What is wrong with men?
Why are they so stupidly brash and bold?
Why do they think that a lass just smiling at them means that she wants to bed down with them?
Why?
WHY??
You asked for tales so you can write songs. I told you I'm not good with tales but I'll tell them if you want. I told you not to try anything. You acted like it was all in jest, oh so light-hearted.
Then you went for the underbelly.
Lucky that I have Ivan in my thoughts. Lucky that I'm not who I used to be. Lucky that I'm a proper, leashed whelp and not a wild animal anymore.
It vexes me, how powerful the simple image of a face can be. Why am I willing to honor the sweetness of Ivan's smile, when I wasn't willing to do the same for Tara?
That's not a fair comparison. I was barely out of childhood back then. It was so long ago...
But I'm still the same me, aren't I? Is youth really an excuse?
Why do men not see that lasses are people, and not just pretty bags of flesh without hearts or souls?
I don't even own a dress. I see some ladies in town painting their lips or cheeks with berry juice. They braid their hair and strap their bosoms so they look like they're going to burst out of their bodices. I'm covered in sweat and mud and briar-scratches.
Why do men always seek to bed me?
Truly - why?
Someone once said it was because the prettier, more ladylike lasses are too easy to get, and that men like the challenge of taming a "wild woman". Maybe that's true. What do I know?
Is that all I am to them? A wild thing? A beast to catch in a trap, so they can strut a little the next morning and fancy themselves a grand conqueror of lasses?
Nay. They always wind up looking at me with soft eyes and all sorts of longing and needing. Men are baffling animals. Strong and tall and boorish one moment, then crumbling with desperation the next. They all want something - someone - to "fix" them. Fix their broken, lonely souls. As if laying with a mad, tangle-brained huntress will fix anything.
I'm not even angry at him. Not really. Not really at all. Just...frustrated with the predictability. And confused at the why of it all. He seemed nice, in the end. I liked talking to him.
But why couldn't he just take my words for what they were?
