[There is a part of her that understands this must be a kindness. That to other people, who can discuss such things without shame, who understood their own hearts... it would be a courtesy to speak so plainly of these things. But the rest of her... would rather fight ten men than have this conversation. That he asks her such things so directly...
She had come from a world where "proper" affection, between people of decent social standing, was never displayed in public. Not even husband and wife would touch each hands or shoulder around others, let alone discuss things so plainly. Hayame had seen things, because she was a jinba, and jinba were treated as chattel, because the grooms who raised her had been rough frontiers men who did not concern themselves with propriety or who overheard their exploits at the brothels, but what she'd hoped for-
What she'd hoped for had been the life of a warrior. To never be touched, because she simply couldn't fathom a touch that was kind or gentle. But she knows now that... that it isn't impossible. She could have it if she wanted it. If she pursued it.
Claude is sitting right there talking about it. For a moment, she wonders if she kissed him again if he might fall silent. He wants to know if she was just playing along... but...]
... I am a jinba.
[She reminds him in case he had forgotten. It wasn't as if she couldn't imagine jinba and humans being together- she could imagine it all too well, in certain disgraceful circumstances. In heat-addled attempts to be rid of her purity out of spite. But perhaps he was simply blinded by emotion or the same sense of charging ahead without thinking that had led him to confess in the first place. (If she looks at the water in the stream at a certain angle, she can just about see him...)]
No matter how human my lips might feel.
[- Had he actually thought about that? (She had, even if she cannot admit to the pervasive fantasies that had dogged her last heat, unwilling to contact him for fear it would taint everything.) Was she... desirable to him? Or was she only desirable despite?]
no subject
She had come from a world where "proper" affection, between people of decent social standing, was never displayed in public. Not even husband and wife would touch each hands or shoulder around others, let alone discuss things so plainly. Hayame had seen things, because she was a jinba, and jinba were treated as chattel, because the grooms who raised her had been rough frontiers men who did not concern themselves with propriety or who overheard their exploits at the brothels, but what she'd hoped for-
What she'd hoped for had been the life of a warrior. To never be touched, because she simply couldn't fathom a touch that was kind or gentle. But she knows now that... that it isn't impossible. She could have it if she wanted it. If she pursued it.
Claude is sitting right there talking about it. For a moment, she wonders if she kissed him again if he might fall silent. He wants to know if she was just playing along... but...]
... I am a jinba.
[She reminds him in case he had forgotten. It wasn't as if she couldn't imagine jinba and humans being together- she could imagine it all too well, in certain disgraceful circumstances. In heat-addled attempts to be rid of her purity out of spite. But perhaps he was simply blinded by emotion or the same sense of charging ahead without thinking that had led him to confess in the first place. (If she looks at the water in the stream at a certain angle, she can just about see him...)]
No matter how human my lips might feel.
[- Had he actually thought about that? (She had, even if she cannot admit to the pervasive fantasies that had dogged her last heat, unwilling to contact him for fear it would taint everything.) Was she... desirable to him? Or was she only desirable despite?]