Kazul did not know whether she was furious with her father or merely angry. How dare he make the assumption that Ru was the father of her as-yet unborn cubs, and then decide that the appropriate action was to send him into exile? Okay, so he hadn't actually sent Ru into exile, but sending him off on some sort of quest to prove himself worthy of her was no better.
"Da!" she called, striding into the warlord's den without any hesitation or concern that she might not be welcome. She was her father's favorite daughter and she had a bone to pick with him. "Are you at home?"
There was, of course, the possibility that he was not in the den. He was the warlord and he had things to do. However, Kazul was not in the mood to go chasing him hither and yon throughout the pride. If he wasn't here, she would grab a thrall and have them bring him to her. And if he refused to come, well, Kazul could be unpleasant and bratty when she wanted to be, even if she was out of practice by now.
Fortunately for everyone involved, Aesir was at home, and Kazul only had to call him twice to convince him that she was serious in wanting to talk to him. Actually, he'd figured it out from the first, but he'd waited to present himself until her second summons, just in case the matter wasn't all that urgent.
"Ja, Kazul. I'm here." He was neither so stupid nor so unobservant that he could not tell for himself that something was very much the matter, and so he did not ask her if something was wrong. Instead he cut to the chase and asked, "What's gotten your tail in a twist?"
Kazul glowered at her father, irritated that he seemed to be attempting to trivialize her perfectly reasonable anger by using a cute cubsy expression to describe her mood. She did no more than glower though, because she knew her father well enough to take her cue from him. Her mother had taught her that.
If he was thinking of her as his daughter, specifically as his little girl and still a cub, that might be a little insulting. She could choose to be insulted or she could choose to acknowledge that she would get farther with him by not throwing a temper tantrum. She needed to get him to look at her and treat her like a rational adult.
"Da, I need to talk to you about Ru."
Aesir's eyes narrowed at the mention of the captain he had been to see earlier that day. He surmised that the two of them had spoken and, since he was feeling uncharitable toward Ru at the moment he was certain that the captain had told her what had taken place in the most unflattering light possible and left out any statement of personal responsibility.
"Ja? Has he come forward to acknowledge those cubs he put in your belly?" he asked.
Until this moment he and Kazul had never really spoken about the matter. He had not failed to notice her increasing girth and he was not so stupid that he mistook it for overeating, but he had not felt ready to deal with the issue of a pregnant, unmated daughter. Some lions, he knew, would have disowned her for such a thing, while others would have been indifferent. Aesir did not really tend toward either extreme, and so the entire matter had gone unremarked upon between them.
"Actually, Da, he hasn't, and I don't expect that he will. Certainly I would not ask him to."
"Because you love him and want to protect him? I assure you, no one doubts that he is the father, and your willingness to hide that fact does him no favors. It merely casts him in a coward's light."
Kazul resisted the urge to give in to her temper and yell at her father. If you were going to yell at Aesir, you'd best be able to yell louder and longer than he could, otherwise you were more likely to meet with success if you kept your cool and your temper. As Kazul could never match her father for volume or intensity or duration, she would have to resort to less aggressive measures.
"So you're sending him on some quest to prove that he's worthy of me because you think it will save his reputation by making him seem like he was hoping to ennoble himself before saying anything? Was that your reasoning?"
There hadn't been a great deal of reasoning behind Aesir's decision, in truth, but the explanation Kazul offered sounded a hell of a lot better than admitting he had acted in fury and done the first thing he could think of that wouldn't send Ru down the same path he'd followed when he became warlord. Not that he expected Kazul would be willing to poison him for Ru, but you could never trust a coward.
"It did not seem likely to me that he was going to do the right thing. After all, he has been aware of your condition since returning from his viking and he has not come to me with any request for a betrothal." That sounded logical and sensible to Aesir.
"He's not." She stopped. Did she want to admit this? What if her father hated her? Craven thoughts. She dismissed them. "Ru isn't the father of my litter. Think about it, Da. I'm not far enough along for him to be the father."
Aesir's pupils dilated even as his eyes narrowed and his nostrils flared. This was definitely not the sort of news he wanted to hear. If it was a lie she was telling to protect Ru, that was infuriating. If it was the truth, well, that could be a problem. He did some quick figuring so that he wouldn't lash out verbally at his daughter, when it had obviously taken courage for her to tell him this. She was right. Ru couldn't have been the father.
"I see. I had not done the reckoning. I merely assumed that since he was the only lion I knew you to express any interest in. Well. Who is the father?" It was unbelievably difficult to remain calm and rational in the face of this news, but this was his dragon child. He had never struck her. To his knowledge, no one ever had. Suddenly another thought occurred to him.
"You weren't forced, were you?" Aesir was filled with righteous fury at whatever lion may have done so.
"No, Da," Kazul said wearily, sensing her father's barely contained rage. "I was not forced. But all the same I do not know who the father is. The situation is more complicated than I care to explain, and I'm not here to do so."
She wasn't? No. She'd said she was here to talk to him about Ru, and since Ru apparently was not the father of her cubs then she could not be here to talk to him about that. So that conversation would have to wait for another time. He was already not looking forward to it.
"Right. Well, what is it about Ru that we need to discuss?" he asked, setting aside his completely justified ire to deal with his daughter like a calm, rational person. Being calm and rational even when dealing with infuriating people was also part of a warlord's duties, so at least Aesir had practice.
Kazul took a deep breath. "You can't send him away. Not knowing that he isn't really the father."
s**t. Aesir hadn't even considered that. It really wasn't fair for him to send Ru on that quest. But Ru hadn't protested at the time. Aesir wondered if that meant he didn't know he wasn't the father, or if he knew and was too intimidated to say so. Or maybe there was something more to it. Something emotional. Aesir wasn't so good at dealing with others' emotions. He could barely handle his own when they ran too high.
"Kazul, I can't undo what I've done. By now most of the pride probably knows that Ru has been given this task, though I've not said why in the hopes that it will spare your reputation at least."
"Please, Daddy," Kazul said beseechingly.
"If I take it back, I look weak," he told her, shifting uncomfortably. "With the things some of the pride have been saying about me as a leader recently, I can't afford that."
Kazul understood. She did. But that didn't mean she had to like it. Because she didn't. And she wasn't willing to give up. After a moment's frowning thought she asked, "Isn't there some way you can make his quest easier? For that matter, what have you told him to do? I haven't heard."
Aesir's head hurt. This was a colossal mistake, and although Kazul might seem to be understanding now, and willing to not fuss, he still felt awful. He sighed.
"I told him to find ten lions who would follow him into death, a god's feather, a sea monster's tooth, a piece of the sky, and a jewel from the pirate king's treasure."
Kazul stared dumbfounded. Any one of those things except the first should have been nearly impossible on its own. The combination had turned Ru's quest from difficult to impossible. That had clearly been the idea. Even the first one would come with difficulty if Aesir had let it be known that Ru was undertaking this quest because the warlord was displeased with him. It was one thing to follow a captain into battle with outlanders. It was another to publicly pledge to follow the captain rather than the warlord.
"Oh, Da," she breathed when at last she found her voice.
Word Count: 1,644
