Neferim looks away from him briefly as she stands before him in all her shame, his cold, taloned finger raising her gaze to his forcing her to stare into his flaring obsidian eyes. She senses his anger from his words knowing she had no choice but to listen to what he was about to tell her and bit her lip for forgetting to address him formally as she had never failed to do so in the past, her hands wringing nervously afraid of his thoughts from the disgust on his face at her hand on his boot.

She had meant no harm in her actions but was caught off guard by his appearance. His name had rolled from her tongue to him as it had so many times before in her dreams of him, her dreams not taking into account his status but reveling in the man with the stern brow that meant strength and assertion to her. He was what she wanted. He was what she had hoped for and she felt a failure before him at that moment. She had always figured him strange, always appearing at night and his recent gestures of his blood in her mouth struck her as odd but she knew better than to question him having seen him rough up vagabonds in the club on previous occassions.

Her eyes bulge slightly hearing him tell her to lay on the well, fright gathering in her chest feeling like she had disgusted him enough for one night. She did not want him to see her that way. She was ashamed and did not willingly want to follow his order but knew the opposite would be worse. She sighed heavily shying away from his touch on her chin holding her head into her shoulders and looking at the ground as she walked to the edge of the well, sitting lady like and as calm as possible. Her heart raced within her chest as she leaned back on the post propping her leg up exposing the wound.

The wound was deep in the crease of her leg near her gentle folds, rough edged and gleaming green with infection from being in the water so long. She looked down at the wound and quickly turned her face up and away remember the words of the man that cut her there, proclaiming her would cut her womanhood off if she did not give herself to him, tears starting to pour from her face remembering his warm whiskey-drenched breath caressing her neck roughly as he rammed into her amongst the blood from the cut of the switchblade mixing with the blood from her broken hyman, her own screams defining in her ears remembering the house madam watching with the tip of the cigarette hanging lazily from her lip, other girls in the house standing at the door hanging their head in shame.

She began to sniff slightly falling back to reality looking away at the swaying branchs in the moonlight, a tiny remnant of the movement of the days animals rumbling across the forest floor. "I am sorry you have to see me this way, m'lord. I mean no disrespect."