She came to the steaming springs and found a man already there.<\/p>\n
Sky-clad, sitting at the pool’s edge with his legs in the water, he was breathing heavily when she arrived. Any doubt she might have had over what he’d been doing vanished within the space of a few more steps.<\/p>\n
She felt her cheeks heat. Whatever had possessed the man, to indulge his lusts like that, out here open to the wild? Her breath caught in her throat from the shock of it.<\/p>\n
The man actually had the temerity to smile up at her \u2013 no, to grin.<\/em> \u201cOh, hello there,\u201d he said, as though what he’d just done was perfectly natural. \u201cI thought I was out of the way here, but apparently not quite.\u201d<\/p>\n He was the sort of man who could be all too tempting. He was young, with something around twenty years to his name, clean-shaven, wet black hair hanging down to his shoulders. His tanned skin was marked by a few paler scars, but none that disrupted the smoothness of his trim, muscular form. The sort of man who could be quite dangerous to a woman’s virtue, even without…<\/p>\n \u201cDo you like what you see, then?\u201d he asked, his grin growing somewhat wider. \u201cGive me a few minutes, and I’m sure I can – \u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou presume far too much!\u201d she chided, managing to say it before he said… whatever it was he was going to offer. \u201cHow dare you even suggest such a thing?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAll right, all right, I apologize.\u201d The man slid into the water, where at least the steam and the ripples hid his indiscretion from easy sight. \u201cThe way you were looking at me… well, obviously I read it wrong. My apologies.\u201d<\/p>\n She crossed her arms. \u201cThe very notion is completely absurd,\u201d she said coldly, struggling to put aside a momentary thrill of base, unwholesome desire for another glimpse. \u201cHow dare you even consider<\/em> that such as I…\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHey, now.\u201d The smile on his face hardened. \u201cThe last woman to look at me that<\/em> intently had no objections to me offering.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat’s her<\/em> damnation, then,\u201d she snapped.<\/p>\n \u201cDamnation, is it?\u201d Suddenly the levity was gone from his voice. \u201cBy Shior…\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cShior?\u201d she cut in. \u201cThat <\/em>certainly explains your degeneracy.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou call me<\/em> degenerate?\u201d His voice was suddenly soft, but there was steel under it. Somehow, with only the water covering him, he had as much dignity as a lord. \u201cShior teaches me to be generous with myself and with all good things I have. You, on the other hand, haven’t given me much indication of being generous with anything but harsh words and scorn.\u201d<\/p>\n Shifting a couple feet over, he pulled himself out of the water, heedless of her protests, and started gathering his possessions. \u201cYou don’t need to like<\/em> me, you don’t need to want<\/em> me,\u201d he said. \u201cBut to take that as a given, to hold yourself as something above<\/em> your fellows, somehow better<\/em> than them…\u201d<\/p>\n With his feet slipped into sandals and a patterned kilt around his waist, he fixed her with a stern look. \u201cWhich of us is the ‘degenerate’ one here, hmm?\u201d<\/p>\n And with that he turned away, making his way back toward the village.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In which virtue and sin are all relative.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[84],"class_list":["post-357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-one-shot","tag-flash"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/furry-tales.net\/shurhaian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/furry-tales.net\/shurhaian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/furry-tales.net\/shurhaian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/furry-tales.net\/shurhaian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/furry-tales.net\/shurhaian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=357"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/furry-tales.net\/shurhaian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/furry-tales.net\/shurhaian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/furry-tales.net\/shurhaian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/furry-tales.net\/shurhaian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}