Kivi was not the first Stormborn to hear of Brenning's engagement to the outlander born girl Lyti, but she was definitely the first to hear of it and find the engagement to be of any particular interest. Bren had been her best friend for her whole life, basically, and she could not believe he hadn't even mentioned to her that he was interested in this Lyti girl, let alone planning to propose to her. She was quite peeved, to put it mildly, and it showed as she stomped up to her friend while he worked a burr out of the tuft of hair that tipped his tail."Kivi?" Bren said. He could not help but be aware of her mood, but he wasn't sure what had been the cause of it. It had not even begun to occur to him that he might be at fault. "What's the matter?"
"'What's the matter?'" Kivi repeated in an exaggeratedly deep voice that sounded nothing like Bren's and yet was very clearly meant to be his. "'What's the matter?' I'll tell you what the matter is, Brenning Hinokoson. My friend, who shall remain nameless but who has a marking like a stupid fireball over his left eye, is engaged to be married and he didn't even hint to me that he might be about to take that kind of step. He never even mentioned the girl he's going to get married to. What kind of friend does that kind of thing?"
Kivi was already pretty annoyed, but over the course of her tirade Bren watched the usually cheerful lioness become quite worked up and couldn't help but feel a certain amount of smug satisfaction at her reaction to the news of his engagement. He had been very much in love with her all throughout his adolescence and much of his young adulthood, but when he finally found the courage to tell her how he felt, she had told him that was silly and she didn't think of him that way.
"Oh, well, I was going to get around to telling you, but what with one thing and another I just never seemed to find the time. It's not as if I've deliberately kept you in the dark, though, so I'm not sure why you're angry."
Something in his voice tipped Kivi off to the fact that he was enjoying this in some small way, and that just made the pale-eyed freeborn angrier. It wasn't as if she was totally ignorant of why Bren might be pleased to see her so upset by news of his betrothal, but that didn't mean she was any less inclined to be upset. If anything, it made her more annoyed at him.
"Don't try that, Bren. You know a decent friend would have said something. The first time I ever considered you and Lyti in the same thought was when I saw you together the other night listening to Tuomas telling stories." She scowled at him until he gave up even trying to look nonchalant.
Bren completely gave up on the burr for the time being, devoting the whole of his attention to Kivi. That seemed like the most expedient way to get her to stop raging, at least. No female was good about being ignored, in his experience. It irked him that he still had a burr caught in his tail though. Not that it hurt or anything. It was just annoying.
"I probably would have told you if I had seen you lately, but you've been off doing Stormlords only know what. Besides, it would seem sort of like I was gloating if I told the first girl I loved that she's been replaced, don't you think?" He was proud of himself for managing to work that barb in without making it seem like he was doing that.
Unfortunately Kivi seemed rather indifferent to his attempt to make her uncomfortable. At least, she was pretending to be because she was not without pride and that made her unwilling to admit that he'd actually managed to hurt her feelings. She didn't love Bren like that, but she didn't need to have it thrown in her face that he didn't love her like that anymore, either.
"I sincerely hope that there's a good reason I've never heard you mention Lyti before, and that you aren't doing all this in some misguided attempt to make me jealous. That would be horribly unfair to Lyti who is, from what I've heard, a terribly sweet girl." There. That got her a little of her own back.
It was unusual to see Kivi acting in this way. Usually the freeborn lioness was all smiles and songs with nary an unkind word or catty remark for anyone. Now, however, she was genuinely hurt and kind of wanted to hurt the person who had hurt her. In this case, that would mean Bren. She sincerely doubted Lyti held any sort of grudge against her, or was even aware that Bren knew her.
"It is definitely not like that, Kivi," Bren said with exaggerated weariness. "Do you really think I'm capable of doing that to someone?"
"Truth be told, I do not, but you seem too pleased to be telling me about her now. I couldn't help wondering if there wasn't some element of wanting to get back at me because I don't love you the way you would have liked." This was an attempt at reconciliation on her part, but she wasn't going about it very well. She was still much too upset to manage well with words. Bren was trying to understand that, but it wasn't easy since now his dander was up, too.
"Well it isn't like that. Not everything is about you, Kivi. I've moved on. I hope you'll soon find someone to be with."
"Bren..." Kivi stopped and shook her head. Then she tried again. "Why don't you tell me about her? How you met, when you fell in love, that sort of thing."
"Some other time," Bren said. "I promise."
Kivi frowned but couldn't bring herself to force the issue. She was not accustomed to fighting for things and she didn't want to make Bren so mad that he wouldn't talk to her at all. She'd gone through enough of that when he stopped talking to her for a full season after confessing his feelings for her. She contented herself with a grumbled, "You'd better mean it, or I'll have Erykk rearrange your face."
"Some other time," he repeated as he stood up, doing his best to make it clear that this conversation was at an end. Kivi took the hint and left.
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