Honning knew she really ought to consider finding herself a mate, since it did not seem either one of her parents was inclined to help her in this, but the fact was that it was difficult to choose. She knew she wanted a lion who could fight, but she didn't want someone who was all brawn and no brains. As far as outlander versus old blood, she didn't much care. Her mother was very old blood and her father was an outlander and she couldn't see how it made much difference with regard to the way she had turned out.
She was sort of daydreaming about the lion she would one day wed (who ever he turned out to be) when her attention was drawn by a familiar blue mane and octopus marking. Kraken. She had words to say to him.
"Kraken," she called, capturing his attention before he vanished again. "Come here. I want to talk to you."
Intrigued, Kraken excused himself from his conversation with his brother's adoptive father and went over to talk to the golden lioness. Honning, his mind automatically supplied. He knew every lion in the pride by sight, and for many of them he could recite their lineage for up to five generations. Honning's was easy, since her father was an outlander and nobody bothered to learn the names of outlanders' parents. It was just her mother's line that he had to know, and that was easy simply because there were so many lions in the pride with similar ancestry.
"Honning," he greeted her. "It is a good day to die."
"Isn't it though?" she replied in a noncommittal way that put the young lawspeaker instantly on his guard. She could see his expression grow wary and she had the choice between softening him up or just coming in hard. She was a Stormborn. The choice was easy.
Kraken, for his part, could see the moment Honning decided she wasn't going to play nicely for this encounter, and his ears twitched backward as if he would like to lay them flat against his skull, as a fighting reaver might do, but he didn't think she would physically attack him. Whatever it was he had done, he would probably only be hearing about it. He still wanted to protect his ears.
"Is there something I can do for you?" he asked, already knowing what the answer would be. Well, not exactly what the answer would be, but he could read her posture, tone, and expression well enough to surmise that what he could do for her was to sit there and take whatever verbal lashing she issued.
Honning narrowed her eyes at Kraken. He was approximately her age, but he never acted like it. He had been in training to be a lawspeaker for as long as she had known him, and it had always made him seem older than he was. That and the air of mystery surrounding his appearance in the pride had made him temporarily interesting to her when she was younger, but when she had learned he was basically little more than a miniature lawspeaker, his head crammed full of facts and not fun, she had given up on him
"I think you know what I'm going to say to you."
Kraken didn't flinch, but he didn't like hearing that, either. Every male knew that those words were not good omens. They only ever meant bad things coming because there was no correct response unless you really did know what the lioness was going to say. Otherwise you were forced to guess, and guessing wrongly only ever led to more trouble, either because you didn't know the correct answer, or because your wrong guess reminded her of something else that had made her angry.
"I would like to hear it from you, all the same. Unless I know what your thoughts and feelings are, I don't feel qualified to make any sort of official statement." In other words, he had no clue what her problem was, only that she had one, and he wasn't going to try to fake his way out of this and risk all of the aforementioned consequences.
Honning snorted and bared the tips of her fangs, conveying scorn. She could recognize what he was doing. Lawspeakers tended to be a somewhat effeminate lot, speaking so carefully that they were almost like women in their refusal to simply commit to something until every possible angle had been reviewed. Not that Honning felt there was anything wrong with being female, but for a male to behave like that just didn't seem right. She would never marry a lawspeaker, she decided on the spot.
"Fine. If that's the way you want to do this, we can do it like that. I heard about what you did to Khozar."
Kraken frowned and repeated somewhat stupidly, "What I did...to Khozar. I had some mint with him and when he passed out I saw to it he made it home safely instead of leaving him on the beach to be eaten by crabs or washed away."
"Of course you would see it like that. Did you consider how he might feel in the morning? And I know you did it deliberately because he was insulting lawspeakers or something stupid like that. I overheard the two of you arguing before." So there. Try to come up with something to justify that.
Kraken sighed. This was easily the stupidest argument he'd been in since he was a cub. And if she was going to argue like a cub, he could retaliate in a similar manner.
"Why do you care what I do with Khozar? Are you in love with him or something? I can't think of any other reason for you to take so much interest in how that night turned out, and how sick he felt the next morning which - by the way - was entirely his fault, since he is completely aware of the effects of mint." He smirked.
It was the smirk that did it. Probably Honning could have dragged herself into a more logical and reasonable argument had Kraken not finished his ridiculous supposition with a knowing smirk. She let out a strangled cry of frustration and sent one paw darting out to cuff him across the ear before turning and stalking away, muttering that he was an a*****e. How dare he move so that she missed?
Kraken watched her go, glad that he'd moved out of the way of her paw and baffled by the entire exchange, which seemed utterly pointless to him. Women were, he decided, entirely too enigmatic to attempt to figure out, and he was not going to try.
Word count: 1,123
