The Heartwood I know that I ended it,

Katmai's face felt hot, but his smile was pleased.

"Yes, a girl," he admitted, not refuting the other connotations that came with such an assumption. He was not sure what applied or didn't in this scenario; if he needed to tell her that these feelings were new and not exactly clear to him.

He was grateful, at any rate, for the offer of help.

"Ah — thank you, Leonore!" he said, beaming. As for his friend: "Her name is Kinusi," he said, and.... "She likes to sing, and she is a medic, and she likes stories, and... And she grew up on a mountain..."

He was drawing a blank.

"Well, we met just recently," he explained to Leonore. "I am hoping this gift will make her want to be friends with me even more."

His face felt hot again. Those words did not express just exactly what he hoped.

"What do you like?" he asked her, dragging himself back to planet Earth. There was a girl right here in front of him, after all! And, while he was still attached to the idea of Kinusi, that was no reason to miss an opportunity to make another friend. "To do," he clarified. Not to receive as gifts. He thought it would be cheating to just come out and ask such a thing.