Mena withdrew a few steps. She sat on a stone and stared at the creature, who looked back at her fixedly. Together they passed the better part of an hour that way. The creature had emerald eyes. The irises sparkled with a metallic sheen. They filled the entirety of the eye sockets. They did not show fear. They did not betray aggression or hunger either. That there was intelligence behind the eyes was palpable, but they were just watching. Mena felt she was being probed as much as she was probing, and she found herself hoping the creature liked what she saw.

They could not remain in this standoff forever, though. When Mena saw the creature's slim tongue taste the air for a moment, she had an idea. Rising slowly, she motioned with her good arm that everything was all right. Stay calm. She whispered, "Stay. I'll be right back. Just stay." She knew she should feel foolish talking to an animal, but she did not. As she hobbled her way back up the slope that she had earlier descended, she wished she had said more. If the lizard bird somehow was not there when she returned, she would curse herself for not having said more, even though she had no idea what that more might have been.

It seemed to take forever to climb down into the other ravine and reach the river again. She was slick with sweat and had to sit for a time, panting, fighting to push back the fatigue and pain pulsing everywhere in her body. Opening her pack and rummaging about in it for something that would hold water made for another pathetic routine. Fortunately, she did find the leather bowl that she used to brew healing teas. She scooped clear water from the river and drank it, then scooped more. Rising without the use of her damaged arm was hard enough, but picking up the floppy bowl was another matter. It took her several tries before she finally had it cupped in her palm, relatively full.

When she peered over the ridge again, the creature was exactly as she had left her, lying in the same shattered posture; but the long neck was bowed as she inspected her wings and torso. A good bit of the water had splashed out of the bowl by the time Mena reached the creature, but she offered what remained. She set the bowl down as best she could, spilling still more, and then she backed away. The creature did not take her eyes off Mena until she had stood some time at a short distance. Then the creature examined the bowl, looked up and considered Mena, head cocked, and then sank the tip of her snout into the water and drank.

And then the staring match began again. They spent most of the afternoon at it. Again, Mena felt inclined to speak. She could not find the words, though, and the creature seemed increasingly content with her presence. That was enough.

Mena slept that night on the slope a little distance away and awoke to find the creature grooming herself, if grooming it could be called. She looked much like a cat licking itself, but she did not use her tongue. Everyplace she might have licked, she instead rubbed with the flat bottom of her snout. She was precise in the motions, careful, especially when tending the shredded membranes of her wings. Just looking at them shot Mena through with regret. That damage was her fault. Hers. She felt it as if in her own body, forgetting as she watched it that she was, in fact, battered and broken herself. From her close observation the day before, she doubted the creature would ever be able to fly again, not with so much of her wings destroyed.

When Mena approached, the creature drew semiupright. She sent waves of tension out through her wing frames, lifting them partially off the ground. The finger-thin bones were still amazing to behold. So flexible, so powerful, and so delicate at the same time. It should have required bulges of muscle tissue and sinew to create the power Mena had felt snatch her from the ground, but instead the creature's wings remained works of thin-lined art.

Mena's eyes drifted over them. The wing membranes did not look as damaged as they had yesterday. Some of the spots that she thought had been pierced clean through had not been, and some of the tears that had looked so ghastly the day before did not seem quite as horrible. She wondered if she had been mistaken.

"You're not as bad off as I thought," she mused. "Well, obviously not; I'd thought you dead before."

Feathered plumes on the creature's neck rose for a moment, and then settled back into position. The creature pushed up on her forelegs, lifted them from the ground, and stood unsteadily on her hind legs, shaking out her wings as she did so. She looked up at the hill that separated them from the river, studied it, and set out walking toward it. Her steps were tentative at first, her body swaying like a drunken person's. She paused and, after a few steadying moments, drew her wings in, first the left, then the right. The curl started at the tips and rolled tight as it neared the body. Somehow the motion tucked the membrane in with it, and in the space of a few seconds she was wingless again, with only two swirled nubs on the shoulders to indicate where the wings now nestled. She loped up the slope and climbed over into the next valley.

She was in the river when Mena joined her. Shivering like a child from the cold, she danced in the small stream, dipped the full length of her neck and tail in. She puffed her plumage so that for seconds at a time she was covered with a bristling coat that then snapped back to smooth in the blink of an eye. The wing nubs flexed a little but did not unfurl.

"You are a bird, aren't you?" Mena said.

She climbed out of the river, turned back to it, and thrust her snout into the water. She drank deep and long, green eyes flicking to Mena occasionally. The creature seemed at ease with her now, not studying her as she had the previous day. Watching her, Mena felt as pleased as a cat lover watching her favorite feline. She wanted to reach out and feel that soft, strangely scaled plumage again.

Before she realized it, she had done just that. Her fingers tingled at the touch, and she drew them back immediately. She touched her nose, smelling the citrus scent of the substance that seemed a part of the plumage. It was not unpleasant, not exactly oily, but it was hard to know how else to describe it. She was aware that the tingling in her fingertips continued, and that she had passed the sensation on to her face. It almost felt like she had inhaled it and now held it in her lungs. She nervously wiped her fingers on her tunic. Still the creature drank, having taken no notice of her touch or reaction to it.

"Sorry that drink yesterday wasn't much. I tried, though. You know that. Now, if we just had something to eat, we'd not be so bad off."

As if in answer, the creature stretched her neck high and opened her nostrils with a few deep inhalations. She rotated and tried the air to the south, seemed to like what she found there, and began to stride away, more energy in her motions than just a moment before. A little way down, she turned and studied Mena, walked on a few steps, and then bent her neck back and met her gaze again.

Mena pressed the fingers of her good hand to her chest. "You want me to follow?" The creature did not answer, of course, but Mena did exactly that.

It was no easy thing, hobbling along over the uneven terrain. Early on, she spent several frantic moments thinking she had lost the creature over a rise or behind a rock outcropping. But each time she was there, waiting, looking back for her. A few times the creature even seemed to respond to sighting her by raising the plumes on her neck, a sign of-of what? Pleasure? Encouragement? So the day passed, they alone on a windblown landscape.

The two were still together that evening. They spent the night in a small cluster of date trees. A tiny ruin showed ancient inhabitation, but whoever lived here had not done so for ages. Mena did not crowd the creature, but she stayed near enough to be able to speak without raising her voice. She told her about Melio and the others who were likely hunting them right now. "They're excellent trackers," she explained. "They'll find us soon. I don't know why, but it seems very important to me that no more harm befalls you. That seems like the most important thing in the world right now: that you be safe. Perhaps I'm just tired of killing. I should be. I didn't mean to harm you, though. I just didn't expect you."