Pride of Tortall

Chapter three - Unofficial royal council.

The gathering of the royal family and their most trusted personnel commenced as duke Baird of Queenscove finally arrived to the royal suites. The people gathered were as much an extended family and dear friends, as they were loyal subjects and advisors; even the inhuman one.

Shinko took her daughter from her husband's arms, and snuggled next to him. She had promised when they left the throne room that she would explain as much as she could when they all gathered. Now, before anyone could begin to question her, she first needed to direct one question of her own.

"Duke Baird, how is she?"

"Young Pride? She was the most extraordinary patient I have ever treated. She didn't even need me. She healed herself for the most part. Only left two small scars, one on each cheek. They are barely even noticeable. The only thing that unnerved her were all the walls. She said they made her feel entombed. She asked me how to get to the menagerie, so she could set in with her own. I hope you don't mind me obliging her request."

"Her own?" It was the queen who asked the question, although it was safe bet that everyone was interested in the answer.

Sighing, Shinko knew it was time for her to start giving answers. Before she could do it though, Daine answered the queen's inquiry.

"Panthers and leopards. Her situation is much like Nawat's." Noting the lack of understanding in the faces of everyone but Alanna and Myles she clarified further. "Aly's husband. He was a crow that turned himself into human. He is still as much a crow as he is a human. Pride herself is much more human than panther, but as all of us have witnessed, she still is not completely human."

Before anyone could ask anything else, sir Raoul, the commander of King's Own gave an impudent look to his old time friend, Alanna the Lioness, the King's champion, snorted audibly and exclaimed good naturedly.

"Well, what do you know… Our royalty now has two killer cat's on the leash. I wonder if Pride's temper is half as explosive…" With ease that bespoke years of experience, he evaded Alanna's half-hearted swipe, and dramatically covered behind his wife, who was not much of a cover on account of her being much smaller than him, from mocked, violet-eyed glare.

King broke the theatrics buy a polite cough.

"As much as I appreciate the levity, I don't think now is the time for it…" Both Alanna and Raoul muttered 'stuck-up', at the same time, at the king, and then smirked victoriously to each other. The king chose to ignore them and continued as if nothing had happened "… What I would like to know is, how did you come by that information Daine…"

Surprisingly, it was prince Roald that answered his father.

"Really father, the answer to that is painfully apparent. She was obviously visited by the panther goddess." he said it with an air of absolute certainty. His father blinked.

"How did you reach that conclusion?" he asked with blank incomprehension. The prince sent a quick wink to his mother and adoptive aunts, before he faced his father again, and gave him a long suffering sigh, and rolled his eyes skyward.

"Elementary father. For one, she delivered what was obviously a personal message from Pride's goddess, and it was goddess since she used feminine pronoun in the sentence, not to mention a gift necklace made from large feline immortal's teeth, to Pride. And, now, she explained to us the nature of Pride and her kindred. Even discounting her special bond with animal gods, those two cleanly point to the divine visitation, and since Pride is part panther, the divinity would almost have to be panther goddess, and it makes sense that the divinity would want as little in-between message bearers, that she would give the message to Daine in person. Was that understandable, or I need to go over it once more, slowly and in simpler terms?" Roald seamed to intentionally talk down to his father in his most offensive, bored drawl.

Jonathan's faced stormed over, but his wife calmly snapped him out of his growing temper, by casually swiping him on the head.

"Never mind dear. You deserved it completely anyway." She offered as explanation at his surprised look. Unfortunately for the king, it had sent everyone else in the room in roaring laughter, except lady Keladry, the two Yamani, and princes Lianokami, and even the three ladies were letting amused smirks slip from their emotionless Yamani masks, and the young princess was gurgling in suspiciously giggly tones.

King made a disgusted grunt, although he knew he fooled no one with his disgruntled act, before he continued the line of his questioning.

"Ok, since my first question has been answered, here is my second one. What do we know of Pride, besides what we had witnessed, and the information Daine provided us with? And Shinko, can you explain why such a spectacle of Pride's arrival was necessary? Couldn't it have all been done in more private surroundings…" He faltered at this line of questioning as he saw the appalled glances exchanged between his daughter in law and her lady in waiting.

"You can't have any way to know, so you do not understand how stupid that question was, your majesty." Lady Haname's cool, calculated voice revealed not if it was intended as a well phrased insult, or as a general observation. Shinko shot her a warning look, before taking a deep breath, and started talking.

"As I understand it, and bear in mind that, due the estrangement of my family with the emperor, my education of those matters is fairly rushed and limited, people of Kash are fairly elemental. They have their communities, and they have their hunts. They don't really need anything else to be content. But, they, as anything of feline nature, are severely prideful. Even Pride, a crippled outcast, one that had relinquished her pride, who was also sent specifically to me, needed me to prove being worthy of her services. That should offer you a fairly good insight in the dept of vanity of their race. And, keep in mind that nearly the entirety of their race, something around a million, or maybe even two, of them, stand battle ready at any given moment. Pride by herself, crippled and inexperienced as she might be is strong enough to overpower and crush skull of even sir Raoul. Tortall could not afford to offend them. I doubt there is a nation in the world that could afford to do it…"

"And more closer to the home, my lady would be honor-bound to kill herself and her progeny in an effort to stove away the shame to the Yamani that an offense to the people of Kash would bring." If she had noticed the glare of the princess, lady Haname gave it no moment.

"Anyway, The full specter of Pride's abilities is no more known to me than it is to the rest of you. All that is really known of the people of Kash…"

"Wait, wait. Why do you continuously refer to them as 'people of the Kash'? What is Kash? Their race? Their nation? Their religion?..."

The princess and her lady once again exchanged glances. This time they were worried.

"I truly do not know. The term had come from them, and whenever a similar inquiry was made, the one that was asked would just turn and leave. We think that their goddess is named 'Kashana', but then, again, sometimes they refer to her as 'Miza'. It is the same divinity, and of that, we are at least certain. Anyway, They refuse to speak about it, and no one has been suicidal enough to press one of them for answers, thus far."

"All of that is irrelevant." The quiet, yet decisive voice that had voiced the objection belonged to none other than princess Liana, the second youngest child of their majesties. "What is really pertinent here, is not who she was because she denounced it all when she entered Shinko's service, but what will she become for us." At her fourteen years Liana displayed overwhelming understanding of human nature and court intrigue. "And, I get a feeling she will become a major problem in relations with the conservatives, no offense to you Shinko."

"You know Jon, she is right. Pride is an unpredictable factor, and I'm not certain we can afford that." Gareth of Naxen, king's cousin and closest advisor also did most of the work of prime minister, in his father's stead, and thus usually bore a brunt edge of the royalty's clashes with the rest of nobility.

"Shinko?"

But, the princess was already shaking her head at negative. "Not only is she sworn to me, and thus bound to my will, I also named her Pride. While it would be only symbolic for a Tortallan, or Yamani, or Tusiaine, or anywhere on our side of the ocean, and probably many more places in the world, for one of her kind, it is so much more. By naming her so, she had effectively became my pride. And, since it is not only my pride I had given her, but the pride of the whole Tortall, well, let's just say that all the gods of divine realms couldn't bulge her from her service to me… To us."

D/C - The Tortall, surrounding kingdoms, inhabiting characters, creatures, gods and immortals are in no way, term, or indication in my ownership.