'It was. Four days ago if I had asked that question, you would have said. you couldn't do without me. Now you know that you can.' Need's mindvoice conveyed a hint of pride. Nyara smiled a little, despite the remains of her anger.
Need chuckled at her smile. 'It wouldn't be easy for you to do without me, and any number of creatures could take you in a heartbeat, but I would give you even odds of being able to hide and stay hidden if you chose that route over fighting. You were coming to depend on me too much, and I am not invincible, dear. I can be hurt, or even destroyed. Your father could have done it, if he'd known how. Any of the Tayledras Adepts could. You needed to know you could survive if I was not here.'
Nyara considered that for a moment and let her anger cool. Another of Need's ongoing lessons-anger used to make her incoherent; now, once it was under control, it made her think with a little more focus.
That could be a problem, too; being too focused meant that you could miss something, but it was better than being paralyzed and unable to think at all.
'What about what you've been doing to fix what Father did to me?' she asked. 'I can't do that. And it isn't finished-'
'It may never be finished,' Need told her frankly. 'It could take a Healing Adept-which I am not-years to change all the things that were done to YOU. But you are doing some of that for yourself.
If you didn't recognize the problems and want the changes, if you weren't consciously helping me, there wouldn't be any changes. I can't work against resistance, my dear.'
' Oh.' Nyara couldn't think of anything else to say.
'There's something else I want you to consider.' A breath of chill breeze came in the window. Nyara shivered and moved away from it, returning to the warmth of her furs. She wrapped up in them, cuddling down into their warmth, and let her eyes readjust to the darkness of her tower room. 'What?' she asked, expecting something more along the same theme-perhaps something about using her own magic more effectively.
'What do you want?' asked the voice in her mind.
The question took her completely by surprise. 'Wh-what do you mean by that?' she stammered.
'It's a question no one has ever asked you before-and one that you were never in a position to decide, anyway,' Need said patiently. 'But you are out here in the wilderness. No one knows where you are yet. You are in a position to decide exactly what is going to happen to your life because there's no one here to affect you, to do things you don't expect and haven't planned for. So what do you want? Assume all the power in the world-because, my dear, you have many powerful people who consider you a friend worthy of helping, and they might just do that if you came to them and asked it of them.' The sword's voice warmed. 'You are quite worthy of being helped, child, though I don't want you to come to depend on it.' What did she want? To be left alone was the first thing that sprang to her mindto be left alone... there were no complications out here. Nothing to get in the way of simply living. No emotional pain-that is, when Need wasn't deserting her! This was the first time in her life that she had been in a position of control over her own actions and reactions.
There was something very attractive about that.
But-no. It was lonely out here. She was often too busy to think about the isolation, but in the dark of the night, sometimes, she felt lonely enough that she had to fight back tears. At first, she had been too busy to think about it, and then Need had been enough company, but now she wished there was someone else to talk to, now and again. Someone who wasn't a teacher, who was just a friend.
Or... maybe a little more than a friend? The frequent urges of her body had not gone away, they had simply become less compulsory, and more under her own control.
But if she didn't want to be left alone, that meant rejoining some portion of the outside world. North meant other Birdkin Clans, and she' had been warned they were far less tolerant of Changechildren. South was Dhorisha. There were only two real directions for her, east to the real 'outside' world, or west, back to the k'sheyna Vale.
There were problems with both directions. Should she leave the area entirely, and try to find someplace in the east where she could go?
But then what could she do? She would have to find some way to support herself. She had to eat-there was little or no hunting.in lands that were farmed. She would have to have clothing, and a place to live, and in civilized lands, one couldn't wear rough-tanned furs or live in a cave. Even assuming there were caves about to live in.
'I could go to the lands where the Outsiders came from. When I am there, I can track and hunt,' she said aloud. 'I could hire out as a hunter or a guide... or maybe as some kind of protector.' Need indicated tentative agreement. 'True, but what are the drawbacks of running off like that, into places you know nothing about and where you have no friends? Remember, out there, no one has ever seen anything quite like you. they might not treat you well, they might greet you with fear or hatred, and you would be one against many if it came to hostility.' There was another option-one in which her alien appearance might be of some use. 'I could... hire out as a bed- partner.' There. She didn't like the idea, but it was a viable one. It was one thing she was well-trained in. Skif had certainly been pleased.
Again, Need indicated tentative agreement, but with reservations. 'You could do that, and you would probably do very well. But is that what you want) I thought that was the point of this discussion.' She sighed. 'No, it isn't what I want. It would be a choice, but not a good one. I suppose-if I had to, it would be better than starving. But I don't have to go east, do I?' If she didn't go east-Then she went west. Back to k'sheyna. Back to where the Outland strangers were...No point in avoiding it. The one person in the whole world that she thought of with longing was that stranger. The young man called Skifwho was with k'sheyna. And the only Hawkbrothers in the world who might look upon her with a certain amount of kindness were the k'sheyna. She had helped them, after all-fought against her father's controls. She was the reason they had known that one of their own was Falconsbane's slave. In a sense, they did owe her a debt...In more than a sense, so did Skif. She had saved his life at the risk of her own.
And they had shared so much in such a relatively short period of time, enough that the intensity of her feelings had frightened her. That was more than half the reason why she had run away from him. She did not want him near her while her father's directives still ruled her so closely.
Not while she wanted him so very badly...'I rather thought so,' Need said, following her thoughts, with a feeling of wry humor. 'I rather thought that your Skif would be in the equation somewhere.'
'Is there anything wrong with that?' she asked defensively, a little apprehensive that Need would not approve. After all, when she had been a woman, she had been celibate. And now that she was a sword, did she still understand feelings?
