Blacktail Deer Plateau Mistaken Identity

He cocked his head, intrigued. "What is your skill?" he asked, genuinely curious and not just questioning her for conversation's sake. "Besides leading, of course," Shale added jokingly, with a smile.

Her next question made him freeze for the barest instant, and he held back a shudder, thinking of all that had transpired between when he had first set off from Sameth to this very moment, standing here with this woman on the plateau. Love, death, loneliness, reunion. . .

Shale settled for polite brevity and responded, "I went out to find Grayday. With luck I found him. We grew up well north of here."