Ni'Srilan: The Desert: And I watered it in fears, night and morning with my tears;

Kinh is a student of labels, but he is not a prisoner of them.

He thinks, in that quiet, sure-footed mind of his, that we are not as different as we think, though we are quite disposed to thinking so. He, for instance, is plain-looking, somber-eyed, passive, calm - and full of a thick, mercurial rage. His mother was gentle-tongued, smiling - and never appeased. His father, broken, battered, worked harder than a horse should work itself. He was also full of an exquisite, plain, very distinct merriment, an absolute joy in the birth and reunion of things, that Kinh will always remember.

And Alerion - well, Kinh does not know that yet, and it is not his place to say. All he knows about him is that there is a world, perhaps even a universe, tucked away behind the thin veil of his eyes, rocking like a slow pendulum in his little, limping soul.

Kinh, with his dark, flat eyes and mud-brown coat, and a mane and tail that once in a while will look like its set afire by the sun but is usually just as bland as the rest of him, is a warrior. Which is why, as Alerion struggles to his hooves and stands, one leg curled conspicuously closer to his body, eyes half-shut in an expression Kinh recognizes as pain, he says nothing. There is no sympathy present or even hidden on his peasant-like facade, a bland slate of imperfect thoughts and emotions, but not pity. Not for the youth, who is perhaps older than he looks, though Kinh thinks he is also younger than he sounds. He does not know what the youth does in this desert-tundra, how he provides for friends and family, if he provides at all. But he knows that to even like the child must have a warrior's heart, and a hunter's mind. That is all that matters, to the eagle, to the sun that beats the backs of her peasants at daytime and makes them lust at night -

to Kinh, ever solaced, ever inquisitive, a small bundle of half-hidden thoughts resting just below the dusty fur.

"Mm," he replies in his brusque, suave, cowboy-voice. "That'd be nice," he agrees and dips his head, dark eyes twinkling softly, head inclined as he waits, and waits, for the child to lead the way,

or, he thinks, the day to find the night.