Characters: Liuhe, Parisa
Timeline: Shortly after Kimondo’s coronation
Word Count: 1179

Parisa had stormed out of the ceremony following Kimondo’s coronation, followed closely by Dwyllodrus.. and Liuhe had made the decision to give her some space before following after her. The fact that his half-brother seemed to be sticking so close was a factor, but he also knew better than to push too hard. But he couldn’t avoid her forever, especially since he had personally asked for a favour from the Queen in allowing her to stay. She wasn’t hard to find, her new den was not far from the old royal den.. but it was empty now. His younger siblings must have dispersed, or been sent away after everything that had happened.

At least Dwyllodrus was not there. It was the main reason he chose to approach finally. He’d been meaning to ask about that, but it remained to be seen if he had the nerve to question her on the company she kept. What he did know, he already didn’t like.

Parisa was alone, as she had preferred for the last few nights, finally having chased Dwyllodrus off for the time being.. and she was laying under the stars, staring up at the moon with anger in her eyes. She had yet to fully come back down from whatever set her storming away from her children that night, and her blame seemed to rest on the Great Lion as he drifted off to sleep above them. This was how Liuhe found her, and he approached cautiously.

“Mother?” he called.

If Parisa heard him, she gave no sign. It made the lion uneasy, though he didn’t truly have any reason to be afraid of his mother. She was normally a fierce, confident lioness.. someone he’s always respected, if not feared, while she held authority over him. She was still his mother, and that power over him lingered, but he had been through so much it wasn’t so scary now.

“I asked Kimondo to let you stay, Mother,” he went on, trusting that she was listening even if she wasn’t acknowledging him, “You’re not going to be exiled. And.. neither is Dwyllodrus. He’s being allowed to stay, too.”

It had been more painful to ask that Dwyllodrus be allowed to stay, especially since he knew how hard the loss of Umepatwa had been on her, how that might ultimately have been how she ended up where she was now. Both of his murderers were being allowed to stay, and that had to be the worst part of trying to put this behind them all.

But Parisa still didn’t say anything.

“Mother..”

Liuhe stared silently for what felt like an eternity before his mother finally looked at him. If anything, her anger only intensified and it was enough to make the full grown lion take a good step back even though he was still several feet from her. She got to her feet and walked right up to him, the pain hiding beneath the anger suddenly apparent.

“This- this is my home,” she hissed, still very clearly offended at having had to ask to stay here, “My entire life has been here.”

Liuhe stared at her, opening his mouth to try to assure her that he knew that but he closed it again. She didn’t want anybody to agree with her, or try to discuss this with her. She wanted someone to yell at, and he was the best choice without his father around. The worst offender in the family, the one who abdicated the throne and recommended- no, insisted the others did too. The one who undid whatever she thought she had done by giving them the chance to get to their father when they did..

He was right about what Parisa saw when she looked at her eldest son, but he was wrong about the perspective. He was someone who had taken control of his own life and made decisions for himself and had been able to extricate himself from duty and responsibility. Selfish as it may have been, reckless even.. he had been given the luxury of a choice. And she had played a part in making that happen for him, by helping Liuhe to free himself of his father, she had also freed herself.. and now it simply didn’t matter. None of it mattered because she was Firaga’s daughter and Shangyue’s queen.

“I didn’t have a choice, you know,” she said, her voice fierce and full of hatred, “My mother didn’t want me, didn’t want us. I don’t know why father did, but he brought us here. I remember when Shangyue took over, I was watching from between my father’s feet, terrified.”

Liuhe’s ears flattened and he stared as his mother, bewildered, as she told a side of the story of her life he hadn’t heard before. Whether or not it was to manipulate him into feeling guilty, there was something in her voice, in her eyes.. she wasn’t lying.

“When Shangyue slipped up and got himself a bunch of high class bastards, he had to find a queen,” she went on, “There was no one he trusted more than my father, and that was the only way he could get a loyal wife. Celosia was in the Low Class but I wasn’t, and that was that.”

She had embraced the idea, seen it as an opportunity.. but there was no other way at the time. That was just her life. For a time, she was sure it still had a chance to work out, but then everything went south quickly. Shangyue couldn’t shake his dissenters or his paranoia and it had destroyed him.

“My entire life has been beyond my control,” she said, her voice shaking but her fierce eyes never leaving Liuhe, “Until I made the choice to help you and Yueyun see your only chance to change things. But to do that, I had to make a deal with Dwyllodrus and now I’m stuck with him too.”

Parisa shuddered and turned herself away from her son finally, pacing furiously. Liuhe’s expression was stunned as he really understood for the first time that his mother was more than just his mother, more than the Queen or Firaga’s daughter.. she was a lioness caught up in a tangled mess of something that was beyond her. She never seemed more similar to him than at that moment, and it made his heart ache.

“Do you want me to have Dwyllodrus chased out?” he asked hesitantly after a long silence fell between them. It wasn’t technically within his power but he had no doubt that any love (or lust) for his mother would not protect him from his brother if he confronted him personally. And there was no way Parisa was going to approve of that suggestion.

Without a word, Parisa stopped pacing and turned to look at Liuhe.. and then shook her head.

“No, I made this choice,” she said, “I can handle the consequences. But I refuse to be kicked out of my home. You can tell your friend that for me.”

Feeling guilty, Liuhe nodded.

Fin!