More than followed; he came closer and put his arms around her, and she stiffened. She couldn't help herself; it just happened automatically, without thinking. She didn't want him to touch her-not like that. Not with the touch of a lover.
'Don't!' he said, sharply.
'Don't what?' she asked, just as sharply, trying to pull away without being obvious about it.
'Don't be like that, don't be so cold, Elspeth,' he replied, softening his tone a little. 'You never used to be like this around me.'
'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.
