The early morning sun shone down upon the pridelands as a lioness took a small trek by a stream. Purring softly as the light beamed down upon her, the scene tranquil and empty of other animals, she took pawsteps without a care in the world it seemed. Nala, the lioness, was making the most of this peace, the rumble of her comfort still sounding from her throat.

She glanced towards the blue sky near a tree and some bushes, a few wispy clouds all that was there, other than the rising morning sun. She kept purring as she admired the nearly clear expanse, pausing for a moment. And then she resumed her movement, paw landing....

...on something in her way. She barely registered the touch before instantly, it affected her. The lioness froze, the purring fell silent, but the small smile on her face remained. Her eyes though, while still staring forward, went blank, figuratively, and then a moment later, literally, as they shifted from turquoise and yellow to pure white.

She stood there like a statue, eyes blanked, frozen as if time was stopped for her, as a human slowly approached, moving almost robotically. A white eyed blonde female in a white dress, a smile on her face. She was Namine, and her eyes should have been blue. But they were the same as the lion, bar a small inky spot in their centre. She showed no fear and no real reaction at all as she neared one of the deadliest predators in existence.

The predator, of course, gave no reaction, as the human lifted her frozen paw to free what she had stood on. A notepad. From where the paw had landed, an illustration of a face was now on the page, a softly smiling lioness, with turquoise eyes. Nala's mind, absorbed and suspended into the pages of the magical tome. The lion now stood, paw frozen off the ground, as Namine produced a feather quill.

The human began writing below the illustration, and the sentence flowed onto the page as if from nowhere, black ink seeming to just materialise on the quill. And then, it vanished away... as did the colour in the eyes of the illustration. They changed to depict the sentence written, the words flashing in place, as on the lioness herself, the same letters flickered in those blank white eyes.

Namine wrote and wrote, sentence after sentence flowing into the page, into the eyes, into the mind of the lioness. Word after word was written into the book and the psyche of the animal frozen in front of the strangely acting human. But eventually, Namine finished, and placed the book back below the paw. Softly, Namine let the lionesses frozen limb come back down.

Nala blinked, and then glowed. The shape of the lion shifted in that glow, morphing from quadraped to biped. Where a lion had once stood, now stood a humanoid version of herself, a beautiful anthro now a few paces away from the book on her only legs, where her hind legs and paws were a moment ago. She stood there still smiling, her new arms tipped with paws closer to hands, and still blank eyed, or so it seemed.

Namine leaned in closer, as the white eyes began developing a small inky spot in the middle. The same inky spot as Namine's eyes.

"Your name is Nala, yes?" Namine said, a somewhat odd cadence that seemed mostly flat...

The lioness moved now on her own, to nod.

"Yes..." She spoke, the anthro capable of human speech, but in a stilted drone-like monotone not unlike Namine's.

"Are you prepared to serve our new master, Nala? To bring examples of your pack to the Master's side and glory?"

The lioness nodded and spoke in the level emotionless tone again.

"Yes, I am prepared. I understand the path I must walk..."

"Good..." Namine smiled, and snapped her fingers.

Nala blinked, puzzled to find herself on all fours for a second, and confused like she had zoned out. The lioness sniffed the air, feeling like something had been near... But she couldn't quite place the smell. She took a moment more, and then resumed her trek, seemingly a normal lioness once more... Seemingly.

***

A day later, the scene was similar. A few more clouds, but still, the sun was bright. And this time, two lionesses walked. Nala, and her daughter, Kiara.

"So it was around here you smelled something?" Kiara asked as they neared a tree and some bushes by the small stream.

"Yes, it seemed familiar, but somehow, I just couldn't figure it out. Maybe you can?"

Kiara nodded, as she kept pace with her mother, until she spotted an odd object.

"What's this thing?" She sniffed at the white squares before her, backing up, and placing her paw on it.

And freezing in place, her look of curiosity frozen as her eyes went from red-brown to blank white. She did not see or respond as her mother glowed and became bipedal, the anthro lioness moving in front of her still-feral daughter.

The white-eyed anthro lifted the inquisitive paw up, removing the book. Kiara's curious expression was now there, in the book along with her mind.

Smiling brightly, the entranced anthro turned as the human neared, Namine still blank eyed herself, ready to accept the book.

"Thank you, Nala.... This is your daughter? The first of your pride you have brought to our master?"

"Yes, Namine. She will be of assistance to bring other lionesses to us, as well as other animals should the need arise."

Namine nodded, and spoke up.

"You have done well, Nala. Our master rewards loyal servants. Sit... Present your paws,"

The lioness obeyed, and the human looked at the anthro lower limbs. On a true lioness the rear paws held four claws, and in her bipdedal form, Nala now had four toes. But retained her pawpads, soft little tan cushions. The lioness purred happily as the human rubbed her feet, massaging the pawpads as her reward. But there was work to be done, so, the human eventually ceased her ministrations and turned back to the entranced feral lioness, and back to the book.

"The master wishes lionesses first and foremost. But our master wishes to bring both human and beast under control, into a harmonious power shift. The balance of nature is to be... rewritten."

The human, upon saying this, produced the quill, and began her writing. Kiara's eyes began flashing with the letters, as she was edited and modified by the magic of the book and quill.

Nala watched with pride, kneeling down to her as-yet unathromorphic daughter and rubbing the lionesses cheek in anticipation. Kiara would be as beautiful an anthro as she, and a powerful asset to the Master. A powerful ally as Nala walked her new path. An ally who would surely ensure that the other lionesses of the pride would soon be part of the wonderful harmony, in the service of their Master, all...