“Never?” This seemed impossible to me. I was watching her create a pond and trees and sunlight on a page that moments ago had been blank.
“Well…” She laughed again. And this time it sounded angry. “I suppose I did get one offer. But it wasn’t about my painting. It was…Insulting. And horrible. And after that I kind of just…Gave up on all that. On the financial side of things, I mean. I learned about this bride program and thought that maybe it would be my chance to just breathe and…And take some time to paint what I wanted, without worrying about getting paid. And, it turns out,what I want to paint right now is pastoral landscape stuff. Go figure.”
“So when you came here…You were not seeking marriage?”
She stiffened slightly, then put down her brush.
“You’ve been so honest with me, Rivven. I’m going to be honest with you.” She faced me. “I didn’t come here with marriage as my main priority, no. It really wasn’t something I was thinking about much at all.”
Oh.
Oh.
“But I want you to know,” she said, firmness infusing her voice, “that I’m thinking about it now. I’m taking it seriously. I understand how important this all is to…To everyone”
“Please,” I murmured. “You need not explain yourself.”
She did not need to justify herself. Or any of the choices she had made.
Especially not to me.
Of course, this all made sense. Why else would a gorgeous, talented, kind human female like her need to seek a husband in this empire-forsaken place?
She didn’t. One such as her could have had her pick of men on any world. She’d come here for other reasons. To forge a new sort of life. And the payment required for that life would be to marry one of us.
It felt, very disconcertingly, as if the room were sliding suddenly sideways.
I’d been thinking of nothing but how to win her trust, her friendship, to prove myself worthy as a husband.
But she did not even want a husband. Not really. She was taking this program seriously because she knew it mattered to me and to the other men. Because she was clever and compassionate. Because she was not the sort to take the feelings of others lightly.
But what about her own feelings?
There was a long silence. Then, she picked up the brush and held it out to me.
“Do you want to try?”
The fingers of my left hand curled into a fist. My right hand had been my dominant one. I’d relearned how to do everything from hammering nails to saddling Foxitt with my left hand and tail only. But I could not imagine attempting something as precise and delicate as the strokes I’d seen Shiloh doing.
“No,” I said gruffly. “I’d ruin it.”
She shook her head.
“I don’t think you could ever ruin anything, Rivven. I swear, you make things better just by breathing.”
She tugged on the edge of her painted paper. It came away from the book with a gentle ripping noise.
“But if you’re worried,” she went on, “you can have your own page. All to yourself. There are no rules. And you don’t have to make it mean anything, or even look like anything. But sometimes…Sometimes just creating something with your own two hands can have meaning all on its own. Can be soothing, or meditative or – ah.Shit.”
She turned pleading eyes on me, her mouth tight.
“I’m so sorry,” she stammered. “The two hands thing…That’s just a saying! It just means creating something real, something physical, with any part of your body! Some people paint with their toes, or hold the brush in their teeth…Or build saloons! Or-”
“It’s alright.”
“No, it isn’t. That wasn’t what I meant to say at all. It came out all wrong. And I’m sorry.”
“Really,” I rasped. My chest ached. “It is alright.”
