"Wait, she speaks Vestrian?" Brielle asked.

"Broken Vestrian," I corrected. "Kanik has been teaching her, but - "

The tinkling of the bell hanging on the door cut me off. Both of us looked over just as another tailed woman walked in, carefully making her way down the stairs. Her soft grey color could only be described as steel, and everything about her matched. Her hair, her eyes, her scales, and even her claws were that same medium grey color.

"Jeera!" Brielle called out, lifting a hand to get the new woman's attention.

"And Rymar," Jeera said as she hurried over.

First she gave me a side hug, bending to press her cheek against the top of my head. After that, she moved around the table to give Brielle a quick kiss. Brielle grabbed her hand, squeezing gently, then gestured for Jeera to claim one of the other open chairs.

She did just as Ulris returned, setting drinks in front of all of us, along with the appetizer Brielle had ordered. There was another little lull while we all picked out something for lunch. Ulris wrote it all down, paused to clasp Jeera's shoulder in greeting, then promised to get it to us quickly.

The moment he was gone, Jeera looked over at me. "So, do you want to tell me how my brother is doing? I haven't heard from him since he carried that Mole woman out of Mom's clinic."

I grunted and leaned back. "Yeah... Here's the thing. Ayla -"

"Who?" Jeera asked. "I thought her name was Orin."

"That's what Zasen was calling her before he figured out how to talk to her," I explained.

Which had Brielle breaking in. "And Rymar said she speaks Vestrian now."

Holding up both hands, I begged the women to give me a chance to finish a thought. "Ladies, let me explain. Her name is Ayla, she was kicked out of the Mole compound because she refused to get married, and her native language is English. Yes, that English. No, she doesn't say the words the same way we've been taught. It took a bit to figure out how to pronounce the vowels the way she does, but Zasen and Kanik can both talk to her, and Kanik has been teaching her Vestrian. She's picked it up quickly."

"Well, fuck me," Jeera breathed. "So why is she here?"

"According to her, there's a lot of religion going on down there, and it sounds like she was forced to marry a man she wasn't interested in. Ayla says he was some old man who sounds like a complete asshole, so she stabbed him with a fork. They treated it as if she'd tried to kill him, so they hung her out to die. Even worse, she keeps talking about punishment. The way she says it, I think she's been abused. And that's why I wanted to talk to the two of you."

"Abused?" Brielle asked, picking that one word out.

I nodded slowly.

"This," Jeera grumbled, "only makes me hate Moles more."

From a table behind us, a man called over, "Which is why we should kick that pale bitch out. Don't want any of their kind in town!"

Jeera immediately spun in her chair, snapped, and pointed at him, making a noise that would shut anyone up. "Did you hear a thing he just said? The woman was kicked out because it sounds like she hates Moles as much as you do. So maybe the last thing she needs is for us to prove we're no better."

"Yeah, but Moles do nothing but take from us," someone else said. "How long has she lived on the bounty of our people? Maybe it's time she sucked it up and did something for herself. Like die. Dying would be good."

"Yeah, fuck you," Brielle told him. "Next time you need something, don't think I'm going to forget what you just said. You should suck it up. Maybe you should die."

"Enough!" I yelled. "This is a scared and vulnerable woman you're all talking about. She has never been aboveground before. From the sounds of it, she didn't even know there were people up here. She has done nothing wrong, and punishing her for the actions of someone else makes no more sense than me punishing any of you for what the Moles have done to us."

"I just don't want her kind here," the first man grumbled.

"Thankfully, it's not your choice to make," I told him. "Besides, Zasen is watching over her. Zasen. You all know that if she does anything to threaten any of us, he'll handle it."

That made the people in my cafe murmur, but they couldn't really say I was wrong. The truth was, Zasen was why things had started getting better in Lorsa. Our people were mostly passive, but not him. That man had harnessed his rage and made it into a weapon more deadly than anything I had ever seen before.

Beside me, Jeera just scrubbed at her face. "Well, sounds like my brother has once again bitten off much more than he can chew."

"And yet he's doing a very good job of it," I assured her. "Well, Kanik is, for the most part. But here's the thing. I think this girl needs some friends. Female friends. Everything she's said so far implies men basically ruled her life, and she has some very antiquated ideas of gender roles. I was kind of hoping to show her what it's like to be a woman up here, and you two are good examples of that."

Brielle looked over at Jeera. "It also wouldn't seem suspicious if you made a point of seeking out your brother."

"There's that," Jeera agreed. "But what kind of abuse are we talking about? Was she beaten by men? Raped? I mean, how serious is the trauma she's trying to get over?"

"I don't know," I admitted. "All of her manners are overly formal, and Kanik said she has a habit of talking around the subject. She's very demure, meek, and even submissive. If any of us push her too hard or ask her pointed questions, she bows her head, folds her hands up, and plays with this little ring she wears. At the same time, she had no problem slapping Zasen because she thought he might be thinking perverted thoughts. He wasn't, but I figure he deserved the slap anyway."

"Yeah, he probably did," Jeera agreed.

"But the way she talks about things?" I said. "She mentions men punishing her as if it's just a fact. She flinches when Zasen even raises his voice."

"Which he's pretty good at," Jeera admitted.

"Mhm," I agreed. "But she can get lost in a book for hours on end. Oh, and any time one of us men step into Zasen's room - which she's currently using - she gets tense and weird. Every night, that door is always locked."

"So she doesn't trust men," Brielle said.

"And yet she does," I countered. "She's fine with Kanik in the living room. She only pulls into herself when it's anywhere else."

"Alone," Jeera pointed out. "Places that are private. Places where a man could rape her, Rymar."

I groaned. "Yeah, but we wouldn't do that!"

"Sounds like she doesn't know that," Brielle pointed out. "She probably doesn't even know how to talk about it. If things were as bad in her Mole home as you say, I'm willing to bet the abuse of women has been normalized."

"Which often means," Jeera broke in, "that it's the woman's fault."

"And she might not even know what's wrong," Brielle said. "We know almost nothing about Mole culture, but we do know that historically, some societies thought women were inferior to men. That meant men could rape, beat, or even kill a woman and suffer no penalties. A woman's only way to defend against it was to make sure none of it happened."

"To be nice to the men," Jeera grumbled. "To not be alone with them. To basically do everything you say this Mole girl is doing."

"Yeah, that's kinda what I'm getting too," I admitted. "The way she talks about things makes me believe she doesn't understand anything resembling freedom, the liberty of her own choice, or the options she has in her life. I mean, Adoet saw her in the yard yesterday, tried to attack her, and Ayla blamed herself. She thought it was because she shouldn't have been reading her book!"

"What book?" Jeera asked.

"Peter Pan."

Brielle groaned. "Do I want to know how she was left alone outside by the main road through town? Fuck. Just the color of her hair would convince someone to jump her."

"Sounds like she was supposed to be on the porch. Kanik was making tea and Zasen was changing after hunting and delivering meat. Ayla wanted to see the flowers, and she said she was hoping Tamin would come out soon..."

"Tamin?" Jeera asked.

I nodded. "Seems she likes the kid. Even better, he likes her back, but Saveah is not pleased with Zasen right now."