Otter Creek sleep, soldier

The rest of the fish was dispatched. He peered at the new fullness of the boy's stomach, the low parabola where there had once been a sharp tuck. Gavrel was not one of those bleeding-hearts that "received as much sustenance from feeding others as they did feeding themselves". But he thought then that he could emphasize with a sliver of their compassion.

Passion in the old sense, meaning some great suffering to be weathered. Compassion, meaning to weather this with another.

They were equally myopic about their futures. Neither had a long-term plan that arced through time on the order of seasons, perhaps even years. Planning was done in war rooms and studies plush with furniture, books, attendants. Planning was a privilege.

He got up and spat to the side. Whenever he was hungry he could quell the worst of it by recalling the arduous months of convalescence from the damned burn. He needed only to conjure the image of sloughing skin, the herbal poultices melding with lymph and blood.

The only signs of their loitering were scattered fishbones in the dirt. He waited for the boy to lead the way.