Fairspell Meadow i sing the blues and swallow them too

The stranger's muted brown tones emerge from the darkness like a pale flower blooming, and Meraxes sighs inaudibly as she calls a greeting, chest tightening with that too-familiar feeling of dread. I'm going to fuck this up, she thinks, a little proud of her own vulgarity despite the situation; it'd been a crime at Shadowfen, often punished with starvation, and it is a freedom she enjoys indulging now. In her head, at least.
She's still trying to think of something better to say than hi when the woman speaks again, and her eyes go wide, face flushing. Oh — really? All her training is forgotten in that moment, though she can hear her mother's voice as if from a dozen yards away, chiding her: "Fool girl, you're meant to be beautiful — and might truly be, if you weren't halfwitted. They're supposed to fall over themselves to impress you, not the other way around." But it'd always been hopeless. Meraxes could look the part, but she could never act the part, then or now. Instead...
I-I mean, thank you... you are too. She feels a little breathless as she speaks again. No one has ever been so bold with her before, even those who'd hoped for a night with her in Shadowfen. Suddenly she wonders if that is what the woman wants — but she can't bring herself to speak the words. She'd left that life behind when she was banished.