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When Nala awoke, her head was no longer spinning with the heavy smoke she had inhaled earlier. Enu, however was still snoring at her back. Nala considered going back to sleep but she felt restless, but more she was still curious about her surroundings. Lifting her head, she saw that the temple had quieted and there was hardly anyone moving about. Slowly, Nala got to her feet and padded silently away from Enu's large body. No one even glanced in her direction as she passed around the corner from the main atrium.

Nala's mind was still fixed on this notion of spirits the humans and lions of this place believed in. 'Surely there are no such things.' she rebelled in her mind. 'The Ancestors would not allow such chaos in their realm' And the way that the Ancestors were included along with spirits of rocks and trees was somehow more insulting than if she'd been told no one here believed in them at all. 'The great Kings and Queens of old surely deserve more respect than some rocks and shrubs...' Nala lashed her tail in agitation as she approached the now empty and silent inner chamber where she had met Yamikani.

Though her eyes were still not used to making sense of the little sculptures and pictures painted on the walls, she studied them, particularly the ones with four legs. The little houses, or shrines as Enu and Uzuri had put it, seemed to depict scenes in still motion; at least the ones in this chamber did, the ones outside had often been so small as to fit only a single tiny statue or poppet. Nala learned to recognize the lions pretty quickly for their splashes of yellow and even differentiate the males from females from the attempts to simulate a mane, usually with a few dark tufts of hair or painted straw. Nala also recognized the human characters for they were the only ones who went on two legs.

Nala walked along the wall, examining the shrines one by one. There seemed to be a progression. The first one depicted lions and humans facing each other, as if preparing for battle. However the later shrines depicted lions and humans intermingling or side by side. Nala noticed that while there were shrines with humans present and no lions, there were none with just lions for themselves. This soured Nala's tongue as she went past them one by one. 'Is this some sort of history?' Nala thought and wondered how true or mythical the details must be. In the Pridelands, the only recording of history was in the stars and its examination was left to those with a philosophical bent, literal star gazers. This recording in stone and wood and straw and paint seemed too explicit to Nala, as if the creators were trying to say "We know exactly what happened and this is how it went."

"Only the Ancestors can truly know the past." Nala scoffed, growing more and more disturbed by the heresy she saw on display by the second. It finally reached a culmination at the last shrine, which was the largest by far. A large man poppet was the central feature and surrounding him was a crowd of animals and more abstract figures Nala took to represent spirits or something similar. Among these bowing figures were lions, and these were the closest to the human, lowering themselves at his feet. It seemed the human - or humanity itself? - had reached some pinnacle and was being revered by all other lifeforms. Nala squeezed her eyes shut in silent rage, but could not suppress a low growl in her throat. She had known it! She knew that humans were arrogant, dangerous creatures and here was the proof! They saw themselves as eventually coming to subjugate all other living things for this shrine was clearly depicting the future. Well, the last thing Nala considered herself was a slave and even if she could tolerate humans, she would never bow and scrape as the lions in this scene were. The more she looked into the shrine, the more her heart filled with pain and hate. Her pride was dying, but this one, this one was thriving beyond all measure, but they were herding themselves into a future where they were merely less than, only servants to the great power that humans represented.

Nala did not care how much power humans had. She knew now that they were mere flesh and blood as she was. Their power alone did not entitle them to a special place in the universe. But Nala's own impotence embittered her for she knew the reality of the situation and that no lion could resist the skill and knowledge that was on display in the village, let alone what terrible weapons they must also possess. So it was, with her eyes nearly watering with tears she held back, Nala reached into the shrine and took the straw man from his throne. She crunched the figure between her teeth. She was about to spit it out when she suddenly felt guilty and regretted destroying part of the shrine. She saw no where to spit out the bits of straw where no one could see, so she swallowed them instead. It went down rough, but Nala was used to eating the grassy contents of her prey's stomachs. She regarded the shrine she had desecrated and saw that in her haste she had knocked several other puppets out of their places, in fact, one of the lions had fallen to the ground and broken.

Grimly, Nala turned her back and fled the chamber, her feet moving more quickly than she would have liked.