Sunspire Mountains You know we could put them all to shame

Dusty Rose understood little of the division between Singers and Dancers, but given what he'd heard about them, he knew the division existed. He wondered about it, now, and about who they'd never gotten to dance for and why, and when, and what Reverie wanted to do now.

At her question, he gave a small shake of his head — Nothing. But what he said was, "We would cry together. Sing to each other. Hold each other close."

But there has been no funeral rights performed for the sake of the dead. They had no notion of afterlife in his culture. The dead were lost to them, and their bodies considered anywhere from a liability to their next meal.

"Mine, too," he said to her. "Dad. Not my blood, but the one who chose to love me. And the flower eater — that's his name. My blood father. But the flower eater doesn't think of us the same. We all belonged to Dad. Now we don't belong to no one."

He turned his face into Reverie's fur, wishing he could take the words back almost at once.

"It gets easier," he said after a moment of thought. "But not for a long time."