It had been an adjustment for everyone when Mirsajadi and his family came to live with the Kauzi'Ukame, but probably the lions having the most difficult time adjusting were actually Mirsajadi's daughter, Isarmaq, and the lioness who had been in love with him before they ever truly met. Between those two tensions also ran high, mostly because of Isa's reluctance to accept Hari into her family's routine. She often complained to Khozar about how often Hari turned up in their father's den and how familiar she acted toward him. It made Isa's possessive streak come out like nothing else. She also disliked when Hari tried to make friendly overtures toward her or Khozar.
For her part, Hari had known that Mirsajadi would have cubs that were not hers when they finally met, but at the same time she had not realized how difficult it would be to win those cubs over. Khozar, the older cub that Mirsajadi was convinced was the product of his beybanu's infidelity, tended to watch things and hold everyone except his sister Isa at a distance and fight with his father. Isa, on the other hand, quite plainly adored her father and just as plainly resented Hari's intrusion into their life. Hari could understand how the young lioness felt, but she wasn't going to allow that to force her to give up Mirsajadi.
Not that she had him, yet. Isa had actually been fairly effective when it came to keeping Hari and her father apart, and the golden-eyed lioness was proud of that. She got Khozar to help her with her machinations whenever she felt necessary and generally behaved as unpleasantly toward Hari when she couldn't be gotten rid of as she could get away with. Mirsajadi barely disciplined her or said anything when she behaved badly. At most he would shoot her a disapproving look or say her name quietly in a quiet voice that almost seemed to summon silence whenever he used it.
Today Isa had actually made what was, to her, the ultimate sacrifice. In order to keep Hari from being able to spend time with her father she had said that she wanted Hari to teach her to sing. When Hari first heard that she had been delighted, but as soon as Isa came by her den the older lioness could see that Isa had not come to sing. It was too bad, Hari thought, because Isa had a lovely speaking voice when she wasn't being petulant and out of sorts, and Hari thought she would make an excellent singer.
"So, what brings you here?" Hari asked solicitously, offering Isa the same courteous hospitality she would afford an adult lioness who had come to visit her.
"I'm here to learn to sing," Isa answered, narrowing her eyes in a mild insult to Hari's intelligence that Hari would let slide for now.
Hari forced herself to smile and replied, "I'm sure that's what you told your father, but I think we both know you don't want to learn to sing. At least not from me."
Isa was taken aback by this moment of bluntness. She did not know Hari well and really had no desire to get to know her. Hari was a rival for her father's attention and affection Isa wouldn't tolerate that. It took her a moment to recover herself and ask, "What makes you say that?"
"I'm a seer. I know things," Hari suggested, even though this knowledge had nothing to do with her abilities as a seer. She couldn't see Isa at all, actually, because the white and gold lioness was not a seer and Hari only saw other seers in her visions, and only in the moments when they were experiencing visions.
"You're not that kind of seer," Isa countered.
"I'm also the daughter of the goddess of love. I understand the emotion pretty well, and how it makes people behave. That's why I have been trying to befriend you and your brother." Hari had forgotten that beneath her pettishness Isa was a clever girl, capable of using her mind for more than engineering methods of keeping Hari away from her father. Isa had reminded her of that and Hari decided that the truth would probably be the most effective tool to use in this instance.
Isa's eyes narrowed to suspicious slits as she regarded Hari. Then she responded viciously. "You don't love Khozar or me. You just love my father, even though you don't even know him. If you know so much about love, you should know that's not how it works!"
A large part of Hari wanted to panic when Isa lashed out verbally. As unpleasant as Isa had been to her so far, it had never reached this point. Hari feared that the young lioness would go on to declare herself Hari's sworn enemy if allowed to continue in this vein.
"It's true, I don't love you," Hari said quietly. She had committed herself to telling the truth, but this might be the wrong kind of truth to tell a cub as young as Isa. "I would like to love you, but you make it difficult even to like you most of the time. I think it's because you're afraid that Mirsajadi might choose me over you."
"My father would never choose you over me," Isa hissed. "He thinks it's crazy to fall in love someone you've never met, just because of something you saw in a vision."
Unlike Isa, Hari did not view the other lioness as a rival. She could recognize that the love they both sought from Mirsajadi was not the same kind of love and that he could love both of them without taking away any love from the other. She did recognize that Isa could keep Mirsajadi from ever returning Hari's feelings, since those were still one-sided at present, as Isa had just reminded her.
"Sometimes love is without discernible reason," Hari was forced to agree. "But what I feel for your father is not because of a single vision. I have been having visions of him my entire life, going backward and forward along his life until I feel as if I have known him that whole time."
"Can't you understand that Mirsajadi won't have to choose one of us over the other? I don't want to take your place. I don't want to be his daughter."
"No, you want to be his mate," Isa pointed out with a cruel twist to her mouth that turned her expression into a sneer. "He still doesn't know you and he won't pick you just because you're grown up and pretty. My mother was prettier than you, and he left her."
Hari had actually been forced to see Isa's conception, and that had been one of the hardest things she had ever had to see. It had made her miserable for days and days until the next time one of her visions showed her Mirsajadi, this time without a female beneath him. There was no way she was going to share that piece of information with Isa though. It would be inappropriate on so many levels.
She was distracted from this painful reminder when she saw that Isa was on the verge of sobbing. She had expected that least of all, and she had absolutely no idea what had caused it. Taking a stab in the dark, she said tentatively, "He took you, though, so you know he must love you very, very much. He isn't going to leave you again."
It was the right thing to say, for even though Isa hated to show this kind of weakness in front of her enemy and rival, she needed to be reassured that her father wasn't going to leave the Kausi'Ukami and place Isa and Khozar under Hari's care.
"How do you know?" Isa whispered in ragged tones.
"I can't see you because you aren't a seer, but I have seen your father in the future, and always when I see him in the future he's here." She didn't point out that she had also seen herself featuring prominently in Mirsajadi's future because she was certain Isa didn't want to hear that, but it was true. She saw more of herself in Mirsajadi's future than she did Isa.
"Really?"
"Really."
"Even if we stay here, you'll never be my mother," Isa declared, giving Hari a look that dared her to say otherwise. Now that she had been reassured she was ready to return to the fight, although a great deal of the venom had been taken from her manner.
"No, I won't. You don't need me to be your mother, and I'm not sure what kind of a mother I'd make anyway. I would much rather be your friend."
Isa considered the possibility, but she wasn't ready to give up her father so easily. She didn't know for certain she could trust Hari, and she would need to see proof that Hari wasn't trying to take anything from her. "Maybe," was all she would commit to for the time being.
"All right," Hari said.
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