METEOR

<<Meeting Theme Song>>

The meeting had been called. Meteor heard the paws leave the cave system ahead of him. Voices echoed off the cave walls and ended up here, in the outermost part of his part of the cave system. What had been Valerius’s. Meteor had wanted to slit his father’s throat and move into the pharaoh’s rightful wing for years. He rejoiced in having his birthright.

But he hated sitting still for Vale to fuss over attaching golden chains to his horns. The regalia bored him.

“I am not a narcissist like my father, Vale.” Meteor, however, didn’t open his eyes. “I don’t enjoy this process.”

“Only a bit more gold.” The shapeshifter clicked xyr tongue. The crow walked through his mane to attach another chain. “Why do you think narcissists are more common than psychopaths? An idiot narcissist has more success than an idiot psychopath. The prosocials are so predictable, aren’t they? But a psychopath has to use logic to lead them. A narcissist?” Vale cackled. “A narcissist is a ram amongst sheep. The prosocials want a leader. The narcissist postures dominance in a way the fools like!”

“I am superior to narcissists. Yet I have to copy them?”

“Of course. Prosocials do not listen to logic, they listen to emotions. Especially their defective emotions. Guilt! Shame! Empathy! We’re immune, which means we move them without being moved ourselves.” Vale laughed to xemself and jumped from Meteor’s forehead to the right ram horn. “You can’t toss aside an advantage like that! Psh, they call us antisocial… what are they, if not happy to serve?”

Meteor opened his eyes and stood. With hardly a glance in the mirror—enough to verify Vale hadn’t played a prank with his trust—the lion strolled out of his quarters.

The cave system was empty. Everyone was waiting at the top of the volcano, where the bones of the fallen laid below the sky. Valerius and all the rest had been cannibalized already, and thus secured a more favorable reincarnation. According to the cult’s beliefs, anyway. But how else did you convince a bunch of idiots to be practical and eat any available meat during lean times?

“If you believe we’re born to lead them, why support me?” Meteor asked. “Why support Valerius when he lived?”

Vale fluffed out xyr feathers. “Leadership is boring, mkay? Much easier to whisper in Valerius’s ear. You, though? Might not need so much nudging to make the optimal play.”

Then Meteor’s paws brought him to the face of the volcano. He squinted in the sunlight. A few voices, a smattering of cheers. Not far from the exit to the top.

The crowd parted for their pharaoh. At the lip of the volcano, Valerius’s bones (minus his head, which rested on Meteor’s wall) and the rest of the cannibalized fallen. Quite a few of the bones had already been taken to turn into memorial art, armor… how practical. How necessary to weather the coming storm.

From the lip of the volcano, the lava within was visible. The flow of molten rock had slowed and decreased back to normal levels. Most creatures avoided the rim because of the lava’s heat. And upon the volcano’s lip? A ragged boulder of obsidian.

Meteor leaped to stand at the top of the traditional announcement ledge. By all accounts, this rostrum made of obsidian shouldn’t have survived the eruption. Yet it had. And, according to legends, it had survived every eruption since the foundation of the cult. As Meteor stood tall, he considered whether this implied the gods existed. But he discarded the question immediately. If Requiem and Vayu existed, they were distant and refused to speak. So, then, if they existed and approved of him killing Valerius… well, what was the difference between them not existing at all and Meteor taking his own fate into his paws?

Vale leaned down. Xyr beak brushed Meteor’s ear.

Whatever Vale whispered, it elicited a laugh from Meteor. The lion tossed his head. Vale’s wings beat as the three eyed crow flew into the sky and circled. From above, Vale’s cackling caws carried.

Meteor fixed his golden gaze on the crowd. And smirked. “Why aren’t you cheering? We are still alive!”

And so the crowd cheered. He waited for their cheers to die before he launched into his prepared speech.

“We are the Descendants of the Departed. By Requiem’s grace and Vayu’s mercy, we have survived the eruption and earthquake.” Meteor tilted his head to look at his father’s corpse. His tufted tail lashed. “Pharaoh Valerius perished by the gods’ will. And by the gods’ will, my reign begins.”

“In the stories we heard as children, is it not a golden age when Requiem and Vayu intervene to elevate a Vizier to Pharaoh? The island’s devastation is but an illusion. Make no mistake, we are at the cusp of glory.”

“I have surveyed the damage. Despite the devastation, the keystones to our home’s biodiversity survived. Restoring the rest of the Island will be trying, and difficult, and require all of our combined efforts, but we will recover. For now, our primary hunting grounds are the Hawit River System, and the forests alongside it, for it and its tributaries’ banks have survived. The coral reefs thrive, though the fish are slow to return. And there is no shortage of coconut crabs.”

Meteor sighed. From one paw, claws unsheathed and tapped impatiently at the volcanic stone. But only for an instant. “Currently we lack earth elementals amongst our ranks. Therefore, our efforts have two goals. First, recruit earth elementals… capturing them is an acceptable recruitment strategy. Secondly, planting seeds and saplings. If every individual, when xe leaves the cave, spends fifteen minutes of planting? Then we will slowly, but surely, progress.”

“However, while we revitalize our home, we will need to take care not to disrupt the surviving ecosystems. I will begin diplomatic negotiations to trade for necessary supplies.” Meteor smirked. “And, in the meanwhile, we will sharpen our claws and carve bone into armor. If other groups refuse to trade with us in good faith? If other groups do not have the supplies to spare? Then we will raid.”

Meteor paused. He glanced at each of the templars with slight nods. Regardless of how each of them came to the island and their various levels of loyalty or belief in the gods, they had proven themselves as capable fighters. A leader without the loyalty of sharp claws was no leader.

“For obvious reasons, I have no promotions or demotions to announce.” Meteor’s golden eyes narrowed. “However, we are in lean times. If anyone has the energy to spare, I have a few tasks which need completion. Speak now or see me later, if you wish to prove yourself.”

METEOR

@KOLE.

The golden chains rattled. Requiem and Vayu, the metal was annoying. Valerius had enjoyed these “ram amongst sheep” customs, but Meteor had to consciously keep from pawing at the regalia to remove the things. Maybe it’d become endurable. Maybe he’d turn into a narcissistic psychopath.

Meteor stopped thinking about ripping off the regalia and tossing it into the volcano when Kole stepped forward. His expression became a smirk. Give Kole a chance to earn status? A given.

“There are sections of the toppled forest which are completely untraversable from the logs.” Meteor narrowed his eyes. “I don’t want a wildfire, but a few paths should be cleared to make these sections easier to navigate. Is a controlled burn within your power?”

@KNOX.

Meteor looked to Knox and nodded in approval as it requested a task. The maned lioness was, as a born cult member, reliable in a way that Kole and Chernabog were not. She had grown up with the stories of Requiem and Vayu. She knew the volcano inside and out from playing within the lava tubes as a cub, even the ones that she now couldn’t squeeze into. And, of course, intimate familiarity with the dangers of Vayu's sacrificial lava pit. Meteor knew that, because he and Xanti, also born into the cult, also had that level of expertise.

“Knox. If we had an Inquisitor of Vayu’s Destruction, I would give xem this task, but, we don’t, and yet the gods must be in balance.” Meteor spared a glance, with a slight frown, to Vale circling overhead. Then looked back at Knox. “Because of the earthquake, useless human plastic has washed up on our beaches. Please sacrifice this unpleasant disgustiness by tossing as much as you can into the sacrificial lava pool.”

@Chernabog

The lion’s gaze slid to the tall dragoness in the back of the crowd. He was surprised she’d volunteered. Thanks to her, the Hawit River System survived the eruption because she had diverted enough of the lava flow into the ocean. And she should’ve had Vale helping her, but the inquisitor had flown off to save xyr own skin. Meteor knew Vale, apparently, had full faith in Chernabog and thought xe would be unnecessary… but was that a convenient lie?

Meteor shook the thoughts out of his head. More important to focus on Chernabog’s task. Give her something that wouldn’t insult her, but wouldn’t require her at full strength.

“Chernabog, go to Viper Island and capture one of the snakes.” Meteor’s tail flicked. A dangerous ask for anyone, except the dragon who could probably tank a few bites of venom. “It’s about time we start investigating whether they’re sentient or not sentient.”

METEOR

The lion’s gaze slid to Viper. His upper lip curled, exposing a fang. How narcissistic, to draw attention to oneself only to announce a silly little thing like that. This behavior was unacceptable during a crisis, especially with their shortage of meat.

“Viper.” The lion’s measured voice carried. “That is not a task. That is kitchen duty, which is expected of you during even the best of times. Today is not one of those times.”

Meteor’s gaze narrowed. “You will clear garbage from the beaches. Either you help Knox or do it yourself, either is fine, but you will not sit on your ass while the rest of us fight to survive.”

Then a glance—a not so subtle glance—to Kole. The vampiric coyote knew what to do if the serval decided he could backtalk the pharaoh.

@Viper Bordeaux