Haunted Wood de dragul tău

Frustration sprouted again, and this time it reared its head in his expression. The northerner drew his head back, sternly watching the glacier’s scout. He did not like how she had changed the meaning of the words, how she had insinuated something in her first inquiry with her tone. Even with as dense as he was, he had not missed it.

It was not what you said, Meerkat. It was how you asked me. I am not strong with the common language, but still hear your voice and how it changes.

The girl still did not offer him an answer. She did not tell him what she desired or hoped for. The only thing she had taken away from their conversation was that he was not attracted to her. Issorartuyok wished to remove this from the scenario. He could not work through his frustration swiftly enough to formulate a response that would ease that part of her mind.

Now, you are giving words to me that I have not said. It is unfair. I never said such things at all.

Then, some of his frustration bubbled out.

And was I to gaze at you in longing? Hoping you would someday – perhaps – look upon me the same? Am I made to convince you?

The northern man breathed deeply, steeling himself against the conversation so heavily centered around emotion. Issorartuyok realized that he did not have a talent for discussing these things. If he could only have spoken to her in the northern tongue, the way he would speak to his village. It did not matter, though. It would just be noise in her ears.

I did what I believed was honorable… the way a man honors a skilled woman in my village is not by trying to bed her. It is by treating her as his equal in every measure.