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 Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2013 9:32 pm
A perfect wife has the perfect cubs. Proud, fluffy males who don't complain about the cold and aren't afraid of the sight of blood. They are not interested in tales, poetry. They top the other boys by a few months old.
Whose wife was perfect?
The New Warlord's, apparently. If Freyja did not know better, she would assume that Kondo himself was willing to be underneath the tall, strong beast of a Warlord. It seemed that she could not stop hearing about the subtle, small ways the Warlord excelled. Freyja did have to admit, he had iron in his blood. He knew where a woman's place was, and it was not fighting.
It did not stop the slight bit of animosity that curled and writhed up her throat at the sight of the Warlord's cub. Or, one of them anyway. There were others, somewhere. Her eyes watched him for a moment, surveying what he was doing. You had to be careful with cubs - their mouths went on for hours. In fact, one might say it was wiser not to get caught up with cubs at all.
"What are you up to, small warrior?" she asked him, shifting on the rock she lay until her weight rested heavily on her left shoulder.
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Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2013 10:07 pm
It was a struggle to relate to the other cubs when he found adults more appealing as company. Since he wasn't overly aggressive, he was quiet and weird. No wonder his only friends were his own brothers and sisters. Thankfully, there were a lot of them, and Niklas got in his daily dose of playtime earlier.
He raised his head and searched for the speaker. Even at his age, he knew she was pretty. Simple concepts like that any cub would know. However, he hadn't yet comprehended he was supposed to think her a wife, a mother, a caretaker for thralls and nothing else. It had been told to him, but he was too young to soak up the information.
She was a pretty lioness in his father's pride. That was what he fully understood about her.
Shyly, he shuffled his paws around in the dirt. "Just looking at something," he said, peeking up at her from under his unruly mess of hair destined to become a mane.
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Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2013 10:15 pm
She was being baited by a cub. The Warlord's cub, no less.
Men baited her all the time, and when she had been younger, she had fallen for it. Now, she recognized the form even from a being who shared not even a sand-grain's worth of time on the earth with her.
Perfect wife.
Freyja smiled at him, her eyebrows raising with the edges of her muzzle. "Something?" She inquired.
"That sounds interesting." It was probably a shiny rock. That was what attracted children these days. "What is the something?"
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Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2013 10:28 pm
Pretty or not, Niklas felt on edge in the company of this almost-stranger. He didn't know why. But he did know she probably thought he was doing something dumb, like looking a rock, just because he was a cub. He would have guessed that's what it was too. There were so many of them everywhere that odds were in favor of it.
He called it "something" since there was no history of this thing in his memory. What the cub was shifting around on the ground was a string of beads, the kind one might see on the Dawnwalkers. How it got there was anyone's guess. Perhaps brought in by a thrall or dropped by reaver who returned with too much bounty to carry. Who knew?
Niklas grabbed the something and made his way to Freyja. It was ridiculous how adorable his struggle to get on the rock was. Outrageous he should be so darling when the only thing that kept him from being a murderer and thief was the very thing that kept him from knowledge: time.
He set the broken necklace down. "It's this thing."
A cub of few words, Niklas.
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Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2013 10:37 pm
Freyja watched his paws--so tiny--scratch at the earth. At such a distance she could not discern its shape.
So, she waited, letting him find his way up the rock on his own. It would have been wrong for her to help him. Every growing male cub should learn to do things on his own. Even at his age, accepting help from a woman who was not his mother was unacceptable.
Freyja knew her place. Had it been her own son, he would have struggled, too.
Her eyes alit on the broken necklace. They were odd, these beads. They were a shiny, polished pearl. Delicate. Not like the hard leather and wood that she was accustomed to gifting.
"Are you going to keep it?"
Freyja did not know why she found this particular question important, but in that moment, it was.
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Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2013 10:49 pm
Keep it? Hm...
Niklas rocked to one side to get a better look at the something without having to pace around for the new angle. For some reason, he always tried to move as little as possible around lions who weren't his immediate family. Keeping still made him less anxious.
By that logic, one might think he would not have approached her to start with, yet he did in the hopes she could put a name to this thing. It didn't bother him he had done nothing but answer questions so far. They made him think.
He didn't think he'd keep this. He didn't really need it. What use would it have? Niklas eyed the beads, pondering.
"Not really..." He looked at her, eyes curious and innocent. "Do you want it?"
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Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2013 10:59 pm
The immediate answer was no. Freyja had no use for a few smashed beads on a string she was surprised was still together.
'No,' had not come out of her mouth.
The lioness' head tipped downwards as she took a better look at the necklace. Kondo would have no use for something like this. It was a soft gift meant for a female friend: a sister, perhaps.
"No, thank you, little lord."
The words easily slipped from her tongue, and the thank you sounded sincere even to her own ears. Being offered a gift for no other reason than she wanted it was a strange sensation. Cubs were a strange sensation.
"Perhaps one of your sisters would like it?" she suggested. There had been girls in the litter. It was unfortunate. Their mentalities would weaken those of the boys, and in turn, the females would grow up knowing too much about fighting and war. Freyja hoped she had enough brains to separate the females from their brothers early.
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Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2013 11:18 pm
Niklas doubted his sisters could find a use for it. They weren't smarter than him (so he assumed), and if he didn't see one, why would they? The emotional impact of the gift was not a factor in his decision. He rarely took things like that into consideration.
When she said like, he heard need. His sisters did not need this thing.
"I don't think so." Niklas batted at the beads. Finally, a childlike action from this cub. Lacking any enthusiasm, but still, a gesture of youth. "I don't know what they'd do with it."
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Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2013 11:29 pm
Was she this dim as a cub? Freyja could not remember a day of her life where she was not thinking, where putting the pieces together did not consume her.
The past, being a cub, being young, was mostly emotion now. It existed as a pool of memories that smacked and bubbled when thought about too hard. It was hard to say if she had been a dumb cub, but she remembered feeling importance and the need to please.
Freyja laughed gently, feeling the situation absurd. It was easy to smile and laugh when things were absurd. Most were not aware such an emotion could be faked, nor did they have any reason to doubt such laughter. It was a woman's place to laugh when her husband said something he thought was wit, it did not matter if this laughter was sincere, only that it was done.
'Maybe they will find a use for it which you could not,' she wanted to tell him, but she did not. He, too, could find this out on his own. It was his parents job to raise him, not hers.
"Well," she eventually decided. "It is a very pretty something." And, it was. Perhaps he would not understand this concept, either.
"Perhaps I will accept your gift after all. Do you mind?"
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Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2013 11:39 pm
Niklas didn't agree. The round objects were discolored and ugly. And he had a feeling the cracks in them were not supposed to be there. Even if they were pretty, they had no use. A pretty sunrise meant that it was time for another day. A pretty lioness, like this one or his mother, could move and talk and work. It was not enough to just be pretty.
Niklas shook his head, once one way and once the other, slowly and with a small range of motion. "You can have it," he assured her. His voice was steady and predictable; nothing about it ever changed.
He turned and made his way to the edge of the rock. Climbing down was much easier than climbing up.
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Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2013 11:45 pm
Freyja did not touch the something, but let it sit there. The cub was already moving on, probably going somewhere with his lack of wit.
He will get older, she reminded herself. With his age, he would learn things. He was the son of a fine Warlord, it was hard to imagine him growing up to be anything but a Captain.
When he was finally out her sight, Freyja stood. Gold eyes flicking down to the jewelry, she examined it briefly. Then, she carefully set her paw down and gradually added weight.
She could feel the beads crack further, shards grinding into the rock beneath her paw. When she raised her foot once more, Freyja surveyed the dusty grind that had once been beads.
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