“No, singe-whiskers.” Ratha grinned at her. “Who else can I depend on to tell me when I’m running the wrong trail? Thakur often knows, but his voice is sometimes too soft. Fessran’s yowl I can’t help but hear. Even if I do disagree.”
“You may not have been entirely wrong,” Fessran said softly, looking at Mishanti, who was frisking about with his tail. “He hasn’t shown any ability to speak.”
“Perhaps he doesn’t need to.” The interruption was Newt’s. “I didn’t. Not for long time. Perhaps he the same way.”
“But words are important to us in the clan,” Ratha said. “And they are important to you now. I thought you wanted to come into the clan. There is no reason why we can’t accept you.”
Newt gathered herself together. “I don’t want your clan. My seamares give me what I need. I want to be with you,” she said, turning to her mother, “but as... friend, not leader.”
Ratha’s whiskers sagged a little. Thakur imagined that she thought Newt would be eager to end her long isolation and be welcomed back among the Named. But Newt’s adversity had fostered a sense of independence that could not be given up easily.
“Let me take Mishanti,” she said, looking at Ratha and Fessran. “Let me teach him to live with seamares. Let me keep my own ground and my own way and make my own choice to be with the Named or not. That is what I ask.”
Thakur turned to the two, who were staring at each other with disgruntled looks.
“I hate to mention this,” said Fessran, pointing toward the cub with her nose. The wound over his ribs had stopped bleeding and was crusted with dried blood. “You were the one who ripped up his side. Can I trust you?”
Newt looked down at her paws. “He is hurt. I was hurt. We both share that.”
“I know, but is it... ” Fessran began.
“This is part of letting the Dreambiter go,” Newt answered.
“I think I understand what she means,” Ratha said softly to Fessran. “I think she’s right. It is the best way, though not the easiest.” She addressed Newt again. “Since we have enough grazing and water for the herdbeasts to breed well, we can concentrate on the three-horns and dapplebacks, while you and Mishanti herd the seamares. Is that what you want?”
“Knock down the pen and let your seamares out,” Newt said. “They can’t live behind thorns and sticks. They need the beaches.”
“She’s right, Ratha,” Thakur added. “The beasts aren’t eating, and they’ll soon get sick.”
He could see that she disliked the idea of abandoning the pen after all the effort that had gone into making it. “Perhaps the seamares aren’t the best animals for our purposes, and trying to pen them was a mistake,” Ratha admitted. “We have what we need to survive. Yes, I will let them go, and you can live among them with Mishanti. I haven’t been able to give you much, but at least I can give you that. Is it enough?”
“Yes.” Newt bent down and touched noses with Ratha. “I am glad that my Dreambiter has become my mother,” Thakur heard her hiss softly. She turned to Thakur. “Will you help me give the gift of words to Mishanti when the time comes?”
He felt himself grinning. “If you’ll teach me to swim.”
“Thistle, what about me?” Fessran asked, sounding forlorn. “I’d like to see him sometimes.”
“You love Mishanti,” Thistle-chaser said, facing the Firekeeper. “I turn to you if I feeling mad with him. Is enough?”
“I’ll hold you to it,” Fessran promised.
“Well, now that we’ve got all this sorted out,” Thakur put in, “perhaps we should think about finding our way back before the tide comes in again. Ratha, can you walk?”
He watched her get shakily to her feet. She took a few steps, winced, and drew up her battered forepaw. “I’ll limp, but I’ll get there.”
Newt came alongside her. “Use your hind legs more and bring them under you. Then you can take bigger steps.”
Thakur saw Ratha give Newt an exasperated look, but she took the offered advice.
“Well, you can’t deny she knows what she’s talking about,” he observed.
“Now you’ve got two of us,” Ratha retorted, hobbling beside her daughter.
“Not for long. You’ve just got a sprain, and Newt’s leg needs only a rest and a little more strengthening.” He led the way, looking back as Ratha and Newt followed.
“If I see that wretched fish, I’ll bite his tail off,” Fessran growled through her mouthful of Mishanti’s scruff fur. Then she padded after, starting the long up and down scramble and swim that would bring them back to the jetty.
The four made their way across the islands and at last regained the jetty by the time twilight was starting to fall. Above, clouds were gathering, and startled seamares honked at the bedraggled party, as Thakur, Ratha, Newt, and Fessran climbed along the spine of rock that led back to the beach. Ratha found herself lagging behind the others, even though they tried to slow down to her tired pace.
Newt did not want to return with them to the forested area where the Named had settled. Instead, she asked Fessran for Mishanti, and when the Firekeeper reluctantly let him down, she picked him up by the scruff and padded away with him.
“That poor cub is going to be so confused by all of this,” Fessran said.
“Stop worrying. She said you can visit him,” Thakur answered.
The sky had been clouding over again. Ratha looked up as a heavy raindrop splashed down on her nose. Billowing gray clouds stretched across the sea and were rolling inland. Another raindrop struck her back. Soon the rain pattered down all around Ratha and her two companions as they crossed the beach, climbed the bluff, and made their way back to the forested pool beneath the cliff.
While Ratha soothed her bruised and aching foreleg in the pool, Thakur went off to collect Aree and Ratharee from the trees where they had been placed for safekeeping. Fessran yawned then climbed up to a slate-colored ledge, where she curled up out of the rain and fell asleep.
Ratha let her leg dangle in the pool, overhanging ferns and branches sheltering her. She smelled the storm, the cool, wet air, and the rain. This looked like a big storm: one that might move far enough inland to break the drought.
Before long Thakur arrived, bringing both treelings. Ratharee chirred with delight and took up her customary place on Ratha’s shoulder.
“Listen,” Ratha said, pricking her ears to the soft hiss of rain falling through the trees.
Thakur sat in the open, letting the downpour rinse sea salt from his coat. At last he shook himself off and lay down near Ratha. “If that keeps up, the streams will soon be running again on our old home ground,” he said. “Are you thinking we might be able to return?”
“Not for a while. And I don’t want to leave Thistlechaser chaser all alone again.” Ratha laid her nose on one paw, extending the other to Thakur to have it skillfully licked and massaged.
“You were disappointed when she said she didn’t want to join the clan.”
Ratha grunted. “I was surprised. I thought she’d jump at the chance. Instead she turned her tail on it.”
“She’s impetuous, stubborn, and wants to do things her way. I’d be surprised if she wasn’t. After all, she is your daughter.” Thakur nibbled a toe-claw.
She is your daughter. The phrase whispered gently in her mind, blending with the sigh of the falling rain. My daughter. One who is stubborn, willful, strong, self-reliant, and resourceful—and one to take pride in.
It occurred to her that Thistle-chaser had changed something else as well. Bonechewer, her Un-Named father, had been Thakur’s brother. If, as Thakur said, cubs from such matings had the same potential as those whose parents both came from the clan, even if their development was not as rapid, then perhaps such pairings might not be as risky as Ratha had once thought. She had already learned that there were individuals with worthy qualities among the Un-Named.