Brains and sex fight each other to control your life, and thank God brains get a head start before sex comes along. - C. J. Cherryh

You are not to tell my parents,” he said, with his arm over his eyes, “but I drank a little brandy from a glass someone left and I am not feeling well this morning. One does not think it was poisoned.

"Is that the end," asked Melein, "of all the races and the civilizations, and the dreams of the world, to be able to leave a few stones buried beneath the sands, to tell the Dark that we were here?"

Intimidation needs response, bait needs biting. If you do neither, the attacker has nothing to build on.