what it was. The pegasus came toward her—with her no-longer-wet clothing draped over his neck.
Sylvi laughed. She didn’t mean to; it burst out of her; it was about the strangeness and aloneness as well as about finding out that the answer to the mysterious question of what had been hung on the back of her drai was the mundane one of her clean laundry. When she laughed, several of the pegasi moved themselves as if into a new pattern—the pattern of looking at a human making an baffling and incongruous noise. She could feel her face heating up in one of her hair-frizzing blushes, but Lrrianay raised his head and called out—the resonant clarion sound that pegasi could make, except they rarely did so.
And one of the pegasi who had come shyly out of the trees and paused—paused so intently that Sylvi had noticed her at once among the others—now came dancing toward her. No, prancing, like a young pony or a long-legged puppy. She pranced directly up to Sylvi, lifting her knees very high and shaking her long glossy mane—and put her soft nose to Sylvi’s cheek.
Sylvi blinked; surely this was very brash for a pegasus one hadn’t been introduced to. She then said—something; it was very long, and had no audible breaks in it, and no consonants either, so far as Sylvi could hear, except she thought she might have heard Ebon’s name tucked in there somewhere. And there was a queer background hum or buzz, like a bee caught in her hair—no, caught in her skull.
“No, ” said Sylvi in sign. “Slower. ”
“Yooooo—mmwyyhuma—Ebohnwaanno—Iha—onnyno.” Her ears and tail were going all the time, teasing and flicking; she nodded and shook her head, and rippled the skin over her shoulders, rustled her feathers. Sylvi thought, those aren’t just word breaks, those are all the interesting adjectives too, and I don’t know any of them.
“You’re Ebon’s little sister, ” said Sylvi. “Ebon. Shaarraia, ” she said, which she hoped meant “sibling.”
The pegasus reared up and clapped her wings together. Sylvi had never seen a pegasus do this before. This was not a gesture Sylvi could match in any way at all; she felt very small and boring and wrong as she anxiously said one of the first things Ebon had taught her, when they first knew that she would be coming to visit him here: “swahavihaahwhahodh , ” and involuntarily made the old human gesture of apology and placation too, holding her hands spread and palm out.
The pegasus promptly dropped back to four legs again and put her nose into one of Sylvi’s hands, and without any thought or intention Sylvi brought her hands together, so they were cradling the pegasus’ muzzle—which was probably even more brash than the pegasus’ behaviour, but she seemed to like it, and leaned toward Sylvi till her nose was resting against Sylvi’s breast, and Sylvi’s hands ran up her chin, and stroked her face.
The pegasus sighed. “Ebonfffffwahoowhooftha, ” she said. Ebon is lucky. All the ffff ’s meant very lucky.
“Sahaliliyo,” said Sylvi, which was one of the other thank yous she knew; she hoped it was the right one. This one was supposed to be for nonmaterial compliments when you wanted to be modest.
She was aware that the adult pegasi watching the two of them were watching very closely indeed; she had been constantly aware of their watching her since her father left—how could they not be watching her? But she somehow felt that this, now, meeting Ebon’s little sister, was more than that, more than meeting another member of her bondmate and host’s family; more than that she was about to be the first human to visit the pegasus Caves since the pegasi’s chronicles began several thousand years ago. Wasn’t that enough? She knew the pegasi wanted something from her, or from the visit, but—wasn’t the visit itself enough? But there was something else....
As she stroked Ebon’s little sister’s cheek she suddenly thought, I didn’t know there was a something else. A something besides, a something further. I didn’t know till right now. But I can feel it.
She looked up.
Lrrianay was standing at an angle in front of Ebon—a blocking sort of angle, she thought, as if Ebon was going to interfere and Lrrianay was saying “no, don’t.” But as she looked at Ebon he ducked round his father and trotted the few steps to where Sylvi and his sister stood—and bit his sister briskly over the withers. The young pegasus jerked her