Ri'vashi still showed obvious discomfort at the suggestion of making changes to her defensive strategies, but she was far less willing to get into a heated argument with the Champion and Gallus than she was with Dro'cahi. "Ri'vashi does not...like this. She thinks it is a mistake to weaken our defenses for this. How can she make such a choice? With most of our warriors on a march, this will be the time that the clan most needs its food reserves, and with the number of defenders reduced, the people may need the training. No, it has to be something else. Something else Dro'cahi has been wanting. Let Ri'vashi think..."

Conflicting thoughts raced through Ri'vashi's mind, rapidly weight the pros and cons of giving in to any of the complaints Dro'cahi had been making. She was not confident, but she did at least come up with an answer. "Dro'cahi has been asking this one to let go of more coin to the people. The clan takes a reasonable amount of all gold coming into the clan and devotes it to strengthening the clan as a whole, but Dro'cahi has been trying to say that the percentage is too high. What we don't put towards food, we mostly put towards weapons, armor, and other supplies for the warriors. But, we do have a good store of all of those items now, so changing that would not be [i]too[/i] harmful. At least in the short term."

---

"Nervous isn't the word I would use exactly; I think it would be a whole other kind of uncomfortable." Peiter answered. As much as he liked being close to Sabine, and especially as much as he loved mating with her, he had to admit that posing for that kind of a painting would be more unusual than pretty much anything he had done before. La'khay had finished trimming Sabine's armpits, was nearly finished with her groin, and woudl only need to trim her legs before she would be finished. Afterwards, Peiter was not sure if La'khay would want to do the same to him, and was slowly becoming more nervous about that thought. 

La'khay still did not seem to be deterred by the answers she was receiving. She was not exactly pushing the issue, but she was still staying on the topic. "Well, you would only need to hold one pose, and La'tahne could step out. You can have any painting you want, of course. This is for you to have something to remember this moment by. Something you can hold onto to remind you of what it was like when your love was first blossoming. La'khay just thought that would be the most romantic painting she could make. But, she would not want to do anything that would make you unhappy with the final product."