A huge smile lit her face. “He wanted to know what the words, ‘baby’, ‘honey’, ‘big guy’, ‘fierce warrior’ and ‘sweet’ meant.”
Oh.
My.
“What did you tell him?” I breathed and she leaned back, tipping her head to the side.
“Well, I told him what they mean, of course.”
Oh God.
I wasn’t sure Lahn would take to being called “baby” when he knew what it meant. Or “honey” for that matter. And I wasn’t certain he’d like “sweet” either.
Damn.
“Um… Diandra –” I started.
She shook her head. “Do not worry, my queen. I explained that in your land, these are endearments, like kah fauna. Which, I assume, they are?”
I nodded.
Her head tipped further to the side. “Big guy is an endearment?”
“Uh… essentially,” I muttered.
“Unusual,” she muttered back.
“Did, uh… Seerim explain this to Lahn?” I asked and she got that wicked, knowing look in her eyes.
“He did, indeed, my dear. He went right back to him and explained. Then he came back to me.”
Seemed like Diandra had a busy morning.
When she said no more, I prompted, “And?”
Her eyes lit again. “Seerim tells me he has never seen the Dax laugh that hard or that long. Our king found all this very amusing.”
Well!
I was so sure.
To hide my hurt, I looked to Ghost, slid my fingers through her fur and whispered, “Well, it’s the way we talk where I’m from and it’s not nice to make fun of the way people talk.”
“Dahksahna Circe, linas please,” Diandra requested softly and I looked at her. “He has decided he likes the meaning of honey best but he prefers how you speak when you call him baby. He is, of course, a ‘big guy’ and simply finds it amusing you would point this out. There were several warriors with him when Seerim explained all this and Seerim reports to me that they all found your words amusing but not in a bad way. It isn’t making fun. It’s good that your husband finds you amusing. Laughter is important to any relationship but it’s especially important in a marriage. No?”
I had to admit, she was right.
“What did…?” I hesitated. “What did he think of me calling him sweet?”
She grinned again. “I believe that he preferred you thought of him as a fierce warrior but he took no offense to you calling him sweet and, it would be my guess, he took no offense to this because you called him your Lahn before you did so.”
I felt my eyes grow round. “He remembered that?”
“‘Out there, King Lahn is a fierce warrior but in here, my Lahn… kah Lahn is sweet,’” she recited. “Is this what you said?”
It was and, if memory served, it was word for word.
Holy moly.