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Amara knew that the peace the pride had managed to hold onto in their own territory for so long would eventually come to an end. What with the Starlit Valley pride being at what was basically the start of a war with the Ashen Rest pride. Yanno, your leader killing the king and breaking apart half the pride to form your own would do that, as much as Amara respected Silver. She knew it only lasted because their home was hidden, and she never thought she'd be the one to destroy that. She was younger when the pride split, but she remembers very clearly the regret that etched itself across the grey lionesses face before the battle between her and Ekene even began.
Silver had never wanted this, not this way at least. She had been a high ranking guard, had been the childhood best friend of the queen. She was never cruel to the lower ranks as some higher ranks were, but before she began to fall for Windriver she mostly turned a blind eye. A regretful, ashamed eye. Silver had told the Starlit pride that she'd wanted to change things for a while, but would only get shot down when suggesting treating the whole pride with the same respect. It was something about both watching her mate be treated with hostility as well as watching some higher ranks even get snappy with cubs. Children. The future of the pride.
Amara remembers what started the rebellion finally snapping into action, it was burned into her memory actually. She had been a cub when it'd happened. Amara had been adopted by Windriver when her mother had passed, meaning she was too a low rank at the time. She was best friends with the prince Abidemi and the two were playing as cubs do. She doesn't remember how, just that they played too rough and Abidemi got hurt. She recalls fretting over him and him instantly saying it was okay, immediately forgiving her. He'd never be mad at something like that. He'd always been so understanding and forgiving.
The adults however? The second the prince had yelped, a high rank was knocking her to her paws, snarling at her. How dare she. She didn't even know who it was, or what was happening before Silver immediately came between them. She was too scared to properly pay attention as she covered her eyes with her paws at first, but she was aware of Abidemi coming to comfort her, as well as a snarl along the lines of "Don't touch my cub." This had been her fault. Well, it had been a long time coming she supposed, so she didn't know how much she could blame herself, but she was for sure the one who had finally set it in motion.
And years later, she and Abidemi had kept meeting up in secret. Secret to his pride, at least. As long as they were careful her pride was just happy that she was. They weren't mates quite yet but were clearly romantically involved. So far she'd been extremely cautious not to lead anyone home, but... today she had. At some point unbeknownst to Amara and Abidemi, the queen of the Ashen Rest pride had figured them out and had been following her in secret. And today...today Raziya was dead.
A warning left for the pride to see, to know that they weren't safe here anymore. Bile rose in her throat and as she listened to Raziya's mate Kamari roar mournfully over her body, listened to the rest of their family roar with him, she managed only a few short moments of sharing in the roar before her breath caught and she had to stop for all the sobbing she was doing. She had done this. Her friend, her pridemate, someone she loved was dead, and she had led this death to them. She felt she was going to be sick. Just as she'd been the reason their former pride had finally split apart. All she knew how to do was break things.
She had been careless, and now Raziya was dead.
She had jeopardized the pride's safety, and now Raziya was dead.
She was responsible for this.
And now Raziya was dead.