'Nyara,' she said and looked shyly away.
That was when Elspeth came in and put her own gear away, efficiently and without a fuss, but it broke the tentative conversation between himself and Nyara, and the girl retreated to her corner.
She's so-mechanical. She's like a well-oiled, perfectly-running clockwork mechanism. She's just not human anymore.
In fact, for all of her exotic strangeness, Nyara seemed more human than Elspeth did.
He stripped off his tunic and changed his filthy, sweat-sodden shirt for a new one, with sidelong glances at Elspeth.
She changed tom shirt and breeches, both cut and stained with blood, although there was no sign of a wound on her. She took no more notice of him and Nyara than if they had been stones.
No heart, no feelings, no emotion. No patience with anyone who isn't Perfect. As cold as... Nyara is warm.
A sound at the door made him start, as he laced the cuffs of his shirt.
The man who had rescued them-Darkwind-stood shadowing the door.
Skif had not heard him until he had deliberately made that sound. He spoke with gryphons, moved like a thought, hid in the shadows-he was far more alien than Nyara, and colder than Elspeth.
He-looked slowly and deliberately into Skifs eyes, then Elspeth's, then Nyara's. 'Come,' he said, 'it is time to talk.'
'Why does it seem as if a whole week has passed since this morning, and a year since we first entered the Plains?' Elspeth asked, her dark brown eyes fixed on the horizon as the last rays of the sun turned the western clouds to gold and red streaks against an incredibly blue sky.
The young man called 'Skif' was contemplating Nyara, as he had been since she had been awakened.
Darkwind was watching Elspeth and her friend-though mostly Elspethrather than the sunset. She had washed and changed into another of those blindingly white uniforms, and he found himself wondering, idly, how she would look in one of the elaborate robes Tayledras Adepts favored. In better days, he'd had time to design clothing for his friends; Tayledras art had to be portable because they moved so often, and clothing was as much art as it was covering. His designs had been very popular back then; not as popular as Ravenwing's feather masks, but she had been practicing her art for longer than he'd been alive.
In fact, he had been proud, terribly proud, that his father had worn some of his designs. One of the things that had hurt him had been finding those outfits discarded soon after he had joined the scouts, in the pile of material available to be remade into scout-camouflage. Now he knew why his father had done that; discarded the clothing where he would be certain to find it. He'd meant to drive Darkwind farther away, to save him- The knowledge turned what had been a bitter memory into something more palatable.
As he contemplated Elspeth, he imagined what he would design for her. Something hugging the body to the hips, perhaps, showing that magnificently muscled torso, then with a flaring skirt, slit to properly display those long, athletic legs-definitely in a b~t emerald green.
Or maybe something that would enable her to move and fight with complete freedom; tight wine-red leather trews laced up the side, an intricately cut black tunic, a soft red silk shirt with an embroidered collar and sleeves...What in hell am I doing? How can I be thinking of clothing right now?
Maybe it was that she cried out for proper display. white was not her color. The stark uniform only made her look severe, like a purposeful, unornamented blade. After talking with her at length, there was no doubt in his mind that she was a completely competent fighter-that this was an important part of her life. But there was more to her than that; much more. Her outer self should mirror her complicated inner self.
She needed that kind of setting, with her spare, hard-edged beauty.
Unlike Nyara, who would never look anything other than lush and exotic, sleek and sensuous, no matter what she wore.
Nyara sat on the opposite side of Skif, glancing sideways at him; Skif couldn't take his eyes off her. She had proved, once revived, not only cooperative but grateful that all Treyvan had done was put her to sleep.
Her reaction-completely genuine, so far as Darkwind was able to determinehad shamed him a little for behaving with such suspicion and cold calculation toward her.
On the other hand, she herself had confirmed what Darkwind and Treyvan had suspected; that she was a danger. She confessed that she could be summoned by her father at any point, and if unfettered, she would probably go to him, awake or asleep. She did not know if he could read her thoughts at a distance, but was not willing to say that he couldn't.
