Snippet from an upcoming chapter of “A Song for Vialle.” You can find the first chapter here - https://archiveofourown.org/works/65134276/chapters/167520175
Note that Random is canonically a psychopathic asshole at this point.
In the books Vialle is a sculptor but clay doesn’t really work underwater so she weaves baskets and things out of reeds, graceful sinuous things people love. She’s teaching Random to make chainmail to keep his hands busy because you can’t really drum (or smoke) underwater.
Vialle was wearing a sort of vest that laced up the front, and up the seams along the sides under her arms. I could see a strip of her stomach between the bottom of it and the waistband of her trunks, and the small lithe muscles that slid beneath the smooth skin of her bare arms as she plaited reeds to weave into a basket of whatever she was working on.
“Why aren’t your tits out?”
I was perhaps cruder than I might have been but sitting still was a trial and I needed a distraction. My lack of skill as I closed metal loops on each other was also a trial.
“Should they be?”
Her hands kept working at the same rate, almost mechanically, skill born of hundreds of hours of experience. Her head was slightly cocked to the side.
“I mean, just about everyone here goes around tits out but you keep yours under wraps. Are you hiding something?”
This was the sort of thing that sent Flora up the wall, leading to me dodging various sometimes-sharp projectiles.
“Ah. Well, most men here are relatively flat chested as I understand it, prows not extending past their chins. Neither they nor the other women here are at great risk of running chest-first into things, spilling things down their fronts, or scraping their nipples on something.”
I winced at the “scraping” comment. I couldn’t imagine her spilling or running into anything.
“I feel safer when a very tender part of my anatomy is kept protected from various elements.
A small smile, wry, flicked across her face. It slipped away just as fast.
“You, I assume, are wearing some sort of garment on your lower half? Loins girded? Not flopping about carelessly?”
My hands stilled and I watched her. She had deftly turned my impertinent question aside, riposted with her own. I wasn’t sure how I felt about her discussing my loins. I laughed, though, at the ridiculous conversation and also because dick jokes are funny.
“You have a lovely laugh.”
She tossed it off so casually, that small mocking comment. I tensed, shoulders and jaw alike, mouth tightening. Her hands kept moving, plaiting reeds together. I waited for more, for a follow up dismissive comment about my buffoonery, my clownish nature. She reached out and patted the table next to her until she found her bundle of reeds. She pulled one loose and plaited it into the long line of reeds.
I flexed my hand holding the small pliers. It didn’t hurt, it wasn’t even tired. But I couldn’t focus on the task at hand - the time wasting busy work she’d set me to. I tossed the pliers in the basket with the other material and it was heavy enough it sank neatly into the basket instead of drifting about. I stood.
