She placed a shallow earthen bowl filled with milk and bits of raw meat before him. With two or three brisk movements, he shoveled all the meat into his mouth, swallowed convulsively, then drained the milk.

Adriel's mouth hung open.

"You must be famished. But that's all for now — you'll get sick if I let you eat as much as you want." She poured some cool water into the empty bowl. "Drink this and that'll be all until later."

When they were all set to go, the tery's drag was bound again to one of the mounts. Adriel covered him with a blanket and walked beside him, a reassuring hand on his shoulder as they began to move.

The tery considered his benefactrix. She had a clear, open face in which he could read little. She appeared neither happy nor unhappy, neither contented nor frustrated. Lonely, perhaps? He would not have expected the daughter of a chief — at least her father seemed to be the chief — to be lonely. Perhaps she wasn't pretty by human standards.

As they moved through the trees a young man came up and matched his step to hers. He was well built with curly brown hair and an easy smile. A wispy attempt at a beard mottled his cheeks.

"How's the Finder today?" he said.

She sighed. "How do you think, Dennel?"

"Same old problem?"

Adriel nodded.

He grinned. "Won't you ever understand? Speech is such a burden for us: Thoughts flash as entities between us, whole concepts transfer from one to another as a unit, in an instant. We converse in colors and emotions and mixtures I can't even begin to describe. We don't leave you out on purpose. It's just…well, why walk when you can fly?"

"I know all that, Dennel. We've been over this before, but it doesn't help. It doesn't keep me from feeling left out. Back at the keep I could at least go and find some regular folks to talk to. But here…here I'm the only one who was born without the Talent."