They were nearly home, but they might as well have been a thousand miles away for all the good it did them.
The young lion half sat and half crouched over the two small bundles of fur, sheltering them between his forepaws as the wind whipped his pale yellow mane into his crimson eyes. Anwar laid his ears back, narrowing his gaze against the onslaught. The tree he’d chosen provided hardly any shelter at all, but it was the only option that had been open to him at the time. A rocky outcropping would have been better, he knew of one just another hours walking away. But that too might as well have been several days journey for all the good it would do him. Night had fallen and with it exhaustion for the two young cubs that currently nestled beneath his slender chest. They could not keep pace with him, and he could not carry them both. He’d nearly dropped his daughter when he tried…
…his daughter. His son. Such strange words to be thinking, they felt so foreign in his thoughts and on his tongue. ”My children,” he said softly, the wind stealing the sound of the words but not the flavor of them. It was a concept he’d never fully anticipated would come to reality. Of course, he was hardly stupid. He knew full well the potential result of his actions several months prior. It was why he had returned to Rhaen, why he’d gone back to see how she was fairing. Interesting encounter indeed, though he’d had a sneaking suspicion she was not the innocent she’d claimed to be. It had been troublesome, most troublesome, to reclaim his offspring. Gladly he’d have consented to let her keep them, so long as they knew him and knew he did not merely abandon them.
But he refused to leave these two where they had been. No child of his would be a slave. It disgusted him, enraged him, to see his son being played with like a dying preybeast. He’d never thought he could feel so strongly when rationality had always ruled his mind and his actions. Now Zadok would be a Pesar, would one day become a proper Pad. Just as his daughter would make a fine Banu, or perhaps Beybanu. Unlike her brother, he knew, she would still be considered inferior. But not a toy to be used and abused at a moment’s whim. The lion’s lip curled in a silent snarl. He would not permit her to go to such a Pad as that. His own father might have been considered ‘cruel’ but Anwar knew him to be fair. Power always brings fear with it. His father was proud and powerful, unafraid of the opinions of others when he rained his justice down on those who disobeyed him.
No. No, his father was not like those demons. Not like them at all.
There was, of course, some measure of pride he felt for his firstborn son. His eldest was to stay with his mother, the lioness whom Anwar had begun to think of as a Kajiira Queen. He was to be a warrior, an assassin. He would do great things, dark though they might be. Already the crimson-eyed lion burned with a desire to know more of his eldest, to see what a force the still young cub would become. Great things lay before his claws, and one day he would be a prince. A demon prince, as commanding of respect and fear as his grandfather. Just as his other son would be a great Pad and his daughter a fine Banu to a powerful male. Perhaps he might give her to one of the sultan’s sons, or maybe make a gift of her to one of the children belonging to the god who dwelled within their pride. A male worthy of great note, but also, the lion mused, one with whom she might find some measure of happiness.
A roll of thunder signaled the breaking point, and all at once the clouds that had obscured the stars spilled out a torrent of rain. Within moments Anwar’s mane was plastered to his neck and dripping rivulets into his squinted eyes. Slowly he shifted, moving until he was nearly laying on his belly with his forepaws wrapped around the two slumbering cubs, sheltering them from the storm with his body. It was an oddly tender posture, something that any who knew the male would find utterly shocking. Anwar, even when he put on his guise of guileless curiosity, was still a bit cool. The idea of him wrapping his slender form so carefully, so gently, around a pair of cubs had been such an alien idea… almost as strange as the way the words sounded in his head.
”Zadok…my son,” Anwar said again, ”And Mozhgan…my daughter. Mine.”
It still felt strange. So utterly and totally strange. The young lion shivered, the chill creeping through his dark fur and soaking him to his very bones. The cubs were dry, tucked safely against his narrow chest beneath his dark chin. Olive green paws drew them closer, savoring their warmth against his fur as the deluge continued to drench him. His mane dripped in his eyes, but he did not bother to shake it away this time. It would only waste effort, and perhaps spatter the little ones with wetness. If he woke them, he worried that they would not simply slide back to sleep. Instead, he left his deep crimson eyes closed, hunching his shoulders as he dropped his muzzle to rest on his toes. He could feel the soft rise and fall of his little ones’ breaths, the motion of their breathing pressing their flanks against his throat and his chest.
So warm and small they were. How disgusted and furious he had been to discover they were being kept as slaves and abused as toys. His cubs. That their mother permitted it had shocked him more than he cared to admit, but he understood it was the way of their culture. He could understand that, yes. Every pride harbored different beliefs, different practices. He knew some found the idea of a Pad having many Banus to be just as appalling as the idea of his son and daughter being beaten and enslaved merely for having paler fur. He held nothing against Rhaen, she had no need to expect anything different of him either. There was the matter of that young female… but he would deal with that. He would gladly have killed her if he knew he could, though he doubted his own strength. That shamed him, but at least he acknowledged his weakness. Let it be known that Anwar was no foolish slave to hubris.
”My cubs,” he whispered again, letting the twin balls of warm fur between his paws become the focus of his mind, pushing back the shivers that the storm drew as it soaked his skin and whipped at his fur. His cubs. And tomorrow they would sleep in his den with the rest of their new family…
…now if only he knew what to say to Zarha about this…
(1228 words)
