And as he spoke, with that calm rich voice that she was starting to like, she listened. Some men, when the spoke, uttered words between the lines and their body language told their listeners everything. Cuga was different. His body language was guarded so too where the emotions in his face. His eyes weren't exactly cold, but they were devoid of expression and she could tell he was tightly leashed in a great many aspects of his life. So all she could go by were his words, the ones he spoke clearly, and accurately.
"The funny thing about this whole situation is that had the Akalak just have asked me and let me choose one of them for myself, I would have stayed and helped them without this." She said, lifting her hand and showing the thick silver bracelet that as more manacle than art. The children of Wysar didn't like their Nakivak's slipping their collars and that's what the Undanas' were - devices their mages could track them with if they ran. "I was never offered a choice. I didn't choose. I woke up in a woman's facility already processed, cleaned, and manacled. I was told how life was going to be. We were took on a tour of the Oathmaster's Tower which is enough to scare anyone half to death. We met a Nakivak Advocate and her son, and then were sent to classes teaching us our body's ways and its cycles of reproduction and how to ....." She swallowed, bit down on her bottom lip, and blinked.
"No one is offered a choice, Cugacon. That you even say that is wrong." Kavala said, not accusing him, but gently correcting him. There was no choice. None whatsoever.
"I was told though that I would have to work. I was told that I needed something to fill my days with, yet something that had to be flexible enough to accommodate my true duty. I wanted something that would keep me tied to it so that a contract holder would have to come to me. I don't think I could have stood it if I had to move in with one for availability. I picked running a stables and a healing clinic for animals and kelvics. The debt was separate from my Nakivak status." It was important for him to understand that. She didn't agree to give up the rights to her body so she could raise horses. She'd went into debt to Riverfall to have a life outside of that, something she could control. "I've paid all of my business debt off. The thing that still enrages me is that they do not tell me how much body debt I have for the rescue. I thought an Akontak would be enough. But it seemed to make them want to hold me more. I know, facing the Oathmaster that last time, that they will never let me go. Not until, at least, I am past my childbearing years. Having no choice as to who comes here and who takes that right from me is the worst part of it. It is the dark side of your people, Cugacon. It is even darker than those of your brothers that have their faces tattooed and the twin souls you hide within yourselves. I know in accepting you, I am accepting two men not one despite what your father said... despite what you've not said. When I speak to you, I speak to two men and you both know it, even if the second never responds. Most of us would help your people, Cugacon. I swear it. How could we not? In all things the Akalak are amazing. I cannot be a Konti and not feel for your people and admire them. But I would have liked to have chosen a man for myself - well a pair of them - and loved him for as long as Rak'keli grants me this life." She said softly, looking around.
"Instead, in order to find value in my life, I have to build something like this place and make it work and have it be of value to your people. Why? So people can look at me and see past the Nakivak, Cugacon. I want them to look at me and see a healer and horsewoman, someone they can trust to give them a quality mount or heal their kelvic and livestock. I don't want them to look at me and wonder how long they will have to wait to have a turn at me as others already have." She said softly.
There was more to Sanctuary than that - a great deal more - but she wasn't ready to share with him in that regard. She didn't know him and most importantly she didn't trust him. It wasn't his fault. Distrust didn't come easily to the girl either, so truthfully he was on neutral ground with her. All the Akalak's were.
"I will cry for nothing here for there is nothing to truly cry about. I've felt pain and hopelessness and been in a situation no one should ever be in. That was filled with pain and sorrow. Riverfall is far easier. If there is sorrow and pain in me, it serves me not at all. It took a while to realize that, but its something I know." Kavala said, her eyes growing pale and making her look almost blind with the color leached out of her pupils.
She wanted to tell him all she ever wanted in life was acceptance. Had Hatot or Radris ever once told her they'd love her forever she'd have been content and even thankful. But any vows they'd made were broken. Any freedom they'd promised and evaporated like water vapor on a hot day. Kavala thought perhaps that in many ways the Akalak's were ruining their own bloodline. She said as much.
"I think your people drive themselves to ruin. In many cases we loose our children, us Nakivaks, the moment they are weaned and I know many Akalaks would take them the moment they are thrust from their wombs with the Nakivak still abed from her labor. They are either taken because they can or because the mother dies. You have no business, Cugacon, as a people lying down with human women. Konti women suffer not at all from producing your offspring, neither do kelvics. But killing humans by breeding them is wrong. I can't see why your people don't acknowledge that. You sign a death sentence every time you hang an Undanas around a human woman's wrist and whats cruelest of all is that she knows it. You also rob the child of a mother. Your people need mothering in a strong way. I haven't yet met an Akalak that wasn't somehow damaged and emotionally crippled because of the lack of a mother's full attention. Tasifal, my son, won't ever have that issue. I'm going to love him fiercely and be what a mother should be to him for as long as he needs me. I'd like the rest of my children to have the same privilege. And knowing that was guaranteed, I'd lie down with my Talvis easier. If he promised to never contribute to the needless death of human women I'd lie with him indefinitely and give him as many children as The Gods willed so long as he'd be a father my daughters as well, for those will come too." Kavala said softly. She unwrapped her arms from around her legs and let them dangle down the chair.
Young. She was young enough to have a dozen or more children for the Council and not begin to approach old age. There was no wonder they hadn't released her contract nor where they likely ever too as long as she was healthy and mentally stable.
"I respect your wishes, Cugacon. They aren't the wishes of most Akalak who view us as much as for pleasure as for function. You know as well as I do that there are no plain Nakivak. There are none that are scarred or unsavory. If you gather us all together, you will see. Perfect health, perfect smiles, perfect bodies. We are the only whores in the world that are encouraged to get pregnant, and then who are often cast aside once the birth is done in favor of the child." She said softly. Kavala didn't want to be cast aside. Not again.
"And for all that, I know I could enjoy it. I could like and accept the company of a Talvis if I knew he wasn't going to take my children away once he got them on me. I could make it good for him and welcome him. I cannot change my situation, but I can control the situation inside the situation. But its heartbreaking to get attached and have that shadow never darken your doorway again. And its exhausting to have to lay with someone when you don't feel like it because you are tired or your day has been a bad one. I'd rather look forward to the sessions knowing I could say no once in a while if there was a good reason and just spend time with my Talvis without that sort of pressure." She was talking about a family, whether she realized it or not, and a place to fit in and be accepted not as an means to an end, but as a part of something larger.
She was asking for a lover, rather than a stud, though she hadn't plainly spoke the words. Kavala was forthright, but not that outspoken for all her bravado. And in turn, she was offering cooperation and to be there for his children long after they were born. "I'd want that... that sort of situation. It's more than one of my kind could ask for."
