Iris swung her sword, finishing her morning practice. She maintained the final stance of the routine as she considered her day. She needed to visit the market to resupply her small secluded compound. She had stretched most of the supplies well enough that she could delay the trip for another week. The thought did appeal to her but she had a more critical reason for making the trip. Her sword was battered to the point that she would need to use her back up just to make the trip.

  She cooked extra food at breakfast so that she wouldn’t have to stop to eat in town. The whole trip was a hassle and if she thought she could get by without it she would disappear into the forests never to return. She stopped that thought early. “If we could live on wishes, the world would grow fat.”

  As if in answer to her remark a high pitched ringing sound came from her courtyard. Some kind of magical formation was formed in the air, made of a rainbow of different colors of light. Iris picked up her sword and took her sword style’s opening stance.

  Evan stepped through the door to find himself in a small courtyard. The first thing he noticed was a small shed in one corner. His eyes followed the wall to a small house done in a vaguely asian style of architecture. The sense of unreality he had felt since waking up in the white space was gone. This made it all the more shocking when he saw a naked redhead pointing a sword at him. She had a well toned athletic build and while there was some light scarring on her arms she had an almost perfect complexion which was complimented by a light tan. The few imperfections she had made him feel a sense of sympathy for her. She straddled the divide between average looks and gorgeous looks. She looked good,enough to make her few flaws stand out.

  Her figure was more or less perfect. Evan could nit-pick if he wanted to but he saw no need. Her breasts were smallish and if they were much smaller they would have looked odd. He might have complained that she didn’t shave, but something in the back of his mind told him that beauty, while it came naturally to her, was not her priority.

  Iris took a quick look at the man who suddenly appeared in her home. There was something off about him but she focused herself, stray thoughts can kill in combat. The man was not only completely off guard but, he had already seen her and reacted to the sword in her hands. Her mind tried to consider the oddity but she suppressed the thought and pushed him to the ground before she realized that she was holding her main sword. Suddenly the threat of her sword was reduced in her mind to a strong bluff. If she needed to she could, and would, use the weapon to kill the man. Despite this the sword was valuable enough that she wasn’t willing to destroy it without pressing need.

  Evan was now panicking. The naked woman had knocked him to the ground without word or warning and she now held the blade of her sword to his throat. He suppressed his fight or flight instincts by utilizing his preferred method. Evan let his mind wander. The woman above him…. Did not look good from his present angle. Her flaws were emphasized while her charms were hidden. Her cold expression was off putting and more than a little murderous.

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  Evan idly denied the common accusation his friends made that he was a masochist. He silently rebuked them, thinking that risking pain and seeking pain were different things entirely. Evan lamented that this was not the time to tease this woman and he consoled himself by remembering that he didn’t know her well enough to know how she would take it. He had sabotaged more than one date with harsh flirting.

  Iris stared at the man. For a moment she thought that he had gone still with fright. The man reached up and grabbed the tip of her sword with his fingers and gently pushed it away. Once he had moved the sword away from his throat he slowly moved backward before rolling onto his stomach and standing up. He was clearly nervous and jittery. One of his arms had even seized up from the tension, his hand locked in place like he was some born cripple.

  The man took a deep breath before trying to work his hand loose with no success. Iris walked backward until she could see the discarded sheath of her sword, which she picked up and used to safely store the blade.

  Iris sat down on the walkway on the front of her small dwelling and began to process her thoughts with a rising excitement. First, she realized she was naked. She lived so far away from civilization that she sometimes walked around her home in the nude on a whim. Second, the man wore strange clothes, in a style she had never seen before. Her third realization was that the man, while he had clearly enjoyed the view of her body he had seen, had not made any obvious assumptions about her.

  Finally she realized what the source of her sudden excitement was. The strange man had looked at her as some kind of equal. She blushed as she amended her thought to, “desirable equal.”

  With her thoughts sorted out, at least for the moment, she quickly retreated to her bedroom and donned her armor.

  With the threat to his life out of the way, Evan was suddenly made aware of the woman’s beauty in a less academic, more animal, manner. He cleared his mind and relaxed, letting the remnant panic and fear run its course.

  When Iris was dressed and ready to face the man she stepped out of her room to find him curled up on the ground crying. She was stunned. She had never seen a grown man cry. She had seen one or two shed a few manly tears without realizing it but she had never seen a man lose control of himself. As the feeling of shock faded she realized she felt a sense of pride, and a sense of shameful guilt. Pride that she had overcome and dominated a man. Guilt, for the nature of her pride and the weakness it was based on. She decided she could afford to wait another day before visiting the town.