Sunspire Mountains all the butterflies have turned to vultures in my stomach

lol'd @ the gif

he ditched into the dirt with an audible thud. esme made mock sympathy noises in her throat, clucking while he used a wooden ladle to clang on the pity pot hatting him. another lover-adjacent might like to kneel by his side and offer some motivational speech to get back in the saddle and try again or reassure him that there was nothing wrong with him and that they'd have another go some other time when he wasn't freshly tore up from the floor up by soggy bottoom boys tree wolves. 

lamentably, he was trying to bill and coo a woman who was barely tolerating his presence as things were. she curled her lip wryly slightly as she looked at the pinelitter and grime dirtying his face, feeling a bit repulsed by herself and the substandard bedside manner she'd countenanced. by taking advantage of his naivety and virginal buck fever, she'd let him savor something he couldn't foot the bill on once, let alone a second time. 

there was also the fact that she'd made a hypocrite of herself, but that didn't penetrate the petrous walls of her conscience. contrition could be a battering ram and she'd barely feel a tap ... so maybe this was proof that gods and goddesses were real and riley's erectile dysfunction was a metaphor for her own inner-dysfunction? did she have moral limp dick? ah, whatever. she'd splint it.

"oh get over yourself, pain makes it impossible to keep it hard," she said offhandedly, glancing at his visible wounds one-by-one; "though for some, pain makes not being hard impossible," esme flashed an impish smirk and sat down, boredly flicking pine straw at his face to see if it would stick to the dirt.

on word of donovan, she huffed; "no? why shouldn't i?" and pursed her lips "what's he like? sell me on why i shouldn't march straight over to that boring wasteland with its boring river, find its lord and let him succeed abundantly where you failed. what's he like, hm? i'm to bet he wouldn't let some pain get in the way of getting his dick wet."   

naturally, she never had any intention of finding the man, much less letting him conquer her in any manner—she really was just playing at psychological warfare in the absence of anything better to do, and it was far more enjoyable as recreation than sex. the latter was easy to come by, a lump of coal if she even wanted it (which she didn't), but the former was like jadeite, a rare gemstone that she snatched into her purse for its exception and to appease her kleptomania. 

"but mm, like i said, not entirely your fault. there are those with the ... kinky parietal lobes," she said, picking at her claws with her teeth, "and then there's the you types of the world. one step on the toe and it's sulky for days," she looked at him with a pout.