Ru had not seen Kazul for several days. Not since the day she had come to the sparring sands and revealed that her pregnancy was none of his doing. Prior to that conversation, Ru had not failed to notice her condition, but he had been operating under the assumption that it was the result of the fooling around they had done before he left to lead his first viking as a captain.

This lack of communication and interaction had not been Ru's idea. He had, in fact, attempted to talk to Kazul every day except this one, when the Warlord's arrival had interrupted the brooding session which had come to precede his venture up the hill to Kazul's den. Not once had Ru succeeded in finding her either at home or elsewhere. Disappearing in plain sight had always been a talent of hers, and she must have been exercising it in the past week to avoid him.

In truth, Kazul was wishing that she could see Ru, but she did not think that he would want to see her. Had their positions been reversed, she would not have wanted to see him. Okay, that wasn't quite true. For some time she had believed that their positions actually were reversed, and that he had found someone else he preferred to her, and even so she had missed him too much after his long absence to remain angry and aloof.

Besides, she'd gone and gotten pregnant and she couldn't wait to show that off to him and hurt him as much as he'd hurt her. At least, that had been the plan, but at first he hadn't even said anything about her rounding belly and they had just carried on as if nothing had happened. She had eventually forced a confrontation.

And now she was hiding. It was cowardly and she knew it, but she really did not think Ru would want to see her, and a part of her was afraid to see how he would look at her now that he knew she had been with another lion. Disgust or hatred would be bad. Indifference would be worse though. Obviously she had no idea that he had been trying to see her.

In the end, Ru ran out of time. Aesir's visit to his den that morning and the ultimatum he had issued had forced Ru to take action. Because subconsciously he may have been allowing Kazul to avoid him, but he could not do that any longer. He would be leaving the pride the next morning and he did not know if he would ever return. He would not leave without seeing her.

"Find her," he growled at a thrall. "I don't care if you have to enlist every thrall in the pride. I want to talk to her now."

The thrall ran, fleeing the darkness in his eyes and the threat of violence which would take place should he fail in his assigned chore. In an acceptably short time a different thrall returned and informed him that Kazul had been located, but she was in an inaccessible spot and would not be budged. Ru followed the thrall, muttering imprecations all the while about stubborn, pig-headed females.

"I thought that if I told the thrall I didn't wish to see anyone, they would understand that you are included in that," Kazul said, squinting up at Ru from her perch.

It really was an inaccessible spot, one occasionally used by reavers guarding the beach entrance because it was too high to jump to from the beach below and could only be reached from above if a lion slid down a sheer cliff face. The only way down was to jump onto the beach. It had been her favorite spot to disappear to for much of her life, when it wasn't occupied by reavers on sentry duty.

"Nice spot," he muttered, wondering if she had picked it because she knew he didn't care for heights or sheer drops. "I'm sorry if you don't want to see me, but I want to see you."

He swallowed hard as he looked down the cliff at the dark green figure below. He knew he could make it from his present location to the ledge Kazul occupied, but only if she was willing to shift to allow him space to place his paws at the end of his slide. He gave himself no time to consider the possibility that she would not allow him space and dropped, twisting so that his claws scored the already much-marked cliff face.

"Please," he said, keeping himself to the wall with the strength of his coiled muscles while Kazul decided whether or not she would move. "It is important."

Kazul was no longer angry at Ru. That had faded almost instantly when she learned how she had been played for a fool by her former thrall. She did not leave him hanging long. Unlike the captain, Kazul liked heights and steep drop-offs, and so she moved far more gracefully and sure-footedly than he did in re-settling herself on the narrow ledge.

"I'm sorry," she told him at almost the same time he told her, "I'm leaving."

"No! You can't!" she exclaimed, horrified. "I have no right to ask you to stay, but...please, Ru. Don't."

Ru edged closer to her and touched his nose to hers. "I don't have a choice. Your father has given me an impossible quest to complete that I cannot refuse."

Kazul moved forward until she could tuck her head under Ru's chin and sighed. She was not going to cry. Not now. She had never cried in front of Ru before and she was not going to begin at this point in her life. Besides, she was not the one being sent into danger.

"I'll come with you," she murmured.

Laughter rumbled in her ear as she pressed against him and he chuckled. "I don't think he'll allow that. This quest is to prove that I am worthy of you."

"No!" she protested. "I never asked for this. And you...you don't need to do this. Not for me. I'll tell my da to take it back."

Ru's laughter rumbled against her ear again before he shifted to lick her ear and cover one of her paws with one of his. "Kazul, I have spent most of my life in this pride trying to find the thing that would make me worthy of you. I should be thanking him."

"But, Ru. I...How can you be willing to do this even after everything I've done?" She was perilously close to crying now, but with her face buried in his dark mane it was almost safe to do so. He would not see or feel it. Probably.

As it turned out, Ru was always very aware of Kazul whenever they were together and she could not hide something like sobbing from him. Not when they were so close and touching at so many points. He hated that they had been brought to this, even though he didn't know how, exactly, it had happened.

He was also aware of the words she wished to hear him speak, but he was reluctant to do so. Not because he did not have those feelings, but because he had been stopping himself from even thinking the words for so long, believing that he could not do so until he could claim her by doing so. That had evidently been a mistake, as his silence had given her cause to doubt him.

"Rakastan sinua," he told her, switching into the old Stormborn language of song and story. "Could we continue this conversation somewhere else?"

Kazul knew those words. She had been taught Old Stormborn as a cub and had done her due diligence translating the ancient sagas and ballads. Rakastan...sinua. Those words were spoken several times in them. Usually in tragedies, in situations very like this one. Why did it have to take extraordinary circumstances to bring the words out of Ru?

"As you wish," she told him as she leaped onto the sand below. Calling up she asked, "When do you leave?"

"Tomorrow morning, I'm told." He landed with a thud beside her.

"Then we still have some time. Thank the gods," she murmured. "I must talk to my father to see if this can be undone. I...do not think he will change his mind. Not if he wishes to save face. But I have to try."

Ru had similar doubts about her chances for success, but he appreciated that she was willing to make them. Really, though, his mind wasn't on that. He already knew that he would leave first thing in the morning because Aesir could not take back his challenge. Instead he was reflecting on the words he had spoken to Kazul and which she had not said to him in any language.

"Kazul," he said, stopping her before she could go to the warlord. "No one has asked you this, I think. Is this what you want, or would you rather I made no attempt to do as your father has asked and leave you the freedom to choose?"

She blinked and stepped so close that she could rest her cheek against his if he lowered his head. "Ru, I chose you ages ago. And while this is not the way I would have chosen to have my father acknowledge my choice, you had better come back. Or else I will come after you and drag you back by your mane or whatever other body part is most easily accessible. Ja?"

"After you've spoken to your father, find me," Ru asked. "We have more to discuss, I think."

"Yes," Kazul agreed. "I will find you."

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