Partner

Ahahahaha.

When I say scary pregnant lady, I mean scary. On the plus side? The last couple of paragraphs. Oh yeah.

I don't think I'll get another update done today, which is kind of sort of sad. But... it happens.

Maybe I'll get lucky. Neh?

Read, Review and Enjoy




Koln’s apartment. The people walked into the kitchen and found Essuan beginning to make tea. She slammed the cupboards and hissed at Hohi when the male tried to help her. Hohi scuttled backward and stumbled over a chair, barely catching himself before he hit the ground. Koln sat at the table, unafraid of the woman thumping through his kitchen. Paw settled on the counter and Mik leaned against the counter beside Mik. Mari sat beside Koln and looked highly uncomfortable as Mik’s mother and Jay took seats about them.

Lillow slipped into the apartment and very quietly closed the door behind her. Essuan glanced at Lillow and slammed the tea jar onto the counter, denting the metal cylinder’s bottom. Everyone remained silent as the angry woman brewed tea and then served Koln, Mari and Mik’s mother. She poured tea for herself turned to everyone in the room. Essuan set her tea on the counter behind her and folded her arms across her chest.

She spoke in Sidhe in a tone that dared anyone to defy her. Hohi sputtered something out and Essuan reached behind her and snatched up pot that had boiled the water. She flung it at her brother. Hohi ducked but Essuan had counted on the male doing that and the still hot pot hit him square in the shoulder. Hohi moved back from the pot and cringed as Essuan let off a barrage of words that included hand motions that were harsh and quick. She stopped, took a breath and looked at Hohi. She said something and Hohi muttered agreement.

“I translate.” Hohi muttered, before cringing when Essuan looked at him, “in proper people.”

Essuan went off on a rant. Hohi translated.

“You all got together without me and decided what was best for the tribe without me? How dare you and I should gut you all where you stand. Don’t you laugh, Paw, you are amongst the first to die. How could you let them throw you about like that? This is not the way Sidhe work. Sidhe do not dictate who can mate who. Don’t you speak to me right now, Souse or I will neuter you where you stand and if you think that I can’t, just because I’m pregnant, try it. Go ahead. Try it. Because after I tear your balls off, I will make you clean up the mess.”

Essuan paused for a breath or two and Koln said, “Essuan, may I have more tea, please?”

How Koln had gotten an empty cup, Mik hadn‘t seen. Though it might have had something to do with the sudden change of water in the clear vase in the middle of the table. The female glared at the table before she realised that it was Koln who had spoke. Then she smiled sweetly and moved about the kitchen, making tea. Koln looked at Mari and began muttering something in another language. Mari was pale but managed to nod along and ask a few questions of her own.

Essuan was silent until she poured Koln his second tea.

“Stop talking in a language I cannot understand or I will count you in with the rest of them,” Essuan muttered, through Hohi, before turning to the rest of them, “Are we Elders or are we children still at our mother’s teat?”

“Elders,” Souse murmured in response.

“Oh, now you think so? You think that you are capable of manipulating the futures of our tribe when you have no idea the ramifications of your actions? Are we, or are we not, all, Elders?”

“We are,” Violet muttered, staring very intently at her feet.

“And who are the Elders of this tribe? List them. List them all, oh wise child.”

“I am an Elder just the same,” Violet responded defiantly, looking up and meeting Essuan’s eyes.

“You, ha. You haven’t even stirred from your child’s body, there’s nothing about you to arouse a man aside from your power, you’ve yet to meet maturity and you are so damaged that I’m surprised your own tribe accepted-” Hohi stopped translating to step in for Violet.

“YOU stay out of this or by Mother and Illuva I will slit your wrists and let you bleed out across Rahl-ta’s altar,” Paw took up the translation, “first born or not, I will not allow you to destroy all of the rules, all of our traditions and everything we are trying to save. We left our home and our families because that is exactly what he wanted to do. Sidhe are free while being bound. You now claim that we must be bound to be free. That is wrong, that is untrue and I will not allow any to exist who will threaten the future freedom of my children.”

“By the very act of declaring that half-breeds cannot exist and that mother and father must be put to death, you bind your children from freedom,” Mik responded.

He received lethal looks from everyone in the room besides Essuan. The woman took a breath and gave a nod.

“That is true. However. That is for a very different reason than this. That was a mutual agreement, between people and Sidhe, made long ago when half-breeds were a dime a dozen and when Sidhe and people crossed eagerly. Half-breeds are a danger to you, I and any and all descendants. Therefore they must be stricken from life before they can kill us all. A necessary evil, I believe your people would call it.

“This, however. Is completely unforgivable. I was left out of this so called unanimous decision, the type of decision that must be made by the Elders when there is one Elder involved in the problem. Not only was I not consulted, but when I expressed my opinion I was completely ignored.”

“Well, to be fair-” Souse started.

Essuan threw the pot of now cool water at Souse, bouncing it off the male’s hip. The pot hit the floor, dented and damaged.

“I am pregnant. It has taken away my capacity to work, not my mental ability. Are you implying that women who are pregnant are unable to think for themselves? Is that what you’re claiming now? Perhaps we should take away the rights of our women, the rights of a young girl to chose her own mate, or that of a male to chose his mate. Perhaps you have forgotten the old ways, the proper ways. Perhaps I need to remind you of the proper running of things?”

Proper running of… things? Had that been a translation problem, or … Essuan’s blue-green eyes flicked over Mik and the man cringed, clearing his mind of thought.

“I was told males can be traded.” Mik said, receiving another glare from the others in the room, “I mean. How do I know if that is the proper way of things. Males can be traded, but here you’re saying a male has the right to mate as he pleases.”

“A male who refuses to pass on his genetic material can be traded. If he wants nothing to do with the child he conceives with a woman, then he may be traded as the tribe needs. Very rarely is there a male who wants absolutely nothing to do with his child.”

“Paw was gifted to me, so,” Mik motioned to Souse, “he said.”

“You what with my what?” Essuan turned on Souse as Paw snorted out a laugh, pausing in his translation to wipe his smile away, “He was a spare male, that doesn’t give you the right to trade him away.”

“I did what I had to do to forge alliances, if I had not-”

“Don’t you tell me what you had to do for the sake of the tribe, always, over and over with this thing about the tribe. You don’t know what it would have been like had you not done so, there are too many variables and you have been as blind as a bat since Lillow blocked you from her mind and as dumb as a rock. Why I ever mated such a ignoramus is beyond me.”

Paw stopped translating as the two of them began screaming at one another. Both his eyes were wide as he watched the two of them. Lillow sighed and slid around the counter to hop up beside Paw. She watched the two of them fight for a very long moment before interrupting.

“Perhaps we should talk about Mik and Paw instead of petty arguments about Souse’s intellect,” Lillow called over the sound of the argument.

Essuan stopped first, taking several breaths before turning towards Lillow, “who invited you?” Paw translated, “you are not an Elder, you have yet to earn your place here.”

“Neither has Mik,” Lillow pointed out.

“This is about him…” Essuan frowned as she seemed to figure something out.

“And me. I am, after all, the child Mik claimed as his own. Now, based upon the rules of what makes a person a member of the tribe calls for some sort of link with the tribe. A male conceiving a child within another tribe does not make him part of that tribe. He must be mated into the tribe or accepted into the tribe as Mik was. Paw has been neither of those things and I doubt that he will just accept an invitation into the tribe. He’s in a position to blackmail all the rest of you.”

“Meaning?” Souse asked.

Lillow shrugged, “Paw isn’t an Elder. So you don’t need unanimous vote, however. If he’s not an Elder, he’s not part of the tribe and if you decline Mik’s desire to allow things to go as he pleases them to, as they please them to, then you risk losing Mik and that which you,” a motion to Souse, “have supposedly sacrificed so much for.”

“Oh, there is not question as to what is going to happen, we are going to do things the Sidhe way. Not the people way,” Essuan responded, through Paw, “and so help anyone who tries to interfere.”

“I am still leader of this tribe-”

Essuan reached to the stove and easily broke off the metal handle on the stove and flung it at Souse, missing the male, barely. The stove handle embedded in the wall just above the sink.

“People out!” Paw snapped, leaping off the counter as Essuan took the two steps to the kitchen table and snatched up the empty chair.

Those at the table rushed out. Mik found himself stuck in place as Essuan broke the chair over Souse’s back effortlessly. She was left holding two wooden stubs from the legs of the chair. These she threw at Souse, eliciting a whine from the male, before she began slapping at him with her hands.

Lillow slid between the two of them and ducked Essuan’s swings easily. The girl’s only goal, it seemed, was to put space between Essuan and her target - Souse. Hohi was up a moment later and between Lillow and Essuan. The male didn’t bother attempting to dodge Essuan’s attack and took it full on. Lillow turned on Souse and cuffed him upside the head. Essuan let out a frustrated, angry sound and stopped hitting Hohi. Her eyes filled with tears and she huffed and turned her back on her brother as her shoulders shook.

“A whole new definition to spousal abuse,” Mik muttered.

“Why did Mik not leave?” Paw snapped at Mik as he stepped back into the kitchen, coming from the living room.

Paw held three leaves in his hand, obviously the Sidhe had come from the green room. It hadn’t occurred to Mik that he should have left when Paw had shouted for the people to leave. All Mik could do was shrug.

“I didn’t… it just didn’t…”

Paw’s lips met Mik’s. The first really public kiss Mik and Paw had ever shared. Paw’s tongue caressed Mik’s lips, a hand wrapped around Mik’s head, the other up the small of his back, pulling him tight against the Sidhe. Mik responded when he finally realised what was happening. Their tongues grazed for a moment before Paw plunged his tongue into Mik’s mouth and caressed the inside of the man’s mouth. Mik shuddered and pulled away for just a moment, to get a breath. Their lips met once more.

A moan when their tongues met once more. Another moment and they broke apart. Paw let out a breath, against Mik’s cheek.

“Mik and Paw will do as pleases,” Paw said over Mik’s head, to Souse, “if any say otherwise, Mik and Paw leave tribe. Make own tribe. Take Lillow with’em. As Lillow is Mik child, totally doable. Common Mik, less go have sexums.”

“I think you meant come on…”


.