[He says it so casually that it makes her instinctively bristle to defend her ignorance, fingers curling back tight and lips pursing.]
I don't know what babies do.
[She'd... seen jinba foals before, from a distance, taken from Armless broodmares after being fed from them and handled by grooms but it's not like she'd ever interacted with one. And the frontier stables weren't any place humans brought human children... not that that would be helpful, either, seeing as the only literate ones there were the stable master and his secretaries. Her time as a prisoner had been the first time she'd interacted with children when she wasn't a child herself and they...
Her fingers curl tighter, her knuckles paling, struggling a moment to prevent herself from once again dragging their conversations down into the muck and the dark. She just has to say something different-]
I am trying to tell you I cannot do it.
[She hadn't admitted it before, not really. She'd asked him what he'd sent her, but she hadn't... said it.]
no subject
I don't know what babies do.
[She'd... seen jinba foals before, from a distance, taken from Armless broodmares after being fed from them and handled by grooms but it's not like she'd ever interacted with one. And the frontier stables weren't any place humans brought human children... not that that would be helpful, either, seeing as the only literate ones there were the stable master and his secretaries. Her time as a prisoner had been the first time she'd interacted with children when she wasn't a child herself and they...
Her fingers curl tighter, her knuckles paling, struggling a moment to prevent herself from once again dragging their conversations down into the muck and the dark. She just has to say something different-]
I am trying to tell you I cannot do it.
[She hadn't admitted it before, not really. She'd asked him what he'd sent her, but she hadn't... said it.]