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 Posted: Thu Aug 04, 2011 7:24 pm
 Even though she had been living most of her life with the Stormborn, Bronislawa did not really know her father. She knew of her father, the Warlord, from stories her mother told, and from other clan members, but he was the warlord for the whole pride. And he had his wife and legitimate children to think about. The young bastards were no doubt lower on his priority list.
Still, her father seemed to be alone now, and unpestered. So now would be the perfect time to pester him.
She trotted up behind him. "Hello, Father."
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Posted: Thu Aug 04, 2011 7:41 pm
 Aesir's ears twitched at the sound of someone approaching from behind. It crossed his mind that he might lunge at them, just to demonstrate how foolish it was to come up on him from behind and think to go unnoticed, but before he could act on his impulse the lion greeted him. He was almost disappointed.
"Hello, daughter."
He wasn't actually using the generic because he couldn't tell which of his daughters he was addressing. He knew all of his cubs' voices. Of course, the reason he knew them was more to do with him being the Warlord than him being their father. His viking-born cubs' mother had things well in paw without his involvement from what he understood, and that was for the better as far as harmony in his den went. Morrigan was only tolerant to a point.
"What brings you out of the forest and into the pride proper? I'd begun to wonder if Odd was the only one of you lot who wasn't determined to live his life under the shade of trees."
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Posted: Thu Aug 04, 2011 8:30 pm
"Mother said I was my father's daughter," Broni said, which wasn't exactly an explanation, but it was part of one. It was more that she wanted to be her father's daughter. She would never be as comfortable in the trees or with the spirits as her mother was. She saw their use, to a point, but . . . maybe her attitude toward the spirits explained why she chose to become a priestess. She wanted to have a frame of reference for them, even if the spirits would never be to her what they were to her mother.
"Besides, I like the salt in the air. The air is fierce here; under the trees it's still. And there is no action under the trees."
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Posted: Thu Aug 04, 2011 8:54 pm
Aesir smiled to himself, amused by Broni's explanation. That could mean any number of things. When Morrigan said it of Badb and Kazul she meant that their daughters were being fierce and fighting again. He was actually proud of them when Morri made that statement because it meant he had girls who wouldn't be pushed around by anyone. Though now that they were getting older he was beginning to wonder if maybe they'd been allowed to grow a bit too headstrong. Well, at least they would be fighting for what they wanted, rather than demanding it by right of birth.
"I wouldn't say that," Aesir mused. "You and your siblings are the direct result of action under the trees."
It didn't occur to him that might not be an appropriate topic of conversation for a cub Broni's age. He and Morri never bothered concealing that sort of thing from their cubs and he didn't know what sort of policy Raven had. He doubted she went to much effort to keep them ignorant. She didn't seem like the type to be prudish. In fact, he knew she wasn't in most respects. Though she'd been damn angry when he took Calder.
"How are your sibs, Salt-girl?" The name was perhaps perilously close to the term Saltwife, but it was something different, something affectionately meant.
Still, he wondered if she would prickle at it, given her mother's questionable status in the pride. Raven wasn't his Saltwife, but she had borne him a litter of cubs that he publicly acknowledged (having no other choice but to do so). It made it a little difficult to say what relationship there was between them. Fortunately, Raven had her own activities and skills that she practiced and didn't rely on him for her status. Her cubs seemed inclined to do the same.
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Posted: Thu Aug 04, 2011 9:19 pm
Salt-girl didn't bother Broni, nor did the reference to the way she had been made. Everyone in the pride knew she was Aesir's by Raven,almost an exact duplicate of him, but she was no thrall, and she knew it would be better for her father to differentiate between her and the daughters of his mate. Morrigan seemed to just ignore the other female's cubs, and, for her part, Broni had steered clear of her half siblings. Whether from the balance of spirits she had learned about from her mother, or just because she watched the other pridemembers carefully, Broni liked to have things be in balance, and steady. Unpleasant encounters between the Warlord's litters would be sure to upset the pride's balance, especially if it had the bad fortune to spread to the three parents.
She didn't know what to say about her silbings though. She had three brothers and two sisters, but they each went their own way in the pride. And Broni had less and less time to pay attention to them as she trained to be a priestess and spent her time watching the adults.
"They've all changed since we lived in the forest. I don't know if they realize how little is different, though."
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Posted: Thu Aug 04, 2011 9:43 pm
"And what about you?" Aesir asked, fixing his daughter with a golden-eyed stare. She had her mother's eyes, a more brilliant shade of gold than his own, but otherwise she was more like him than any of his other cubs except maybe Kazul, marking-wise. He liked that his cubs looked like him. He took it as proof of his virility.
"Have you changed since coming to live among the Stormborn, or have you managed to remain exactly the same?"
He had not failed to notice that although Raven was one of the Stormborn, she held herself and her cubs separate from the rest of the pride, living apart in the forest below the main area of the pride. It was as if she'd done her very best to avoid having any sort of change in her life at all in coming to the pride. The distance helped maintain peace though, Aesir suspected, and so he didn't comment. He did wish he saw more of his viking-born cubs though. Mostly he only saw Odd, and that was because Kazul had become attached to him and the two were nigh inseparable.
"Morrigan tells me you're training to be a priestess."
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Posted: Fri Aug 05, 2011 10:16 am
"Susu is training me," Broni agreed. She thought her mentor was a bit odd, but not odd enough to dissuade her from her goal. She was determined to have a place in the Stormborn, not just a presence, like her mom had.
"I know I'm not suited to be a Reaver, and I wanted to do something useful for the pride." She did not add that she knew her mother and her status would make it difficult for her to rise in the ranks of the Reavers, being both smaller and lighter then most, having an average fighting skill at best, and having an aura of other that would not be welcomed when bands went a-viking.
But the aura of other could be put to use as a priestess.
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Posted: Fri Aug 05, 2011 7:18 pm
Aesir thought for a moment and conjured a mental image of the Priestess Susu. Aside from ceremonies, Aesir actually didn't have much to do with Priestesses in their official capacity. He didn't have a great deal of use for their work and the gods on a day-to-day basis, though living with the Head Priestess meant he got a good daily dose of it anyway. That one of his daughters was pursuing the craft neither pleased nor displeased him.
"As a Warlord, I'm glad to know you won't be a drain on the pride," he said. "And as your father I can't deny that I'm proud that you're to be a Priestess. A girl can rise no higher than that."
He was forgetting about the fact that the Stormborn had a few female Warlords in their history as well as a female First Speaker or two. The Stormborn had a long history though, so his lapse was forgivable. Probably Kazul would have called him out on it because she had a marked fondness for history and stories in general. He didn't mind being contradicted as long as it was done in an appropriate manner, and he was more lenient with his girl cubs than his two trueborn sons.
There was one thing he wondered about though: "Why isn't your mother teaching you?"
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Posted: Sat Aug 06, 2011 11:59 am
Broni would have thought that that answer was obvious. "Mother isn't really a Stormborn priestess, she doesn't follow the old ways of the pride. She follows the ways of her mother, and her mother before her. Those are the ways of the forest. The pride would never accept a Head Priestess that didn't follow the old ways, so I intend to be a Stormborn priestess."
Broni was indeed her father's daughter, ambitious like him, and she had the ability to plan. She did not have her father's gift for inspiring loyalty, preferring to keep to herself like her mother, but she was sure that was something she could overcome eventually.
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Posted: Mon Aug 08, 2011 7:14 am
The answer hadn't been obvious to Aesir, actually. He knew that his bastards' mother preferred to keep to herself and that their cubs, but he knew next to nothing about her beliefs and how they varied from those of the pride. He'd heard her mention spirits and assumed that they were the same spirits Morrigan referred to. He didn't know much about spirits, and was content to do as tradition (and Morri) dictated with regards to pleasing them.
"Head Priestess is your goal, then?"
He didn't say more than that. He wondered if it had occurred to his daughter that she could not hold the role of Head Priestess unless the current Head Priestess, his mate, either stepped down or died. He had a difficult time imagining Morri stepping down for anyone other than one of their own daughters, or perhaps another priestess who was a familiar acquaintance of hers. It was difficult to say who she would step down for, really, given how unlikely it seemed she would do so with any sort of willingness.
So while Aesir did not disapprove of his daughter's ambition, he was not wholly comfortable with the fulfillment of the requirements such an advance would involve. He was more than passing fond of Morrigan and would not wish her dead or so diminished that she felt it appropriate and necessary to step down from the position to which he had raised her up. Besides which, it tended to be the prerogative of a new Warlord to appoint his Head Priestess, and Aesir did not know who would be Warlord after him, and how he would feel about the matter.
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Posted: Mon Aug 08, 2011 9:30 am
"Everyone has to have a goal, Father, even one that they may never reach, and even if it seems impossible."
Broni knew that the Head Priestess would never step down for her, or even select her for the goal. But once she was a priestess, she would be in the running, and many of the reavers were superstitious. That would give her tools to use as she sought to gain more power to herself.
"And I think it is better to bring recognition on my parents this way then to simply marry a Reaver and raise a squalling back of cubs."
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Posted: Tue Aug 09, 2011 6:18 am
"True enough," Aesir acknowledged. "And knowing what you want at your age gives you plenty of time to figure out how to get it."
And plenty of time to make mistakes in the process, but Aesir firmly believed mistakes were learning experiences. Not that he enjoyed being mistaken, and he would certainly lose his temper explosively when it happened, but at the same time he could learn from his mistakes. He hoped that his cubs had the same ability, and would not cling futilely to something that simply did not work, be it a relationship or a goal or a fighting tactic.
"I don't know about your mother, but I'm proud of all my cubs whether or not they rise high in the pride. And it's not my cubs' job to bring me recognition anyway. I'm supposed to bring you recognition and a lineage you can point to with pride."
He was more progressive than past Warlords had been when it came to feminine authority and power, but Aesir still found it unusual how many females in the pride wanted to be Reavers. He wasn't particularly surprised that those who chose that life were good at it, or that they sometimes had difficulty finding Captains to take them out despite their abilities. He just found it surprising that there were so many lionesses who took a dim view of raising cubs, and that his daughters were among them.
"There's nothing wrong with marrying a Reaver and raising cubs. With your lineage, you could not but improve the pride by having cubs. When you're older."
His litter with Morri was reaching an age where they would be thinking about that and he worried, particularly about Badb and Kazul, who were fearless teases. Now that they were older, some lion might take it into his skull to take from them what they offered only in jest. Then he would have to murder the lion. If there was enough left after his daughters were done with him. He smiled to think of that.
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Posted: Tue Aug 09, 2011 12:52 pm
"I think sometimes that recognition and glory is like a pond. When you look in for yourself, you can still see what's behind you in the pond." Broni was more than happy about the reputation her father had that, aware of it or not, the rest of pride transferred to his offspring. This meant that even though Broni had never been in a fight, the other cubs tended to think she was fierce and powerful.
As for cubs, Broni had no real objection to them. It was more the idea of just raising cubs. And finding a Reaver that she thought could ever compare to her dad. She wasn't mature yet, but she still had a standard to use when looking at males, and she hadn't seen many that could measure up to her father.
"I might take a mate, one day, but he'll have a lot to live up to. I don't think it is an easy thing to be the warlord's goodson."
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Posted: Tue Aug 09, 2011 7:57 pm
"Well-put, daughter."
Even though he was not really one to use flowery language, his daughter's simile worked for Aesir, who was accustomed to the pride's way of telling stories and making similar comparisons. He did tend to make an exception in his own speech patterns for when he was telling stories, since there was a right way and a wrong way to go about doing that and he preferred to tell stories in the correct, traditional way rather than bungle them up with too many facts and unnecessary clarifications. There was an art to it, and while he would never be an artist, Aesir wasn't untalented. It pleased him to see another of his offspring with a gift for words.
Broni's flattery made Aesir grin. He certainly couldn't disagree that it would not be an easy thing to be his goodson. He would hold any such lion to a very high standard, and he would have no difficulties whatsoever in swooping in to his daughters' rescue if he heard even the whisper of a hint of a rumour that any of them were being treated the least bit poorly. No, it would not be easy to be the mate of one of his daughters.
"Perhaps you're looking in the wrong direction," he said, though he would actually prefer she take a Reaver or a Captain for her mate when she decided she wanted one. "Maybe you should find a Lawspeaker or other Freeborn who won't have to try to live up to anything familiar."
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Posted: Tue Aug 09, 2011 10:14 pm
Broni shook her head vehemently at that. Someone who didn't even go on Viking raids - for her mate?
"I don't think I would be right for a Freeborn or a Lawspeaker," she said, wrinkling her nose a bit. "And I don't think they'd be right for me."
Broni was very certain of that, she wanted a physically powerful mate. She didn't mind if he wasn't the brainiest; he did have to be imposing.
Not that there were any specific candidates she had, but that was one of the important qualifications: powerful Reaver. Not someone wimpy.
"But that's not for a while yet, I want to finish my training first."
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