Page 40 of Bound

She closed her eyes, pressing down the brief stab of irritation. “That is true. This time. But all the rest, it is going to be me. And that means walking and swimming and doing my best not to slip.”

He did not answer her, which she supposed meant that he had no argument to give her.

“You will finish today?” she offered, so they might drop that particular subject.

He nodded slowly. “Your hesperwill be glad of it, I’m sure.”

She smiled, feeling slightly better. Enough that she could take a bite of her own meal. “Thorn, mostly. He seems certain they’re going to step on one of the grimbles.”

“He should learn to swim,” Braum muttered, and she wondered if she was meant to hear it at all.

“It’s not his nature,” she defended gently. “He’s usually good at keeping them from going out that far. He’s trained the older ones well, but every spring there’s a new batch that don’t know any better. Gets him frustrated.” She swallowed. “I don’t do all that much for them, really, so I’m happy to help him when I can. Even if my methods are less than graceful.”

Braum hummed slightly, and she did not doubt it was in disapproval.

Which was his right. As it was hers to tend to her grimbles however she must.

Her father had stopped complaining when she’d reminded him not too gently that he did not live there to tend them for her.

Instead, he merely bid her to be careful.

And patted her arm with that slight tightening about his eyes that she knew so well.

They sat quietly. She picked at her food and made herself take a few nibbles, while he did not bother with even that effort, until he allowed a finger to touch one biscuit thoughtfully. “Your methods are admirable,” he said at last. As if she was in search of his praise when she most assuredly was not. “I cannot help...” he paused, considering.

Just as she considered if she truly wished to hear what came next.

“I try to imagine my sister out here, on her own. And I confess I cannot.”

Her shoulders relaxed, and it became a little easier to make a genuine effort at her meal. “She lives in the city?”

Braum nodded. He did not smile, his attention still drifting over the land. The animals that even now could be heard bellowing to one another. “She is an excellent mother. A hard worker.” A grimace. “She would have to be, to keep them alive and relatively clean.”

She felt a pang of something that was a little too near to sadness. “Has she many?”

“Two. But they move so quickly that you would swear there are more of them.”

She thought of the children in the market. The harried looks that the mothers wore as soon as their flight feathers came and suddenly they might be anywhere.

“Then I think she would manage just fine,” Wren argued. “Exchange fledglings for grimbles and it’s much the same.”

She did not know that, but there was a sort of chaos that could come when order and routine made way for the stubbornness of small creatures, no matter their kind.

“No,” Braum disagreed. “She relies on people. To help her. To advise her.”

His tone did not suggest it as a criticism, but she could not help but take it that way, if only a little. She might have accepted more help if it had been offered.

It was not.

“Would it be wrong to ask after your other people?”

Had she clarified that it was her father that had visited? She could not recall. She’d been suspicious and angry with him, so it was doubtful. “My mother’s people,” she offered, her thumb smoothing over her cup thoughtfully. “I do not know where they are. What happened to them. They were not... welcomed. After your kind learned of... of me.” She ate a little too quickly, trying not to think of those stories.

They had been. At first. When they were simply a new people. They were offered lodging in the city. Their few resources were marvelled at for trade.

Then her mother had begun to show.

And suddenly, they were all expelled.