Thorn slept apart now. There were changes in his body which made this advisable. He went to his room of the many rooms in the house and curled up into his privacy. Duun came to check on him.
“Are my ears going to grow?” Thorn asked, looking at him from the pillow as he stood in the doorway.
Ears. Maybe that was the easiest, least painful thing to ask. Duun stood silent. He had planned how he would answer about claws and hair and the shape of their faces and the difference of their loins. He had planned everything but ears.
“I don’t think so,” Duun said. “I don’t care, do you?”
Silence, from the small shadow in the bedbowl.
“You’re unusual,” Duun said.
A snuffle.
“I like you that way,” Duun said.
“I like you,” came the small, disembodied voice. Another snuffle. “I like you, Duun.” Love was, Duun recalled, not a word he had ever used in Thorn’s hearing. Like you. As one liked a warm fire. The sun on one’s back.
“I like you too, Thorn.”
“I don’t want any more meds.”
“I’ll talk to them about that. Do you want to go hunting tomorrow? I’ll give you a knife of your own. I’ll show you how to keep the blade.”
“Hunting what?” Snuffle. Shadow-child wiped his eyes with a swipe of an arm; nose with another. There was interest in the voice.
“I’m hatani, Thorn. That’s something hard to be. That’s why I push you hard.”
“What’s hatani?”
“I’ll show you. Tomorrow. I’ll teach you. You’ll learn to do what I can do. It’s going to be hard, Thorn.”
Another wipe of the eyes.
“Tomorrow, Thorn?”
“Yes.”
“Get to sleep, then.”
Duun went back to the fire. Wind howled outside, in cold. The fire leapt. The last of the old countryfolk lumber was gone. They began to use an old log from downslope. He cut it with the power saw he had ordered with supplies and brought it up, bit by bit. None of the countryfolk from the valley would bother the pile he had made on the roadside below. They kept out of his sight and left no sign near the house. But he knew that they were there.
They would know hatani patience. Countryfolk had patience of their own. Perhaps things would change. Perhaps the hatani would die. Perhaps the alien would meet with accident. Perhaps their title would become valid again.
Perhaps they had bad dreams, down in the valley, on the other side of the mountain, out of his sight and mind. Perhaps they dreamed nightmares, imagining that their woods were no longer their own.
Or that the woods might not be theirs again, forever.
He had asked for the house and lands of Sheon. He had not used the lands, till now.
He took his weapons from the top shelf of the locked cabinet where they had remained out of the way of curious young fingers. He had taken them out many times to care for them, and never let Thorn touch them, to Thorn’s great frustration. A child should have unfulfilled ambitions; should know some things forbidden. Doubtless Thorn had tried. Children were not always virtuous. That was to be expected. And dealt with.
“Have you ever tried these?” Duun asked, when Thorn sat opposite him, across the blanket from the small array of knives, cord, wire, the two guns, one projectile-firing and one not. “Have you ever handled them?”
“No,” Thorn said.
“Will you ever, if I tell you no?”
Alien eyes lifted to him, in startlement that at once dilated and contracted the irises: swift, furtive decision to agree, the easy course, swiftly to be violated-perhaps. If a child wished. There would be a quick flick of a reproving finger against an ear. Perhaps a cuff to make the eyes water. Thorn could endure that. There was no permanency. Nothing was forever. As he lacked a past, he lacked a true future, and believed nothing could thwart him forever.
There was no can’t for Thorn. Duun had taught him so.
“I am not asking you,” Duun said, holding up the solitary finger of his right hand. “I am telling you a thing. I want you to believe this. Will you ever pick these up if I tell you no?”