous. He is here to... what? Keep order? Keep the peace? The third lion would be doing so much more good out on his own, where he could watch the mindless arguments of the universe play out in peace. Instead, he's the background lion, the one that wasn't given any appearance, any name, any part of this chaotic trio.

The peacekeeper thinks that if he were given his own form, he would be just about as quiet as he is now. But there would be differences there - he would be in charge of his own actions, rather than watching over the shoulder of another. He could fly so far away and not worry about a thing.

But all this wishful thinking does no one any good. He is here, and there is no changing that, so here he must stay. So he'll break up the fights that seem to happen every other minute with the other two, he'll listen when they're asleep.

This is the lot life has given him... and the old yet new lion isn't going to sit around and mope about it all. Not when there's better things to be doing.

PERSONALITY

"Ah, one comes to ask how we're managing our recent... transformation?"

Watching Joumagi for any length of time is like watching two sides of a coin flip endlessly in the air, or a tree get battered about by the wind. The two lions stuck inside the one are quite different from each other, very used to going about things in varying ways. These two never would have worked well together separate... it's a shock that they're able to get anything done at all. The pull of two minds is rough on Joumagi, a chaos that never really stops. It's heard in the growl of their voice as both of them struggle to get out what they want to say, the way their paws sometimes skid on the ground as some internal argument rages. Sometimes, if you listen very closely, you can hear them speaking to each other with their one voice, grumbling about their situation and about what they've done to have the moon do this to them in particular.

Sometimes, when the arguing gets to be too intense and it seems like the two lions, both old and new, will never stop berating each other, there's a third voice that steps in with a low growl. The third is almost always asleep in their mind, resting, waiting, but when things get rough he's always there to break it up and keep the peace. It seems like the blood moon sent two lions down to Magali, and thank goodness that it did, for he fears what might happen were there not someone always watching to keep them both in check, remind them of their shared goal.

Joulan, the lion from the moon, Magali, the lonely original, and the mysterious third lion... all of them are very different, and it's easier to understand them by looking at each separately.

Joulan
Joulan is a lion filled with conflict. He should know what he wants out of his odd half-life, yes? But instead he's brand new to the universe and he can't figure out whether he wants to see the worlds or try to burn them all down. What thoughts are his own, which ones aren't? He's a burning ball of fury but is that who he really is or is it something from Magali, something the blood moon gave to him? Joulan doesn't like feeling insecure, but here he is, refusing to ponder his scattered feelings because Joulan can see Magali's thoughts just as Magali can see his own, and he does not want Magali to know his weakness. (No, Joulan is not a lion of weakness. He is the strength of the two of them! He will be the one to keep them both safe, not his flawed partner of mind and heart, he whispers to himself over and over).

No matter how he feels deep inside, he knows that he's not going to show his heart to anyone. So instead of trying to be a better lion (what a silly concept, he thinks) he blocks it all out, lashes out at the worlds, and cries tears of fear and anger when Magali is asleep and the third lion is nowhere to be found. (He needs to know who he is, he needs to get out and find that - he needs to wander the universe, see the skies, and feel the ashes of destruction under his paws. He needs it all because maybe through something in all of that he'll find himself - but there's no way he can tell the other two that. They aren't him, and they will never understand.

Magali
He's a quiet, easily scared lion struggling with his element and the simple fact that he isn't alone with his thoughts anymore. Magali as a lion wants to be free to wander and free from the worry of betrayal, and while he's been given one of these back in snapping the bone bars of his cell, he's struggling with the idea that some other lion he's only just met could take over while he's sleeping - or even when he's not.

Magali has always been more content in his own head, humming the same tunes again and again and keeping track of impossible stories he can only tell himself. He has quite the imagination, which admittedly often turns into being paranoid about practically everyone around him. But now he has nowhere to go, nowhere to turn and hide, not even within himself.

He doesn't know what that's going to do to him, but he doesn't like thinking about the possibilities.

The third
While he can't actively take control of their shared body, the peacekeeper is more than willing to stay at the edge of their mind and listen. All he really wants is to get a form of his own (to be able to meet lions as himself, not as him and two other mindlessly squabbling children). But since that seems impossible for the here and now, he stops. He waits and he watches, he breaks up the fights, and he dreams, always, about greater things.

So much knowledge has been poured into his head and he's ever-thinking, ever-learning. He has memories of things that have never happened to him in his short life and it's so confusing, but another part of him ponders how interesting it all is, how much potential there could be if the right lion could be given another's memories. The chaos it would cause is a bit... disturbing, really, when he thinks it over.

But as he does, he stays back, and he keeps an eye out for everything. The moon entrusted him with these two so he plans to keep them safe while he does his looking. Perhaps if he ever figures out how to set out on his own they'll be able to work together. But he doubts it.

ELEMENTS

Reflection and hate. A fairly odd combination, and in Joulan's mind, a terrible mix created because of his failure of an element. At least there's hate to make up for it. He has no problem reminding Magali of how useless reflection is, even when Magali finds it amazing. Magali considers the ability to take the powers of other lions brilliant - so diverse and with so much potential. On the contrary, Joulan hates having to rely on others. 'What will we do if there's no one nearby to help us? We'll be stuck with no physical defense. None!' he growls on a near-daily basis. Despite all this, when times get rough they can work pretty well together. It just takes a lot of convincing from the third lion and a very real threat.

Quite honestly, they both are much fonder of the other lion's element, and tend to take advantage of said opposite element in battle.

Their most common move at the start of a fight is to look around and see if there's any lions around with a suitable element to steal from the opposite side. If there are, Joulan will send out dark thoughts at said lion to temporarily overwhelm them while they race over to touch them and borrow their element. His favorite thought can cause a lion to temporarily hate their own element if done right, though that takes a huge amount of concentration.

Fire, personally, is Joumagi's favorite element to take. When they rush into battle they're already furious with the hatred for their enemies that they're sure to dwell on as Magali plans out their attack. They're honestly a bit reckless with the element, throwing burning hot flames left and right. In their mind, the less energy it takes, the better, and the white-hot fires take hardly any. Once out they're impossible to control, but hey, why not enjoy a little chaos while it lasts?

Air is always their second choice - there's nothing quite like the chaotic feeling of wind whipping past your fur as you channel all your rage into your attacks. A gust of wind right at the eyes of your foe and suddenly they're gonna have a hard time keeping their eyes open.

Water is next, for it doesn't seem as powerful as their first two choices at first glance but it still holds that same wonderful unpredictability that they channel into their fighting style. If weaved under the paws of some unfortunate lion it'll be a lot harder for them to move, now won't it?

And finally, earth is their last resort. As such a speedy, chaos-loving fighter, Joumagi doesn't really like the innate solid protection of earth... but it's still a bit of good fun to hurl rocks at lions, and it makes for a very reliable shield.

Relations with other lions.
Joumagi isn't one who likes to talk to other lions. Magali generally means well, but has way too many trust issues. Joulan, on the other paw, isn't fond of other lions at all. Because of this, they'll talk to other lions if they need to, but it'll usually be a tense conversation and, if it comes to such - a tense relationship. Magali is the one that tends to take charge in meeting other lions for several reasons: one, he has more experience in that, despite not having very much, and two, Joulan tends to be a bit too... intense with other lions, and Magali doesn't need a bunch of fights on his paws if he can avoid it.

They tend to refer to themselves by their shared name when speaking with others, no matter who is more in charge of themselves at any particular time. It's very easy to get confused when talking with Joumagi, as they'll often stop mid-conversation to argue about some odd thing or another under their breath.

Overall, between Joulan's quick jump to insults and Magali's quiet perspective that very easily focuses on things besides what a lion is actually saying (like 'how do I escape if they jump me'), any interaction with Joumagi is bound to be rough.