3 #4
“I think they do,” she said. “But men are owned, too, by other men, by the land they till, by the trade they ply.”
“Ah, that is rather insightful, warrioress,” said Iahir.
She turned to look at him.
“Perhaps women own men,” said Iahir. “Because men do spend an inordinate amount of time chasing women.”
“But women,” said Gathren, “do not ask to be chased.”
“Certainly they do,” said Iahir. “Why else would they spend so much time enhancing the most enticing elements of their bodies?”
“I do not do that,” she said, heat rising in her voice, “and it does little to deter men, I must say. In fact, I think it makes them all the more determined to try to have me. Here is what I think, my lord. I think that men chase women, and they tell themselves that women enjoy it and want it, and they tell women the same, tell them it so often that women never question such a thing. And if a woman does question it, men come after her and hold her down and force her to acquiesce to it all.”
“As I have said,” Iahir murmured, “you do not seem to like men, warrioress.”
“It is not the men themselves I object to,” she said. “It is something else, I think, something bigger than all of us, the inherent struggle of positively everything, I suppose. I think that there will be some way for me to get around it, and yet, there never is.”
“Struggle?” he repeated.
“Yes,” she said. “But you wouldn’t understand. After all, you think that struggle is something that we all simply endure and must not complain about. You are what you are, a rich elf lord in the Vale, and you have no understanding of struggle.”
He said nothing.
She turned to look at him, having expected a response.
He was still sitting on the floor, his brows knitted together as he studied her. “What happened to you? Was some kind of violence done to you?”
“The very world has done nothing but violence to me since I was born,” she said.
“It is simply the way of it. Orcs and elves hate each other. Elves have more than orcs, so elves have no consequences when they act on their hatred. Men chase women because they have instinct, and they are driven to get children on them. It’s just the natural way of things.
Nature is brutal. Nature doesn’t care. Nature demands surrender.
But I…” She turned back to the window. “I don’t know.
I don’t give in very easily. I want to remake the world.
It’s foolish, likely, but I can’t seem to stop myself from trying. ”
He got to his feet. “And what will you remake the world into, warrioress? A world where women chase men?”
“Perhaps just a world where women can tell men not to chase, and they actually listen,” she said.
He advanced on her. “You said you’d been in love.”
“Did I say that?”
“I think so.”
“I think I said, ‘Perhaps.’”
“Well, that means yes.”
“I don’t know that it does.”
“I am only saying there must have been some point during all of that when you thought you wanted a man for something.”
She turned back to the window, shaking her head. “And after all that, here we are, and you are still trying to get me into bed.”
He laughed, and then he was there, next to her, his smile sunny, his cheekbone-length golden hair glimmering in the light that came in through the window. “No, just to find some way to get you to believably seem to welcome my touch.”
She met his gaze, looked into the well of his light gray eyes. “Touch me, then,” she whispered.
He drew in a breath, and he stared back into her eyes, and that was somehow more intimate than touching, holding each other’s gaze in this manner. He looked into her. She looked into him.
Slowly, he lifted his hand. He reached up and let his fingers hover, inches from her face.
“You…” He paused, still gazing into her eyes.
“There is something so delicate about you, warrioress, something fragile that shines through against all your orcishness, all your warrior trappings, something so… pretty.”
Despite herself, this affected her, even though she would likely swear that she didn’t wish to be thought of as delicate or fragile or pretty, that she wished to be seen as strong and untouchable and capable.
His fingers grazed her jaw, feather soft.
She could not help but make noise at the contact. And she could not hold his gaze. Her eyelids fluttered closed, and then open. She looked past him. She was breathing faster.
“No, no,” he said, his voice gentle. “You are fighting it, refusing to let yourself feel. Look at me, warrioress.”
She did not want to. But she forced herself to do it.
As their gazes met again, a current cut into her, and her body felt alive in a way that frightened her.
She felt her stomach turning over and over, and she felt as if her limbs were tingling.
She felt fragile, felt delicate. She felt as if she could be harmed.
She hated that feeling.
“There,” he breathed. “Like that. You must look at me this way when we are together, in front of others, and people will believe.”
This way? She must look vulnerable? That was what made people think a woman was sharing a man’s bed?
Well, how could she doubt it?