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This time when he laughed, it wasn’t cold.
This time, it was booming, and it made her feel...electrified.
“No, little goddess. No. Just accept that I...keep my own ways, however strange you might find them. And this line of conversation is done.”
Dinner, however, was not strange, but it was very delicious.
Lobster and mashed potatoes, and steamed vegetables. She could not complain.
There was also a glass of wine. She looked at it, but was afraid to touch it.
“Do you not like wine?” It was the first time he’d spoken in a moment and she found it a bit jarring.
“I’m not allowed to drink it,” she said, a bit disquieted by how easy it was to transition into speaking to this disembodied voice.
“That is not a condition of your imprisonment. I have offered you wine, and therefore you can have it.”
“Imprisonment?”
“Go on,” he said, his voice taking on a quality she had not yet heard. It was different. Silken.
It did not possess the growl she had become accustomed to in only these short hours of conversation.
She had never had to pay such close attention to how someone spoke.
“All right,” she said slowly. “But only because I want to.”
She had the opportunity to try something new, and so she would, though she didn’t want him to think it was because she had hispermission.
“I would not dream of having you try it under any other circumstance.”
She took a sip, and blinked.
“And what do you think of it?”
She wrinkled her nose. “I don’t know.”
“Tell me,” he urged. “Tell me what you taste.”
There was something about the edge in his voice that made her feel...excited. Determined.
“Grapes, I suppose. But something more. There is a tartness to it, like citrus. A sense of something smooth. It’s rich. Buttery. Yes. That’s it. Sharp, and very crisp.”
“You are very attentive to detail,” he said.
“My life, for all these many years has been quite small. Relishing the small details is what makes it interesting. The taste of food, the feeling of the fabrics that I wear. The way the sun feels against my skin, and the smell of the sea air.”
He made a strange sound, humming perhaps in the deep part of his throat. “I have not seen the sea for many years.”
“But it isn’t far from here.”
“No indeed it is not.”
She wondered at that. Marveled at it in fact.
“But you could go and see it. You’re free. No one is keeping you here.”
“No, it is true. My exile is self-imposed. But that does not make it less real.”
