Xessa slowed to a walk, chest heaving, and scruffed Ossa’s ears as he pranced by her side. She had no answer for herself. The early morning was cool and windy, bright with bird life and the wild racing leaps of monkeys above their heads. The trees were thick this high up on the shady side of Malel, out of the reach of the wind-driven salt, and it was rich and green to her eyes and nose.

A shock of movement on the trail ahead stilled her: a deer, and then three more, slipping ahead of her with graceful bounding leaps, out of the jungle, along the trail, back into the jungle. The pale fur of their tails and hindquarters like flashes of wispy cloud come down to earth. The sharp black of their hooves kicking up dirt. The warm animal musk of them just gracing her nose before it was gone.

Ossa was in point, on the off chance she hadn’t seen them, and she stroked his head in appreciation, stilling again when a doe paused and looked back, her long neck in a graceful curve, her eyes liquid black. And then gone. Xessa smiled and stayed still on the path a little longer, in case there were more. The balance. Malel’s bounty. A welcome distraction.

She thought of Tayan – to him those deer would have been little more than blurred, bouncing shapes, species unknown. How disconcerting that would be, not to know what might be coming towards you, predator or enemy. One part of her nightly prayer was that her eyes would stay sharp until the day she died, not failing as those of some Tokob did. To never know the individual colours of a sunset or the flash of a parrot through the canopy, the delicate movement of a lover’s hands as they signed their love for you. Her mouth curved.

But how big the world must be for people like Lutek and Tiamoko and Toxte, who could both see and hear clearly. How intrusive and yet how wonderful, so bright and … there, right there, inside your head, against your skin. Impossible to ignore even when you wanted to, maybe even especially when you wanted to.

She shook away the musing and began to walk again, Ossa ranging ahead along the path, his nose in every spoor and flower, his tail waving. Despite his ease, Xessa’s gaze roved the undergrowth around her, flicking back to her feet every few paces and then on to Ossa’s bliss-seeking nose and tracking ears as he trotted ahead, joy in his every line.