Scyelen complies and flops against him, pensive.

Squeeze. "I mean it when I say that usually hurts people very badly. I can say more about it, but - there are some things it hurts people to even know, and I think this might be one of those, for you. Can you just trust me about it, that this is important to stop?"

"I wasn't saying it wasn't," Scyelen mumbles. "I... don't actually think it's likely, that Siesta would rather stay with Mott. He's already shown himself to be an abuser of power. I can't deny that it is very possible that he'd... get what he wanted out of her... even if it did hurt her very badly. I just..."

He gives her another little squeeze, and waits to see if she's going to complete that thought.

It takes her a few minutes.

"You're the one who keeps telling me I'm not broken. That the way I am is... a valid way people can be. If that's true, if I just have an unusually high amount of a normal trait, then other people can have... varying... amounts of it. Less than me, but also not none."

"Ah. Yeah, that's true. But - this kind of thing happens, and we know what happens when it happens. And usually the person it happens to isn't okay. Even you should be careful the first few times."

"Usually."

Scyelen isn't sure if she's agreeing or disagreeing, by repeating that word.

"Um, what first few times?"

"-I am assuming you're going to try it sometime."

"I don't understand which 'it' you mean..."

"That kind of sex."

Scyelen makes a little frustrated noise.

"If you don't want to tell me what you were talking about, you can just say that..."

"Where did I lose you? I was talking about... what happens when people are raped, usually."

"Yeah, and then you said something confusing about me doing something for the first time...?"

"-yeah. It's - if you want to try it you're allowed to. I've been assuming you will, eventually."

Scyelen makes another not-so-little frustrated noise.

"Try. What."

She isn't even sure why she's getting so upset about this, just that it feels like Raafi is deliberately dangling something very important to her just out of reach.

"Playing with being raped." Squeeze.

"Oh." Finally! Why does he have to randomly torment her for no reason like that?

His touch makes her skin crawl.

She snuggles deeper into his arms with a whimper, tears in her eyes.

She's also kind of lost track of the conversation that lead up to this.

"Are you saying I should be careful the first time I have sex to make sure I play with being raped?" she finally asks. "I don't think that's going to be possible."

"-oh, no no no no no. You should be careful the first time you play with being raped, so that if it turns out that it hurts you you don't get hurt very much. It definitely shouldn't be your first time at all."

"Oh," Scyelen says again.

Why didn't he just say that instead of... Sigh.

"I don't... think that's actually what I want, anyway. That's why I got confused. And besides, the circumstances of my deflowering have already been decided, so it doesn't really matter."

"Did I not mention...? I have an arranged marriage waiting for me."

"I guess we'll have to see how that goes, then."

"I've never met him. But he's... the sort of man a girl is supposed to want," she says, like this is ominous rather than reassuring. "I don't... have high hopes that he'll... actually like, anything about me."

Squeeze. "I think you'll be fine, sweetheart. There's plenty of things to like about you; the school just isn't a very good place for you to let those things show."

"I don't think... a marriage will be, either. But if I was... in Siesta's place... then I'd know he liked at least one thing about me."