Animal Appearance
Barbary Lion:
Length: 8 ft 4 inches from Nose to Tail
Height: 3.5 ft at the shoulder
Weight: 400 lb's (she's stalky not chunky!)
Lioney Looks: https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/b/female-barbary-lion-panthera-leo-leo-lies-trunk-observes-surroundings-female-barbary-lion-panthera-leo-leo-lies-190236855.jpg
+ Kai was born on what was essentially a secluded reservation in the Himalayan mountains. There it was essentially it's own community and for her growing up there, it was pretty peaceful. The way they lived there, you would have to think of modern Tibetan style with homes made from lumber and zero communication with the outside world. They were all creative and craft people but since they were a small group of less than a hundred, they wanted to keep everything close. When it came for shifting, they did so in groups together to stay safe but also foster that communal feeling and closeness with their community.
+The born lioness felt this was normal, wore handmade clothes, made fabrics, skinned animals. She could survive anything honestly and was well loved by her family. She thought there was nothing more to her world.
+ When she turned 21 her family set up a marriage to one of the few males in the community, trying to continue the pure lines of the lions being born. Kai didn't overly protest as she was married to a man in his thirties, he'd proven himself to be capable as a hunter and building a home so it was seen as a good fit for the pair of them. For the first few years he was kind and patient, didn't push her to intimacies until she was ready at around 25 when she trusted and felt the most comfortable with him.
+Things took a turn when she had fallen pregnant that year but lost the child, a flip switching in her husband and in a mix of grief-filled rage lashed out at her and slashed her in his lion form. The attack spurred her to leave. Her family refused to do anything given it was her marriage to tend to, so in the dead of night while they were all at a bonfire, she left the safety of the community.
+Kai didn't know what to do or where she was, never having seen a map, car, or even a train, she was confused and lost and knew that she was an outcast from her people since it was forbidden to even leave or interact with the unknowns of the outside world. The woman wondered lost and confused in the winter until she bumped into a kind merchant who liked the bracelets that she made. She spent the year learning some English finally but the technology was very much a strange thing to her and when she caught wind of other shifters around, she fled in a panic with what money she had.
+ It was a mix of train car hopping and asking for her to manage to get to a cargo ship that was bound for America. The contents she was not wholly sure on; she couldn't read the language of anything but she hid there. When she didn't smell anyone, she snuck into the kitchen to steal food and drink, not much but just enough to survive on the long trip. When they docked finally at easthaven she waited until nightfall shifted and ran...