Disclaimer: It belongs to Tamora Pierce

A/N: Well, we're that much closer to the walk through the realm. Oh, expect this to have the most chapters I've ever used. I think it will be nearly 30.

Goldeneyedwildmage: Sorry I slowed down. I only guarantee one chapter per day and I haven't fallen off that deadline.

Bitterosemary: Haa, funny. Thanks for the compliments. There is so much more of his past to come to. Of course, while it isn't anti-cannon now, it will be someday. I understand Tamora Pierce is going to write that herself. I wonder how off I'll be. Oh, and he got a stay of execution.

Purple Eyed Cat: I think that is precisely what happened. In RotG, just after the first kisses, Rikash asks her if she's brooding over "longshanks" as if he knows there's something. I always figured he saw it. He did tell her that things weren't as bad as she thought and to look around in the end of EM because Numair was there. It probably never dawn on him that they had not done anything about it yet. He doesn't seem like someone to keep his mouth shut about anything. I liked Rikash. He was sassy and I love that he called Ozorne "Sweetheart" and "my precious".

Chapter 13 – Arguing

"Come with me NOW," Weiryn growled. There was nothing Numair could do but obey, so he waived to Rikash and followed Weiryn into the house and into the kitchen, where Sarra was busy making lunch. They were barely through the door when Weiryn addressed Sarra in nearly a bellow, "You knew, didn't you!" It was not a question.

"Knew what, dear?" she asked, her eyes big and innocent. It seemed to further enrage Weiryn and was most unhelpful.

Numair sent black fire around the kitchen to insulate it. Weiryn whirled at the sight and glared at Numair. "What exactly is that for?" the god asked.

"Maybe it is unnecessary, but if we are to discuss my feelings for Daine, I don't want her to accidentally overhear."

Sarra looked between the men and seemed to come to a decision. "Sit!" she ordered both, pointing to chairs that seemed to come out of the wall at her command. Numair sat abruptly, Weiryn remained standing.

Weiryn and Sarra stared at each other, motioning once in a while as if they were having a mind-to-mind conversation or maybe argument. Numair tried to wait patiently, but it was hard. He wanted to defend himself and he wanted to go check on Daine. Suddenly the mindspeak was dropped and Weiryn began to argue aloud. "…everyone knew but me! That damned Queenclaw hid his thoughts from me. And I kept wondering why he seemed to always be thinking about book text every time I saw him! All because you decided this should be allowed to continue!"

A fierce look crossed Sarra's face and Numair could see a vein in her temple bulge slightly. If she was arguing, it was again in mindspeak. She crossed her arms in front of her and finally said something aloud. "Men! You think you know everything!" If the situation weren't so serious Numair might have laughed. "And Weiryn, you know the rules better than I do. We don't interfere in human emotions. We don't interfere in free will. You can't interfere here."

"This is my daughter – my sixteen year old daughter and he wants to bed her!"

"Now wait a minute," Numair interjected, jumping to his feet. "First of all, that is not what I want. I love Daine. Yes, I want her. I am a man. I can't shut that off. But there is a big difference between desire and action. You make it sound like that's all there is to this. And since you can look into my mind, you know damn well that what I want is to be with her. And still, I have not spoken. She doesn't know how I feel because I didn't want to confuse her."

Weiryn had let him go on for an amazingly long time considering the clear anger on his face. "She's too young," he growled finally.

"Excuse me," Numair said, completely losing control of his temper, "Wasn't Sarra sixteen when you left her pregnant and alone?"

Sarra's eyes grew large as she grabbed her mate. "Now is not the time, Numair," she said.

He cursed -- something Numair rarely did. "Why not? If I have to face his self-righteous wrath, I think now is the time to tell him he's being hypocritical, because while he seems to want to play Daddy now, maybe he needs to realize the consequences of his actions." There was some part of Numair screaming at him that he was behaving foolishly. But there's only so long one human can push their emotions aside and he had apparently reached his limit.

Weiryn snarled, "So you, a mortal mage – you think you're going to explain the world to a god," he laughed sarcastically and he looked very angry.

"No, I think I'm going to explain your daughter to you, since you never bothered to find out." A crackle filled the air with silver lightening. Numair wasn't sure whether it was stopped by Sarra, stopped by the badger (who chose that second to appear) or whether it was never meant to hit him in the first place. He didn't move though. He stood there, back straight, ready to take whatever punishment Weiryn chose for him. His magic couldn't help. His warding couldn't even keep the badger out, not that he wanted to.

"What is going on in here?" the badger asked.

"This – man – thinks he's going to explain things to me about my daughter," Weiryn said flippantly.

"Shut up, Weiryn," Sarra said softly. The antlered god looked shocked. There was a look in her eyes of soft resignation. Perhaps his emotions were still so heightened that they could look right into his mind, but if that were the case, Weiryn wasn't hearing the arguments. Sarra put a hand on her mates shoulder and said, "Say what you need to say, Master Salmalin."

His temper mellowed slightly as he began, "You watch us, but you don't watch all the time. You mustn't, because if you did you would know the number of times that beautiful girl has asked me who would want 'Sarra's bastard'. You don't want to interfere and so you left them alone. You left Sarra to hear that she was a slut and you left your daughter to grow up without any father to claim her and weird magic that earned her the label 'freak'. You had twelve years, Lord Weiryn – twelve years in which to come and meet that wonderful girl and tell her you cared about her. There were twelve years in which you could have stood up for Sarra and told the huntsmen of Snowsdale to stop harassing her. There were twelve years when you could have explained to either Sarra or Daine what wild magic was, so Sarra would stop testing Daine for gift. You didn't do it. Maybe twelve years is no time to you and it just got away. But that's your failing, Lord Weiryn, not mine." Weiryn glared, but Sarra held him back. The badger moved closer to Numair and watched him.

"When I met Daine she had been hunted by her own kind," Numair continued. "It nearly destroyed her. She was afraid of the truth and afraid of her magic. If the badger hadn't demanded she tell us the truth, I'm not sure she would have because she was so traumatized. Sarra and Benek were gone and she was all alone in the world, struggling to find her own way. Were you watching when one of the huntsmen cut her with his blade? Were you watching when it was a wolf that licked your daughter's wound to clean it instead of having a healer to prevent infection?" He realized Sarra had begun to cry and the badger moved closer. Weiryn seemed to be speechless.

"When Daine entered my life, she didn't know you were here watching. She didn't know her mother had been given this status. She knew she was alone. She found a home for herself and I have been part of that for more than three years. The stormwing standing out on your lawn is alive because I didn't let her kill him in Dunlath the first time she saw him. He doesn't know that. He never knew she had her bow trained on him. He doesn't know that I told her she couldn't attack because they weren't attacking us. You weren't even there to guide her. That was me." He poked himself in the chest as he finished the sentence.

The tension in the room was getting heavier and Numair was lost in a thousand thoughts he'd never before voiced. The words just kept coming, spilling out like they had been pulled from him. "Did you fight the graveyard hag? Did you tell her you didn't want her to use your daughter in Carthak? You want to intercede now. Did you want to then? I was the one hunting for her. The badger could have found her in a second, but I was not supposed to call on him again, so I hunted and hunted for her and I kept her from tasting Ozorne's blood. I held her while she sobbed. Do you know how hard it has been on her? People died! She knows she's responsible. Who saw her through that? Me."

The badger was now close enough to touch Numair's ankle, but he couldn't stop. So he merely nodded as he spoke. "Death means nothing to you. You didn't stop Sarra's death and you didn't try to stop Daine's on several occasions. Yes, you stopped it this time, though that was probably due more to Sarra than you. Every other near death experience Daine has suffered, you left to me. I pulled her from the river full of crocodiles. I disposed of the blood rain in Dunlath. I saw her through unicorn fever. I brought her back from the displacement chasm. I kept her own brother from using her as a weapon, and I put the world back together when he tried to destroy it. And if you don't get around to telling her about her brother, that will be my job too, won't it?"

Weiryn didn't answer. He stood there, anger waning, but still glaring at Numair. So Numair kept going. "If you think that sex is all I want, then you obviously aren't paying attention. I am in love with Daine. She represents everything good in my life. And still, I haven't spoken because she has the right to choose. I watched miserably while she dated Perin Porter and when he tried to hurt her, I comforted her. And I still didn't speak because I don't want her confused or wrongly influenced. I would die for her. I would let her love someone else and stay miserably alone if that's what would make her happy." Numair glared at Weiryn, "And I would never leave her alone and pregnant, and refuse to let her marry another if I couldn't marry her myself. But that is how you left her mother. It's not right for you to question my morality, Lord Weiryn."

The two men continued to stare fiercely at one another and everyone in the room stayed silent for a moment. Finally Sarra said, "That's Daine, out of the bath. I'll ask her to take a roost out for her friend." She turned first to Weiryn and then to Numair as she said. "Mind your manners and stop giving each other the evil eye." As she walked out of the room, Numair distinctly heard her grumble, "Men! They're fair stupid sometimes. Think they know everything…." He smiled to himself and looked up to see the same amusement on Weiryn's face.

Weiryn returned to glowering and also shot the badger a dirty look. "Are you siding with him then?" Weiryn grumbled to the badger.

"I'm siding with my kit," the badger said pointedly. "She won't like it if you hurt him and you know it."

"He's had a lot more experience of love than she has," Weiryn said defensively.

"No," Numair said quietly. "I've had a lot more experience of lust than she has. It's different." The badger sneezed three times consecutively.

"He will break her heart," Weiryn said. Numair noticed he was still speaking to the badger almost as if Numair were not in the room.

"No," Numair said softly. "I cannot break her heart. I cannot hurt her at all. I love Daine and if she's hurt, I hurt. And it's all academic anyway because we are just friends."

"Until he changes his mind and decides he cannot wait to bed her a second longer."

Numair rolled his eyes and looked at the badger. "Should I bother defending myself again or will he just keep going back to that?"

The badger sneezed. "Don't bother."

When Sarra walked back in and both men weren't glaring at each other quite as much, she smiled broadly. "We're all settled then. Good! You two can help me take lunch to the table. And you will not be showing hostility around my daughter."

"I can be friendly. I want to be friendly," Numair said. "You are her father," he added turning to Weiryn, "And she's always wanted to know her father. I couldn't take that from her."

The badger looked up at Numair and said in mindspeak, -Nice touch-. He assumed by the lack of reaction, that the message was only heard by him.

-

-

Okay, please respond.