Name: Elia

Parents: Unknown male lion and Unknown leopardess

Siblings: A brother, two sisters and one deceased sibling

Mate: Erevu

Cubs: Infertile

Personality: Elia is more leopard than lioness in her manners. She is a loner by nature, prefering to spend her days alone rather than interact with other lions (and usually they don't bother with her either because they sense she is different from them) but due to her circumstances she has had to adapt to life as part of a group. She likes the quiet and the shelter of the jungle rather than the vast openess of the savannah. However, when she does let people in, she is very kind-hearted and almost motherly in her nature. She rarely raises her voice and instead tries to reason with others through logic and prefers to work things out peacefully rather than coming to blows.

History: Elia and her siblings were born as the result of a lion mating with a leopardess. However, the mate found out about Elia's father's newest litter became jealous and tried to kill her and her siblings. Their mother saved all but one of them and fled to the safety of the jungle where Elia and her siblings were raised in secret.

As Elia grew, her mother stressed the importance of staying away from lions both in prides and rogues, that they were dangerous and would kill her and her siblings because their scent marked them as different. Soon, Elia became afraid of lions above all other species. 

When she and her siblings were finally adults, Elia left the safety of her mother's jungle so she could find a place of her own to call home. In that time she was first exposed to both the open savannah and lions. Her mother's tales rang true and when she wandered accidentily into a pride they would try and kill her. She was lucky that she was fast enough to escape and nimble enough to still climb trees like leopard.

It was then that she was also captured by humans. Hey saw her as a great prize because of her uniqueness and the fact that hybrids of any kind was exceedingly rare. She quickly came to fear humans more than she had ever feared lions.

The humans kept her for some time before change came in the form of a young cub thrust into the same cage as her. Elia ignored the cub for the most part, she was used to life in the cage by now and although she pitied the young lion cub, she could do nothing for her. Then not long after an adult lion was shoved in their cage and it was then that Elia's fear returned somewhat. It turned out that the lion was the cub's uncle and had been captured too whilst searching for her. 

Later that very same night, the lion managed to break the lock on their cage door and soon they were all running to freedom together. However, for the lion and cub there was problem. By now they were miles and miles away from their home territory with no idea how to get back. Elia felt her heart swell with pity for them and she found herself offering to help them. After all, she owed them her life and they had done nothing to hurt her so far. Gratefully, they agreed to stay together and find their way back to their pride. It was then that the lion introduced himself as Erevu and the cub was his niece, Lesedi.

For a time, it was easy to follow the human's route back the way they had come but soon the trail was lost and the three of them had to guess which direction would take them back. Erevu was determined to get back and Elia often found herself comforting the distraught Lesedi. Elia knew nothing about their pride, she had spent her life avoiding lions, but she did all she could including helping with hunting and acting as a guide in areas she had visited before.

One day, the group stumbled across another lost cub, a male this time by the name of Daemon. He had wandered too far from his pride and they had left the area without him. Erevu was dubious about helping him since the pride he came from apparently had some history with his own pride but Elia found herself stepping in and arguing that if Daemon was left alone then he'd surely die. At least with them he would be safe and if they ran across his pride in their travels it would be a happy coincidence. Erevu was reluctant but he eventually agreed that she was right.

On the small group continued, years passing and still there was no sign of either Erevu and Lesedi's pride or Daemon'. The two cubs grew up fast and Elia couldn't help but play mother to them both. Slowly the fear she had felt around lions diminished and it was in no small part to her growing feelings for Erevu. She came to love him over their travels and was glad that fate had thrown them together, no matter how difficult times could seem.

Eventually, however, they stumbled across Erevu and Lesedi's pride and all four were welcomed warmly. Elia had never been around so many lions at once and was initially frightened by the sheer number of them, thankfully Erevu assured her that his family would never dream of hurting her. She was introduced to Erevu's mother Tamu and his sister Duni who was Lesedi's mother. Duni especially was grateful for looking after Lesedi who was now a young adult. Even though she was invited to stay with the pride, Elia planned to leave and find her own territory in the jungle. However, Erevu found out and begged her to stay with him, asking her to be his mate because it turned out he had grown to love her as much as she did him.

Elia couldn't bare to leave after that and promised to stay with the pride as long as Erevu called it home.

Relation to TLK: Mate of Mufasa and Sarabi's grandson