"Your graciousness is a credit to your people," Taiga said politely, bowing again at the information that his people's horses would be well taken care of. He watched Sarhet and Eras examining each other. In his head, he imagined the two men coming forward, their lips meeting in a kiss—he blinked to clear the fantasy. Dusan's much warmer opinion of men who loved men was a trap. He couldn't fall into it.<br/><br/>Even for eyes as beautiful as Eras'.<br/><br/>Sarhet took his leave and Taiga said something soft and polite as he said goodbye, leaving him alone with Eras. Taiga smiled at Eras as he fluttered over the bow and quiver. It was his real smile, and it was sweet and tender as a boy's, making all the mystery leave his face. He became cute and young when he smiled like that, like a rosy-cheeked lad of fifteen instead of a man nearing twenty.<br/><br/>"No, there's a bit of a taboo in Xishan about touching another man's bow. One moment and I'll divest myself of it. It's heavy, anyway."<br/><br/>Taiga took the bow and quiver off himself. In a few simple motions he unstrung the bow and left them both carefully on the cushions of a low couch. He sighed, rubbing his neck, listening to Eras' words. He had a pleasing voice.<br/><br/>Taiga walked down the sumptuous halls, marveling at the marble flooring that led to the bath. When they approached, Taiga's breath caught. It was a far cry from what they used in Xishan, which had no permanent structures, certainly none for the explicit use of bathing.<br/><br/>He listened to the words Eras spoke, letting meaning and intent flow over him like water. With the nerves he hadn't admitted to slowly draining out, he stood in the heat of the sun, watching the seabirds wheel through the windows. He heard their cries in the distance, strange wails, nothing like the birds of the steppes. The azure waves caught his eye and held it. The white tips of the waves over the blue ocean stretched far to the distance, and he stepped closer, awed by the sight. Looking at it was like riding your horse down the steppes and seeing nothing but the flat earth forever in every direction, but that was not nearly as bright and colorful. His nose twitched, reflecting on the smells, the fragrance of the bathroom where something had been burned, possibly incense, and underneath it, the salty taste he couldn't quantify carried in on the wind.<br/><br/>"It's beautiful," he said softly, his hand touching his bruised stomach.<br/><br/>These bruises were worth it, to see such things.<br/><br/>When Eras spoke his intent, Taiga tightened. Somehow he hadn't expected this. In Xishan, only a slave of opposite sex who was known and trusted would be allowed to strip or bathe their master, and even then, most bathed alone, by one's own power. It hadn't even occurred to Taiga that Eras would undress him, or touch him.<br/><br/>Taiga was caught up in the moment, barely breathing as the buttons were undone on his wrap shirt, from the start of his fur-lined collar and down. The silk that had once been a hanging in some tent was parted, and Taiga trembled under the baring of his skin. It felt so intimate, so unknown and unknowable. He'd never been stripped by a man as an adult, by his own power. Certainly not one he was attracted to. He counseled himself to keep his head.<br/><br/>He was so caught up in the action, thinking nothing, his heart thumping so loud surely Eras could hear it, he forgot about the tender bruising of his father's beating. That is until his shirt was open and the sickly yellowing remnants of his blows were before Eras' eyes. Taiga barely breathed, blushing crimson. They didn't look like training bruises. They were transparently the marks of a beating. The lean muscles of his stomach expanded as he took in a deep breath of the salty wind and held it. He physically felt Eras' eyes on him, ashamed,<i>aroused,</i>even innocent—nudity was a taboo with the Xishanese, few had seen him naked, and only one had touched him while he was so.<br/><br/>And that man was a cruel aberration, and Taiga at the time was only a child, pre-pubescent.<br/><br/>Taiga felt his cheeks heat up and became miserably aware how fully he was blushing, his skin flushing on his cheeks and down his shoulders, even over his chest and brown nipples.