"So... What do you think of it so far?" Siavash asked the lioness, trying to make eye contact, but she would not meet his gaze. He tilted his head and frowned a little bit, but he tried to quickly replace it with a smile in case she happened to look at him at that instant. It was pointless, though. He did allow himself a sigh.
The lithe black lioness stared at her paws, and finally satisfied Siavash with a look— albeit a brief one— through her forelock. She shrugged at him.
"It could be worse, I suppose... I'm safe from my family here at least. Right?" She looked over her shoulder toward the supposed direction of her homelands. Her words moved Siavash's heart to pity. Well, even more pity. Her looks had also done a lot toward earning her favors and gentler treatment than the other typical thralls found in the Stormborn. Siavash had answered her with a nod. "Will I ever get to leave?" She asked next. He was the one to avoid her gaze, this time. He fidgeted and squirmed a bit uncomfortably.
"If things improve, it may not be out of the question... It's just too hard to say right now..." He extended a paw and patted her on her shoulder and he felt her lean into it. He had been deceptive, untruthful, lying and scheming to keep her here. Could he pull it off? Could he be that twisted of a soul to entrap another? Were his seeing powers meant for this purpose? What were they even? He had only ever had one vision and it was when he was a young cub. The black lion had been unable to recreate it ever since. He had been the only one of his litter to have a vision (for better or for worse) and it fractured the relationship he had with his blue brother Vaivata ever since. Siavash blamed it as the reason that Vaivata left the Stormborn to set off and find another pride, one where he wasn't unfairly compared to Vaivata. And since that vision, their mother Adelheid had paid far more attention to him than any of his siblings. Like she was grooming him for something. What was he supposed to be so special for? She had visions too, thanks to her father the God of Ashes... He hadn't ever gotten a straight answer from her, though... He shook his head, as if to get himself from being so deeply in his own mind and focused on the lioness again.
"Do you have any family?" She asked, a bit abruptly, and for a split second Siavash was afraid she could read his mind and knew what he was thinking.
"I... I do... A few siblings, my mother, aunt, uncles, a lot of cousins..."
"A father?" She asked and tilted her head.
"Well, I do, but he was a rogue and my mother said he had not interest in joining the pride. Apparently he was also a seer..." He shook his head, he didn't know much more. "He's the reason my siblings are pale and we have these markings."
"A grandfather?"
He furrowed his brows and eyed her with guarded curiosity.
"...I mean technically of course I do, everyone does. One of them is the father of the rogue who I never met so I definitely don't know anything about him, and the other is my mother's father... She said he's a god and wants to find and meet him, but my grandmother refuses to tell us anything more than that he's the God of Ashes... Why do you want to know?" He turned it back on her.
"With my family being so dangerous, I'm a bit predisposed to uncertainty about others', and if I'm to be your ward indefinitely, then I want to be assured of my own safety... is that too much to ask?" She asked with more resolve than he'd heard her speak with before. A bit taken aback, he responded to her critique.
"N-no... That makes perfect sense. Of course... of course..."
"Is the ... God of Ashes... Dangerous? It sounds like such a destructive domain. Aren't you ever afraid that he may come back? What kind of god or goddess makes mortal offspring just to abandon them? Could he have a greater purpose?"
Siavash tilted his head at the lioness. Her query seemed to go far beyond what she was using as a cover for her earlier questions. Btu was it right of him to regard her with such suspicion? Maybe she had bad experiences with immortals in the past and he just had yet to hear of them. His pink eyes searched her black and blue face but found no answers.
"I'm not sure... about any of that... I've never met him... For all I know he may no longer be alive..." At that, she seemed disappointed for a fleeting instant before reassuming a mask. But had he been imagining that?
"I'm sorry, it's just... my captors— when I could understand them— told me they hunted gods, that they were evil and vile creatures bent on harming mortals and using them for their own entertainment. I'd never been much of a believer in any of them before that, but now between that experience and me learning this about your family, it seems like it's a bit too great to be a coincidence, does that make sense? I'm supposed to trust you as my savior, but what if I'm just going from one evil to another?" She shied away from the black reaver.
His ears flicked toward her then back toward his head, and he chewed his lip thoughtfully. Did she have a basis to what she was saying? He agreed, all of this combined did seem a bit too unlikely, but...
"...Sure." He said, but it was more to appease her and to try to prevent any further line of questioning that could possibly result from their conversation. As suspicious as she seemed to be of him, he was growing equally distrusting and wary of her.