'That's fine by me,' Skif said, and grinned. 'I was about to dig out those trail rations.'
'I thought I heard something growling-I thought it might be a beast in the bushes.'Twas only your stomach,' Wintermoon teased as he began gutting and skinning the rabbit. Both owls hopped down from their perches to stand on the ground beside him, waiting for tidbits.
They took the proffered entrails quite daintily; seeing that, Skif had no hesitation about picking up the squirrel and following the scout's example. When the darker of the two owls saw what he was doing, it joined him, abandoning Wintermoon.
Skif got two surprises; the first, that this little 'squirrel' was built more like a rabbit than the scrawny creatures he was used to-and the second, that the owl took so much care in taking its treats from him that its beak never touched his fingers. 'Which one have I got?' he asked Wintermoon. 'How hungry is he likely to be?'
'K'Tathi,' the scout replied without looking up. 'The scraps will suffice for now; they will hunt again after we make our second camp, this time for themselves. Give him what you wish to spare from your meal.' Head, entrails, and the limbs from the first joint out seemed appropriate.
K'Tathi took everything that was offered with grace, never getting so much as a spot of blood on his gray- white feathers. Skif offered the skin as well, but the owl ignored it, so Skif quickly tossed it into the bushes as he saw Wintermoon do. That would have been foolhardy if they had been planning to stay, for the bloody skins might well attract something quite large and dangerous. But since they weren't-well, there was sure to be something that would find the skin worth eating, and if there was someone watching them, possibly following them-Well, if they try to go for the camp and there's something big, with teeth, still here, they're going to get a rude surprise.
When he finished his task, he once again followed Wintermoon's example and spitted it on a sturdy branch to hold over the fire. Meanwhile, the sun continued to set, the sky above the trees turning first orange, then scarlet, then deepening to vermilion-streaked blue. By the time the meat was done, the sky was thick with stars.
He was halfway through his dinner when Wintermoon said abruptly, 'I envy you, did you know that?' He looked up, a little startled, into the ice-blue eyes of the man across the fire. There was no sign of Wintermoon's dinner, other than the pile of small, neatly-stacked bones at his feet, each of them gnawed clean.
What did he do, inhale the thing?
On the other hand-it was in the interest of the scout's survival to learn to eat quickly. No telling when a meal might be interrupted by an uninvited, unwelcome dinner-guest.
'why?' he asked, puzzled by the question. 'What is there about me to envy? I'm nothing special, especially around Heralds.'
'My-liaisons-tend to be brief, and informal,' the scout replied.
'One reason I wished to guide you was because Starsong returned my feathers, and I am at loose ends.' Skif wondered if he should tender sympathy, surmising from the content that 'returned his feathers' meant his lover had dissolved the relationship.
But Wintermoon evidently saw something of his uncertainty in his expression and shook his head, smiling.
'No, this was not painful. I have no wish to avoid the Vale, or her.
But I simply have no partner now, and there is no one else I care to partner with at the moment. So I am at loose ends, and would just as soon have other things to think on.' He wiped his fingers clean on a swatch of dry grass, and tossed it into the fire. 'That is what I envy you, do you see,' he said, watching the grass writhe and catch. 'Strong feelings. I have never experienced them.' Skif coughed, a little embarrassed. 'I don't know that this is anything other than infatuation or attraction to the exotic.'
'Still, it is strong,' Wintermoon persisted. 'I have never felt anything strongly. Sometimes I doubt I have the ability for it.' The statement was offered like a gift; Skif was wise enough to know that when he saw it. He searched his mind for an appropriate response.
'the birds,' Cymry prompted.
'You feel strongly about Corwith and K'Tathi, don't you?' he countered.
Wintermoon nodded slowly as if that simply hadn't occurred to him in such a context.
'Well then,' Skif said and gestured, palm upward. 'Then I wouldn't worry. You're capable. The way I see it, we all feel strongly about things, we just might not know we do. Valdemar is like that for Heralds; we lay our lives down willingly for our coun' and Monarch when we must, but most of the time, we just don't think about it. If you encounter someone you can feel strongly about, you will. You haven't exactly been given much of a choice of potential mates what with three-fourths of the Clan gone, and your tendency to, well, stay to yourself.'
'True.' The scout sat back a little, and only then did Skif realize, as he relaxed, that he had been tensed. 'My father thinks that being born without the Gift for magery shows a serious lack in me. Sometimes I wonder if I have other, less visible lacks.' Before Skif could change the subject, Wintermoon changed it for him-to one just as uncomfortable. 'What do you intend when we find Nyara?' the scout asked, bluntly. 'We shall, I promise you. I am not indulging in vanity to say that I am one of the finest trackers of k'sheyna.'
'I-uh-I don't know,' Skif replied. 'Right now, to tell you the truth, all I'm thinking about is finding her. Once we do that-' He shook his head. 'It just gets too complicated. I'm going to worry about it when it happens. What she says and does when we find her will give me my direction.'
'Ah,' the scout replied, and fell silent.
After all, I spent less than a week in her company, he thought. I could have been misreading everything about her.
Except that she had saved his life at the risk of her own. She'd attacked her own father, a creature that had held absolute control over her all of her life, and for Skif's sake.
She'd gone after Falconsbane with nothing; nothing but her bare handsor rather, claws-And thoughts like that made him realize all over again just how alien she was, yet that realization didn't change how he felt in the least. Whatever it was, it was very strong and very real.
What's going to make a difference is what's happened to her-and what happens to us. If she's handling the things her father did to her. And if we can find someplace where people will accept her-and maybe even us.
