[Ask herself honestly? She doesn't want to. She has avoided being forthright even with the person she should be confiding in most, and yet he so strategically narrows down the issue to a single question. To two questions.
Why can she not just say "you"? Just live the lie that she is trying to convince him that he is wrong, make him realize that he has made a mistake when really-
Really-
Her face grows ruddier, her lips twist with the effort it takes to be silent despite her best efforts, and she wants- She wants to run away again. She had made a mistake, in standing around hoping she might see him, in thinking she was ready for this. She can't answer him, it takes everything she has just to mask the upset she feels with what she hopes looks like anger. Was she unlovable?]
I already told you-
[In the roots, in the dark. Hadn't she been clear enough? (No, no she hadn't, it had been so chaotic and their communions had bled together in a messy, oppressive spill of thoughts and visions.)
But she had tried to. She'd tried to tell him she had done horrible things in her life, that she was a creature that only existed because humans had bred her for battle and obedience or the bit and the saddle, that she was could only see her fate as one to die to cleanse her dishonor... and didn't that answer his question already?
... Must she say that she believes herself to be unlovable in so damnably plain a word as "yes"?]
no subject
Why can she not just say "you"? Just live the lie that she is trying to convince him that he is wrong, make him realize that he has made a mistake when really-
Really-
Her face grows ruddier, her lips twist with the effort it takes to be silent despite her best efforts, and she wants- She wants to run away again. She had made a mistake, in standing around hoping she might see him, in thinking she was ready for this. She can't answer him, it takes everything she has just to mask the upset she feels with what she hopes looks like anger. Was she unlovable?]
I already told you-
[In the roots, in the dark. Hadn't she been clear enough? (No, no she hadn't, it had been so chaotic and their communions had bled together in a messy, oppressive spill of thoughts and visions.)
But she had tried to. She'd tried to tell him she had done horrible things in her life, that she was a creature that only existed because humans had bred her for battle and obedience or the bit and the saddle, that she was could only see her fate as one to die to cleanse her dishonor... and didn't that answer his question already?
... Must she say that she believes herself to be unlovable in so damnably plain a word as "yes"?]