Characters: Parisa & Shangyue
Word Count: 1088
It was a dark, quiet night in the Mwezi’Johari. The moon was absent and it put many of the pride members at ease. The King had once relished in the absence of the Great Lion, used it to his advantage in securing his throne.. but now that the pride had turned against him, he felt vulnerable. If they truly disapproved of what he had done, it was unlikely that they would strike while the moon was gone.. unlikely, but not impossible.
The quiet was of little comfort, too. Shangyue was still here, he was still the king.. but all around him, his reign was crumbling, slowly but surely. Queen Parisa was more keenly aware of this than her mate was. She was, at her core, an easily frightened lioness. It kept her watchful, it made her smarter. She could see what her over-confident mate refused to see: he was losing.
There were many guards posted near the Royal Dens and they all had no choice but to trust them. Parisa certainly trusted them enough to be more comfortable with them there than if they were not, and yet it made it extremely difficult to get some privacy with her mate-- and that was what she needed. So together, the King and Queen were walking peacefully away from the den, staying near enough to be seen but not enough to be overheard. Shangyue was agitated, as was common nowadays, but Parisa was strangely calm.
“This is quite the mess we’re in now,” she said, standing opposite her mate and narrowing her eyes.
Shangyue grunted in response.
“Is that it? You have nothing to say?” Parisa pressed, frowning.
“We’ll be able to make it up, we just have to get rid of Meshach,” he said sternly, “Without a leader, they’ll get nowhere.”
Parisa snorted and said nothing. Cutting off the head sounded like it made sense but their first attempt had failed. Umepatwa’s death had only encouraged the mob. She suspected that this beast of a rebellion had many heads, and Shangyue would call for each of them. He had one but the rest would not come so easy. Meshach was certainly a leader but none of the loyalists had seen him in so long, it was looking extremely unlikely he would be caught before he was ready to be. And whoever else might be in charge was a complete mystery.
Her silence resulted in a staring contest between the two rulers, and it was Parisa who cracked first.
“Why did you send our son after Meshach?” she asked, a clear accusation in her voice as she finally got out a question that had been plaguing her from the start-- and more earnestly after a conversation with Xiyang.
“Why not?” he responded easily, “My children should be involved in protecting their pride from rebellion.”
Parisa did not respond immediately. She expected an answer like that, but it didn’t make anything more clear. Yueyun was one child, and not a very important one in the grand scheme of things. She might have been willing to accept the risk if it was Liuhe that had been called to action. The King and his heir were the ones who ought to fight this war, and Shangyue kept them both at a safe distance.
“Why only Yueyun?”
“He’s the eldest after Liuhe,” Shangyue said, “We know it would be foolish to send my heir into their claws.”
An heir was of great importance in a situation like this. It was why the rebels had tried to keep his illegitimate would-be heir from him when she was born, it was likely why they had stolen her back as well. But Antara had no value now that the king had legitimate children. Perhaps, deep down, Shangyue recognized that in addition to his physical safety, Liuhe’s loyalty would be at risk if sent to act on the king’s behalf.
Parisa nearly corrected him when he called Yueyun the eldest after Liuhe. She suspected he was playing favourites, that vanity was a factor in sending the child that most resembled the king.. but there was no use saying it out loud. It was irrelevant to the point she was trying to make.
“What if he had been killed?” she asked, resuming her glare at the King.
“Meshach would not have killed Yueyun,” Shangyue said confidently, returning the glare, “He might kill me if he got a chance, but not Yueyun.”
“What about the lions you sent him with?” she shot back with a snarl, “The only group you put a lot of thought into was the one that got Tyfu killed, and that has cost you one daughter’s life and a one son’s health. Your followers are defecting and it’s your progeny paying the price!”
Parisa was standing nearly nose-to-nose with Shangyue now. She was quite a bit smaller than him but through all of this, it wasn’t the King that scared her- it was the war, and it what it might cost her. Shangyue wasn’t scared of the Queen, either, and the cost he worried about was much more selfish. He stood tall and stared her down, not allowing himself to even appear intimidated by his Queen.
“If defection is what you worry about, none of us are any safer here than out there,” he said steadily, “Yueyun was in danger whether he stayed home with us or went hunting for a way to end this before it could get this bad. I lost two bastards and nearly lost a third, I could have lost a prince. But what of it? What are four of them if it helps keep our position secure? Do you think any of them, either of us are safe if we lose?”
His patience for her harsh accusations and analysis of his failures was worn out and it was apparent. Though she glared and snarled at him, his threat was more subtle-- but it was impossible not to see in the way he stood and the way he spoke. So it was time to end the conversation. But Parisa would not let him have the last word. He had barely listened to her when this all started and he was beyond taking her advice now, so there was only one thing left.
“If anything happens to my children,” she said in a forbidding tone, “I will end this rebellion myself.”
With that, the Queen turned around and marched herself back to their den. The King watched her go but did not follow.
Fin!