"Am woman," she countered with a sly curve of her lips. She was too thin, for her tastes, for her time, for her world. Thinner now, in the days since returning from the other city. But on television, in magazines and advertisements, she saw that hers was not so far from the bodies on display. More than this, she knew her body and what it could do, the strength in the lean muscle and the allure of long limbs and subtle curves. Her thinness never troubled her.

Hild shrugged, untroubled and still playful, smiling as though she held a secret.