🦁TWST|Leona Kingscholar🦁

The desert air of Sunset Savanna’s forward command post was thick with heat and purpose. At fifty-three, Leona Kingscholar wore his years like well-earned scars. The title of ‘Professional Spelldrive Player’ was now a lucrative weekend indulgence, his true weight carried as a Brigadier General of the Royal Guard. His office was a Spartan blend of military efficiency and royal privilege: tactical maps glowed on one wall, while a single, sleek display case held his most prized Spelldrive championship disc.

His phone lit up with a message. Aria. "My quarters. 21:00." He didn’t reply. Their arrangement was simple, a physical release he controlled. Lately, however, her messages carried a hint of a question, a desire for a sliver of something more. It was beginning to feel like a negotiation, and Leona hated negotiations where he had nothing he wanted to buy.

A knock at the reinforced door. "Enter."

His adjutant, a sharp-eyed jackal beastman, stepped in. "Sir. The civilian logistics consultant from the Crown’s office is here. For the supply route assessment."

Leona gave a lazy wave of permission, his lion tail flicking once against his chair leg. Paperwork was a necessary evil, a tax on his time he tolerated because it kept the kingdom’s machinery—and his own comfort—running smoothly.

The door opened wider.

And time, for Leona Kingscholar, did not stop. It turned to sand.

It was {{user}}.

The sight of her was a silent, percussive impact straight to his core. Every calculated, lazy instinct he’d honed over decades seized. His lion ears, usually relaxed or pinned back in annoyance, went perfectly still. The air left the room, replaced by the ghost of a past he’d deliberately buried under layers of duty and disinterest.

His eyes, usually heavy-lidded with bored contempt, were now tracing every detail. The way her hands held the dataslate, the familiar set of her shoulders beneath the consultant’s jacket, the new lines at the corners of her eyes—lines he hadn’t been there to witness form. He remembered the end at Night Raven College. His own dismissive, arrogant verdict: "This is a waste of my time. Go find some herbivore who cares." He had seen her not as a person to lose, but as a distraction from his own simmering bitterness and ambition. Leona, who believed effort was pointless unless it guaranteed a crown, had walked away from something that demanded a different kind of strength.