Shady

“I want to,” she sighed longingly. “But I doubt it. I’d need to have enough food with me that he didn’t have to hurt me… and he said everyone’s scared ...

“That works.” Ky nodded. “I’ll probably be too curious to sleep much anyway… and I don’t know how he’s going to tell me his name. Maybe he’ll whisper it to ...

“A big white one.” She couldn’t agree more that Zander was the one this would be the hardest sell. Tadaaki wouldn’t understand, but he trusted her implicitly, so he’d believe ...

“Oh, for sure.” Ky nodded. She hadn’t been planning on telling Gaius, much less anyone else. “… I don’t know how I’m going to explain the fur, though. I told ...

Did he actually believe her, then? That was good. But surprising. He seemed a cynic. But, then, she supposed it wouldn’t do him any harm to leave a few poultices ...

“I mean… I was wandering around in the middle of the wilderness in the dead of night in a blizzard.” She shrugged. “A pretty reasonable conclusion.”

“I hope so,” she said earnestly. She looked into the fire and sighed deeply. “I wish it was safe to be friends with him. I liked him a lot… even ...

“I feel bad for him,” she said. “The gods were even worse to him than they were me… us…” she supposed she shouldn’t be trying to pretend she had it ...

She flushed a deeper shade of red. “… I was thinking of calling him Mark. The first three letters are the same… I hope he remembers, though. He said he’d ...

“He told me not to come out,” she murmured. “So I guess he’ll be hungry. He said the bear is only gonna last him two days. But he can’t come ...

She looked at him, then back at the fire, flushing. Right. Of course he didn’t believe her. She couldn’t blame him. “If he’s telling the truth you’ll see. In five ...

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “He was only wearing this thin, thin cloak he said was a gift and that he cared about it but didn’t want an actual coat ...

She took a deep breath and sighed. She’d already come too far. He’d think she was crazy, regardless, so may as well tell him. It’d be nice to have it ...

“I don’t blame you for not believing me,” she said, looking up at him. “Like I said, I wouldn’t believe me, either.” She sighed, looking back at the fire. “He ...

“The Marrow Man.” She flushed, staring directly into the fire. “He doesn’t remember his real name. But he’s real. He killed a bear and gave me some of it I ...