“Wait, I'm not ...” Thomas trailed off, staring at Cenpre. She just looked at him, a hand moving to rest on her hip. “But what if ...” She didn't bat an eye. “Look, I can't just go, 'Hey, will you have sex with me', and expect that to work out!”

“Why not?”

“Because that's not how it works.”

“Sure it is.” Thomas stopped again at that response, considering. Okay. Given the attitudes the women he'd talked to had here, maybe it was. Wait, had he only spoken to women, this entire time here? There had been Anne, then Leisa, now Cenpre. Okay, that was a little bit weird, wasn't it?

“Okay, but I don't know anybody well enough to say that to them, even if it is.” That, at least, was true. Even if Thomas had a crush – had a crush? – on Leisa, the idea of saying that to her, even if he knew in advance she would agree, just felt … wrong. If she asked him? No, probably not even then. Weren't medieval people supposed to be prudish? He was feeling like the prude, here.

“Sure you do. People have sex with people they've just met. Here, say it to me.”

“What? No!” He wasn't sure if he had meant to say that out loud, it was a rather hurtful thing to say, but Cenpre just snorted at him, looking amused.

“What, am I not pretty enough?” She struck a pose which … might have been intended to be sexy. He was rather afraid of her hitting him no matter what he said, however, and thinking her in that way just wasn't happening.

“It's not about being pretty, it's about my first time being more special than just laying with someone I just met!”

It took Thomas a full three seconds of Cenpre just looking at him before realizing what he'd just said. As if waiting for his expression, she grinned. “See, virgin. You'll have to get over that attitude sooner or later. You have to master your traits to grow as a person; see, I had to learn how to be angry. Then I had to learn how not to be angry. You, you need to learn to accept your lust. Then you need to learn how to restrain it. You're never going to grow as a person if you can't accept your own nature.”

Thomas had absolutely nothing to say to that; it sounded reasonable. But it was also entirely unreasonable; he wasn't a person defined by their lust, he'd just been tricked by a description that made him question it. But saying that out loud wouldn't help anything.

He settled into a grump silence as Cenpre watched him. She eventually shrugged, apparently satisfied that she'd made her point, and bent over to lift the beetle they'd killed, with a pointed look at Thomas as she started hefting her end. He reluctantly stooped over to help.

The beetle joined the others in the pit, and they moved to the next beetle. As Cenpre had said, Thomas could now, in fact, stand in front of the beetle, kicking and punching it as much as he wanted. They couldn't hurt him; the sharp mandibles that had torn through his flesh yesterday, today skidded across his skin with a feeling like a fingernail sliding across him. It kind of tickled. But he couldn't hurt the beetles, either; he could certainly get their attention, however.

He tried the Hurl ability, in response to the next attack; thinking the word didn't do anything. He continued experimenting, until, with an intent on throwing the creature as a reaction to its assault on his person, he found himself grabbing the shell, and falling backwards. The beetle lifted over him, and kept going as he released his hold, landing on its back behind him; Thomas continued rolling, tucking his head against his shoulder, and found himself oriented towards the beetle on his feet. It had felt like it had taken a couple of seconds to complete the motion, but he'd barely heard the crack of the beetle colliding with the ground – and a melon, which exploded messily underneath it – when he was on his feet again.

“Hey, that's new.” Cenpre's hoe smashed through the soft belly of the beetle, a splash of ichor hitting Thomas in the chest. He looked down at the warm mess, then at her. She just grinned, moving the farming implement to her side, and leaning on it. Was that … was that another pose?

He felt increasingly uneasy and uncertain as they tossed the beetle and moved on to the next, and then the next. He was pretty sure she was flirting with him, and in view of their earlier conversation, he really didn't know how to handle the situation. He couldn't just say, 'Hey, thanks for the attempt, but I really seriously want my first time having sex to be personally meaningful'. The idea just felt rude. Plus she might hit him. She was kind of scary.

Thomas stared at the glowing spider hiding in the bushes; Cenpre had sent him off, and he had come up short of pushing through the bushes when he noticed a faint light. It was … it was damned big, the size of a dog, and not the little yapping ones. And it was glowing. His gaze swept rapidly back towards the farmers, now collecting melons from the emptied fields, then to the spider again. Had it noticed him? It was hard to tell; he wasn't even entirely certain it was a spider; spiders didn't glow, did they? And it was too big. And … and yes, its many eyes seemed fixated on him.

He took a slow step backwards. The spider moved slightly forward in the bushes. Ah. Yes. It was looking at him. He had no particular fear of spiders, with their fuzzy little bodies and legs; at least they weren't house centipedes. He'd nearly shit himself in the shower one day when one had crawled out of the drain at him as soon as he had started the water; now those little fuckers could burn in a fire. Spiders kept other insects in check; they were friendly house buddies.

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Except this one was wiggling slightly, and looking at him, and had moved forward when he had moved away. Thomas considered calling out, and decided that he'd probably shriek the words out, and somebody would come over and laugh at him. Cenpre had said the centipedes were good, right? And those things were way, way scarier than this spider. It was even kind of cute; a bioluminescent spider with blue-gray fuzz. Right. Cute. Thomas swallowed, and turned to shout. Better to be laughed at than – movement!

He squealed as he backed away, but its weight was already on his arm, and he flailed that around, stumbling over the furrows in the ground to fall on his ass. Shit shit shi – it bit him! Well, it tried to bite him. Oh. Oh, hey. It couldn't pierce his skin with its – a hot pain spread through the arm, and he started flailing again, kicking at the earth underneath him in a mindless attempt to get away from the spider which was now crawling up his chest, finger-sized mandibles audibly clicking, drooling a glowing blue substance that sizzled on his shirt, and started burning. Thomas shouted wordlessly, and punched.

A crack; the spider stumbled backwards, and he punched again, with the other arm. The spider fell off his chest and onto the ground, and he rolled over and brought his hand down. He instantly regretted it as the spider's abdomen burst apart, and hot blue liquid sprayed across his chest and face. He moved a hand slowly, wiping it off his eyes, relief washing over him when realization dawned that the ichor was just hot with heat, rather than whatever it was – venom? – that still burned on his arm and chest.

Two men stood over him, when he got his eyes clean enough to open again, wiping them with the back side of a sleeve. It was Orbel, and another farmer that Thomas didn't recognize. They were peering over him intently, and it was Orbel who spoke, with a deeper version of Leisa's musical accent.

“Didn't bitcha, did it? I don't see any blood. Shit, boy, what were you thinking, trying to punch an inferno spider to death like that?” Thomas looked back at the spider. That was an inferno spider? Why the … oh. The burning sensation, which was starting to fade from his skin. Heh. Like a fire ant, although at least those were red. He chuckled, then started laughing, although he really didn't find any of it funny at all. He'd never quite grasped what it meant to laugh in relief until this moment, and it was, indeed, hard to stop laughing, laughing until tears rolled down his face, and he was curled in a ball on the ground.

Minor objective complete: Clear the fields. You have earned one customization point.

Minor? What had happened to moderate?

“So what's your other trait, then?” Cenpre was eating dinner with him; he wasn't sure where Leisa had gotten off to, but she'd disappeared shortly before Cenpre had showed up. It was more stew, and today it had something in it that reminded him of crab meat.

“Stoicism.”

“Ooh. Tough break.” She took a bite of her bread.

“Tough break? Why's that? At least it's not ...” Thomas struggled to think of something as bad as Lust, and came up short. “Greed.” He felt rather lame about what he had come up with, and Cenpre just shook her head, running a hand through her hair.

“Greed's easy, if you think about it. Stoicism, you have to control yourself when you really don't want to, and let loose when you really want to just not do anything.”

“So I could just take off all my clothes and go dance naked in front of a bunch of people?” Cenpre smirked, sipping some of the broth from the bowl before responding.

“That's lust talking. And no, it has to be natural. You can't force it.”

“Like going out and having meaningless sex just to get better at fighting?”

“It's different. One is accepting your nature; you can't do it just to get better at fighting, you have to actually want it, and accept that you want it.”

“Well, I'll have to want it, and accept that I want it. Otherwise I'm just doing it to get better at fighting.” Thomas was taken aback even as the words came out of his mouth. The hell? Had he just said that? Cenpre looked surprised, too, then gave him a smile that looked genuine, for a change.

“Exactly. So you work on accepting it, then go have sex you really want to have, so you can get better at fighting.” He gave serious consideration to hitting her on the shoulder, and decided against it. A win for wisdom. She'd thrash him. “Joking aside, yes. I tried forcing it, on wrath. Everyone tries forcing it, sooner or later. Sometimes it works anyways; it did for me, but I didn't realize why until later. Really, wrath was just an excuse for me to be angry.” Cenpre looked distant for a moment. “It was harder to resist it, than it was to accept it.” Huh. She had suddenly turned into a person. How … odd. He tried to rally his thoughts.

“Well, I'm going to take it slowly.” She smirked, and the moment was over. Thomas changed the subject. “So, that was an inferno spider? I had pictured something a little larger.”

“Oh, oh yeah.” Her expression darkened. “There's a bigger nest somewhere about. They get more dangerous as they get older, that was a juvenile.” He froze. “But yeah, that's about as big as they get.” He relaxed again.

“Is your sister alright?” Thomas prodded, and as hoped, her eyebrows lifted again from the glare, and Cenpre's lips twitched out of the scowl that had started to form.

“Emma's fine. She just needs another day or two of rest. Thanks for helping out with that, by the way.”

“I didn't do much except fly across the room.”

“Ha! Well, thanks for flying across the room. Leisa needs the help. She didn't even want to be a healer, you know? She just took the skills because her father broke his leg when they were out hunting, and she had a few dedications to spare. One thing led to another, and old Wenna passed, and we lost an archer and gained a healer. Leisa does her best, but it wasn't the life she had planned for.”

“Everyone kind of ends up living a different life than they planned, though, don't they?” Cenpre flexed an arm in response. The musculature was … impressive. She had been scary before, but that had been watching her ruthlessly smash enormous beetles apart with simple farming implements, as calmly as if she were, well, farming. He'd never really taken in that her stocky body was all muscle; she looked like she could benchpress two of him. Which Emma had demonstrated her own capacity for, he belatedly realized; that hadn't been adrenaline, or not purely so. He'd been worried about her hitting him, but hadn't quite grasped exactly what it would mean if she did.

“See this? This is what I planned to do. Be strong. My plan is working out juuuust fine for me.” Thomas couldn't help but laugh at that, and she flashed a pleased little smile.