Chapter 3

"You?" I asked incredulously.

"Yes," came her annoyed voice back to me from outside the small window. I had a room on the first floor, because they were by far the cheapest ones. The Twilighters of Braghia all aspired to live as high up as possible to show their social standing making it shameful, and for me affordable, to live on the ground.

"You came back?"

"Obviously."

"Why?"

"Listen, can we discuss this outside? How long do you think a branded thief will be left in peace looking into your window?"

One minute later we stood face to face at the corner of the hostel, or as face to face as was possible when she was about a foot shorter than me. It was night now, and the yellow flames of the whale-oil lamps did not do much to illuminate the darkness, but I could see that she was wearing a colored (blue, perhaps?) coat now, instead of the white slave robes I had seen her in the last time, and that a hood covered her thieves' cross.

"Why did you return, slave?" I asked. Why did I add the 'slave', now? She flinched.

"I am your slave?" Her voice was incredulous.

"Yes," I breathed deeply.

"Who are you?" She uttered the words in staccato, putting stress on the middle word of the sentence. "Where do you come from?"

I hesitated. Feeling an urgent need to control the situation, I shook my head. No... "Why did you return?"

"Look, You want to own me, and control my life? For real?"

I paused. To control every aspect of her life. What she should wear, what she ate, when she woke and when she was allowed to sleep ... What a horrible idea! Oh, and what a sweet, sweet idea. Had I ever felt these kinds of emotions before? Thinking back, a lot of conflicted memories suddenly became clear...

I realized she was still waiting for an answer as my thoughts flew wildly between experiences with the women I had known in my life.

"Why did you return?" I repeated, not because I insisted in getting my answer, but because I was not ready to answer her question.

She sighed and looked a me from under her hood. With an almost unwilling movement she grabbed the cloth and jerked it backwards, revealing a head covered in shadow.

I waited.

"Yes?" she said.

"Why did you return?" I repeated, confused.

"Because of this."

"This what?"

She sighed and rolled her eyes. Then she stepped closer to me and bowed her head. "This."

Her head was not covered in shadow, like the diffuse, weak lamplight had lead me to believe. It was covered by thick, black hair. Barely. The was less than a quarter of an inch long, but now that I realized it was there, I saw it made all the difference to her appearance.

Her head, which had resembled that of a gnome and had made her firm eyebrows dominate her face while her ears had seemed to stick out, was far better proportioned now. She was lovely, I realized as she raised those enchanting eyes of hers to look at me. Long eyelashes, so long that a gaze sent demurely up at you from a hundred paces would make your heart skip more beats than a drunken, amateur drummer.