She could have fought to the death and perhaps she could have made a name for herself in legends and ensured a bitter long war while she was at it. One where her people sought to avenge her heroic death and Sellexu fought for whatever it was fighting for. Foxes wasn't even sure she had made the right decision by surrendering, putting herself into the hands of a long standing bitter enemy. 

But she heard his first questions and took them more as a genuine question of alarm, as concern for someone battling a hundred enemies. Aside from the chauvinism that she could attribute to a nation who didn't believe women should be fighting at all, she thought that perhaps he saw her as more than an enemy to kill, perhaps as an actual person. 

Foxes struggled to remember something, a distant memory nagging in the back of her mind that she couldn't quite grasp. Perhaps there was nothing and it was all her imagination. Perhaps it was just that she wanted to believe that it was him not wanting to kill for the sake of killing.

Leaving her in her current predicament, where her shoulders ached, her wrists hurt, and her fingers tingled as she waited in an uncomfortable position for what seemed like an eternity. She felt oddly exposed, sitting in her leather and metal armour, with her cloak not around her. Most of her weapons were seized and in some unknown location. They had missed a couple daggers in their search but she wasn't in the mood to cause more trouble yet, so she let it be. 

Instead, Foxes sat in the chair and stared at her feet, listening to them search the ruins of the castle and take stock of how empty it was. Her and her Rangers had been defeated, though it was a controlled defeat, it was still hard for her pride to deal with.  She had been forced into a safe withdrawal that would allow the future to march on. Foxes had no sure way out of this, no one left in this castle that was truly on her side. The ship had sailed by now and they would be in Lansen by morning and Rael would then move forward with the rest of the plan.

Foxes looked up as someone knocked on the door. The guard stepped aside and opened it, admitting the timid translator from the field outside the castle, followed by High Lord Shiar. The Lordling frowned at her then muttered something inaudible to the guard, who left quickly in response. His helmet was gone and it looked like he had combed his hair roughly out of his eyes several times since taking it off, leaving an unruly mass of curls that made her think of her own father, an odd twinge of familiarity from an enemy supposedly so different from her own people.

Otherwise he looked unchanged, watching her in the gloom for several long minutes before the guard returned with a lamp and a third chair, which he set on the table. She watched in interest as this High Lord Shiar assisted his man with moving the table in front of her and one chair was placed across from her. It was at that chair that the High Lord sat as the guard left the room. The translator sat on one of the other ends of the table, fidgeting slightly as Foxes and Shiar stared at one another in silence.

The poor man nearly choked on the tension in the air, the strong wills between the two of them palpable as they glared each other down. Finally, Shiar turned to his translator and murmured, "Do not translate this. This conversation does not leave this room. Anything I say to her, and anything she says to me, is not to be heard by anyone else, are we clear?"

The translator pulled back in shock at the intensity of that command, before nodding slowly and clearing his throat. "I am yours, M'lord."

Foxes sat there, watching Shiar expectantly, feigning ignorance to his language still. Her expression remained set hard as she watched him. The command and its suddenness was something she put into storage in the back of her mind, for later. Something to puzzle over when she had time and leisure.

"Why did you make us break down the doors? Why didn't you just surrender?"

She shrugged as best as she could with her hands restrained behind her back, her words translated with moderate efficiency by the translator. "I wanted to make sure my people could leave."

Shiar frowned deeply when he heard the words. "Why did you not leave with them?"

"They needed time to leave." She paused, glancing to the translator, then looking back to the peculiar man in front of her. "And I needed to talk with you again."

She watched him take that in as it was turned into Sellexun. The High Lord sat back in his chair, his green eyes darker than they had been in the daylight. He held something back then, his mind working but not quite allowing some reaction to show through expression or words, letting out a slow breath as if to vent the tension, before leaning forward once more. "Who are you, that you need to talk to a High Lord of Sellexu?"

There it was, the superiority that often followed ego and would prevent any form of meaningful exchange. She let the disappointment show in her features as the words were translated, as if she had high hopes that he had just dashed. She held that look, wanting him to feel the weight of what his ego would ruin if he continued, knowing he was reading her as certainly as she was reading him. "I am called Foxes. I have been assigned as a Diplomat as the Queen of Aupana, I was sent as an envoy to the Regent of Sellexu, or his designate."

"The Prince-Heir is my closest friend and I am his Champion. The Commander of his armies and Leader of this campaign." He offered as he watched her curiously, as if she were a puzzle he was trying to solve.

*** 

Shiar took in her form, his eyes scanning her features and the emotions playing across her face, even covered in paint as it was. He recognized that he had left her sitting in this room for longer than he should have, but he needed time to formulate his own mind and see to the rest of the forces before entering this discussion.

She must be uncomfortable, with her arms tied back behind her but he left her like that for now, unwilling to admit how unsettled he was by her ease and mere presence, by everything about her. It all had him reeling,  from her flame-red hair to her bright green eyes that seemed to glow in the darkness. Her blood red lips, and the black paint over half of her face. His people did not allow women to act as warriors, leaders or diplomats and he had expected fear or weakness, something other than the calm that faced him. 

Everything he was taught women should be was at the forefront of his mind and he found none of it. Not openly, anyways. And he was struggling to understand how his expectations could be so off the mark.

"So you are his designate?" Her words were thoughtful. Even if he needed them translated, Shiar could recognize her tone.

"I am. Why are you here?" Shiar offered, his expression closing for a moment.

She gave him another thoughtful smile and when she shrugged, he could see the pain in her eyes from the movement. "We never talk, Aupana and Sellexu, our people share so much, yet so little. How much of what we know of one another based on mistruths and myth?"

He sat back for a moment, shocked at the sudden openness being translated to him, before he  inclined his head. "Perhaps our people should have tried to repair whatever wounds lay in the past, instead of ignoring them till war broke."

"Why did you decide to invade, then? Why not send emissaries, ask for a truce-meeting? Something?" She offered gently, honestly, as if it were as simple as that. Her expression and tone communicating the message almost better than the translated words

Shiar opened his mouth to angrily retort, to counteract but swallowed those accusations until he could level them calmly.  "You have your alias, Foxes, but as an Emissary of the Princess-Heir, you must be of at least partially of noble blood. You have training in warfare as well as fighting skills from places other than our two countries. You are valued by a noble bloodline and family, somewhere. Why did you stay behind?"

She smiled as the translator talked, looking to him with an odd sort of expression that seemed to contain self-depreciation, perhaps even humour. "You look at me from your eyes. You see that if I were a noble born female from Sellexu, I would still be good for marriage stock, perhaps useful to raise my family worth through good connection. You accept the fact that women are warriors of my country, but you do not fully understand what that means. Just as a man from your country can be noble but born late enough that he is easily sacrificed for the greater good, so can a woman, in Aupana."

"Women have no place on the battlefield." He blurted out hotly, as soon as the translator had finished. He hadn't expected to feel the sudden shame and regret at that statement, that had already begun to taste like a lie, after watching this woman for the past few days. 

 But he said it and he held his ground as he saw her jaw set and her green eyes grow dark with anger. The woman's expression shut down, closed off to him as suddenly as his words had come out of his mouth.

"I try so hard to believe that some of the things we learn about Sellexu are wrong, that there are people like my parents remembered them but you keep proving how conceited you are. How unwilling to see yourselves, and yourselves only, in anything but the absolute highest esteem. You do not desire equals among you, you wish to crush everyone beneath your feet." She snarled out, baring her teeth. 

His expression darkened even before he understood exactly what Foxes had said, leaning closer to her, his anger roiling. Merely from the challenge she presented. This was a dance their people had been having for centuries now and both of them were helpless to break free.

"And you, Diplomat. You sit there, pretending that we were the aggressors, that you weren't mobilizing your armies and navies and planning a conquest of every nation within our bay and the outlying seas. We responded to your acts of war, we just had the guts to declare it outright, unlike Aupana, trying to sneak around playing innocent until you could attack!"

She blinked at him, mulling over what he said for long moments before shaking her head and sitting back. "Check your facts before you send young men to die over them."

Shiar stood then, the chair clattering to the ground as he rose, his large frame looming in half-darkness away from the flickering light. Something about her got under his skin, pulled out the worst in him, even as he felt the best part of him struggling to respond to her. He took a step forward before catching himself. In a moment, Shiar found that anger was checked seeing her tense and brace as if ready for him to attack, restrained and unarmed as she was.

Finally, Shiar looked at the translator, who seemed to be bracing for something as well, taking the moment to breathe and order his thoughts. Only then did he back to the woman on the other side of the table, bringing his fist down hard. "You stupid girl, you gambled with your life, with your very freedom! Even if you were the last of twelve born to a lower household, you could still be raped and tortured, turned into a play thing to depraved soldiers or their commanders! You shouldn't be here playing war, throwing defiance in my face. That is what your brothers are for!"

The Diplomat glanced down at the table when his words were translated, then back up to him, and Shiar could tell that she was fighting back her anger, storing it into a place out of reach for the time being. He marvelled at the control that wrenched her emotions from her eyes even as they burned in the lantern light of the small room.

 Finally, she let out a slow breath. "Men can be raped just as easily as women can be. You're deluded if you believe otherwise. Though I agree with you on my life, on my freedom." 

Her words were calm and distant, her gaze shifting to something beyond him that he couldn't see. "I gave up my freedom because it was asked of me by my country, because that was how I was raised. To try for something that may just be hope on the wings of birds and nothing more. And if rape is what you're aiming to do to me, you will have to kill me first,  High Lord Shiar. I will force you to kill me and then my people will rain hell down on yours to avenge it. But we did not invade any islands, nor threaten anyone's sovereignty. I am here because I found proof that something else is behind trying to send us to war and that us killing each other is just playing in to whomever's hands wants us all to die. We are not the enemies we should be worried about."

Shiar pressed his fists into the table long after the translator had stammered to an end, watching her with barely leashed anger that he couldn't rightly explain. He wasn't angry at her as he would be an enemy, he was trained as an interrogator and was able to keep his cool in the most trying of circumstances. Odd as it was, he felt kindred with her spirit, an envy at her calm, in awe for her bravery and unwavering conviction.

And the flicker of hope from her own words on the subject of their two countries. He needed to salvage this meeting, to establish logic with a calmer head or they would be throwing whatever chance this may hold, away. He let out a slow breath and straightened motioning the translator out of the room.

As the door opened, his man at arms, Jarnel slipped back in, watching him carefully for a long moment. "M'lord?"

Shiar paused and looked away from the woman finally, turning to his man-at-arms. "Untie her, there's a room up at the top of the tower, it is the only one salvageably comfortable away from the soldiers and there's nowhere to go from there. Take her there, give her food and water. We'll send a messenger through the pass, see if we can use her as leverage. She was sent by their Regent-heir. She's a hostage."

Jarnel offered a bow as Shiar stalked out of the room. Shiar watched as three other men moved past him to follow his orders. Wondering if anyone else from his country would take the same precautions with a woman. 

Wondering if they were the fools, or if he was.