“What if the only non-humans the two-legs know," she mused, "are the Cousin-kind? How stupid they would believe all others who walk the earth to be!”

“After a day of watching the two-legs interact from within their midst, she was certain that they could talk as well as any wolf. Unlike wolves, however, they mostly used their mouths, a thing she found limiting. How could you tell someone to keep away from your food when your own mouth was full?”

“Firekeeper still could not understand the human penchant for eating in company. Even less so, she could not understand the human desire to combine business and meals.True, a wolf pack shared a kill, but not from any great desire to do so—rather because any who departed the scene would be unlikely to get a share... She struggled...not to bolt her food and almost always remembered that growling when a person spoke to you was not a proper response.”

“You cannot escape that you are a woman,” she began.“I wish I could,” Firekeeper muttered, but Elise continued as if she hadn’t heard.“Since you cannot, you cannot escape the expectations that our society and our class places upon women.”“Why?” Firekeeper said querulously.“...Consider,” she offered, “what you told me about learning to see at night so that you could hunt with the wolves. Learning to wear a gown, to walk gracefully, to eat politely…”“I do that!”“You’re learning,” Elise admitted, “but don’t change the subject. All of these are ways of learning to see in the dark.”“Maybe,” Firekeeper said, her tone unconvinced.“Can you climb a tree?”“Yes.”“Swim?”“Yes!” This second affirmative was almost indignant.“And these skills let you go places that you could not go without them.”Stubborn silence. Elise pressed her point.“Why do you like knowing how to shoot a bow?”“It lets me kill farther,” came the answer, almost in a growl.“And using a sword does the same?”“Yes.”“Let me tell you, Firekeeper, knowing a woman’s arts can keep you alive, let you invade private sanctums, even help you to subdue your enemies. If you don’t know those arts, others who do will always have an advantage over you.”“All this from wearing a gown that tangles your feet?”

“Wolves regularly attacked their rivals in power, so the idea of killing to gain position was neither alien nor repulsive to her. The use of assassins she had filed as yet another of the curious tools - like swords and bows — that humans created to make up for their lack of personal armament. What she still had to puzzle through was the subtle strategies involved in killing those who were expected to inherit power rather than those who held the power itself.”

“I thought," Shad said slowly, "that she was offended if you referred to Blind Seer or Elation as her pets.""True," Derian assured him. "Absolutely the correct etiquette—to her face. However, well… When I first met Firekeeper, less than a year ago, her relationships with animals fell into pretty much two categories: those you ate and those you befriended. I remember that she thought we were pretty clever for bringing horses along so we wouldn't need to hunt our meat. It took me a while to show her they had other uses.”

“Are you prepared then, to shoot a human being?" he asked, trying not to let Jenny sense his own internal unease. "It's not the same as shooting a duck or gazelle."Jenny's violet eyes met his straight on. "If that human being was about to harm any one of us, I'd feel worse about shooting the duck. It, at least, would have done nothing to deserve a bullet.”