But of course no one would mind if Shria cried. If anything, it was strange—even slightly ridiculous—for a Vail to be so rigid with the effort not to.

Fift cleared zir throat. It was thick somehow, and the morning dew was clammy on the back of zir neck. “Shria,” ze said, “can you, um, help me?” Ze hefted zir pile of sticks. “Some of these aren’t going to burn. They’ve got lichen on them.”

Shria stopped, in both bodies, and glared at Fift. Ve hunched vir shoulders in a little further. Ve thought ze was making fun of vem, too, and so did Kimi and Puson, whose grins escaped their prim confinement. Umlish wasn’t so sure; ze raised an eyebrow.

“I guess I should have checked with my agents,” Fift said, zir voice a little unsteady, “but I turned them off. Who wants to have agents chattering at you up here? It’s sort of missing the point, isn’t it?”

Puson’s face froze; Kimi looked back and forth from Puson to Umlish. Shria blinked.

Umlish’s mouth soured. “You like it up here?”

Fift didn’t, exactly; it was cold and strange and mostly pretty boring, though there was also something fascinating about being under this strange sky which, as Father Smistria had said, could do anything it decided to. Ze didn’t like it, but ze wanted to experience it. But ze wasn’t about to explain that to Umlish.

“Oh, Umlish . . . are you having trouble with this?” Fift said. “I guess it can be a little scary if you’ve never been on the surface before. But don’t worry—”

Umlish recoiled. “I’m not scared, you sluiceblocking toadclown. It’s just disgusting.” Ze waved a hand at the forest.

A small grin crept across one of Shria’s faces.

Fift swallowed. Ze wasn’t sure what else to say.

Father Grobbard’s eyes had been closed. Ze often meditated at the breakfast table. Now ze opened them and glanced at Fift. {Threnis}, ze sent Fift, {appears in the sixth and seventh odes of the first additional corpus. Would you like to study them this afternoon?}

Fift gulped. It was easy to forget that zir parents could read zir private messages: they didn’t often bother to. At least, ze didn’t think they did. Grobbard didn’t seem angry, though. Ze placed zir hands together, resting them on the table. Peaceful as a stone worn smooth by a river.

“Well, if you like it so much,” Umlish snarled, “why don’t you live up here? Maybe you could get permission to build a little hut out of sticks and the two of you could play cohort.”