Orum knew he would have to watch his daughter give her heart to another one day. It was hard to imagine when she was stumbling around, somehow rolling into trouble despite not having the strength to walk, but as she grew with every passing day, that remote reality became more pressing. His Kii was a sweet thing. She inherited her mother’s bloodlust but also the healing heart of his clan. A beautiful heart wrapped in a pretty package. A treasure of the provinces.
But he worried for her. She came from a powerful bloodline of matriarchs. The Atainnas broke away from their Twilight origins and civilized, to a degree. Yet, the danger hadn’t passed. Morgene’s tale was the core of his worry.
The madness that sparked the torrid history of the clans ran deep and lust tended to bring it to the fore. His Kii was precious, but he feared the day she found love, afraid the powerful desire would awaken the instincts of her ancestors. He had come to love Morgene, but that love would forever be tainted by their meeting. When he imagined his daughter hunting down a mate and breaking them, it made his heart hurt and his stomach turn.
For her safety, and perhaps the safety of dozens of souls, Kierra’s dedia, the one she chose to share her heart with, had to meet a specific set of criteria.
The first was strength. Overwhelming strength, both of body and mind. Orum and Morgene usually aligned in how to raise her, even if their decisions were motivated by very different reasonings. Orum instilled discipline over self because he wanted Kierra to be more than her legacy. Morgene insisted on discipline because she saw control as power.
However, it was hard to for a creature to deny itself. There were stories of physical casters who used their magic to control every facet of themselves, able to exert influence on their emotions. In those stories, those casters all became monsters in some way, as to put the heart in chains was to take away personhood. A person was how they responded to the world.
Orum would never ask Kierra to be anything other than who she was. Nor would she blame her for her blood. That’s why he put his hope in the one she chose. Her instincts would tell her to hunt, capture, and dominate. Once that rock started rolling down that hill, there would be no stopping it from crushing the poor souls in its path.
But if her lover proved too strong, like Orum faced with the insurmountable obstacle that was his dedia convinced she was doing what needed to be done to save her child, Kierra would be forced to adapt. To realize that desire didn’t have to be linked to violence and death.
“Er, are there rules to this?”
Lourianne Tome. The creature wore a human face but was far from. If its apparent discomfort as they stood facing each other on the field behind the large house was false, the onlookers standing two dozen steps away, then she was a masterful actress. The only reason he considered it might be faking at all was because he knew it possessed formidable power.
It wasn’t easy to raze a settlement. The level of power needed wasn’t rare. Unleashing that power with hundreds or thousands of souls trying to thwart it? No simple feat. The best of the best, even those that tended to stay out of combat, would have stood up. From what he knew, the best of the humans didn’t compare in the slightest to the best of the provinces, but numbers had their own strength.
In terms of combat power, Lou met his first criteria. As for strength of the mind, he’d yet to make up his mind. It had a skittish nature about it, especially when talking to Morgene, that concerned him. Kierra didn’t have either of their stubbornness, but she could be obstinate when she wanted. It would take a formidable heart to stand up to her when her mind was made up. He didn’t see that in Lou…most of the time.
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Though every now and again, he saw something in its violet gaze. A shadow of the intensity veterans who sailed across the sea to fight in great wars or climbed the Sacred Tree more than once had. There was much to be desired there but there was a seed that could be nurtured.
Orum raised both hands. “A verbal surrender or this gesture immediately ends the bout. To win, you must completely seal the movements of your opponent for ten seconds, exhaust their mana, or strike a fatal blow that they don’t heal in ten seconds.”
“A fatal blow? You guys are, er, I mean sure. Yup. Pretty simple.”
The second criteria Orum had for Kierra’s partner was that they have strong beliefs that leaned toward just. He didn’t want or expect her to love someone that was a paragon of virtue. It would never work. His daughter had as much darkness in her as she did light. What determined which side held sway was her environment.
If she was left in peace, she would be at peace, but if someone came seeking war, she would happily revel in bloodshed. He didn’t want to change that. Couldn’t, even if he wanted to. What he hoped was that she would choose to spend her life with someone who would encourage the light.
In that regard, Lou was perfect. If not for the broken city, he would think the creature was a flower. Better, there was an actual flower in the clan. Few still followed the tradition properly, but he knew his daughter had claimed the woman with the strange eyes the old way.
A flower wasn’t simply cared for. That would make them no different from family. They were carefully raised, pampered to the full extent of their patron’s ability. The state of a flower was a direct representation of said ability, so a true patron poured everything into the one they claimed.
Caring for anything with such fervor changed a person. One couldn’t practice love so extensively and not let that love into their heart. For a long time, the practice kept powerful warriors that slew souls by the hundreds in every battle grounded, reminded them that there was more to the world than blood. A constant pull on the light inside her, keeping it ever-present.
For that, Lou and the nascent Tome clan got resounding approval.
The third thing Orum expected of Kierra’s partner was matching potential. The Atainnas were a blessed line, a culmination of physical and magical potential obtained through generations of careful breeding. What Morgene hadn’t said about her legendary great-grandmother was that two of her four affinities were greater affinities, null and physical, as well as that the woman had a prodigious physique. He abhorred the practices of the clans…but there was something to be said for the argument of preserving a bloodline. He would never go as far as to arrange a union, but he also wouldn’t sit by if she wanted to roll around with some mongrel.
From the moment he’d met Lou, he started assessing its strength. He couldn’t do an in-depth examination without being obvious but by adjusting his senses and paying attention, he could learn a lot. Such as that it walked on the tip of its toes, as its weight made the wooden floors of their home creak with strain. The careful way it held her cup and utensils when eating. The slow, incredibly slow, beat of its heart that gave off the impression of a great beast’s lumbering steps. The faint trace of poison he could smell coming off it. He especially noted the definition of its muscles as it shrugged off its shirt.
There was also the mystery of its shapeshifting. In the case of its potential, it also met the criteria.
“Alright. I’m ready. There a start signal?”
The last criteria he had was more flexible. One he didn’t care about much but would like to see.
His daughter was beautiful. He’d love her even if she had the face of a troll, but he would be lying if he said her charm didn’t play a part in his affection. He was looking forward to holding his grandchildren. His cute, beautiful as every Atainna, grandchildren. Their blood was strong but not so strong it could beautify the influence of a truly hideous face.
He wasn’t too worried about his daughter mating with a creature with a face like a maggot’s. Her mate having a face like Lou’s…he wasn’t worried about his grandchildren lacking charm.
In all ways, Lou fit his ideals. After their bout, he would gladly welcome it to the family and recruit it in foiling Morgene’s continued schemes. He had no doubt she would cause trouble when she realized she wouldn’t have the bloodsport she desired.
After.
This was still the creature that spirited away his daughter. Was likely mounting her every night. The female shell it wore couldn’t fool his nose.
He couldn’t imagine a father that wouldn’t feel fury with that kind of picture in their minds. He was owed a bit of its pain. Or maybe a lot of it. But afterwards, he would welcome it wholeheartedly.
“Start.”