"Mirsajadi?"

The striped lion recognized the voice as belonging to Harimau'tapi, the lioness who had met him on their way to the Kauzi'Ukame and brought them the rest of the way. He knew he owed his life and the lives of the cubs with him to her, but that didn't make it any easier for him to accept the rest of what she offered him. In a way it made it even harder for him.

"Yes?" he replied. It was difficult to talk to her. The lioness knew more about him without ever having spoken to him than his banu and beybanu ever had.

Hari trotted up to Mirsajadi, her green eyes filled with hope, as they always were when they gazed at him. She couldn't help what she had seen in the future, and the knowledge that the future she had foreseen was coming made it easy for her to hope, despite Mirsajadi's reservations. She wished daily that it wasn't so difficult now, but the future would be worth it. She had to believe that.

"Do you like it here?" she asked. "Enough to stay, I mean?"

Mirsajadi gave her a wary look. The hope in her eyes always made hi a little uncomfortable because he knew perfectly well what she was hoping for and he couldn't stand the idea of his future being known the way she seemed to know it. He couldn't stand the idea that he had no choices. He had left the Ukuucha because he had felt that they were trying to take his choices from him, among other reasons.

"I have little to complain about," he answered her neutrally. "Is there a reason you ask?"

Hari's crestfallen look when he treated her with the same coolness and distant good manners he used on everyone was hard to see. It reminded him of the way Arezoo had looked when he finally realized the truth about her cubs' parentage. Hurt and disappointed. He felt that he was too old to be flattered by the affection of attractive lionesses. Mostly he wondered how they could fail to see how deeply flawed he was.

"I...I spoke with Isarmaq recently. She's afraid you'll leave this place, too, and that this time you won't take anyone with you."

Truth be told, Hari had always been standoffish and reluctant to demonstrate affection. All her life people had wondered that a daughter of the goddess of love could withhold her own love in such a way, but Hari knew more about love than most because of her mother and she had wanted to be careful, to guard her heart until she met the right person. She had never expected that she would fall in love with a lion she saw in her visions.

Mirsajadi spoke before he could stop himself, his sharp tongue lashing out to strike Hari for having the audacity to love him despite his inability to see anything lovable in himself. "Haven't you seen the answer to that, Hari?"

He could see his words find their mark, cut her and make her hurt in ways she didn't deserve to suffer. All he wanted was to be left alone. He had found a place where he could be useful and where he could be content. Why couldn't Hari just leave him be? Why did she have to insist on being a part of his life? It was natural for him to attempt to drive her away with his words.

"You know what I've seen," Hari said softly. "But you're a seer, which means you also know how easily the future can be changed. If the future I've seen isn't the future you want, it would be simple enough to change it."

Mirsajadi's cruel streak was still near enough to the surface that he could not even think of responding gently. "And what if I tried to change it? What if I took Isa and Khozar and left the pride? Would you follow us into the desert and beyond?"

Hari stood silent for a second, and then another. She had not realized when she was falling in love with Mirsajadi without ever having met him how cruel he could be when it suited him. It was not something her visions had ever shown her, and she was simply unused to dealing with cruelty when it was directed at her.

"I would stay if you told me you did not wish my company," she told him. It was the truth, but she could not help but be afraid that he would take her at her word and tell her that he did not wish her to impose her company on him any longer, and to remove herself from his life and the lives of his cubs. "I am proud, Mirsajadi, despite what you may think, and I will not wait forever for you."

Her sudden vehemence startled Mirsajadi into looking at her once more instead of looking through her as he was accustomed to doing because of how much easier it made it for him to dismiss her. He had thought from the first that she was an attractive lioness, and if she had only offered him her body without trying to attach her mind and emotional entanglements to it he would not have refused her. Even now he would not refuse her if she were to make that offer, but he was old enough to know better.

"I have no reason to leave for the moment," he told her, sparing her even though he might have flayed her heart and left it out for general viewing if he so chose. "So I hope you told Isa that your visions have shown me here so that the girl will quit worrying."

"Did you hear what I said?" Hari asked, barely managing to keep her tension from showing in her voice.

Mirsajadi nodded gravely. "I have heard you, and I will think about it, but just as you will not wait forever, I will not be forced into anything before I have decided it is the best thing for myself and my family."

Hari continued to stand very still as Mirsajadi spoke, almost afraid that if she moved she would somehow destroy this fragile moment where Mirsajadi seemed for the first time to look at her and really see her. She could not remain immobile forever though, and so she forced herself to nod.

"I can understand that. But Mirsajadi..." she didn't know how to finish her sentence. She was to proud to beg him to think about her, even though she wanted to do just that.

To her surprise he looked at her with an expression that she didn't know how to interpret. Then he returned her nod with a solemn nod of his own, saying softly, "I know."

And he did. Mirsajadi had always been good at figuring out what made people tick and then using that knowledge to manipulate them. He knew that despite her pride if he told Hari right now that he would stay, she would be foolishly happy no matter what else he did. He had been loved like that once before, by Arezoo. This time he wanted something else.

"Good day, Hari," he said in the same soft voice.

"Good day, Mirsajadi," she replied faintly before she recovered herself and stepped past him toward her own den.

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