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 Posted: Tue May 29, 2012 10:39 am
Aseir Aesir was panting faintly by the time he and Calder finished their sparring. The cub was definitely improving, and given how late he had come to Aesir and demanded to be taught to fight, that was cause for the cub's teacher to be proud. His father ought to be proud, too, since there had to be some genetic talent allowing Calder to progress so rapidly. Since Aesir was both Calder's teacher and his father, he felt doubly proud. "Good," he said, sparing with praise as ever when dealing with his sons. He was, perhaps, a little easier on his viking-born sons than he was on his trueborn ones, but that was because he knew they would always have slightly more to prove. The large lion moved to the side of the sandy arena, away from the small gathering that had formed to watch father and son spar. The Warlord of the Stormborn giving his son lessons in fighting was not a spectacle to be missed, which is why Aesir tended to hold these lessons at awkward times of the day if they were to be in the pride's arena. Otherwise he held them at more convenient times, but less convenient places. "Let's walk a bit to cool down, eh?" Calder The blond male was panting as well by the time the sparring was done, tongue hanging out of his mouth as he tried to cool down. The days were so warm, it seemed, hot and long. He was focused on his training right now. He had to get better. He wanted to challenge his sister one day, to prove to her that he deserved all of the praise their father threw towards her. Calder was tired of 'my daughter' this and 'my daughter' that. Calder felt Aesir should only talk about his sons. Daughters weren't that great. Girls weren't that great. No, he was in the whole 'girls are stinky' phase, but he certainly had no interest in them. It showed by how he ignored some of the looks and giggles that came his way. Why bother when he needed to train? To improve? He had to prove himself worthy to his dad and that's all that he could wrap his head around, right now. When his father propose a cool down, he nodded and shook himself of the dust he'd collected from being thrown around a little bit. "That sounds good to me," he said, swallowing thickly. "Let's get something to drink. It's rather hard to talk when your throat feels like it is bleeding when you talk. It's so dry..." He wasn't whining, just complaining about something very obious. Calder would never whine.
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Posted: Tue May 29, 2012 11:00 am
Aesir Aesir had no idea of his b*****d son's ambitions to challenge Kazul to any sot of fight. Had he known this was the purpose of Calder's interest in training, he would have laughed and informed Calder that it was beneath a Stormborn male to fight with a female unless first attacked. Of course he knew that Calder and Kazul did not get along and he had a vague idea it had something to do with which of them was his favorite offspring, but the whole matter seemed pointless to him. It wasn't as if being his favorite would win them anything other than being his favorite. A warlord won his position through strength, and sometimes cleverness. Not family connections. "Yes," Aesir agreed. The warlord really didn't whine. Not seriously anyway. He might mimic whining when in the company of friends and making fun of someone who was known to whine, but that was about it. He didn't really even complain all that much. He was in a position to effect changes if he wanted to, and so there was little point in complaining about things that he could actually change. Sometimes he would wheedle, which could sound similar but had a wholly different purpose. "How is your mother?" he asked to pass the time. He had seen but little of Raven since she came to the pride. He thought the arrangement suited both of them. Calder His mother? He didn't know how his mother was doing. That made Calder pause in his steps and turned to look at his father. "I haven't seen her for quite some time. I don't know how she's doing," he said, sighing heavily. Calder felt like a bad kid because of it, but once he came here, he was focused on training, beating his sister and proving to her once and for all that he could be every bit as good as she was. He wasn't even a Reaver. He couldn't go on Vikings like his father or the other Reavers. It was kind of disappinting his father hadn't taken him on one yet. Whatever, his day would come one day. "I suppose I should pay her a visit soon, but I don't have the time right now." He sighed and looked up at the sky, which was cloudless and stupidly bright. Why couldn't it rain? That would help him out a lot with the heat he was radiating because of his darker colors. His father must be dying if he was this hot. "So you're a grandpa now, what do you think about that?" He asked, arching a brow, pulling head of his father for now. It wasn't a race, but sometimes Calder didn't like to follow. He really liked to lead. Something he wanted to show his father every chance he got. Yes, it was late for this, like everything with the boy. "Who even is the mother of the cubs? I didn't remember anybody ever being interested in having cubs or having finding a girl."
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Posted: Tue May 29, 2012 11:38 am
Aesir "No? She went to great trouble in your youth to make sure she would not lose you, you know." Aesir had been more than a little annoyed by her initial arrival for it had made matters awkward everywhere, but he could not help respecting Raven's determination. Aesir did suffer in the heat, it was true, with his thick dark coat, but there were sufficient advantages to his coat that he did not usually deign to notice the times when it made him uncomfortable. Besides, being overheated was a problem which could be dealt with simply enough. There was a great deal of water around the pride, after all. And it wasn't as if the pride was even all that hot, compared with some of the places Aesir had traveled on vikings. "I'm proud of Herryk." With a sly grin because he knew his next words would irritate Calder he went on, "At least one of my offspring has shown an interest in doing his duty by the pride and producing cubs. Reavers ought to have sons before they leave, in case they never return." Aesir blinked in surprise at his last statement. He hadn't realized he felt that way until the words were out of his mouth. That was unexpected. It wasn't going to change the way he did things though. He certainly wasn't about to forbid cubless reavers from going viking. That would do the pride more harm than good. "As I understand it, Herryk took an outlander to wife. I assume you've not seen your nieces and nephews either?" Calder Amazing. His father had managed to make his mood go from up to down and his footing to faulter when he said that. Now it felt like he had to have kids to have his father's full attention. Kids, be good at fighting, somehow manage to beat out all of his siblings in this stupid competition that was probably all in his head. It was just not what he needed to hear right now. Calder was amazingly self-centered and callous. He didn't remotely try to get along with anyone in the pride other than his father. He hadn't gone to see his mother in many moons, he hadn't even seen the new family members, nor did he really want too. He wanted to become strong and powerful so his father would only look at him. He wanted to be the only one his father had any pride it. Naturally Calder didn't realize how dangerous of a path this was, but he wasn't about to say that out loud. "No, I haven't seen them. I have barely spoken to any siblings since I realized I needed to train. I'm focusing on that right now." Had he disappointed his father by not taking a wife and having cubs? Was he really a bad son by not wanting these things? They would get in the way of what he planned to do with his life. Doing them would mean he would have to split his attention, and he felt he couldn't afford that right now. He hadn't taken the mint offered because it would affect his training. He slept only three hours a day so he could do some of the moves by himself. Everything he'd worked for; the praise, the acceptence, was it now over because of cubs?
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Posted: Tue May 29, 2012 12:03 pm
Aesir "Ah," was all Aesir had to say to Calder's excuses that he had to train, and that he was focusing on that. It pleased the warlord that three of his sons had shown interest in becoming reavers or more within the pride. That Calder had been the first of his viking-born sons to express such an interest had placed Calder in a unique position, since it had been generally assumed that the trueborn sons would at least become reavers if not captains. None of this made all that much difference to Aesir, however, who was now feeling vaguely let down that Calder seemed to be like Arik and Hroarr in that he was incapable of working toward more than one goal at a time. Of course, Aesir had no idea how powerful Calder's desire to be the favorite actually was, and had he known that might have made some difference, but it still would have been a small one. "We are nearly to the stream," he observed. In the same tone he went on, "Your family is important, Calder. Both sides of it. I won't live forever, and when I die, you may find that they are...advantageous."
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Posted: Sat Jul 07, 2012 2:39 pm
This whole meeting had turned into an odd one. The energy just felt off and he didn't like it. Maybe Calder had more of his mother in him than he thought. Frowning deeply to himself, he nodded at his father's words and sighed. He didn't like thinking about his father dying. He didn't like thinking about any of his family dying, honestly. They were his family. All he had because he didn't take a wife or have cubs. Maybe he should though.
There weren't that many good looking females in the pride that interested him. Swallowing a little, he kept his head down and his eyes forward, focused on their path. Captain would be a good position for Calder. Perhaps that's what he was trying to get to. One day he would be there. One day he would take over this pride and put Aesir's blood back on the thrown. He had a feeling that someone without Aesir's blood was going to take over the pride, and he did not like that in the least bit.
"..... Perhaps if you could find a female who'd challenge me body and mind I'd take her as a wife, but for the most part these females are too.... wild or dainty. I do not see any that interest me, personally."
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Posted: Sun Jul 08, 2012 12:39 pm
"What? Me find you a female?" Aesir laughed, but not unkindly. "Son, I am absolutely positive that you do not want me to do that."
He continued, grinning, "For that matter, there have been two females in my life who have challenged me body and mind, as you put it, and they have both been nothing but trouble ever since. And don't even get me started on the cubs those lionesses produced. Best thing I've ever done in my life, sire those cubs."
It was an unusual expression of sentiment from Aesir, and he probably would not utter another such thing for weeks and months, except possibly to his dragon-child, as he still called Kazul. A part of him wished very much that she was enough of a fighter to challenge him for the warlordship. He thought she would make a good warlord, one who would lead shrewdly. As someone who did not consider intelligence one of his greater strengths, Aesir had always valued it in others and been ridiculously pleased that most of his cubs had inherited their mothers' intelligence.
"If you really want, I can arrange a marriage for you." Aesir had no problem with arranged marriages. He just hadn't given any thought to putting his offspring into them. He'd assumed they would wish to choose their own mates.
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Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2012 2:10 am
Calder didn't have any interest in females right now, so he thought it would be best for his father to pick for him. He'd given the male the only things he wanted in a female, so he'd let it fall upon Aesir's shoulders to pick a good match for him. Looks weren't important to him; often times they got scared up if they were a Reaver. Battling to get into the pride was hard, from what he'd witnessed. The Reavers, sometimes, didn't go very easy on the newcomers, which was good, in his opinion. The harder the fight, the stronger addition you were if you won.
Either way, they were talking about arranging a marriage for him. "I would rather you do it. If it was up to me I would be single until I got what I wanted. That could take a while, too," he murmured, sighing softly and glancing at his father.
The expression of sentiment didn't go unnoticed, but he'd prefer not to say anything about it unless the Warlord took it back. He just smirked instead and shrugged, sighing heavily. Cubs weren't in his immediate interests. He really, really wanted to be better than Kazul was. He wanted to be the best cub that Aesir had, out of any litter. It was a little unhealthy, the way Calder wanted to be in his father's eyes. Calder wanted Aesir to only see him, to only talk about him. He wanted to be the absolute best. The strongest, the fastest, the one that made Aesir the most proud.
Where all this came from, he wasn't sure. He wouldn't change it, though.
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Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2012 8:57 am
Wait. What? Calder seriously wanted Aesir to find him a mate? The Warlord was actually stunned into silence, though fortunately his son was still speaking so the silence wasn't all that noticeable. To further disguise it, Aesir lowered his head and lapped at the stream even though the slower pace they'd taken to reach the stream had given him plenty of time to recover his energy and he was no longer thirsty.
"All right," Aesir agreed. "I will do my best to come up with some suitable candidates for you, Calder."
The very first thing he intended to do was to have Morrigan consult the bones about the matter. She probably wouldn't like being asked to work her priestess magic on the behalf of one of his bastards, but Aesir so rarely asked her to do anything beyond her official duties, surely she would not begrudge him this one request. He could also ask a different priestess, if it came down to it. At least one of his daughters was training for that profession, too.
"You should start looking for a captain to go viking with," he told his son. "I think you're ready, and you should get some experience."
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Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2012 3:35 pm
He had stunned his father into silence? That was something that didn't happen all that often. Just because Calder was talking didn't mean he didn't notice the lack of his father talking. He tilted his head and watched his father drink before he dipped his head and did the same. This was quite the uncomfortable silence.
When Aesir started talking again, Calder looked up and nodded a little at him before sighing. He didn't know what method of match-making his father would use, but he trusted the Warlord to know what would be a good match for his sons, even if he was a b*****d. It kind of pissed him off that he was still considered that. Rubbing his tongue along his muzzle to clean off the water drops from his whispers, Calder thought a moment as he shifted his weight from paw to paw. He seemed to be contemplating really hard about something.
Was it a bad idea to ask his father to do this for him? If it were left up to Calder he would never find a mate. He had no drive to right now. He had no drive for a family, even though he knew blood meant a lot here. Strength in numbers.
But then his father started talking again and those pale eyes focused in his father's face before a smile cracked. "Alright then. I'll look for a captain today." He laughed at that and shook his head. So much praise from his father in such a short time. Was the male ill? He prayed to the gods that wasn't the case.
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