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Honey knew that what he and Imbra were doing was going to get one or both of them in trouble eventually. Sooner, rather than later, he expected, given how close they had come to being discovered when they met the day before. Imbra said her father's influence might not continue to stretch far enough to get her out every day.

Honey had not yet told her that his time, too, was finite. If he stayed too long away from the Maestros it would be assumed that he was deserting the pride and his return would be met with violence and anger. Perhaps not from the pirate king, but maybe from that frighteningly ambitious son of his.

And yet despite all this, Honey was waiting for Imbra to meet him. Things would work out.

Imbra knew it was a tired story. Forbidden love wasn't all that uncommon in the 'Nera, with its complicated system of arranged marriages and binding strictures. She had seen a great deal of it going up. She'd seen a great deal of everything growing up. The 'Nera was that kind of pride. She hadn't expected that she would become one of those pathetic creatures.

And yet she used her father's influence to gain a pass at the border of the pride and went to meet a pirate who made her feel free when before she had barely known she was incarcerated. He had done her no favors, and yet she was coming to feel she owed any happiness she felt to him.

Honey made her happy, that's all there was to it. She had to believe that everything else would work out.

"There you are, love," he greeted Imbra as she slunk into view.

He had a question he wanted to ask her, but he didn't want to ask it right away. He was afraid that if he asked now, and she turned him down, she would leave. It would be better if she left, perhaps, because then this whole thing would be over and he could go home without fear of the consequences, but it wasn't what Honey wanted.

"What do you want to do today?" he asked. He'd spent most of his time away from her looking for interesting things to show her in the hope that if he could prove the world outside her pride was more interesting than the world inside it, and maybe persuade her to come away with him. It was, he knew, a long shot.

"Honey," Imbra greeted the golden cheetah with the warm brown eyes. It amused her that his very name forced her to call him by an endearment when she would have liked to have done so anyway, but could not bring herself to for reasons of pride. It was very convenient. He, of course, had no difficulties calling her "love," but she suspected he called most females that.

"Anything you want to do," she said. She was rarely so complacent and easy-going, but Honey put her at ease. "I do want to talk to you though. There's something serious that I need to tell you. Ask you. Both."

She also did not usually stumble over her words like that, but this was not a familiar situation for her in that it was not one she could get through by beating the other person bloody.

"Serious things, eh?" Honey looked like he was teasing, but there was a solemnity behind his gaze.

He thought he knew what she would want to tell him. Ask him. Both. She would tell him that they couldn't keep meeting like this. She would ask him to please stop waiting for her. He didn't like those options, and so it was imperative that he be the first to speak. She might turn down his request for her to come away with him, but at least he would be asking her to be with him then, instead of her asking him to leave her.

"Let's save serious things until we can't see your pride at least, hm? You've got me thoroughly convinced that they see all, hear all, and know all. It gives a body the creeps. Why would anyone want to do that?"

Imbra didn't notice how deftly Honey had avoided her serious matters. She simply answered the question he'd posed, even though it was probably rhetorical and not intended to be answered.

"For power, of course. Knowledge is power, and secret knowledge is the best kind of power. The 'Nera trade in secrets as much as we do in goods. Often people pay more for secrets."

Imbra had helped to torture secrets out of people before. So had her father. He had taught her how, after much pleading on her part. She had regretted it, but then she had hardened her heart as Mana had learned to do by telling herself it was for the pride. That rationalization might not work now, she realized with an unpleasant start. She no longer felt that same loyalty.

"I hate to tell you this, love, but you come from a seriously confused pride. There are better places, better ways to live. You don't have to live with all that sneaking and lying. Not if you don't want to."

This wasn't the way he wanted to do this, but now that he'd started he couldn't leave off like that. He knew enough about her pride to know that it demanded total loyalty, and so it probably was hard for her to listen to him speaking ill of it.

"I mean, you could leave. You could come with me when I leave. We could...we could even ask your father if he'd like to come. I know how much he means to you." Honey didn't particularly want to have Imbra's father, her sainted and intimidating-sounding father, coming along with them but he would rather leave with Imbra and her father than without Imbra.

Imbra stopped walking. For a moment it felt as if she had stopped breathing. Could he really mean that? Not just his very appealing suggestion that she leave the 'Nera and come away with him, but the offer to bring her father along. It was that offer which really made Imbra's heart melt. He knew her well enough to know she would not consider leaving her father.

"He knows about you," she told Honey. "I don't know if he approves, though. I don't know if he would be willing to leave. But...if you really mean it, I'll ask him."

She smiled a little shyly. It was so strange to her that this sweet stranger could know her so well and turn her so soft in such a short period of time. And that she didn't mind him doing it. It was the fact that she didn't mind that made her think probably she loved him.

Honey looked at Imbra, turning his most appealing look in her direction. He didn't come from a pride like hers where everyone said one thing, thought another, and did something else entirely. He needed to hear from her an explicit statement that she would come away with him.

"I know it's a lot to ask, love, but can you tell me straight, does that mean you'll come away with me and live with me as a pirate?"

He wanted to tell her that he didn't expect to find love when he came out here, but when he met her everything changed. He wanted to say to her, "I can leave and live without you if you tell me to, but my life will be empty." But that would sound false, even though it was completely true. Sometimes it seemed to stupid to him that the unedited truth sounded less true than an abridgment of the same.

"I can't imagine anything that would make me happier," Imbra told her sweet suitor.

It was a lot, what he asked, but she doubted she would find any sort of happiness in the 'Nera. Not with everything that was happening. The hybrids and her sister and...everything. Even if Mana didn't agree to come with her and Honey, she would leave. Mana could stay with Abhi and their pathetic son if he felt he had to, but Imbra deserved a life of her own. She was special. Her father had always told her that.

"At this point I'm not sure I could stand to let you leave without me. If you hadn't offered to take me with you, I would have had to make you my prisoner. I think it's better your way."