He had given her an opportunity to kill him, or to even leave him behind. And Assaj could've laughed at herself for not taking either option. She couldn't even tell herself why.
The night around her was silent, no sounds of any intruding kind breaking the peace. Local nocturnal animals were on their hunt, while some wolves and wargs remained active, snuffling around and surprisingly leaving her and her companion be. While wargs were considered as an abomination to most, the savage woman regarded them as simply a bigger version of a wolf; both could be 'tamed' and both could be used to shred enemies to pieces on their path. And both were favoured by those of an unsavoury sort.
With a sigh, Assaj looked over her shoulder, watching the one raised by golug sleep. She hadn't woken him for his watch, knowing she wouldn't be able to find rest that night.
He infuriated and confused her to no end. Mixing seriousness with seemingly joking manners and talking to her as if she was a companion instead of a servant or slave. It put her at ill ease, especially when she knew her place. It felt like a trap, a trap that would spring with the slightest misstep. He couldn't be this genuinely kind or approachable: everyone had ulterior motives. And she had proof of that thanks to events related to the Pit and the fact he had asked her to sell her soul to him so to help her to save another.
Shaking her head, she turned back to the darkened valley below the cliff they resided upon, the moon giving enough light for her trained eyes to see tiny flecks prowling around: more wargs and wolves, maybe a bear or two as well. The North Downs, it seemed, would not be a region she'd ever remember with fondness if only arguments and disastrous decisions would happen here.
He wanted trust. More trust than that she could give. It had taken her a week to force her body to sleep when her watch time was over. And then taking another week to teach it not to lash out to his presence when waking up from a nightmare completely disoriented.
Unconsciously she rubbed the three new, deep slashes on her arm; a failed attempt to please him, having assumed he had wanted her to hurt herself. He had taken offense to that. To her inability to give more, to her suspicious reactions to his actions. He ordered her around first, only to retract his position as her master and trying to treat her like...what? His tone always held something condescending, one uses with weaker, stupid or younger than themselves. But it lacked the mockery, which did not actually reassure her.
He made absolutely no sense to her and truth be told, by now she would have preferred to face cruelty instead of this...
