It was dark and the stars were shining brightly. Ordinarily Daffyd would not have thought anything of the stars, but it wasn't that ordinary in the Stormborn to actually see the things. That was about the extent of his interest in the things though: acknowledgement that he could see them when usually he could not. Then he went to sleep, because it was night and that was what he did at night.
For his daughter it was different. Earlier that evening she had gone out to watch the stars over the water with a lion she thought she might be in love with (or that a lawspeaker in training thought she might be in love with, at any rate). It had not gone well. In fact, it had turned out rather badly.
So Honning, still tearful after Khozar had abandoned her on the cliffs, made her way back to the pride proper. The idea of going home by herself was unbearable. After a night left alone in her empty den with only her thoughts for company, she might be flinging herself off the cliffs by morning, and while she was deeply unhappy, she wasn't suicidal.
Unfortunately, she didn't have all that many friends that she could turn to in her moment of despair, partly because of the late hour at which it had arrived. In fact, she was pretty much limited to family, and while she would have preferred any of her sisters, or her mother, or most members of her mother's extensive family to her father, his den was closest to her when her bleak mood became nearly overwhelming.
When she slipped into his den, Daffyd took several embarrassing seconds to realize that he had been visited by his grown up daughter, and not some amorous lady of the pride. Given the tearfulness, he was actually relieved by this discovery, since he would not have had the vaguest idea what to do about a crying random lioness turning up in his den. Probably he would have tried to console her with sex.
"What is the matter with you, girl?" he demanded. Compassion was not really his strong suit, but because this was his daughter he was making an effort. "Do you have any idea what time it is?"
Honning sniffled and moved closer to her father, putting behind her the fact that he had woken up and instinctively tried to put the moves on her. It was an honest mistake, given his lifestyle, and he hadn't been trying very hard. At another time she would have been mildly horrified, annoyed, and eventually amused. Right now she was just too unhappy to feel anything except woe and misery.
"I'm sorry. I just didn't have anywhere else to go!" she cried, flinging herself at him as the dramatic emphasis in her exclamation peaked. The den was too small for Daffyd to sidestep, so he was forced to curl around her as if he was offering comfort.
"You could have gone to your mother," he pointed out in a tone of voice that indicated his fervent hope that she would do just that, and leave him in peace. "I'm sure whatever your problem is, she's better-equipped to deal with it than I am."
And he was probably correct in his assessment. Honning knew that, too, but she was here now and the thought of continuing any further into the pride was insupportable, especially now that there was snot coming out of her nose and she was beginning to sob. What if someone saw her like that? She would just die of embarrassment. And heartbreak.
"I just need you to tell me you love me and that everything will be all right," she whimpered. With Daffyd it was best to tell him exactly what you wanted him to do and say, since he was unlikely to come up with the correct words or actions on his own. Particularly if they had anything to do with dealing with upset daughters' personal crises.
"Of course," he said, not actually doing either of the things he had been asked to do, but not tossing her from his den either. In fact, he even went so far as to ask her once again what was the matter in an uncharacteristic outpouring of paternal concern and affection that turned out to be exactly the right thing to say.
Honning shifted so that she was more comfortable and began her tale of woe and misery, starting with how she had observed the lawspeaker in training, Kraken, deliberately getting Khozar Outlander wretchedly drunk on mint because he felt he'd been insulted or something, and then gone to confront Kraken about his behavior, and Kraken had accused her of being in love with Khozar, and when she thought about it maybe he wasn't wrong because she did pay a lot of attention to the outlander even though they had never even spoken, so she tried talking to him and he was smart and had seen the world, and he loved his sister a huge amount, even though she wasn't really his sister because of something to do with his mother and her father and anyway he had asked her if she would like to look at the stars with him this evening because they would actually be visible which sounded like a date, right?
Here she paused for the first time and Daffyd, who had kind of given up trying to follow her, just nodded vaguely. He was pretty sure this had something to do with a boy, but he had suspected that from the beginning because, really, what else did females get upset over?
"So we were looking at the stars and then he said he wanted to not talk, and you know what that means, and I know it makes me sound kind of skanky, but I was okay with it because he just seemed so smart and sensitive and, well, I figured if he was so attracted to me that he couldn't help but say something like that, it had to be love."
In the time she spent sniffling Daffyd acted to cut short this excruciatingly long recitation: "So you had sex with him. I can't say I'm proud of you, but I'm not surprised."
Honning flinched at her father's words, even though they were spoken fairly gently. He didn't think much of females, viewing them as innately inferior to males, and so when they did stupid things he didn't really hold it against them. Honning didn't happen to agree with his opinion on females, but she at least understood what it was and knew not to let it hurt her feelings.
"Did he hurt you?" Daffyd really didn't want to be talking about the intimate details of sex with his daughter, but a smidgeon of fatherly instinct insisted that he make sure she wasn't injured.
"No. Well, yes, but not like that. After we, you know, he was really cold, and he said some horrible things. He even accused me, basically, of seducing him so that I would get pregnant and force him to marry me."
Daffyd had thought similar things about women, and he had actually been concerned that Honning's mother might do a similar thing to him when she discovered she was pregnant, but Naja had turned out not to be a total b***h and let him off the hook, basically. She had insisted that he be a part of his cubs' lives, but not that he marry her. He would always think kindly of her for that, even if he didn't intend to sleep with her ever again.
"That wasn't what you were doing though." His tone was somewhere between a statement and a question, which made Honning stiffen with outrage.
"Of course it wasn't. That's horrible. Only the worst kind of b***h would do that." On that they were agreed. "I just can't believe he would think such a thing of me. And the way he looked at me. It just hurts so much. I thought this would bring us closer, and that he wanted this. It was his idea."
She couldn't see her father's face, and that was probably a good thing, because Daffyd's face said that he had heard that before, and it sounded a great deal like she had been trying to manipulate this lion of hers. Khozar?
"So you had sex with a lion you barely know and now you're hurt that he doesn't want to marry you?" he recapitulated.
"Kind of, but it's not like that." Why didn't her father get it? She should have gone the extra distance and talked to her mother or one of her sisters instead.
"Explain to me what it's like then," Daffyd said, biting back a yawn. "Or just tell me if the upshot of all this is that you want me to rip the boy's balls off."
Honning wasn't sure if he meant it, but it had been the right thing for a father to say in this instance. She could hardly believe it, really, and so she gave the offer some consideration before finally concluding, "No. I think I'll be doing that myself. Thanks for the offer though."
"Are we done?" Daffyd asked.
"I guess so."
"Do you need to sleep here, or can you get back to your own den?"
He really, really hoped she would pick the latter option, and was relieved when she did. He was asleep again almost as soon as she left. For her part, it took Honning a little longer to sleep, even discounting the obvious travel time between her father's den and her own. She stayed up late planning how she would make Khozar's life miserable. She still loved him, unfortunately, but that didn't mean she had to like him.
Word Count: 1,637
