[Perhaps later she will blame this openness on... something. Surely there is something. Was it because they were branded by the same Legacy? Was there something in the water in Venera? Strangely (or perhaps not so strangely)... It doesn't occur to her that it might be because there was trust between them. That perhaps people who had forged certain bonds might... share things. About themselves.]

... There's no learning it.

[Even if she explained it in intimate detail... How could he actually know it? Without realizing it, her movements have become stiff, her muscles taut with something that wasn't alert for the possible presence of more guards.]

Women are useful for kitchen work, warming beds, and birthing.

[Her voice is not quite there either, because... they aren't lines from her own mouth. It's what she's heard all her life, what makes her movements slow, now, as she wipes the blade.]

Every mare at my stable was sold for riding or breeding.

[She's rubbing at a spot that has already been cleaned.]

Every exhibition day I had to listen to the buyers talk about how I was a perfect shot, how strong I was, how swift... but I was a woman.

[She didn't intend to say this much. Perhaps it is the head, she had accidentally let it affect her more than she ought to, than a warrior ought to-]

If I want to be sold as a warlord's horse, then I must have them recognize my skills, no matter the cost-

[- She forgets, for half a moment, that isn't her life anymore. Couldn't be, even if she wanted it to. She'd spent every year of her existence since she'd been old enough to realize the dead-eyed armless being led to the breeding post each season was her mother fighting so hard to be sold as a soldier that now, with a head finally in her hands-

She forgets.]