Shy did not expect him to entertain himself before her. She did not want to look. He was crude, she thought, and it made her feel sick. But it was also unfair. Between men, perhaps this was flattery. Shy tried not to look at him as he stroked himself, but it was difficult to avoid. There was little else to draw attention, and he talked to her like it should be narration for his display. It was enough of a distraction, the struggle to keep from staring at his unashamed rigidity, that her chin snapped upward and dragged her cheek against the earth when he teased of courtship.<br/><br/>Did she prefer men? What a peculiarly unfair question. She was, beneath her cropped hair and bound chest, still a woman blossoming from her youth into what should have been her best years. “Would you discriminate if I did, Ser?” she asked with a bitter kind of laugh. Perhaps honesty would dissuade him. It would be less bullying if he thought she might take pleasure from it, after all. Her admission appeared unaffecting, which she should have anticipated. Shy blinked hard and stared at the toes of Esfelt’s boots.<br/><br/>“I imagine I’d be wanting a little more romance than the likes of this, were it the case.” She grit her teeth. It was a form of bravery to maintain that dry humor. He was being cruel, but no more cruel than it had been to call her here in the first place. Perhaps he realized it. He took care of his satisfaction while she lay on his floor, and she wondered if it was from boredom or the pleasure of mocking her. What a singular sort of man, that he’d take a hopeful young heart under his wing to abuse it this way. So far as he knew, she was just a country boy with quick feet and a preference for company of his own kind. She thought he must be some kind of rude devil to twist any of that to his own whims.<br/><br/>When she had thought he was through with her—it seemed he’d punctuated this encounter with his own finale—she was again mistaken. There was no kindness in her captain for her. No mercy for her little valiance. Shy wondered if she was destined to remain inherently offensive to him. Courtship, if this was what that was, was no different than ill-conceived aggression. Shy did not know what that meant for two men who were meant to be on the same side of conflict and less so as she lay under his command.<br/><br/>“Ser?” she choked on the question as she pulled herself up onto her knees. Shy stared at him as if he might suddenly laugh and tell her it was a joke. He did not. The flush that blazed across her cheek was as maidenly as the shine of tears that threatened her lashes. He had, it seemed taken her to an unfathomable place. “I… was joking. About courtship.” Her voice wavered. When he gave her no relief for that effort either, she bent over his spill on the ground with a deep and tremulous breath. Like she was worshipping, palms to the dirt and her forehead brought low. Shy took the discarded strands to her tongue. “But, for my own ambitions, Ser, I can accept even this. I won’t be frightened from my goals.” She’d not let him see the stray saline that mingled with his own salt, or the way she had to ready herself to swallow him down.<br/><br/>Shy had learned more of his taste tonight than she’d ever thought she’d face in a lifetime. She had come as soldier and been reduced to a trifle in mere hours. She wondered if Marius might have warned her of her own ego, had she given him a moment before she’d gone. Surely, not every captain was this way, nor every knight subject to such treatment in his rise. With each miserable stroke of here tongue, she centered herself on the reasons she’d come to this place and the reasons she had needed this chance, regardless of what Marius could have said to her.<br/><br/>When she looked up at him, her cheeks were dry and pearled beads strung on her lower lip were cleaned away with a rough pass of her the back of her hand. “Will that be all, Ser?” she asked, clearing her throat as she made it to her feet. There was resilience in this kind of unaware acceptance of his bullying. It was fine to be wounded, so long as one got up again and showed no fear. Her brother, who’d have never wished to know his advice had been used to drag her through this, had taught her that kind of persistence.<br/><br/>If she thought it might dissuade Silverum, this suggestion that his abuse had unseated her but hardly broken her, she could not have come to a more ridiculous conclusion. But the thin optimism that was set behind the downward pull of her feminine lips had to persist on something.<br/><br/>And then she stepped toward him, rather than away. Two steps to bring her a breath away from his chest. He was still exposed when she put her hand on his shoulder, pushed herself onto her toes, and mashed her lips against his. Esfelt should taste his imposed shame on her lips. How difficult she would make it for him to bury her. She could take a hit. A lot of hits. She’d showed him that much. She refused to be less fluent here. If she’d known better, she’d not have let him find the familiarity in her soft mouth. There had been kisses this supple in many brothels.<br/><br/>“It would have been nice to share a meal first, Ser, as that is what I imagine proper men to do. Perhaps it didn’t cross your mind, if men are not your usual interest.” She said when she pushed herself away and slunk toward the flap of his tent. “I’ll have your eyes on me, whatever that requires. You will acknowledge my worth in time.” Shy muttered. With her back to him, the color drained from her face. She should learn to check her own audacity. Still, to have walked away with her tail between her legs would have been worse. She’d find her own terms, even if she was grasping at straws. It took effort to keep her breath steady as she made to leave his tent. Gods be dammed if he realized she was shaking.