Verdant Basin she may have died; we're looking into it.

Artaax remained expressionless as Niamh repeated his words. He wanted to cringe as she butchered the dialect, but the pleasure he felt at hearing her say those words in his tongue muted the offense. He'd never before attempted to teach anyone his language, so he had never known how much it would please him for someone to make an effort to learn even a few words of it. To be fair, he probably wouldn't have given a crap about it if she was an ugly man, but she was a beautiful woman, so it worked.

She made another jest, and Artaax could only shut his eyes and let himself be soothed by her touches in spite of how powerfully they inflamed him. Were his upbringing different, he may have been affronted by her suggestion that she had more power over him. As it was, he didn't even see it as all that humorous. He'd spent his life surrounded by powerful women, in service to them. He liked powerful women, and he was a good, obedient soldier. He despised other males being in power over him, but not females. That was super cool with him.

"Actually, you just confessed to wanting to follow me," Artaax murmured, leaning to nuzzle his nose against her neck, "It was very forward of you, but I accept."