"There's easier ways t'be your own boss. Take the fuckin' compliment, woman." Ren drawls.

It's a command, not a request. Ren is an intensely single-minded woman. She knows that she should be focused on getting into the town, sourcing shelter first and then figuring everything else out after the fact. But she really wants to know what Joan's throat tastes like - if the taste of oil and grease lingers there or if they've been lost to the taste of her sweat.

This reminds her of being a dumb teenager and sneaking out of windows to go meet up with girls in the woods behind the kin housing. Before she took up her mantle of responsibility. There had been that girl with the motorbike who had been unmentionably hot. Ren had obsessed over her for months.

She curls a finger around a lock of Joan's hair and tugs on it. "Y'got pretty hair."