Hoshor Plains We picked up the shards and formed them into shapes of stars

Easy laughed at the tone he took, surprised and delighted to see a spark of playfulness in the man. If she'd been a younger woman... But no, even then, Easy wouldn't have been good for him. She was only glad she knew him now, and a little sorry it'd taken her this long to find him when his family had been lost long before.

"I'll have to think about it," she admitted, shuffling through her mental library. The locust songs — beginning, middle, and end! — came to mind, but she was sure she could think of something weirder.

The blackbear nodded gravelywhen conversation turned to Minnow. If she'd known how Sumac castigated himself, she would have had much more to say. As it was, she murmured, "These things happen. Our family went through a long bought of bad luck around that time. I was just a girl, and Valiant ended up with me and Minnow... didn't. I don't know how it happened. I nearly didn't recognize her."

Her guilt was imense, even as she tried to pardon this crime.

Sumac's declaration put an odd little stitch in her throat. She blinked back this emotion, looking over at him for a moment and seeing someone else.

"That's sweet of you," she said, and when her voice came out strange, she had to swallow before going on: "I think you could both do each other a lot of good. I think you can. And I think you should try, if you're willing. But I can't promise it'll work out that way. And I think it says something wonderful about you that you want to protect her — but Mac — "

She faltered. She didn't know how to put this into words.

"You know it wasn't your fault, right?" she asked him. "You couldn't have saved them. You couldn't have done anything different, and your family — it must have brought your father so much comfort to know you weren't there with him."

She placed her paw over his, over his heart.

"The people we love are going to get hurt," she said, her voice very soft. "We protect each other when we can, but honey, that's not what we need from each other. We're here to cherish each other's hearts. To nurture our spirit together. Of course you'll protect her, and you'll protect me, and I'll protect you. But your worth to her, and to me, is something far more important."