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This is a simple, traditional way of life, and nobody questions it. They are happy providing for their mates and offspring. I am bored. I am bored because a simple life is only satisfying if you have the simple things, and I do not. I have a growing anger and a resentment and a wish for that which I do not and cannot have.
When evening comes, my frustration reaches a peak. For entertainment the wild Dinavri like to engage in various competitions. Tonight, the hunters are showing off their prowess - or lack thereof.
Targets woven from flaxen fibers and stuffed with cottony material are hung up at various distances around a makeshift range. The women are present, but as spectators. They all make suitably impressed noises as one after the other the males hurl their spears at the targets, sometimes missing, sometimes connecting.
They’ve all been drinking a specific brew of plants that makes them tipsy. This is not, therefore, a contest of actual accuracy and skill. It is more like a boy’s night out in which the women provide a willing and approving audience.
I find myself wishing that I could be a hunter rather than a gatherer. If I am not going to be able to conceive, then I may as well be a man.
Everybody watches as I rise from the women’s circle, grab a spear and chuck it. I have some previous experience with javelin throwing. Actually, I have previous experience with everything because I am a fucking good soldier and spy and not just a grain pounding barren woman, for fuck’s sake. I throw that light wooden projectile with all my futile rage.
It sails through the air before connecting with the target at the very end of the range, the one that is considered impossible to hit.
“Easy,” I say, shrugging.
There’s a small chance they might be impressed, but of course they are not. There is a general hue and cry, but not of approval. What I’ve just done is scandalous in the extreme. I gather from the general complaining and screeching now being held back by Sithren, that women aren’t supposed to touch the spears. Now they’ve been desecrated and the whole lot will have to be blessed.
Achievement doesn’t matter. Social cohesion does. The winners are predetermined to be the most male, the tallest, the most handsome. Actual physical prowess matters less in general than just looking the part. I do not look the part. I am the smooth female freak who just ruined the game.
“Stop it,” Sithren growls. “You’re drawing attention to yourself.”
“And what a terrible thing that would be. To draw attention. To be anything at all. I should just melt into the bushes. You want me to stick twigs in my hair and turn myself into a tree? I could do that, you know. I have the training.”
He grabs me by the arm and steers me away from the competition. There is still a mild uproar behind us, but I don’t care. I hope they are scandalized. I hope they talk about tonight forever. I hope there are consequences for all time. At least then I might have made something like an impact.
Sithren takes me a long way away from the village until the darkness completely envelops us and we are completely alone, lit by moonlight.
“I am going to make you hurt,” he tells me firmly. “Not because you deserve to hurt, but because you need to.”
I start to argue, but he doesn’t wait to hear my opinions on what he said. He takes me by the back of the neck, spins me around and tosses me over his upraised thigh, which he has propped up on a nearby rock. There are so many fucking rocks in this stupid wild world.
He unleashes something behind me. I didn’t notice that he came armed to punish me. Sithren, as always, is several steps ahead of me.
Swish!
That sound is not a good sound to hear if you happen to be face down over the thigh of a stern alien master who now has to chastise you effectively enough to earn the respect of his new tribe.
CRACK!
That’s an even worse sound. That’s the sound of a harsh lash making rough contact with my hide, which is naked because the simple skirt I was wearing has abandoned me in my hour of need.
Whatever he is using is thick and about the width of a rope, but with much greater heft. I let out a shriek that is more of shock than pain, and then a cry of pain as heat flashes out from the curled place where it landed.
“What the hell is that!?”
“I have been fashioning this for you since we arrived,” he says conversationally. “I knew I would have a use for it sooner or later. It is made of the tanned skin of the large lizards. It is painful, no?”
