“I find it increasingly disturbing that I cannot see you, wenda,” he said after a final kiss, again holding my face. “The tension has gone out of you, yet the unhappiness remains.”
“You believe that sight of me would enable you to cure my unhappiness?” I asked, too far from amusement even to laugh in derision. “Then by all means let us kindle the fire.”
“The fire we kindled a few moments ago saw to some measure of it,” he returned with a chuckle, leaning toward me so that our bodies touched again. “Perhaps a second fire would indeed be of some benefit. Speak to me now of what disturbs you. ”
“What disturbs me has not changed since last we spoke of it,” I said, squirming a bit against the way he partially pinned me to the fur. “That it has grown worse rather than better is scarcely surprising, for I had expected nothing else. I must leave this world before it takes my life or sanity.”
“You will allow my world to defeat you?” he asked, running his hand down my side to my thigh. “This I cannot believe, for I have seen you fight against that which you could not accept and win against great odds. It is not a thing done by many wendaa, and shows great courage.”
“I have no courage at all,” I denied with a headshake, shifting against his weight. “I am a coward who fears all things, and is weary unto death of that fear. I shall return to my own world where I feet no fear.”
“Yet where others feel fear of you,” he said, his voice now sober. “Where you are bound harshly by cause of that fear and forced to live beneath unnatural restrictions. This is the world you prefer above mine?”
“You believe I should not?” I laughed with incredulity. “There are none there who beat me and torture me, none who take my use without my permission, none who give my use to others when it is they I desire, none who—”
I broke it off and turned my face away, knowing I’d said too much—and not enough. I couldn’t make myself compatible with Rimilia in a hundred years of trying, and I felt as though I’d already tried at least that long. Banging my head on stone walls has never been one of my favorite pastimes.
“Perhaps it will be best if we continue this discussion when we have returned from the resting place,” Dallan said, smoothing my hair once before rolling away from me and reaching for his haddin. “There is little sense in agonizing over a difficulty now, when that difficulty may no longer remain when once we have made our visit. Should there be need later, it may be done later. ”
His outline form moved slowly but deliberately, a conscious effort against the churning in his mind. I sat up on the fur and stared at him, wondering what was upsetting him, but didn’t get the opportunity to decide to ask. Once his haddin was wrapped around him he reached for the bundles he’d carried, took one and opened it, drank from it, then offered it to me. I’d been afraid it would be drishnak, but all it was was water, clear, wet and very satisfying. I lifted the skin and drank deeply from it the second time, feeling it flow down my throat with almost indecent pleasure, feeling it giving me the strength to go on a little farther. I savored the second swallow then went for a third, and didn’t know I’d done anything other than drink until Dallan grunted.
“Wenda, you had best cease that lest I become uncontrollably aroused,” he said, his mind flashing deep, true discomfort. “I had not known that water would bring you such pleasure, else I would have given it to you much the sooner.”
For a minute I didn’t understand, and then I realized that I’d allowed my feelings at finally getting something to drink to leak from my mind. I hadn’t known Dallan would interpret and react to them as he was doing, but he wasn’t, after all, an empath trained to interpret correctly.
“Please accept my apologies,” I said at once, making sure he got no more accidental leakages as I handed the skin back. “I had a great need of that water, so great a need that its presence made me unaware of the doings of my mind. It will not happen again. ”
“It is odd that it occurred this time,” he said, putting the water aside and gesturing me off the fur. “We have not been so long upon our way that your need should have grown so great. Were you so concerned over our journey that you ate and drank less than what was wise at your meal before you joined us?
His tone showed something of the annoyance in his mind as he folded the fur we’d been lying on, undoubtedly thinking I’d skipped the meal on purpose. I stood behind him near the back wall of the cave-box, understanding that he knew nothing of what his father had done, wondering if I ought to tell him. I caused enough trouble between people without doing it on purpose, but I hesitated a little too long. His mind used my silence the way it usually did, and dove straight for the truth I was trying to avoid.
“By the might of the Sword, you were given nothing!” he swore, his anger flaring out as he grabbed my bundle and began stuffing the fur into it. “This was surely my father’s doing, for he has not yet learned to know you. When we have rejoined the denday Tammad, we will eat before continuing on.”
“For what reason would your father have done such a thing?” I ventured, being careful not to touch the edges of his anger. “He does not appear to be a cruel man.”
“Nor is he,” Dallan said, drawing my bundle closed and then handing it to me. “It was his intention that your need for sustenance would drive you to the feet of Tammad or myself, asking to have the hunger and thirst taken from you. With this knowledge I now understand another thing, which is the reason for your great physical need. You were aroused by him before being brought to us, were you not? This double need was to have put you at the feet of him whom you truly preferred, for hunger of the body is considerably more selective than hunger of the belly. A pity my father knows nothing of the shape and size of the pride which fills you. Had he known that, he would also have known that his efforts would be in vain.”
“I see,” I mumbled, watching as Dallan took his swordbelt and strapped it on, then slung his bundles over his shoulder. I felt pale remembering the way I’d acted with Tammad after he’d touched me, but that was surely only because he had touched me. I hadn’t put myself at his feet by choice because I hated him, and the more I squeezed the bundle I held, the more I believed it.
“I will leave this place first, and then you may follow,” Dallan said, getting down on all fours in front of the gap in the wall. “Wait until I call, and then come ahead.”
His dark outline squirmed and crawled through the gap, disappearing quickly, and all at once I wanted out of there. I followed immediately and got down on my knees, thrust my bundle through as I heard my name being called softly, then crawled out. My bundle had been lifted out of the way, and it was something of a shock to see not one pair of legs in front of me, but two. By that time my mind had done the frantic searching it should have done much earlier, and had discovered the vast calm that never brought itself to my attention unless I looked for it. I slowly rose up from my knees in front of Dallan and Tammad, and took back the bundle that Dallan was holding without looking up at either of them.