Ocean's Breath Plateau dentalium

she did not want to answer.
nothing that i did not bring upon myself.
she sniffles again, tucking her limbs up close to her chest. she did not want to answer.
i-i make it sound worse than it is, really. he's not that bad. it's just that-- he hurts me. but i don't think he realizes just how much it hurts, sometimes.
why is she still talking? her ears are ringing and the anxiety is so overwhelming that she no longer knows what exactly it is that she fears. it's not that bad, and yet something inside of her still tugs at her and tells her to sound the alarm. she did not want to answer.
and yet, she does.
it's my own fault. i'm bad at telling him no when i don't want to make love, or-- staying quiet when he tells me to, or making camp the right way, or not preparing meat fast enough. i am not innocent. so he is within his right as a husband to strike me, is he not? a-and you wouldn't understand, chakliux, he-- it is the spirits. i'm bound to him, or at least i was, until brave one was born. he is lanzadoii. this is just the way that they are, the lanzadoii men, and the spirits have placed us together. i only have to-- to learn to live with it. to find the good in him and hold onto it.
what frightens her even more than the threat of her husband's iron tooth is that she is not sure that she believes herself.