"Ha! She's more a fool than the children. Who would choose the lesser body to sleep in the storms?"

        Arya hugged her knees to her chest, glaring at the by-passers from beneath her matted, filthy hair.

        "I've never even seen her in her beast body. I bet she doesn't even have one," a golden lioness mocked.

         "Amaru's right. She's not one of us. Either she's a defect or she's hiding something. Maybe she won't shift because she's actually a spy— a snow leopard! Or a lynx!" the male companion of the lioness chipped in.

         The first lion, a lean but tall male, approached her. He swatted her, claws sheathed, but enough to knock her onto her back. He pinned her shoulders as the others crowded around her. "Is that so, traitor? Show us your true face. Show us!" He casually slid out a claw and gently dragged it down her cheek, hardly a paper cut. "Or I'll make sure you can't hide with this one. I'll carve your traitorous heritage where it can be seen by everyone."

       Her cheeks burned, and not from the cut. And she hated herself for it. She had so much less to worry about than her pride. Yet these were her people. And somehow the fact that they saw her as their enemy hurt more than the male's claws.

       "This is my face," Arya growled. "I'm one of you. What have I ever done to you?"

       The lioness smirked. "You should be ashamed of yourself. Betraying your own people."

        Arya shoved at the lion, but it was futile. He weighed her down with a few hundred pounds more than she had. "I didn't betray anyone! I didn't do anything!"

        The third lion scoffed. "Obviously you did something. Otherwise you wouldn't be here."

         Arya stopped her struggling, and glared with all the strength she couldn't make with her body. "You are the ones who should be ashamed."

        The big male raised a brow. "Ha! Whatever for?"

        She let herself lay back, staring up at the faint, wispy clouds. "You are the real traitors."

Thank goodness for the Court of Elders... Tauren's men were good. They won't change their minds so quickly. They'll be smarter than that. Better than that.

          "How dare you! You're a liar and a traitor," the lion pinning her snarled. He raised a paw, claws out. "You'll pay for your words—"

          "Sod off you lot. She'll get her punishment."

           The gang backed off, and Arya glanced up towards her savior, getting a flipped view of a one-eyed male.

            "I'll make sure of it," Malik added.

             Arya rolled over and onto her feet as Malik stalked around towards her, watching her with his sole eye the entire time. Her arm itched as if she had dipped it into an ant nest. She didn't have to look to know that blood had dried beneath her nails, and she wanted nothing more than for it to be gone. Yet she wasn't about to show any weakness now.

             The guard produced a key from a satchel around his chest and disconnected the end of her chains from the metal stake in the ground. Taking the end of the line in his jaws, he led her out of the clearing and towards the Accacia.

            "You're taking me to the trial, I assume?"

             He only needed one eye to cast her the darkest of glares. "I pray it becomes your execution. People like you don't deserve trials."

           Thank the earth for the law.

He led her into the Great Accacia, and the Court that lay within. In one smooth motion, Malik dropped the chain, shifted, and caught it again in his human hand. He tied it around a hook in the ground before going and leaning against the red wood wall, close to the fire that burned in a pit of stone that guarded it from the wood.

           In his human form, Malik glared at her with both hazel eyes. He winked, the smirk he gave telling her exactly what he meant by it.

          One by one, members of the Court of Elders entered the tree, each taking their place in a seat carved right from the tree's wood, followed lastly by Amaru.

          The Court of Elders looked a lot less... elderly than she thought they'd be.           Nearly every face was youthful, every mane half-grown.

          "Alright men, who's missing?" Amaru muttered, lounging in his throne and eyeing the one empty chair in the court. "I thought I'd replaced all the Elders."

            The so-called Elders all exchanged looks with one another, miffed.

            Another set of paws slowly crosses the threshold.

            All eyes turned towards the dusty gray male that walked so stiffly he could have been thawing. His wild, gray-and-bronze mane clearly hadn't been groomed in years. Yet the detail that captured her was his eyes— stark white and unseeing. Yet the old lion never missed a step, and seated himself in the final chair without any noticeable struggle.

         Amaru furrowed his brows. "Who the hell are you?"

         Sightless eyes turned towards the king. "Hathor, sire. Master of the catacombs."

         The king frowned. He leaned over to the council member closest to him and whispered something, then tensely settled back in his seat. "So you're the reason we've all been dragged here then?"

        A nod from the blind lion. "Yes sire. A request for a trial by the Court of Elders is a right held by every man and woman, lion and lioness, of Atholos."

        Amaru leaned forward. "I see. But... Isn't Arya technically not of Atholos?"

        Arya tried to step forward, and the chain went taut, nearly tripping her. "Please, hold on. That's not the question. This trial is about the fact that I've done nothing wrong— I wasn't born here, but what's wrong with that? I'm innocent. I'm no spy. This shouldn't be a trial about whether or not I deserve a trial." The ridiculousness of it made her head spin.

        Malik pushed off from the wall. "Innocent? Innocent? This animal attacked me!" He thrust an accusatory finger at her. "Because of this creature, my beast body has been permanently deformed! And I preferred that form!"

        Arya wanted nothing more than to hit him with a chair. "You leave a child to die in the rain and you call me the animal?"

       Malik grinned. "But you see, we kill with consent of the law. You kill on your own savage instincts."

        She struggled not to gape. "I haven't killed anyone!"

        "Can you prove it?"

        Frustration churned like a cauldron inside her. "What do you mean— I haven't killed anyone! This is my home and I am not a murderer!"

         Amaru cocked his head, following Malik's lead. "Malik's right. Can you prove it? How many people might have died in our wars thanks to you slipping information into the hands of our enemies?" He stood. "After all, you did impersonate my departed sister, may the earth keep her. And considering we've never seen you shift, how can we know that you're even one of us?"

        She struggled to keep her calm. Losing it as she had last night would only give them fodder for their flame. "I don't feel... Comfortable in that form," she admitted.

        One of the more burly Elders spoke. "What lion doesn't feel comfortable in their true body?"

         Another joined in. "She's stalling. I doubt she really is who she claims to be."

         "I can shift!" she insisted, and took a breath. "Just... take off the shackle and I'll prove it."

         A shiver ran down her spine as she said it, cold dread forming a heavy ball in her stomach.

It's the only way. I must prove I'm not the enemy.

         Amaru cracked a grin. "Malik, remove her shackle. Bast, guard the threshold." He spoke without looking at either of his subjects.

         It had been such a long time since she had shifted that she wasn't even sure that she remembered. The well-practiced could do it in seconds. As the metal band around her ankle fell away, terror rushed through her with the thought that she wouldn't be able to do it. Her heart pounded in her throat, choking her. She was suffocating...

         Or maybe her lungs just weren't where they used to be.

         As she willed her body to take that forgotten form, it slowly did so. A muscle memory long since used. Fur grew, hair shortened, pelvis rotated. Yet the most sore of all was growing what her previous body lacked— the tail and the wings.

Shifting wasn't what it looked like from the outside. She'd forgotten about that. It wasn't just rearranging atoms, moving bone and muscle and flesh. It was pulling another self from inside of her entirely. The blueprints for each body stashed somewhere in her genetic makeup. The shift required magic, leaving her strangely hollow as it was drained in the change. 

         But soon enough, she stood there before the Court in a body she had all but forgotten how to use.

         Her legs threatened to give way beneath her, the strength in this body never developed. Her wings weighed so heavily on her back that she let them fall to the ground, soft gray feathers gathering sand.

        She had completely forgotten what she looked like in this body.

        Arya became fascinated with the glint of her silver fur, the moon white of her paws— all but her front right, which was a cloudy dark gray. Her wings faded from the same storm gray at the shoulder to soft white at the tips. Streaks of white ripped down her wings as if she had been struck by lightning and the pattern had become permanently imprinted there. She wondered if her eyes were the sapphire of her human body, or if that too had changed.

        "I am one of you," she finally said, her words slow and rough as she re-learned how to speak with this mouth. How to make her tongue and sharp teeth come together to form words.

         Amaru stepped away from his throne and circled her. "One of us?" He jabbed her in the flank with a finger. "You call this one of us? What sort of lion is silver? And these wings— cursed by the storms."

         Malik joined in. "Skin and bones. She's neglected this body. Disrespectful to the gods!"

       More court members followed their lead. "And why would she neglect it if she had nothing to hide?"

        "Silver fur— she's either a terrible defect or a hybrid! Earth knows what is worse!"

        "Blue eyes— that can't be natural."

        "That wing is crooked! She'd never be of use to the Court if she can't fly!"

        "And her tail is bent! And gods how she smells! Filthy!"

         It was all she could do to keep from crumpling to the ground in tears. They spun around her like a vultures. Or perhaps she was the one spinning. She sank her claws into the sand.

         Amaru halted in front of her. "This creature is no lion. And therefore has no right to a fair trial by the Court of Elders."

          Heavy lead grew inside of her, and the ground fell away. She was both heavy as gold and light as wind. Everything and nothing. Falling and imprisoned.

          "Eye for an eye!" Malik declared. "Make her shift and take an eye from the form she prefers, so that she can never hide again!"

           Cheers rose up in support of the guard's words.

           "May... may I shift back now?" were all the words she could muster. 

           "You do that," Amaru sneered. "I'm tired at looking at this pathetic body."

           Arya shifted, a small shock of relief at being back in her human form. She fell to her knees, resigned. She couldn't bring herself to focus. All of the council members blurred together into one, angry mass... Darkening, gathering... A storm of lions.

            Until a calm, old voice grounded her.

           For the first time since the trial began, Hathor spoke. "Very well sire. I'll mark it in the records her punishment. Proceed."

           The king made a double take of the blind lion, as if he had forgotten the scholar was there. "Ah, yes. Malik, do it."

           "—Sorry sir," Hathor interrupted. "But it must be you. Our law decrees that all punishments must be carried out by the king. It is only honorable. And to not do so would be a sign of weakness."

          Amaru glanced at Arya, at her eye, at his hand, and turned a shade greener than before. "Is that so? Well..." He casually dusted his coat. "What is the process for this?"

          "Your hand will do. A knife could be less messy, but if improperly handled could go right through to her brain and risk death. That may entail more blood than we want on these floors."

          "I see... So just reach in and rip it out?"

           "Precisely."

          Arya tried to keep her face blank. She wasn't sure what the old lion was playing at, but her instincts told her to keep quiet.

         "Aha..." Amaru said, flexing his fingers. "That is a shame. These gloves are new."

        "There is an alternate way to inflict this punishment, if you would care to consider it."

        The king's attention snapped to Hathor.

         "Let her lose her sight as I did. Let her see no light for the rest of her days. Let me take her with me to the Catacombs as my servant."

          She was afraid to let that spark of hope in her chest kindle.

          Amaru narrowed his eyes. "I like this... Malik, is it justice enough for you?"

          The guard crossed his arms. "She deserves the pain I felt. But the pain of slowly losing herself, of never seeing her family again... Yes, that will do for me."

          The king turned to Arya. She looked up to meet his jade eyes. "Very well. I hereby banish you, Arya, Daughter of the storms, to the catacombs till the end of your days."