He considered returning to his den, but the treeling was still lively. Aree would never let him go back to sleep. He decided instead to take a walk out to the meadow. Some Firekeepers might still be on duty and he could warm himself at the guard-fires.
Only a single fire was still going when he got there, and he could see that the Firekeeper was getting ready to put it out. During winter, the guard-fires burned night and day, but in summer they were only needed in darkness, or when an attack threatened the herds.
He quickened his pace and called to the Firekeeper. He had not expected that it would be Bira.
She greeted him with a nose-touch and asked when he was to start teaching.
“This morning, but not for a while,” he answered. “My treeling got me up.”
“Could Aree groom my tail?” asked Bira, glancing at the treeling. “I didn’t take care of myself for a while and now I’ve got some wretched burrs that I can’t get out with my teeth.”
“I think Aree wouldn’t mind.” Thakur nosed Aree off his back and Bira spread her tail along the ground. She still looked a bit thin and worn, but the fact she had begun to care about how she looked told Thakur that she was recovering from the shock of learning that her young were witless.
“Are the cubs gone?” she asked suddenly.
Thakur hesitated. “Yes. I helped Ratha take them away.”
“Don’t tell me where. I don’t want to know.” Her tail twitched beneath Aree’s paws. “I’ll have another litter next spring. Shongshar will have to go away when the mating season comes again, won’t he?”
“I suppose he will,” the herding teacher answered. Perhaps Shongshar would accompany him on his annual journey away from the clan. The prospect of having a partner during his yearly exile was something he might welcome to help ease the loneliness of being away. However, he reminded himself, his own retreat was self-imposed. Shongshar’s might not be. Ratha certainly didn’t want any more empty-eyed litters born on clan ground.
Bira dug her claws into the dirt and grimaced as Aree pulled hard at a tangle in her tail. The treeling wrapped his own tail around hers, to steady himself. He gave a tremendous yank and the burr came free. Aree held the hair-covered thing up in his paws and Bira sighed with relief.
When the treeling had finished grooming Bira, he climbed back on Thakur and cleaned his own coat. She yawned and then began scuffing dirt on the flickering fire.
“Wait,” said Thakur. “It’s early and I’m still cold. Why don’t you let me keep the Red Tongue for a while?”
Bira looked doubtful. “The ashes should be buried. Fessran said that was important.”
“I’ll bury them when I’ve warmed myself. Look at Aree. He’s shivering too. After all, he did get that burr out of your tail.” He nudged the treeling and Aree responded by giving Bira a mournful look.
“All right. Since the other Firekeepers are gone, I’ll let you have it. But ... don’t let Fessran know. She’s becoming strict with us about the proper care of the fire-creature. She wasn’t that hard on us before, but she is now. I think she’s been listening to Shongshar a lot lately.” Bira wrinkled her nose. “Too much if you ask me.”
Mildly surprised at this, Thakur promised and Bira trotted off, swinging her tail and yawning. He curled up near the fire, which had fallen into embers with a few ragged flames licking charred branches. Aree sat on Thakur’s flank, gazing at the fire. He noticed that the treeling had stopped fidgeting and grown unusually quiet.
All creatures except the Named feared fire and would not come close to it. Even Aree had huddled in Thakur’s fur when he had first brought his new companion near the Red Tongue. Now Thakur wondered if his treeling might have gained some of the same understanding that allowed the Named to tame their fear of the fire. It was ridiculous to suggest that treelings could think as well as the Named did, but Aree had shown surprising cleverness and interest in things other than food and grooming. The treeling also seemed to be aware of Thakur’s feelings; something the herding teacher did not expect from a creature he thought of as an animal Dapplebacks and three-horns were animals too, but they were kept to be eaten. Aree was different.
There was no fear in the treeling’s eyes as he gazed at the fire. Even before Aree moved, Thakur sensed that he was about to do something he had never done before. The herding teacher held himself still, but not stiff as Aree climbed down from him. The treeling crouched in the ash-flecked dirt in front of the fire, staring into the flames with a curious intensity. He lowered his muzzle and blinked against the heat. He reached toward the flame with a paw.
Thakur thought at first that Aree was about to make the same mistake that young cubs often did when they encountered the Red Tongue for the first time. They would try to touch the flame itself, not realizing that the most visible part of the fire-creature was the most insubstantial. He readied himself to snatch Aree away if he should try to grasp the dancing flame. But the treeling’s paw stopped and descended to a stick that was lying with one end in the coals.
Thakur felt his heart jump and begin to race. Now he understood what he had sensed upon finding the injured creature on the traiclass="underline" the possibility that those clever little paws might serve the Named in the most difficult task the clan had attempted, the mastery of the Red Tongue. He held in his breath as the paw touched the unburned shaft of the stick and closed around it.
Embers broke open, showing their glowing centers as Aree dragged the stick from the fire. As he lifted the branch to his eyes, the tiny flame on the end sank down and died, leaving only the red and orange coals amid the black scale that had been bark. The treeling brought the end to his face and studied it intently. He reached up with its other paw as if to touch the glowing wood, but the heat warned his fingers away.
Softly, carefully, Thakur began to purr. He didn’t know why the treeling had taken the stick from the fire and, at this point, he didn’t care. He only wanted Aree to know that this act had pleased him so that the treeling might be encouraged to do it again. Aree’s eyes brightened when he heard the purr and he ambled over to Thakur on three legs, still holding the stick. The coals had faded to ash.
“Aree?” the treeling said, as if still unsure of whether he had done anything worthy of praise. With licks and nuzzles, Thakur assured his companion that he was very pleased indeed. He made such a fuss over Aree that the treeling tossed his branch aside and rubbed himself against him, curling and uncurling his tail with delight. When some of Aree’s exuberance had worn off, Thakur retrieved the stick and offered it to the treeling.
Aree quickly discovered that accepting the stick earned him more licks and nuzzles. For a while, Thakur played a simple game with his companion, passing the charred branch back and forth between them: from teeth to paws and then back again. When Aree began to tire of that, Thakur decided he was ready to try a simple test to see if the treeling would repeat his previous action.
He took the stick and placed it on the fire, in the same position it had originally been in. He moved slowly, letting Aree follow everything he did. When the stick was in place, he picked it up in his jaws, took it out and replaced it carefully. He did this several times as Aree watched. Once he was sure the treeling understood, he put the stick back in the fire again, but instead of grasping it with his teeth, he used his pawpad.
The wood only rolled under his clumsy swipes. With an impatient chirp, the treeling reached underneath Thakur’s foreleg, seized the stick and pulled it out. With a gesture almost like a flourish, Aree presented him with the stick as if to say, “This isn’t so hard if you have paws like mine. See?”