Käle was going to grow up to be a warrior. He had known that almost as soon as he was old enough to know anything. His father had made it clear that his sons would be warriors, and his daughters, too, if they had any aptitude for it, and his mother had supported her husband in this. Käle didn't feel imprisoned or restricted by his future. Once he'd learned what reavers did, it was all he wanted to do, all the time, and he was constantly on the lookout for people he could go viking with when he was older.Usually he didn't seek out particular people, but his sister, the sometimes scary sister Asoiaf, had dropped him a hint that he might seek out a young lioness named Brynja, who was apparently the daughter of two outlanders herself, but outlanders who had distinguished themselves. For Asoiaf to voice even that much approval of someone had made it apparent to Käle that he would have to find this lioness and convince her to join his viking band as soon as possible.
Naturally, Asoiaf hadn't seen fit to tell him what the girl looked like, though, or who her parents were, so he was really just sort of wandering around looking for someone named Brynja. As it turned out, Brynja was a pretty common name in the pride. Fortunately, he finally found one of the girl's brothers, who was able to point him in the correct direction.
Unfortunately, the girl's brother's information was out of date and did not lead him to the girl, and after a while Käle got sick of wandering aimlessly. He wondered if perhaps this had all been a trick on Asoiaf's behalf. The more he thought about it, the more it seemed like something she would do. He would have to get back at her later. Perhaps he could get Svana to help him with that.
The young reaver to be devoted some time to trying to come up with an appropriate way to punish Asoiaf for setting him up for this wasted day, but he didn't have much luck. He would be better once he had talked it over with Svana. He liked to have someone to bounce ideas off of. It helped him think and plan with greater efficacy and efficiency. With that thought he dismissed the matter for the time being and tried to come up with something else to do with his day, because he would be hanged if he would return home in defeat.
As was usually the case, Käle's paws drew him toward the sands where the reavers sparred against one another. He was too young to be allowed on the sands, officially, but there were always corners where younger lions who wanted to be warriors tussled. He might join them if there was anyone to join, but he didn't immediately see any, so he settled in to watch the older fighters and try to glean some secret knowledge of battle skills and tactics.
Not true tactics, of course. Even as a cub Käle understood that these fights were more about keeping fighting skills sharp than planning attacks on unsuspecting outlanders. But he could learn the different skills that each lion used to win. If he could master all of those moves, he would definitely be invincible, and then he would become a legend, and then he would be a shoo-in for Warlord once he became a captain. He planned for his captaincy to come sometime between mastering everyone's moves and becoming a legend.
The cub actually missed several bouts just fantasizing about his heroic future as a legendary warlord. He would institute some genius, sweeping changes to the pride, too. Like lowering the age people could become captains. According to the stories, the warlord himself had become a captain when he was still an adolescent, but there had been very few of those in recent memory, apparently. Käle meant to be one of them, of course but he knew it would take a lot of work to get to that point. That would be where the planned invincibility would come in handy.
He eventually came back to real life, however, and was able to pay proper attention to the lions battling in front of him. It was especially interesting to Käle when a brown and grey swirled lioness named Dis took on a brown and grey swirled lion who bore no resemblance to her other than being brown and grey swirled, because the lioness fought very differently to most male combatants due to her smaller stature.
Käle knew he ought to learn from her, because he would be smaller than his opponents for some time to come, and possibly even when he grew up, given that there was not a drop of original Stormborn blood in his veins. His mother was the daughter of two outlanders, as was his father, and while his father was large for an outlander, his mother was not. Realistically, Käle would be fighting larger lions whenever he fought anyone with any original Stormborn blood.
So he watched and did his best to learn from Dis, even though her method of fighting did not strike him as the sort to strike fear into an enemy, as Käle hoped to do. She waited, wove, and struck quickly, only to dart backward as soon as she had struck, whether or not the blow landed. Käle supposed that made sense. It meant nobody could grab her and overpower her with their superior size and strength. It just wasn't the way Käle wanted to fight though.
Besides which, he could see that she did not have much in the way of defensive technique. Any time her opponent landed an attack it would stagger her, and although she could bear it, he guessed that was only because her opponents were not truly trying to kill her. If that had not been the case, her skull would be split and her ribs smashed several times over.
He was too young to recognize and admire her courage in continuing to fight, even though she was outmatched. Instead, when he tired of watching her lose, Käle decided to head home. He had been gone long enough that he could return without Asoiaf feeling smug about sending him chasing a shadow.
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