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 Posted: Mon Jan 06, 2014 4:31 pm
Damn her.
At some point, Freyja would have to move or die of dehydration. She turned her head towards Sheska, lip curling slightly at the mental image of her pink coat bruised, cut, throat torn out. A wasted slave.
Freyja rose, scraped open a better hole in the earth for her shoulder, and laid back down. Her mouth felt dry.
It was unlikely that the pair had been there for long. Freyja's mouth felt drier.
"Where do you come from, Sheska?"
The lionesses wasted hours together, doing absolutely nothing, yet somehow none of it had warranted casual conversation. Perhaps it was Freyja's natural response to absolute boredom. Certainly, she made no effort to conceal the bitter, uninterested tone of her voice.
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Posted: Mon Jan 06, 2014 5:05 pm
They couldn't treat her like this.
Sheska was outraged from the confines of her mind, which like everything else, she seemed to be losing. Just yesterday, she'd seen a slave all but break his back and had the self-appointed authority to sneer at his misfortune. As she trailed behind Freyja, the same pitiful creature from a day prior had the nerve to look upon her with pity.
Where were all the promises she was given by the male who led her here, led her astray, and who ordered her here now? The world would never know how brave Sheska was, yet she was the one oblivious to her own stupidity. What good was any of it when circumstance was against you?
Where would she have gone if not here? How could she be expected to fend for herself when everything had been given to her? So many questions with nothing but uncertainty to show for it.
One thing she did know: Freyja was not the downtrodden homemaker she'd thought her to be. When she looked at her now, sidelong and tentative, she saw her for what she was.
b***h.
In defiance, Sheska sat straighter and held her head higher. No more of this slouching, head bowing nonsense. "The jungle," she sputtered, bitter words that threatened to choke her. "It was full of bright plants and lions. The males were segregated away. We spoke with them only to have more daughters, and we sent the sons away with them."
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Posted: Mon Jan 06, 2014 5:17 pm
Sheska became immediately more interesting. A smile twitched at the edge of Freyja's muzzle; her eyes ran down the throat Sheska exposed as she stretched her neck.
A pleasant, thrumming, "Hm," came forth from Freyja's throat.
Freyja could not hope to know what a jungle was anymore than the Firekin could perceive a swamp. Language told her it was full of trees and moisture, but Freyja was born at home and she would die there. No thoughts of adventure had ever crossed her mind.
"That sounds no different."
Though her dead sister, rest her soul, would argue the sons were taken, not given. Idly, she considered Meshindi's fate and her eyes turned from Sheska to the surrounding territory.
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Posted: Mon Jan 06, 2014 5:36 pm
"It is different." To her own ears it sounded more rancorous, nearly vicious, and not the peevish triad of words it truly was. Such was not the case for those around her, a tally greater than two mistreated females. Sheska glimpsed a bit of motion from the corner of her eye, but never so much it couldn't be explained away as shifting stones or the birds meandering about. She let her eyes linger along the cliff only to avoid them moving elsewhere.
Back home, they'd have deemed Freyja ugly with her dull colors. She'd have been less there than she was here. For all the bad that could be said about Sheska, at least she had not fallen so low as the rank of Somebody's Wife.
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Posted: Mon Jan 06, 2014 5:53 pm
Hopefolly (( I assumed he was not visible yet, so didn't have Freyja call a greeting. I can change if I was incorrect! ))
Sheska's sour mood rejuvenated Freyja's good spirits. At least her slave was suffering. At least the Stormborn could dig under someone's skin the way Kondo had nicked at hers.
"We work on your manners," the lioness decided. "Looking at me when I speak is a good start."
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Posted: Mon Jan 06, 2014 6:06 pm
Hearing that, Sheska readied herself at the figurative starting line. Her eyes locked on Freyja's face and she spoke with venom and valor, "If I did that, I would never look at anything else."
One theory was life had been too kind to Sheska and she need learn hardship. Another was it had never been good to her at all, setting her up for failure the same way she set herself up now. A challenge would be to argue she'd ever been lucky until that very moment, for no sooner had she finished the hiss at the end did the rocks to their left give way and tumble down. With them fell a familiar face matured by time and a new-found understanding of just how paramount he and his kin were.
Niklas was on the brink of adolescence now and the hiding places that once secured his whereabouts to secrecy were no longer in his favor. He was too big, already all muscle and growing taller.
For all his critical upbringing, he couldn't think of a proper introduction for this.
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Posted: Mon Jan 06, 2014 6:19 pm
The falling debris gave Freyja an excuse for having stood. What she would have done was anyone's guess, though it was doubtful anyone was pondering the possibilities.
Instead, Somebody's Wife pattered a few bold steps towards the male. The accident would be clear to anyone with eyes. However, presenting that to the Warlord's son was a recipe for disaster. And, whether she would like to admit it or not, the pair of them needed him.
"Ah, you caught us by surprise," her good-natured compliment fluttered out to greet him. Inwardly, she was thinking he was lucky he had not broken his neck. That alone was a blessing.
"To what do we owe the pleasure?"
Freyja's eyes made a quick scan. She'd memorized all the name's of the Warlord's children, but it was always polite to let them introduce themselves first. Gloat in their namesake, as they should.
He'd grown up handsome and for a brief moment, Freyja thought handsome enough to spite both Kondo and Sheska in one moment. The thought past with the knowledge of its repercussions.
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Posted: Mon Jan 06, 2014 6:41 pm
Kaelyndra Omg, she's such a b***h. That last part made me lol. XD
"I was... climbing." Niklas murmured the last of it. Even at this age he had a certain innocence about him he was sure to be robbed of in due time. The spitting image of his father in all ways except that which he carried himself. He squinted his eyes, curious thing that he was, and inclined his head ever so slightly.
Niklas, a walking tome of names, history, titles, and his own keen memory. She was Kondo's wife, and he could vaguely recall gifting her a string of beads. But the other one...
With his lineage, he could have gotten away with demands. There were only questions.
"What are you doing?"
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Posted: Mon Jan 06, 2014 7:10 pm
Hopefolly She will take an award for b***h of the month if you're handing them out. So she can gloat about it. In secret.
The lioness was readying another string of compliments and planning how best to make a Warlord's son work for you. Not as difficult as the males would like you to assume; they were usually driven by one common goal.
"Waiting for a Captain, my husband." It was a shame that Niklas was as awkward and quiet as she remembered, or he might have spread her dedication to others.
"He is with new Reavers." If they made it back, she did not voice. Wives did not doubt their husbands. "I imagine you'll be making your father proud, soon, yourself."
Freyja bobbed her head behind her toward's Sheska. "My slave waits for him as well." Perhaps all was not lost, if awkward and shy also meant smart and generous.
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Posted: Fri Jan 17, 2014 12:42 pm
Life always seemed to half-a** fulfilling Freyja's desires: You can have your husband, but he'll think of your sister. You can have a thrall, a pretty one, but she'll start to resent you. On the matter of Niklas, she was granted and denied what she wanted.
Denied: Niklas wouldn't be singing Freyja's praises as a dutiful wife anytime soon, if only because it was such a natural thing for him to witness. His mother was the same.
Granted: Smart? Check. Generous... Weeellll. How could you not be after someone so lovely, so harmless, so not-subject-to-the-usual-skepticism-because-of-the-aforementioned-qualities said just the right thing?
"I imagine you'll be making your father proud, soon, yourself."
Sheska noticed the difference in Niklas' posture right away. Him standing straighter, head being held higher. Her attention to those details derailed with but a word: slave.
b***h, Sheska thought.
"At the borders?" Niklas asked, nearly murmured.
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Posted: Sat Feb 08, 2014 5:31 pm
Freyja is the epitome of modesty as she bows her head to the male. Her eyes drift in the direction Kondo has gone, and it takes all of her effort not to frown. Only someone who knew her back and forth, or had an apt for reading faces, would see the twitch of resentment in her brow.
"That's where he requested us to wait."
A lie, of course. Only Sheska had been forced to the border, and if Freyja so chose, she could leave the slave to die. It was a prospect which grew more and more desirable the more attitude came fluttering out of that pink hide.
But Freyja would beat Sheska herself before she let another claw rake the shimmering, mermaid-like flesh.
"I pray for his safe return."
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Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2014 8:17 pm
Sheska didn't. She prayed that Kondo would die and no punishment would be foist on her for turning her nose up and abandoning this absurdity. If only she could find the time to carry out this defiance between mentally reiterating how certain it was she would and bickering with Freyja instead of doing so.
Niklas' voice was just another addition to the ambient noise the pride emitted. He didn't look much like a savior to her and so she didn't acknowledge him with more than a cursory glance when he turned his head in her direction.
"How long have you been out here?" Niklas' gaze lingered on the two of them, focusing on each separately to start with. Either was just as welcome to answer him as the other, and that alone set him apart from much of the pride and his own blood. The thralls were for the most part intentionally overlooked, yet when he did find himself in their company, he talked with them rather than at them.
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Posted: Thu Apr 10, 2014 9:13 am
Lying was an art. It was more beautiful, more elaborate, than any moved stone, cut rock, and poor excuses for beads and jewelry that Freyja had ever seen. Its intimacy derived directly from life--it could grant it, take it, put it at risk--in a way bards and artisans could only hope to represent.
The biggest secret to lying is to never actually do so. Lions can be led to believe anything, so long as you can convince them it is what you believe. It's as easy as being a faithful wife, a good slave.
"I have been so anxious, I have not kept track of the time."
Freyja looked back towards Sheska. The warning look she had prepared was cast away; the slave was minding herself on her own.
"Long enough for my mouth to dry and my stomach to rumble." Freyja smiled in such a manner to indicate, politely, that Niklas should not worry about them. Hopefully, he was not so culturally absent that he would take the social grace to heart and leave them there.
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Posted: Thu Apr 10, 2014 10:45 am
Sheska, gazing blankly down at the shards of stone settled between her paws, mind far and away, hadn't noticed Freyja's eyes on her. She did look up, curious, when next her keeper spoke. Manipulating him, was she? That meant they had something to gain for trying. Her hopes were all too swiftly dashed by the suspicion creeping into Niklas' tone.
"Why don't you just return later?" His mother was loyal as they came and still he couldn't imagine her obedient to the point of starvation. Was he expected to believe this lioness was more dedicated a wife than she?
Possible, but... The Warlord's most mild-mannered son was probably one of his smartest. Now, he did not look away from Freyja, and his stare was relentlessly scrutinizing as he awaited some justification for what he was beginning to label as blatant stupidity.
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Posted: Thu Apr 10, 2014 11:11 am
"I could," Freyja agreed. Could leave Sheska there, all by herself to die. She could even take a risk and send Sheska away. "And will soon if I must," she tacked on, to make her full intentions clear.
"But I would much rather not." The lioness looked once again towards the slave. "I don't believe they'd let Sheska carry a carcass unsupervised to the border."
The lioness clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth, eyes running over Niklas, muzzle drawing thin. "In my haste, I foolishly did not think to request some rations be brought here." Surely, anyone hearing of a wife waiting for her husband would be more than happy to bring an absent-minded lioness a bit of a meal.
"If you should return to the pride for a meal, I would be indebted if you would pass on a friendly word."
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