[PRP] Ouch (Mirsajadi & Arezoo)

[Princess_Feylin]

We'll see, Mirsajadi had said to himself when his beybanu Arezoo turned up undeniably pregnant. When he said that, he'd meant that he intended to wait to see what the cubs she bore looked like. Rather, he intended to wait to see who the cubs she bore looked like.

He could not help but suspect that the cubs would not be his. He had been trying for seasons and seasons with both of the lionesses in his harem and neither had previously shown any signs of pregnancy. It just didn't seem likely that Zoey would suddenly be pregnant after all this time. Which meant the cubs in her belly probably weren't his.

Now that he was looking at the six sleeping cubs, he wanted to claim them as his. Their markings and coloration were an equal mix of his own and Zoey's, all of them fine-looking. But there was one problem with that. He had a brother. Actually he had several, but one of them in particular looked enough like him that if he bred with someone of Zoey's coloring, his cubs would look much the same.

And Raja was enough of an arse that he'd do it, too. Probably he'd think he was doing Mirsajadi a favor by contributing his superior blood and seed and preventing the pride from finding out that Mirsajadi was infertile. Better to be infertile than a cuckold though.

Mirsajadi's eyes narrowed  

[Buffy_the_Bloody]

The blue lioness had undergone a lot of neglect.. She was ignored, and it was like she didn't exist. She had told him she was pregnant, and she had felt like that might reverse what was going on in their lives. That was all she needed right? He would be happy to see she had bore him a litter.

Arezoo was a proud female.. She had always had her head in the clouds, but she was productive, and did as she was told. She had loved Mirsajadi all her life. Even before she had known she loved him. But that love was being used against her, it seemed.. Or at least that was how she felt. She was loyal, and the thoughts of being with another had never even sort of crossed her mind. She loved Mirsa too much..

She nosed each of the sleeping creatures gently, nuzzling them goodnight. When she raised her head, her blue eyes caught hold of golden ones. She gulped, and felt her heart freeze in her chest. He never so much as looked at her, and here he was.. Staring at the litter she had bore him.

"Pad Mirsajadi." She said, bowing her head. She had gone back to being formal with him, afraid of what he might say should she try touching him.  

[Princess_Feylin]

If he had been a weaker lion Mirsajadi might have flinched or reacted in some way to Zoey's greeting. After all, he knew she had loved him for a long time. Since before he left to find Aylin, and probably longer than that. It wasn't any great stretch to imagine that she had taken it upon herself to guess what was causing him to ignore her. That much ought to be obvious to anyone who wasn't completely moronic, and Zoey wasn't that.

But it wasn't much of a stretch of the imagination to guess that after figuring out that much, Zoey might have decided she could please him by getting pregnant, no matter how. As if he wouldn't care that the cubs he raised weren't his. It had been, perhaps, an act of love, and maybe Mirsajadi would have been able to appreciate it as such had she chosen any other lion, but she had very obviously chosen Raja, his sibling who looked the most like him and who was his greatest rival.

He could never forgive that sort of betrayal.

"They're not mine, are they?" he said.

It was the first time he had spoken to her since she gave him the news of the pregnancy. When she told him she was pregnant, he had only looked at her and nodded. Even then he had been suspicious, innately, and he had good instincts. He even had visions, by the gods. How could something he was so certain of be wrong? The answer was, of course, that it couldn't. He had reached that conclusion and then decided the best course of action was to ignore Zoey throughout the pregnancy.

Unfortunately for Zoey, no matter how she answered, she couldn't win.  

[Buffy_the_Bloody]

The first words he had spoken to her in what felt like months.. and they caused her to flinch. She blinked a moment, staring at him in disbelief.

"Of course they are yours. What do you mean?" She asked, clearly confused. It was never in Zoey's mind to cheat on Mirsa. Ever. She loved him so devotedly, that she kept herself busy pleasing Mirsa as much as she could. She didn't have time between that and her duties to do much else. Cheating was out of the question..

"How could you ask me that?" She asked, and the hurt was in her eyes. Why, one of the children looked exactly like him. He was the exact copy of the male standing before her. How could he deny such a cub? .. How could he think such awful things of her?

It stung her heart, and she stood there, frozen..  

[Princess_Feylin]

Her lie came so readily. So quickly. It hurt. Mirsajadi hadn't expected it to hurt. When he first realized she had been unfaithful, Mirsajadi had tried to justify it to himself and had almost managed to do so, but the overwhelming evidence that the cubs had to be Raja's coupled with her quickness to protest and proclaim her innocence...He couldn't forgive her for that.

And because she had hurt him, he lashed out and hurt her back. "What do you think I mean? You're not stupid. Conniving and unfaithful, perhaps, but not stupid."

He gestured toward the cubs with his tail. They were beautiful and hale and healthy. A large litter that a pad ought to be proud of, even if there were more banu than pesar in it. That wasn't what he was looking at though. He was waiting for her to see what he had seen so easily. The resemblance between the cubs and his brother. When she just stood there, frozen and pretending to be shocked by his conclusion, his ruby eyes narrowed further.

"Did you think I was stupid? That I wouldn't figure out that you had sex with my brother just so that you could have cubs?"

Mirsajadi was in no humor to bide his time and plan the perfect revenge for how she had wronged him as he would have done with anyone else. This scenario was unlike any other he could have been in anyway. Zoey was the only person other than his mother who had ever claimed to love him, and as such she was the only one who could offer him this level of betrayal. He wasn't sure that even he could conceive of a punishment cruel enough.  

[Buffy_the_Bloody]

Okay, so it finally being said she really wished she could have gone back to just thinking it. Her heart shattered into a million pieces at his words. She stared at him in disbelief, the betrayal she felt from him burning her up from the inside.

"Never once have I been unfaithful. I am hardly conniving. Your accusations are completely false."

She tried to speak as if she was dignified, but in truth she was doing her best not to burst into tears. She was failing a bit, as her eyes were starting to well up and she had to clear her throat and blink a few times to sober up.

"How dare you accuse me of such things. How dare you. I would never go outside of your embrace. The fact that you could think such a thing of me is ludacris. How could you think.. so little of me, Mirsa?"

She asked, and by the end her voice had trailed off and gotten very soft. How could he think this of her? Did he know what he was condemning her to? Cheating, she could be labeled as a whore.. Father would be horrified.. As would her family. All on nothing. She felt her stomach twist, and she tried hard not to vomit. Thankfully it wasn't in vain.  

[Princess_Feylin]

Buffy_the_Bloody

"Why do you continue to lie to me?" Mirsajadi asked. "Do you think that repetition will make you any more believable?"

He still wasn't snarling, or doing anything that would show an outside observer that he was barely containing his emotions. It had been a long time since Mirsajadi had been so nearly overcome by emotion. At the time it had been significantly more pleasant emotions threatening to overwhelm him than the ones he felt right now. Pride and pleasure were so much better than hurt and hatred.

And then it occurred to him: the perfect way to punish his beybanu for her infidelity and lies. He might have smirked at his own brilliance, but that would have spoiled the effect of his next words.

"I will not live with a faithless bint like you, and when they are old enough, I will leave and take one of them with me."

He paused in his warning. What he had just threatened would create an enormous upset in the pride. He ought to have considered the ramifications there. But then he remembered that if he was leaving, the ramifications were someone else's problem. That finally did bring his smirk to the surface.

"Understand: you will never see that cub again. So in the next weeks you should spend as much time with those cubs as you can."  

[Buffy_the_Bloody]

"My words are not lies!" She found herself exclaiming. She kept her tone hushed, thankful this was in private and not a public display. She would have her name soiled. She would never again be the Zoey that she had always been. The vizier's prized daughter, and the niece to the king. She would be considered trash. A kajira, most likely, if she had been condemned as an adulterer.

She saw the hate in his eyes, and she knew he saw nothing at all in hers.. Nothing. She had loved him with all her heart, and he was betraying her love with such passion that she felt as if someone had just struck the wind from her lungs. She tried to catch her breath, but she felt dizzy.. She felt like she was going to pass out right here, right now, though she wasn't positive he wouldn't kill her anymore.. No she wasn't sure of anything. He had become someone she didn't know, and that fairy tale dream she had, had been shattered.

"Don't you dare call me names, Mirsajadi. Ever. Do not threaten me either. I am not some meek little girl that means nothing to anyone. I did nothing to deserve this, and you not wanting to claim those cubs as your own is your problem, not mine, or theirs." Her tone was one she had never taken with him before. A warning tone that came when someone threatened a mother or her children. One she had never expected to have.

"How dare you threaten to take one of these cubs that you will not even claim. You have become a monster, Mirsa.. A monster that I just don't understand how I ever loved."

She found herself growing a bit of a backbone now, her heart broken, she could only take so much.

"You do what you need to. But as of this moment, I am no longer yours.." Her words brought tears to her eyes. She didn't feel like she wanted to leave him. She wanted him to turn right now, and tell her he was sorry.. Tell her that he knew she could never do something as sinister as this. But she knew deep down that he had made his decision, and he had made it before she had even grown pregnant with these cubs.  

[Princess_Feylin]

Mirsajadi didn't react as Arezoo repeated herself. Repeated her lies. The first time he heard her tell him that she had been faithful and professed how his accusation hurt her, that had been the most difficult time. After so much repetition though, Mirsajadi found that he had become numb to it. And that was for the best. It was absolutely for the best. He didn't feel anything at this point. Hatred or otherwise. If she saw hatred in his expression, she imagined it.

"At last you're telling the truth."

It wasn't quite a confession, that declaration that she was no longer his, but it was enough for Mirsajadi. He only wished that she could have come forward and told him that truth sooner. If she had been honest from the start, it was unlikely he would have been thrilled with her, or even forgiven her, but he would have understood the feminine weakness that led her to commit adultery and he would have taken the necessary steps to ensure that there was no scandal.

"You haven't been mine for some time, it seems. Don't expect to hurt me with your ridiculous posturing. It neither fools nor frightens me. The cubs were born in my den and you claim they are mine. I can do with them what I wish."

He smiled then. An easy, relaxed smile as if they had not just been discussing the utter destruction of their relationship and family. "For that matter, I can do with you what I wish, too. No matter how distasteful I find the thought of touching used goods, in the eyes of the pride you are mine. If you don't give me what I want, I am within my rights to take it."

He gave her a significant look. "Be glad that I am only taking a cub. I could take much more from you. Think about that."

That was all he had to say to her. He had told her his suspicions. She had confirmed them, first with lies and then by her own admission. He had told her what he planned, had warned her about the consequences of further rebellion. The matter was taken care of as far as he was concerned.