“She welcomed her into the bed with a gentle press of her hand on her jaw. The all consuming guilt flooded her, even as she leaned into the welcoming touch. She knew she would never have pushed if her Hauras had not welcomed it, she would have kept to herself, but Vargis had hunted down so many of the Jarl’s runaway prizes… she had sat at the High Table and saw them tucked underneath, on demand of their Jarl. She’d seen them smile and laugh as he played with them, chased them, bedded them. Yet, they had risked it to run, to flee, and Vargis had hunted them and drug them back to the man they were so desperate to get away from. She had killed them for their disobedience.
Vargis was attentive, gentle, always waited for permission, but the guilt never abated. She had judged, and silently, treasonously hated, her Jarl for the girls he had killed, sometimes only hours after bedding them. As her Hauras, her little bird, sighed beheath her, writhing and pleasured, the guilt grew. As she curled in on her shoulder, sleeping peacefully in the aftermath, Vargis felt the guilt transform to conviction. Those women she had killed for fleeing had been running for the mainland, for the land where the Ownership Laws and the Laws of the Prize were not legal, for freedom. She would take her Hauras there, free and fully her own person, and if she still gave her those gentle touches, still welcomed her into their bed on the mainland, then she would be free of this guilt as well.”
Originally, Rodina and Priya were going to flee as lovers, to eliminate the power difference that caused Rodina deep guilt. As the story unfolded and the plot began to line up, this angle fit less and less for the relationship that I wanted to develop between them. I did not want them to flee from guilt, or fear, I wanted Rodina to take Priya away from the North because she loved her, wanted to give her the world, and could not do so in her village. She knew when she captured Priya under the Law of the Prize that she was rare, unique, gifted in a way most mages weren’t. I wanted their relationship to be built on hard won communication and respect, on mutuality, rather than lust and guilt and unwanted or shirked responsibilities.
While I know the story better now, I don’t know now when they finally move from Prize and Head, to friends, to partners, to lovers. I know it is gradual, and messy, and slides back and forth between them all. I know Rodina will still feel guilty for claiming her as a Prize, a house servant, a slave really, and Priya will remind her time and again that she rectified it, and that they are free of it. I have a lot of ideas about when they finally transition to lovers, but nothing I’ve decided on. I think, ultimately, I won’t ever make a cannon version. It’s more fun to play with, to wonder, to see where and when and how you can slide that particular bullet point in.
