Usually, by now, one of us says something small. A word of camp work. A question. A correction in language. Something about the weather, food, or the tasks of the day. Today, nothing comes.
Keandra eats with too much care. Too much neatness. As if she is conscious of every movement and determined to make none of them ask for anything.
That stirs a cold rage in me that I cannot properly direct. At Mars. At the years before me. Whatever taught her to withdraw like this and expect that silence will cost her less than need.
I want to tell her she may want to shout here. May be angry. May speak. May ask. May accuse me if accusation is what the moment requires.
But wanting and speaking have never been simple rights in all worlds. I know that enough now to understand that saying the words does not make the body believe them.
So instead, I say, “You do not need to count bites here.”
Her hand pauses halfway to her mouth. Slowly, she lowers it. “I’m not counting.”
“Yes, you are.”
Her eyes lift to me finally. The look in them is not hot enough for a fight, but not empty either.
“Maybe some habits don’t disappear because one male decides they should.”
The words cut deeper than she likely intends.
I do not want easy answers from her. I want truth, even if it leaves marks.
“I know that,” I say.
Something flickers in her face then. Surprise, maybe. Because I did not answer with command or correction. Because I did not tell her to stop.
I add, more quietly, “That is why I noticed.”
Silence again.
But not the same silence.
That should help.
It is not enough.
Keandra finishes only half the food before setting the plate aside. She reaches for work instead of rest, for a basket of cloth repairs left near the chest. Busy hands. Closed mouth. The human way of building distance while being useful.
I know enough now to see the pattern.
I do not know how to break it without making it worse.
My body offers one answer over and over. Take her hand. Pull her into your lap. Make her look at you. Tell her no distance. Not in your bed. Not in your tent. Not in your life.
I do none of it.
Because another part of me, the part learning her more slowly and more painfully than instinct likes, sees something else. If I close in too hard while she is already holding herself this rigidly, she may feel cornered rather than kept. Pressed rather than soothed. Claimed rather than heard.
Love makes cowards of males in strange ways, I think. Not fear of battle. Fear of touching the wrong place inside the female and driving the blade deeper by accident.
That realization sits badly with me.
I rise at last because remaining in the tent while pretending not to feel the distance is accomplishing nothing. “Oshara will want the inventory clothes checked before noon.”
Keandra nods without looking up from the repair in her hands. “I know.”
Outside the tent, the camp is brighter than it feels. Wind moving over the hide lines. Siran voices. Maira sorting herbs. Mending gear. Everything ordinary. I walk through the center of it with the full weight of a male who would rather face an armed council than the quiet withdrawal of one human female in his own bed.
