Editing Story:ROAD TRIP! (Warhammer High)/Part Five (section)

===Touché===


As the group took dinner in their rooms, Freya raced through the food, hoping to get away to speak to her father.  She bolted as soon as the food was gone, pausing only long enough to grab Bjorn’s gifts to show her father.

As she arrived at his chambers, however, she found him in the middle of a blazing argument with two officers, and hovered nervously outside the door until they tromped out, muttering to themselves.  As they left, Freya entered, glancing around for her father.  King Russ himself was hunched over the table at the farthest wall, paging through his papers with an air of intense annoyance.  Freya coughed from the door to the room.

Russ spun around, his anger melting into fond attention in an instant.  “Freya, come in,” he said.

“Am I interrupting, Father?” Freya asked in Juvjk.

“No, we’re all done,” Russ said, beckoning her closer.  “Tell me of your adventure.”

“Do you want the short version from the letters, or the longer, more detailed version?” Freya asked.

“I have time for the full one, I think,” Russ said.

Freya walked up beside him, begrudgingly tolerating his ruffling her hair.  “Well…right off the bat, the ship’s officers started clamoring for attention…”

As she recounted the tale, tastefully omitting the details of Remilia’s newfound love, she slid into full storyteller mode, relishing the opportunity to pass it along.  They sat down in two massive chairs before the small gas fireplace in one wall and started it as she continued.  As she reached the end, she faltered a bit when describing her companions’ mounting boredom and their experiences with the krakenspawn.  Russ didn’t interrupt except for small questions and requests for clarification, until at last she wrapped up with the poker game he had interrupted.

“‘Busy’ doesn’t begin to describe it, eh?” Russ said, his eyes glimmering in the firelight.

“Not at all,” Freya said.

Russ smiled.  “Good.  I’m glad.  Tell me more of this spat between Alex and his father, if you would,” he said, pouring himself a glass of something that smelled overwhelmingly strong.

Freya waved off a cup.  “Well, his father’s a prideful and cowardly man, at heart, but smart,” she said, disgusted.  “So when he told Alex in public rather than in private that he was forcing him to choose, he was backing his son into a corner.”

“Revolting,” Russ murmured.  “What did you do?”

“I told him that I would have his Warrant revoked if he had done what Alex was afraid of him doing,” Freya said bluntly.

Russ’ head jerked around.  “You did WHAT?”

“You heard me,” she muttered, but it wasn’t defiance so much as lingering bitterness in her voice.  “Worthless corpsemerchant would deserve it too.”

“That is not the point,” Russ said, a tone of pure ice sliding into his voice like the edge of a knife.  Freya flinched.  “You do not have the authority to revoke a Warrant unless I give it to you.  Which I won’t.  I have made my stance on empty threats clear,” he said darkly.

“Forgive me, father,” Freya sighed, her head drooping in contrition.  “I will try not to let my emotions get in the way.”

“Of course not, Freya,” Russ said, his anger melting away.  How did she bloody do that?  “But the decision was Venus’ to make anyway.”

“I understand she later threatened him with imprisonment if he stayed in Nocturne’s system without approval, or followed us to Fenris,” Freya said quietly.  “I wasn’t there.”

Russ looked back to the flame.  “What did Alex do?”

Freya closed her eyes and felt tears build.  “He…stormed out, flew back to the castle.  He raved, called his father a worthless monster…called himself…” she hesitated as her voice tightened.  “…I won’t say it, that wasn’t even for my ears.”

Russ glanced back at her.  Her sense was one of regret, remorse…even self-doubt.  “He wept, father, felt so abandoned…he was hurting so much.  I asked him what I could do to mend the hurt…offered him everything I could think of…my hearing, my…self.  Nothing.  He just…he is so alone now.  His father drove his mother off before this happened, and now all he has is me.”  She looked up at her father, her eyes glistening with tears.  “He was hurting so much, and so I was too.  Does it feel like that for normal people?”

Russ sighed heavily, remembering the state Gairwyn had been in upon her mother’s diagnosis of brain cancer.  “Some people.  Good people.  There is…nothing wrong with emotion, little pup, nothing at all.  It is simply not useful sometimes.  Basic empathy is…not always something we of the Vlka should feel.  But when someone that close to you is hurt, I think humans feel it as close as we do.  I don’t think they react the same way, every time, though.  Your mother is a passionate and emotional woman, too, and she does not bear our gifts.”

Freya smiled sadly at the thought of her mother.  “Is she not here?”

“She did not wish to be.  Things are…not well on Terra.  You will see.  She is in no danger, of course, but the riots, and her mother’s health…” he trailed off.  “She did not wish to travel.”

“Riots?” Freya asked.

“A smuggling ring in Hive Nondemus took an Arbites courthouse out with it when the local law came knocking,” Russ said.  “But back to the matter at hand.  As much as I don’t like to see you suffer, I want to know how much this incident has affected your own plans,” he said.  “Clearly you have already changed your college for him.”

Freya shook her head.  “What of it?”

“Freya, is this boy worth twisting your career for him?” Russ asked.

His daughter glared up at him, her sadness turning to anger.  “What career, father?  Do tell.  What is my future?  Have we decided?”

Russ lowered his head a bit to meet her angry glare.  “Freya, please.  It’s an honest question.”

“So was mine,” she said darkly.  “I will live eternally, and he won’t.  Why not spend time with him while he’s here?”

Russ nearly bared his fangs in anger before checking himself.  “Do not be so cavalier,” he said instead.

“Why do you not like him, father?  This isn’t the first time you’ve said that,” Freya pointed out coolly.  “That exact word, regarding my reasoned decision to stay with him.  ‘Cavalier.’”

Russ grimaced.  “Freya, you know full well that I chose for my people to remain in the mires of war.  That they might elevate themselves through the brutal meritocracy of conflict, so that those with the mettle of a Space Marine might be seen without extensive trails beforehand.  I do not want…no matter how happy he makes you…for you to find yourself with someone who lacks the strength to serve as my heir, in battle as well as politics.”

Freya fell silent.  Russ stared into the flames for a moment longer before turning to her.  He blinked.  Freya’s face was twisted in revulsion.  “Oh…father…how cruel,” she said, her voice bitter.  “How pointlessly cruel.”

“Cruel?” Russ asked.

“Alex is not a Space Marine candidate!  We’re not even TALKING about marriage, let alone him serving as your heir!” she insisted.  “How…WHY would you judge him by a such a lofty criterion when he’s not even old enough to consider them?”

“Because time flies, Freya,” Russ said shortly.

“And besides, I didn’t ask why you don’t want me to marry him,” Freya said in the same tone.  “I’m asking why you don’t LIKE him.  You treat random friends of mine from school, and Jake and your nieces, better than you treat him.  Hell, you wouldn’t even shake his hand if I didn’t ask you to.”

Russ grunted.  “Fine.  I don’t like him because you two started having sex before you were even done growing, because he frankly seems to lack spine, and because I think he has entitlement issues.”

Freya gaped.  “Well, Dad, I can’t speak to the third, since he’s certainly never acted that way around me, but as for the first: my senses are as sharp as yours, and I’ve had to listen to, and smell, everything you and Mom have done behind closed doors since I was born.”

Russ shuddered.  “Fair enough.”