Journey to the Trinity Tree

It wasn't the easiest thing Maji had ever done, navigating her way through the land occupied by the god of decay and his undead army so that she could get to the goddess of life and her underground city. After all, Maji knew little to nothing about the workings of this realm, a fact that Kina had so kindly thrown in her face. Some might even say it was foolhardy for her to set off on her own to fight on the opposite side of her pridemate. After all, she had been sent here to find out what was going on, but even more than that, she had been sent through the portal to make sure Kina made it home safely. Siding against her in a fight was the opposite of what Nasaba would want, and besides, she ought to be sticking close to the friends she had, especially when Kina had been here for longer.

But Maji knew the power that beings like gods held. While a demon did not equate to a deity in power, Maji would never forget the power that radiated off of the water spirit. She still could not remember how she had come to be under its control in the first place, still was unaware of what events had led up to her possession. They obviously had some sort of sentimental history, or else there was no explanation for Hadithi's existence, but Maji could not fathom how that had come about. Why on earth had she trusted a water demon?

That experience had given her plenty of insight and clarity into this one. That demon fed on living creatures, even other lions, and it had hosted itself in Maji's body. She didn't know why it possessed her instead of eating her as well, but it had taught her plenty about dark power.

And decay? Decay was a dark power, and it hummed and throbbed with the same intensity that the words of the demon did when it tried to creep inside her mind and lure her back to it.

Maji would never trust anything that held power that even remotely resembled the water demon's, and even being in the general vicinity of the god of decay had given her that exact same feeling. Each step she took towards the goddess of life was purposeful; she never looked back to where she'd left Kina. Maji had to fight for what was right, even if Kina wouldn't listen to reason. Even if that put them on opposite sides of this world's war.