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Call - Chapter 5
“You are a fool, Kodiak.”
Tyr jerked his head back around from watching Beka, ready to snap a retort to the old woman, diplomacy be damned. His desire to do so only increased when he realized that she was laughing at him.
“Your age and diluted blood has reduced you to a meddlesome old crone, Soku.” He turned to walk, or rather stalk, away; eyes intent on his target. He had watched the man wearily while he had been talking to Dylan but anger was now tearing through him after seeing the way the man had touched Beka. Tyr fully intended to teach him a lesson on propriety.
Her laugh grew even heavier at this. “Come back Kodiak, come back Tyr Anasazi, by Barbarosa, out of Victoria.” He did in fact look back at her use of his full name. Her grey eyes were crinkled with her smile, and she gestured for him to come back to her side where he had been sitting for the past half hour.
“I enjoy your company far too much to let you go off on your little rampage just yet. Besides,” chuckling softly again and patting his arm as he sat down with the soft creak of leather, “I’m the Matriarch of this Pride and you’re the last surviving member of yours, so you have to be nice to me.”
Tyr almost succeeded in preventing his smile. His gaze then slid to the man now talking animatedly to someone else; one of the regional governors, Tyr thought. “That man is too presumptuous, he should learn respect.”
“Really? And why would that be?”
“He should not be behaving in such a manner, this is a public function. He is influencing her towards inappropriate behaviour for a treaty negotiation.”
“Yes, I see. You wish for them to conduct their affairs in private?” She was laughing again.
“Why must you mock me, old woman?” He was getting angry again.
“Because it’s easy.” He stood, furious, but before he could walk, she grabbed him just above the elbow and none too gently, pressed her bone blades into his forearm. “Sit.”
Tyr had been Pride-less for many years, but the engrained training of obeying your elders, especially a Matriarch, never left him. He sat.
“Now stay there this time. You look foolish sitting, then standing, then sitting, then standing again. You don’t want people to think the Kodiak are dimwitted, do you?”
There was that word again: fool. His body tensed.
“You are young and energetic, taking offence far too quickly at imagined insults.” He opened his mouth to speak but she cut him off, “You will be silent now and listen.” Her voice had a hard edge now, she was a kind, small, old woman who liked to laugh, but she was Matriarch and when she commanded, obedience was due. “You intended to go over there and teach Darius, propriety, wasn’t it? You have no right. Not because this isn’t your planet or your Pride, but because we both know why he angers you so much and because you have no helix on your arm to give you any rights over her. She has not claimed you and is therefore available to any male who may wish to display for her. If you disapprove of him, then display yourself. Prove him unworthy. You have known the Captain for quite some time now though, and you haven’t yet, therefore I doubt you will. You are afraid. Let Darius have her if she will accept him.”
She fell silent then, allowing him to speak. “I am no coward,” he whispered. “She will not have me; will not claim me as her husband. She does not find me worthy enough. I love her, but she will not have me.”
“Then either you have not been trying hard enough or you are inferior.”
He stood once more; this time, did not sit again, and walked away.
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