"You never used to follow me like a lovesick puppy," she retorted, getting free of him, walking away a little to get some distance, and turning to face him. "You used to be my 'big brother' until all this started."
"That was before I paid any attention to-how much you'd grown up," he responded. "All right, so I was a fool before, I wasn't paying any attention to what was in front of my nose, but I've-" Oh, gods, it's a bad romantic play! She didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Both would have been so full of anger that they would have made her incoherent.
"You've been paying too much attention to idiot balladeers," she interrupted, rudely. "All of which say that the young hero is supposed to finally notice the beauty of the young princess, fall madly in love, rescue her and carry her off to some ivy-wreathed tower to spend the rest of her days in sheltered worship." She took a deep breath, but 'the anger didn't fade. "I've heard all of that horse manure before, I didn't believe in it then, and I don't now. You're not a hero and neither am I. I'm not a beauty, I just happen to be the only woman who's a Herald around here. I don't need rescuing, and I don't want to be sheltered!"
"But-" he said weakly, taking a step back, and overwhelmed with her vehemence.
"Stop it, Skif!" she snapped. "I've been nice, I've hinted, I've tolerated this, and I am not going to take any more! Leave me alone! If you can't treat me as your partner, go home. Nothing is going to happen to me in the middle of the Dhorisha Plains, for Haven's sake!" She waved her arm out at the expanse of trackless grass to the south of them.
"There're half a dozen Shin'a'in out there right now, and I doubt any of them is going to let something get past them."
"That's not the point, Elspeth," he said, pleadingly. "The point is that I-"
"Don't you dare say it," she snarled. "Don't you dare say that you love me! You don't love me, you love what you think I am. If you loved me, you wouldn't keep trying to prove you were better than me, that I should follow your lead, let you take over, permit you to make all the decisions."
"But I'm not-"
"But you are," she retorted. "Every decision I make, you find a reason not to like. Every job I try to do, you try to do better. Every idea I have, you oppose, Except in those times when I'm acting, thinking, like a good little girl, who shouldn't bother her pretty head about warfare, and should go where she's been told and learn the pretty little magics she's been told to learn."
"I'm not like that!" he bristled, "Some of my best friends are female!"
She very nearly strangled him.
"So-any female you're not interested in can be a human being, is that it?" she said, her voice dripping scorn. "But any female you want had better keep her proper place? Or is it just that every female who outranks you can have her position and be whatever she needs to be, and anyone who's your peer had better let you be the leader? Oh that's noble, that truly is. How nice for you, how terribly broad-minded."
"Just who do you think you are?" he shouted.
"Myself, that's who!" she shouted back. "Not your inferior, not your underling, not your child to take care of! Not your doll, not your toy, not your princess, and not your property!" And with that, she turned and stalked off into the grass, knowing she could lose him in a scant heartbeat-and knowing that Gwena could find her immediately if Elspeth needed her.
She ducked around a hillock, and dropped down into the dusty smelling grass. She held her breath, and listened for his footsteps, waited for him to blunder by in pursuit of her, but there was nothing.
"Gwena?" she Mindcalled, tentatively.
"He's just sitting here on his bedroll," she said, and the disapproval in her mind-voice was thick enough to cut. "that was cruel." Elspeth slammed her shields shut before Gwena could reproach her any further. She didn't want to hear any more from that quarter. Gwena was on Skif's side in this, like some kind of matchmaking mama. She'd escaped her real mother's reach, and she wasn't about to let someone else take over the position.
She lay back into the fragrant grass; it was surprisingly comfortable, actually-and looked up at the night sky. The night was absolutely clear, and the stars seemed larger than they were at home.
Her back and neck ached with tension; her hands had knotted themselves into tight fists. Her stomach was in an uproar, and her throat tight.
This was no way to handle a problem.
She tried to empty her mind, just empty it of all the anger and frustration, the need that was driving her out into the unknown, and the heavy burden of responsibility she was bearing. Gradually the tension drained out of her. Her stomach calmed, her hands relaxed. She concentrated on the muscles in her back and neck until they UN-knotted.
She stopped thinking altogether. She simply-was. Watching the stars, letting the warm, ever-present breeze blow over her, inhaling the dry, dusty scent of the grasses she lay in, feeling the earth press up against her back.
This place felt very much alive, as if the warm earth itself was a living being. It calmed her; she found her tension all drained out of her, down into the earth, which accepted it into a tranquillity that her unhappiness could not disturb.
Gwena's right. I was cruel. She felt her ears flushing hotly, and yet if she had the chance to do it over, there was nothing she would not have repeated. What happened to us? there was a time I would have gladly heard him say he loved me. there was even a time when I might have been able to fall in love with him. Gwena was right; I could do so much worse.
Tears filled her eyes; they stung and burned. Not from what she had done to Skif-he was resilient, he'd survive. But from what she was going to face in the years ahead. If we all survive this, I probably will do worse. I'll probably have to marry some awful old man, or a scrawny little boy, just to cement an alliance. We'll need all the help we can get, and that may be the only way to buy it. If I took Skif, I'd at least have someone who loves me for a little while...But that wasn't fair to him; it was wrong, absolutely wrong. She'd be using him and the affection he was offering, and giving him nothing in return. She didn't love him, and there was no use pretending she did.
Furthermore, he was a Mindspeaker; he'd know.
Besides, when she married that awful old man, whoever he was, she'd have to break with Skif anyway, so what was the point?
What was the point of all of this, at all? When it all came down to it, she was just another commodity to be traded away for Valdemar's safety.
And intellectually, she could accept that. But emotionally?? she asked the stars fiercely as tears ran down into her hair. Why do I have to give up everything? why can't I have a little something for myself? that's not being selfish, that's just being human! Talia has Dirk, Kero has Eldan, even Mother has Daren... Why isn't there anyone for me.
There was no answer; she held back fierce sobs until her chest ached.
Maybe she wasn't as sophisticated as she had thought, after all. Maybe all her life she had believed in the Bardic ballads, where, after long struggle, the Great True Love comes riding out of the shadows.
All right, maybe it's childish and stupid, but I've seen it happen-Happen for other people. That fact was, the notion was childish and stupid-and worse, if she spent all her time waiting for that One True Love, she'd never get anything done for herself.