Clouds passed. Trees bent in the wind, horses' manes blew and tails wrapped around their slender, powerful legs. The grass shivered, whispered around his head.

The grass. It was the only thing that reminded Otsoa that he was alive.

He pushed himself on his elbows, his tunic bare and tan, blending with the hue of his skin, long brown breeches ripped at the knees and hems crushing the grass around his long legs. Otsoa drew one knee up as he cast a glance at the central camp. It was as foreign to him as the horses - he'd been ostracized five years ago, forgotten. Now, whenever he drew near the animals they spooked and turned away. Here, at the edge or the meadow, was the closest he could get to the animals he loved.

Otsoa's black eyes watched the movement of the camp, and the part of him that still remembered the feel of the wolf inside his body longed to go and join them, but he knew that the women would draw their children inside their longhouses, the shamans would curse and shake their feathered staffs at him, the men would treat him as though he were a ghost. Invisible. Non-existent. But they knew that he was there, outside. Lurking, watching, and they said nothing. They did nothing physically to do him harm, but their silent rejection was pain enough.

And so, Otsoa spent his time watching the sky and the horses. He remembered hunger, vaguely remembered thirst, but the voices in the grass were all that he could hear, and they told him to be still. Be still, be patient.

Something great would come.

Maite had gotten to spend the whole day with her son, and it was bliss. She had carried him to the large, thick-trunked oak tree and sat with him in the crook of it, telling him stories and singing songs in a tuneless croon. Ekaitz seemed to have grown even since she had seen him last, at the beginning of spring. Now it was almost summer, and he had seen three winters already. How long it had been since Jokin! He didn't even ask about his father any longer, but Maite made sure he never forgot him.

Now he was squirming to get down. Apparently Kemen had been teaching him how to be a proper man, which meant not sitting in your mother's lap all day. Reluctantly, she slid down from the tree and let him wander, leaning back against the rough bark of its trunk and closing her eyes. There was nothing to fear, so close to the camp, and she had made certain he would call for her if he got into any sort of trouble.

Ekaitz was restless. He quickly forgot that it had been a long time since he had last seen Ama, and now she was here it was the same as always. Only he wanted to play with the little spear that grandfather had given him. But he had thrown it somewhere near the horse-fields and Kemen had smacked him and said he deserved to lose it for his carelessness. Ekaitz decided he would get it back, even if it was wet and moldy by now. When Ama let him down, he toddled off to look for it, but he stopped when he saw a very strange man.

The man looked hollow and gaunt. He looked like the disgraced people who wandered between camps begging, or one of those who'd had their spirit stolen. Maybe he was one of those! He had heard frightening stories of them, and that they ate little children.

Still, he stood frozen in front of the man, because he saw his little spear sticking out of the grass very close by.

"Mine." He pointed to it, necessity overtaking fear.

Otsoa's eyes closed, and as he leaned back on his elbows, the little copper wolf-charm he wore around his neck pulled up above the hem of his loose, dirtied tunic. The copper charm had once been an end of the torque he'd had made when he had wed Erlea - she'd had the Oak spirit, always strong, always constant, temperate. Until she'd killed herself. Her body had washed to the shore with his torque still about her neck, and he'd taken the wolf charm from the left end, closest to her heart, so he would never forget.

Even now her eyes haunted him, but as he touched the charm, feeling the nicks and dents it had taken from river stones, he thought only of Garden, and seeing his daughter again someday. "Mine," a little voice proclaimed, not far off, and Otsoa's head lifted lazily, cocking to one side as his eyes opened. The voice belonged to a little boy, no older than Garden had been when last he'd seen her, and he was pointing to a small spear that Otsoa had failed to notice. It was stuck fast in the ground, though he was sure the small boy could easily have pulled it out if he'd wanted to.

Only he didn't want to. Because he didn't want to get any closer.

The Lost Ones. Children feared them, tribesmen forsook them.

"Come and get it," he said to the little boy, gently. The last thing Otsoa wanted to do was frighten the child, he'd done that hundreds of times without meaning to. Otsoa shifted on the grass, sitting with his legs crossed so that he could show the child how small he was, how little. Not a threat. "Come and get it, if it's yours - I promise not to move an inch. Not an inch. Show me what a great warrior you can be." The man waved a hand at the child, beckoning him. He knew the most likely reaction was that the little boy would panic and run back to camp, but he was so aching for companionship that just the sight of the child had made him rise from his memories.

"My name is Otsoa," he told the child, wanting the tribe to know, if he did run back to them with his story about the soulless man in the meadow, that he was still there. "You needn't be afraid of me, little man. Come and get your spear - you must have thrown it such a long way."

Ekaitz looked at the man. He was bigger than Grandfather. But he was smaller than Aita (everyone was smaller than Aita), and he sounded nice. His face was strange, though, and he looked dirty. You should never be dirty. Ama washed him in the river every day and sometimes twice, when he spilled on himself during a meal--something that happened a lot. Ekaitz couldn't seem to master the art of eating without making a mess. Thus far he couldn't see why that was a problem.

He had to get the spear back, though, even if this dirty man did have a strange face. Anyway, he couldn't be one of the Breathless Ones, because he was talking like a normal person. People with stolen spirits only did the bidding of the sorgin who had made them. So he walked cautiously forward, watching the man.

"My name is Otsoa."

"I am Ekaitz sem'Jokin," he said clearly, very proud to use his father's name. His father (whom he hardly remembered except as a strong, warm presence who would hoist him to his shoulders), his Aita--Ama told him always to be proud of his Aita. Always to use his name. So he did. "I am not afraid of you." His Aita wouldn't have been afraid.

His spear was stuck in a tangle of grass, still brown and dry from the winter. Grandfather Grass, Ama called it, and she used it to make little soft baskets for him. He put bits of dried fruit inside and played at being a traveler. The spear wasn't stuck very fast, though, so he pulled again--keeping half an eye on Otsoa--and it came free. He straightened up, looking triumphantly at the stranger.

"Are you a Lost One?" he asked at last, tentative but burningly curious. He had never met a Lost One but he had heard of them and resolved to keep a tight hold of his jainko when he learned what it was.

Otsoa stayed true to his word as the little boy approached, taking a grip on his spear. As promised, he didn't move a muscle, as still as a wolf stalking its prey, if one would pardon the metaphor. Only his black eyes followed the child, little Ekaitz. So young! He ached to embrace the child, but remembered himself and his promise, and restrained the need for companionship. His Garden! Perhaps the boy, or his mother and father, knew of her and could bring him word --

"I am not afraid of you."

A gravelly laugh rumbled from the strange man's throat, though he tried very hard to stifle it. "Ekaitz sem'Jokin, you'll make your ama and aita so proud. A spirit like that -- so big! -- in someone so small." He shook his head, the agreement nullified now that Ekaitz had retrieved his spear. Otsoa leaned forward where he sat, resting his elbows on his knees and examining the child. Ekaitz was little, yes, but he couldn't have had the aptitude to guess at his age -- he spoke too well to be less than three, but would've made a small boy for four or five. Then again, many boys had growth spurts just before their Spirit Quest, it was how he'd grown, after all. And Otsoa could see the way the boy held the spear was just a little off from how it should be held. He'd make a good warrior someday.

And apt, too. "Yes," Otsoa said simply, responding to the child's question. "Yes, Ekaitz, I am a Lost One. Are you still so brave?"

Ekaitz flinched back a little from the man. A real Lost One? He had not expected that. He looked bigger now, and darker, and scarier, and he could feel his heart starting to thump in fright.

Fifty yards away, Maite sat up with a start. Somehow, she had always been able to feel her jainko buzzing uneasily when her son was upset or hurt. She had once run back from a hunt to find he had burnt his hand playing near the banked fire, and now she could tell something was troubling him. She stood up quickly, brushing off her tunic and thin cotton breeches. Her feet were bare, but she moved unhesitatingly through the tall, bending cotton plants of the field to where her soon stood--

--and a strange man. Maite gasped. She could see he wasn't harming her son, but still, her pulse raced.

"Ekaitz!" she called out sharply, hurrying toward him. Something about that man looked familiar--stirred some distant memory. Had she seen him at one of the Summer Gatherings? But he was not one of the Ekaini now. He had the look of a beggar or a Lost One, and she felt her nostrils flare in instinctive fear as she ran to kneel beside her son. Ekaitz turned to look up at her.

"Ama, I got my--" He started to heft his spear, but she swooped down on him before he could go on, and picked him up, setting him on one hip.

"Sh, my little lehoi." She turned her gaze coldly to the man. "How dare you speak to my child."

Otsoa's heart sank as the child began to draw back, and suddenly a second form appeared over the horizon. He shifted back in his position, settling on the grass, showing the approaching woman that he had not touched the boy. It was probably his mother -- Erlea, as he remembered it, had been practically psychic when it came to Garden's wants, and he recalled the sharpness of his daughter's fear, the high, pinging waves of her pain when she'd fallen from a tree and broken her wrist.

At first, the woman didn't even acknowledge him, though they both knew she'd seen him the way she'd come running. And Otsoa's first thought was that she was beautiful, not because she was a beautiful woman, but also because she was a mother. With the little Ekaitz on her hip, standing firm and fierce in the cotton before him, she cast such a large shadow that he was bathed in it. His only desire was to get up and embrace the pair, to crush them to his chest because he wanted to feel a wife and child again. But she was angry, so angry at him -- and he knew why. There was only ever one explanation why.

Fear.

"Please -- please," was all he could say, at first, just a stammering plea, one hand held up as though to block some imaginary attack. "I haven't touched your child, I -- I swear it." She was humming with life, literally buzzing with it, and he wanted nothing more than to get closer to it. As Otsoa shifted onto his knees, the sunlight caught her cheek in just the right way and he stopped, a thought striking him. Her face, it was so familiar, but without a name -- and then he remembered the little boy: "I am Ekaitz sem'Jokin."

Yes -- Jokin, he had known a Jokin, and he pictured him quietly in his head, frozen in a crouch on the ground. The Summer Festival -- he had been with a woman of his tribe, they were going to be wed --

"...Maite?" Otsoa stood up, his shoulders slumping wearily, as though they hadn't supported his weight for a while. He didn't know how long he'd been laying in that field, so it might have been true. "Are you... Maite?"

Maite stared at the strange, hollow-cheeked man, hugging Ekaitz closer as though to protect him from the influence of a Lost One. But when he stood, saying her name, she started and took an instinctive step back.

Something about his eyes--his face--she recalled a friend of Jokin's. A man she had always recalled, because his name had shadowed the name of his jainko.

But now she could feel no shadow of the wolf stalking him. Otsoa. Wolf. That was his name, and something had happened in the intervening years, something that had turned him into a Lost One. What could it be? She recalled meeting him when she had been about to marry Jokin; he'd had a five-year-old daughter, and she recalled how lovely the child had been--an inspiration to have her own with Jokin.

She had once feared she would become Lost, when Jokin died, but her erle spirit had never deserted her. The bee thrummed inside her, close to her heart--because she'd had Ekaitz. He squirmed in her arms, and Maite started, realizing she had been holding him too tightly. Had he lost his daughter and his wife?

"Otsoa?" she said at last, very softly. "Otsoa, is that you?"

A strange sound mewled out of the Lost One's throat - half laugh, half gasp, as his lips shakily tried to smile. It was -- it was Maite! And she'd remembered him, said his name. He took a stumbling step forward, delirious with something like happiness and thirst.

And remembered himself quickly. He had been nothing to her then, a friend of her future husband's, and of course he was beneath her now, beneath life at all. Otsoa had to lower his eyes, rubbing the back of his neck half-heartedly with a hand. "Yes, it's me." It's me, but he was lost as to who 'me' was, had been for years. Now he had just begun to remember, and then Maite -- and her son. It was as if they were a blessing, a gift from Eguzki to help him, carried on the wind.

"You look -- well," he stammered, trying not to offer up the empty, soulless eyes that had frightened so many others away. "And your son, Ekaitz -- how is Jokin?"

The urge to run to them and grab the two of them in his arms, ignoring the child's spear, was so great that Otsoa had to curl his fists into tight balls, wiry muscles playing under the surface of his bare forearms. He knew he was dirty, that he was unholy, that he didn't even deserve to be in her presence, but he was drawn to her, to her child. They had such brightness about them, they were vivid. They were alive, and he half-dead. It was like trying to embrace the sun -- you could only do it with your eyes, and if you looked too long, it burned you.

Maite looked helplessly at him. She could see the longing in his eyes and she wanted to shut her own in its presence. Ekaitz, at her hip, stayed very quiet, with his fist childishly shoved partway into his mouth, the little spear slipping from his grasp. How well she knew such longing. For a very long time after Jokin had died she had dreamed of throwing herself off a cliff or wading out into the sea, to succumb to Eguzki's final embrace. It was that kind of desperate, helpless desire she saw in his face now.

Jokin. He'd asked about her husband.

"I--" She stopped; it had been over a year now, and she should not still be grieving so, but it felt fresh and raw--the wound his death had torn in her soul. Once married your jainko were joined, and the separation wounded them. "Jokin is with Eguzki now, Otsoa, he died last spring in a Zerui raid." It was still hard to say it. Maybe because she believed that with each telling, he sunk further away--as his loss was echoed in the jainko of everyone who knew of it, and Jokin was pushed further and further away.

As soon as he said Jokin's name, Otsoa knew he had made a grave mistake. Jokin was dead? A year now? The thought was as alien to him as the thought of losing one's jainko was to the Ekaini.

"Oh, Maite -- I did not mean to bring you -- I mean, to bring up such talk. I'm sorry. You must have heard, I don't know -- there was talk, I mean -- my wife." He was fumbling with his words, literally tripping over himself as he felt the only thing he remained able to feel: pain. Pain for Erlea, pain for Jokin, and pain for Maite. There was something they never told you in the stories about the Lost Ones. Afterwards, you lose yourself, you lose all happiness, but only because the pain is unbearable. And there is no relief.

"My wife, Erlea -- my sweet oak -- she drowned herself, after I lost my -- this isn't something, I'm sorry, I mean, I shouldn't talk like that in front of --" Otsoa gestured helplessly at Ekaitz, then met Maite's eyes with something like sympathy and something like begging. "But I know, what it feels like. Loss. Believe me. I am sorry I brought it up. My manners aren't -- I haven't been around -- no one will even look at me except; except that beautiful son of yours." A laugh rumbled out of his throat, hollow as a dead tree. Otsoa knew he was making a fool of himself, and while he wanted to slink back into the woods and run, the idea of company, even just for now, was so sweet.

Maite couldn't help but respond to the man's obvious distress. He looked so helpless--so lost. She shifted Ekaitz on her hip and took a step forward, holding out her free hand. The first words her jainko had ever spoken to her came back to her.

I drink of the nectar and hover over the flowers, and bring sweetness back to the home; you will be like me.

The bee didn't only sting, it also protected, it also showed care for the hive. And Otsoa was still one of the Ekaini, even if he had lost his spirit. After all, weren't they allies with the Zerui now? And the Zerui were all lost.

She couldn't help but feel a kind of dark fear gripping her insides, though, and she brought one hand up to touch Ekaitz's cheek, as though shielding him from the influence of the Lost One. But still. She took another step forward, her free hand going out to touch Otsoa lightly on the shoulder. "I'm so sorry," she said, very softly. "I had heard something, but..." But truthfully, she was too often selfish, lost in her own real or imagined troubles. Besides, the tribe didn't like to speak of the Lost Ones. It gave them too much reality. Instead it was most often forgotten. "But I am sorry to hear it."

Otsoa watched her out of the shadowy corner of his eyes, very carefully still as she approached. Come closer, he willed her, his entire body aching for the nearness of another human being even though he didn't know how he would react if she did come near. Her hesitance was obvious -- he understood it, understood as she touched her son's cheek that she was afraid. Maite wanted to protect her son from him. He wanted to protect her from the fear that he might somehow harm them.

And she was moving again, still coming near him and reaching out to him. Yes. The thought was triumphant, and at the same time a core of fear blew into life in his stomach, taking him like some cold wind. Her words were a distant hum, and then she touched his shoulder, ever-so-delicately, like a bee resting on a flower to drink --

Yes, that was exactly right. That was exactly what she was, a bee, sweet with honey and thrumming - buzzing - with life. She was so alive...

Without thinking, Otsoa lifted one hand, tentatively placing it over hers on his shoulder. "Don't worry," he whispered, fully in their own language. His eyes flickered over her features, trying to memorize her face, but it was like putting together a mosaic -- whenever he looked away from her, it fell apart. He didn't want to forget the kindness that had moved her to touch him.

"Don't worry," he said again, lifting his free hand to hover in the air beside her cheek. Otsoa hesitated for a moment, knowing that she could easily run back to the camp, cry rape, and have him killed. But it didn't matter. Nothing mattered. And lightly, oh so gently, his fingertips touched her cheek, feeling the warmth of her. Could he have ever been so warm, so vibrant? A little breeze stirred the hair behind her ear and he moved to touch it, so afraid that at any moment he would hurt her, or she would pull back with a cry and run. "I'm sorry --" Otsoa said, his eyes finding hers fearlessly this time. He knew he was overstepping his boundaries.

But he couldn't not touch her.

Maite caught her breath and snatched her own hand away when he brought his up to her cheek. He didn't seem to be trying to seduce her. He only seemed very lonely. But Lost Ones, she had heard (and maybe it was superstitious but it still frightened her) could steal away the spirit of a whole person, or weaken it--set it loose. Make her a Lost One like him. After all, she was alone now, wasn't she? If she married again she would lose her son, again.

Ekaitz shifted on her hip, whimpering a little, and at last she fell back, stepping away from his caress.

"I'm sorry," she said abruptly, echoing his words. "My son--I need to be back at the camp. If you're hungry or thirsty, or if you need clothes, I have some of Jokin's old things." She swallowed the lump in her throat. This was more important. And maybe, if she cared for him, he would find his spirit again. They said that could happen, that you could come back to yourself. "I'm sorry," she said in a whisper again, ducking her head as she continued to back away. Ekaitz, though, was more important--she didn't want him around a Lost One. She herself was safe, but what if Ekaitz never found his own spirit now? It was selfish and silly--maybe--but she didn't want to risk it.

As Maite took a step back, out of his reach, Otsoa stumbled with the sudden loss of the feeling of her spirit thrumming against what was left of his soul. That was it, then -- he'd frightened her, and she would go, and he would sink back into the shadows with only the broken memory of her face, the shivering vision of her son standing with his little spear, silhouetted by Eguzki's face. While she talked to him, offered him clothes, food, water, he looked at the sun.

"Tell them --" he said, turning back to her, his hand still rubbing at the spot where her fingers had rested so briefly. "Tell them I am still here. Please. I know -- I understand, you have to go -- I know why. Do nothing for me that you would not do for the tribe -- just this one favor, tell them --"

Otsoa's black eyes searched the sun, pleading with it, until he couldn't look at it any longer, until his eyes stung with tears and he could see Eguzki's brightness reflected whenever he blinked. He took two small steps back, swept a hand in front of him, offering her the space between them. It was sufficient -- he could not touch her, nor her son, and if she was afraid of being harmed by him somehow that would make all the difference.

"I have hope," he burst out, abruptly. "If nothing else, I have hope." And he felt the fleeting whisper of his jainko, an intangible presence, before it was gone again.

Whenever you see the stars and the full moon, I shall run with you. We shall run together always, if in darkness or in light. I am the wolf, I am the hunter. You will be like me.

"When you look at the -- when you see the full moon, Maite -- remember. I am there."

Maite cast him a strange glance. Why would she remember him? But she would--she would. The look in his empty eyes haunted her, his torment a mockery of her own petty grievances.

"I'll do better than remember you," she said abruptly, shivering a little still at the tone of his last words. She turned around, settling Ekaitz more firmly on her hip, and cast a look back at him. "I will come back with food and clothing for you, because it is what I would do for any Ekaini, and you are still Ekaini." Maite flicked her eyes over him one last time, briefly. He didn't look totally empty, totally beaten; most Lost Ones simply died and that was all. But many he was not a Lost One at all, only one with a sick or tired jainko. The thought was a soothing one. It made her feel less as though she were in the presence of an abomination.

Hope. What a strange thing for him to speak of at a time like this, but there it was. He had hope; whatever it might mean to him. Maite wasn't sure. Hope seemed like nothing more than the resolution to go on living, whatever tomorrow might bring. That was hope. It was faith that even if things did not get better, life was sweet.

She would bring him some of their precious honey, she decided.

She walked away from the Lost One, turning her head to look at Ekaitz.

"Are you all right, seme?" she whispered to him. He nodded mutely, though he looked very solemn. "There are sad people in the world," was all she said, sighing and resting her cheek against his for a moment.

Back at the camp she let him down; he was wriggling, ready to go and play weapons-practice with his grandfather--and she set to collecting the things she wanted to bring to Otsoa. She took care of the food easily. She packed a waterskin, a skin of wine, some leaf-wrapped honeycomb, several cakes of pounded dried meat, fat, and berries; some fresh-baked ogi' and two rounds of mare's milk cheese that had been left to age in a nearby cave. She folded all of this up in a wide strip of undyed cotton, folded double to hold the weight, and tied it up.

Then it was time to look at Jokin's clothes.

She kept them folded in a corner of the tent she now shared with her father and mother. The tunics--he had left three--were yellowed at the edges, and one of the pairs of breeches had an unmended rip. She had to save one--the tunic he had worn to marry her--but everything else she refolded very carefully. For a long time, she sat bent double, the clothes lifted to her face, trying to inhale the ghost of Jokin's scent--but there was nothing left of him there, only an old smell like faint mildew and dry leaves. So she stood up and tucked them into the side of the pouch she had made, then hefted the whole thing in her arms and set off to deliver it.

Why she'd saved all of Jokin's things instead of giving them away to the poor had, thus far, been explicable only by her selfishness and the desire to keep something of him close. But surely she could use her own grief now to help someone else.

"I will come back with food and clothing for you, because it is what I would do for any Ekaini, and you are still Ekaini."

You are still Ekaini. The words rang in his head, staggering him, and as he watched her go he flopped back down into the grass without much grace, moving mechanically as he settled himself. Otsoa reached up and seized the charm around his neck, clamping his fist around it so hard that the copper wolf's ears and nose and paws cut into his palm, but he didn't care. To be blooded by the part of his spirit that was to be treasured most, by the part of his spirit that was missing, was an honor. Perhaps not to an Ekaini, but to a Lost One.

Why? Why had he deserved to lose his jainko, to be outcast by his tribe and by his child? Why had Erlea --? For the last five years he'd been on his own, living as his jainko would have done! Was that not enough? There were rumors that a spirit could return, but no one could help him who was less than a shaman, he supposed. And shamans feared the Lost Ones worst of all.

You are still Ekaini. He would hear those words forever -- even if he lived and died alone. He heard them as he saw Maite crest the hilltop, a bundle on her hip. So; she had kept her promise. Otsoa leaned forward, sitting sloppily on his knees, one hand supporting his body. The urge to touch her was still strong, but he remained still as she approached.

"You're sad," he said, speaking plainly. "Don't do things that make you sad."

Maite looked up at him, startled. She hadn't realized she wore her emotions so obviously on her face, but apparently it was so. And? There was nothing she could do about it in any case, but it unsettled her that this Lost One could read her spirit as if his own were whole. But it wasn't.

"Here," she said quickly, setting down the bundle on the ground between them and taking a step back. "I brought you clothing and food and a little water and wine." He looked half-starved, and had probably been unable to hunt the larger animals, whose greater fat stores would keep him healthy, on his own. Besides, without grain-fields or a true knowledge of which plants to harvest, he probably had the winter sickness that came from eating too much meat and not enough of other things, like greens and fruit--though he would at least be able to get peaches, if he stayed near the open hillsides where the trees grew. But peaches didn't like forests; they needed air running through their branches.

"And I'm not sad," she added, her voice clipped and her head down. "I was only behaving childishly, because I regretted giving away my husband's clothes, but he is dead." She compressed her lips. "And you need them." Why had it angered her that he'd commented on her sadness? Maybe because it made her feel unbalanced, unsure as to who needed more help. But of course it was he. He was Lost. She was only lost.

Otsoa hovered for a moment over the bundle, his remaining manners telling him that it would be rude to look at the present just yet, while she was still here, and something telling him that the sorrow she was trying to hide would only worsen if he did so. But hunger was a powerful tool, and he was so hungry... after another moment's hesitation, he untied the knot on top of the bundle hastily, the sweet scents of food -- glorious, fire-cooked food! -- striking his nose and immediately setting his mouth to watering.

"Thank-you," he said finally, looking up at her with the waterskin clenched tightly in one fist. "You've done so much." Tipping back on his heels, Otsoa lifted the skin to his lips and felt the cold, clear rush of clean water as it touched his tongue, so cold his mouth spasmed with the shock of it, and half of what he'd tried to drink dripped from his mouth as he shook his head to clear the icy chills. He looked, in that moment, not unlike a wild animal, and desperately tried to civilize himself by dabbing his wet chin on the sleeve of his tunic -- not that table manners were particular to the Baskar, but he was in the presence of a woman.

A woman with a spirit.

"It's not childish to want to hold on to something here," Otsoa mumbled, setting the waterskin aside and pressing a hand flat to his chest, "that you can't hold anymore with your hands. This?" He fumbled with the neck of his tunic to reach his charm necklace, realized he was practically covered in forest grime, pulled the tunic over his head. Otsoa was striking in a way that was not particularly pretty -- no, the exiled life had been hard on him, and though his muscles had retained their strength his belly sunk in, exposing the hard just of his hip bones and ribs as he breathed, the very core of him stained with little scars. But ignoring his appearance, he reached behind his head and undid the leather tie that held the charm to his neck.

"This was part of the torque Erlea -- my wife -- I had it made for her, for our wedding." The little wolf dangled from his hand as he held the charm up for her to see. His own empty black eyes looked at the charm, wondering silently if it still meant something to him. Was it a part of him? His spirit had gone away, and Erlea had gone to Eguzki, and he wondered if perhaps it was not his right to carry it any longer. But he couldn't think of parting with it, as he was sure she had never thought of parting with Jokin's clothes before now. Otsoa's eyes flicked to the tunics -- they were clean, and he ached to put one on and feel something clean against his skin, but it would only hurt her to see him in her husband's clothes.

"Would you like to -- I mean, you surely don't have time -- you've done so much. Would you like to, to sit and eat with me?"

Maite watched him drink. He had obviously been forgetting to do so. Indeed, she herself had not been able to eat or drink more than a little for days after Jokin had died, but the imperatives of survival had come into play soon enough. For him, however... for him... was being a Lost One simply a step closer to death? Was his spirit already with Eguzki and his body only an empty shell?

At the thought she had to swallow hard and look away, physically sickened. She imagined his body, scarred and knobby with raised ridges of bone, as a corpse without a soul, and had to glance back up to his eyes for reassurance. They were mostly dead, but there was a spark there--still he reminded her of the dead, starved wolf she had once found in the forest while hunting, its eyes blank, its flesh stinking and shriveled, its body gnawed by small animals. Maite knew that Lost Ones were still alive, but...

She calmed herself, forcing thoughts of decay and sickness unto death from her mind, though she knew some of the color had left her cheeks. And he showed her part of the torque, and looking at it she thought that he couldn't lack a spirit entirely. His offer to share the meal was... well... it was kind. Something she'd expect of any Ekaini.

But he was not any Ekaini.

She still felt a little sick from the imaginations that had seized her, and she motioned for him to go first, as was proper for a man anyway. "I'm not hungry right now, and you need to eat." The thinness of his body was disturbing, unnatural, and it frightened her because it evoked the dead wolf's sunken stomach and withering flesh around that ribcage... more than that. she could see that if he were healthier he would be a handsome man. But she didn't tell him to put on one of her husband's tunics, which would reinforce the idea that he was someone dead come back to life. That she didn't want to see. "You haven't been eating enough--don't you worry about death?" The words came out a little too sharply.

"You haven't been eating enough--don't you worry about death?"

Her refusal to eat with him hadn't been a surprise, and so Otsoa leaned forward, unwrapping one of the meat pies and taking a bite. She was still there, but slowly edging away as he ate, her eyes wide with some sort of horror. It was, again, not a surprise, but still the absolute rejection, especially from someone he had known in the past, stung at his skin.

Death. It was a thought that hadn't occurred to him in a while. As Otsoa chewed at the meat, his mind wandered over the question, peeling apart each word and letter. Death. Did he ever worry about it? Swallowing his mouthful of the food, feeling something warm and filling hit the pit of his empty stomach, Otsoa wiped his mouth on his hand and sighed happily.

"No," he said. "No, Maite, I don't. I have hope." The man looked at the meat pie again, longingly, and then set it back down on its wrapping. She'd brought him a lot of food and water, but if he never saw her again, he would have to make the food last. It was the first logical thought he'd had in some time. Normally if food was placed before him -- raw, bloody, usually killed with his own hands or stolen from a neighboring field -- he devoured it with relish. But for some reason, the sight of Maite and her child, the hope that perhaps someday the Ekaini could look at him even as half-man, half one of them, had restored a bit of his... humanity?

"I'm alive," he said, glancing up at her. "I have a heartbeat -- I breathe -- I bleed, my skin scars." Otsoa tilted his head to one side and back just slightly, stretching the skin of his neck taught so that the pulse underneath was visible. "I feel pain," he whispered. "But also hope. Do you see?"

Maite nodded cautiously. She could see the pain in his eyes, so she took a few steps forward and lowered herself to sit across from him while he ate.

"Well, if you don't want to die," she said at last, nodding toward the food, "you ought to eat more, so--" She nodded toward the food he'd set down, her face softening. So he didn't want to eat too much of it right away... that was obvious. It stabbed at her heart to realize he was so cautious, so mistrusting. But there was very little she could do about that, except reassure him.

"You can," she said finally. "I can bring you more in future--I promise." Before she'd had Ekaitz, caring so much about someone would have been entirely foreign to her. But now that she was a mother, it was strange; she seemed to care more. And she did not want to be responsible for the death of someone who'd been Jokin's friend. It would be one more tie to him broken.

She moved a little closer to him and settled down, her legs crossed. Although it wasn't mannerly, she reached for one of the barley-cakes, which she'd made herself and sweetened with honey. She turned it over in her hands, swatching him from beneath her lashes. "Otsoa, do you... are you the same person you were?" Maite cast a glance up at him. She recalled him as a laughing man; Jokin had always spoken fondly of him as a jokester, an entertainer. But now that he was a Lost One, did anything of his past remain?

She felt herself full of that vaguely morbid curiosity that possess people when they're faced with terrible accidents, awful fires, or the aftermath of a bloody attack. The desire to peer into the core of someone else's suffering.

At her offer to bring more food in the future, Otsoa looked at Maite uneasily, not sure she would. But she sat down with him, picked up a barley cake, and began to pick apart the wrappings. Encouraged, he reached again for the meat pie, taking a big bite and chewing it slowly, careful not to eat to fast or his stomach would kick it all back later. He dared not try the wine, not sure his stomach could handle the alcohol in his deteriorated health.

"You impress me," he said, mumbling it through a half-mouthful of meat as he swallowed, letting his stomach gloat happily as it rumbled, digesting the food. Otsoa curled an arm around his knee, taking another bite of the food, eating as though he hadn't seen food in months, which wasn't entirely untrue. Killing and eating small game by himself was difficult, larger game like deer nigh impossible, so he'd lived off rabbits and stolen vegetables and dirty water.

"There's some who wouldn't say I was a person at all -- I'm more serious -- and my manners, my speech -- it's hard for me to talk to people. Hard to trust them. So, no, I guess I'm different. Am I different because of what people have done or said, or am I different because there's simply a piece of me missing?" He shrugged. "I don't know. Are you the same person?"

He looked at her, shaggy black hair falling down over his eyes, mingling with his lashes. "I wonder what part of me is missing. Is it really -- I mean, is it my jainko, or -- was it when I lost my wife? I don't know."

"Impress you?" Maite looked up, laughter dying on her lips. "I don't impress anyone. I didn't impress the Warlord."

This was unlike her; this admission. But Otsoa wasn't talking about her looks, which she knew were striking. He was talking about something deep inside her, she thought, and Maite had never really found herself to be very strong. Selfish, petty, easily offended... she was different around Ekaitz, of course, and she had been different around Jokin. But now that she no longer shared her spirit with another (now that Jokin was gone), it felt locked up tight inside her.

"Neither of us are the same," she said at last, shrugging. "I am not. I think I am a much worse person since Jokin passed, actually." She looked to the side, avoiding Otsoa's gaze. "But I still have my spirit, it's only that I don't have part of his any longer... it was wounded when our spirits separated, but somehow my erle stayed with me. Maybe a little of your otso stayed too..." How could it leave? It was his very name. "You don't seem like I imagined a Lost One would be," she admitted honestly.

Maite had been slowly shredding the barley-cake all this tine, and it now sat in little crumbs in its leaf wrapper. She was nervous around him, for many reasons, some of which she did not care to examine.

"...it was wounded when our spirits separated, but somehow my erle stayed with me. Maybe a little of your otsoa stayed too..."

Otsoa laughed out loud, unable to help himself. "You'll think me crazy," was all he said at first, chuckling quietly as he settled. "But I can -- my otso -- I can feel it still, sometimes. As brief as a summer wind. It's distant -- like -- like a star. It feels like a leaf brushing past, or -- a dog, a wolf, an otso running past me, and I can feel its fur --"

He stopped himself, resting his chin on one knee, musing. Otsoa found he was unable to meet her eyes, unable to look at her. Was she really hurt, was her spirit really wounded, weakened, when her husband passed? Or was she saying it simply to appease him? He doubted the latter. Jokin, as he recalled him, had always spoken of his future wife, his wife, as beautiful, strikingly so; but also honest, faithful. Jokin had been a good man, and had made a good match. And what was that about the Warlord? Otsoa decided not to ask.

"You don't seem like I imagined a Lost One would be."

As he finally raised his eyes to meet hers, Otsoa admitted that he agreed with his old friend -- Maite was beautiful. But there was something hard, something bitter that rested just behind her eyes. Her stinger, he supposed, for although the bee was beautiful, and brought sweetness, its sting was worse than any other. "It seems I'm not what anyone expects -- that is, what did you think a Lost One would be like?" he asked, honestly curious.

He was looking at her, now, almost like a normal man would look at a woman, and it made her a little uncomfortable. This wasn't normal; this encounter would lower her status even further if it was spoken of. But no one wanted her anyway, so it hardly mattered: she was the cast-off wife of the Warlord, and she had not been kind to the people in her tribe after Jokin died. No wonder she had few friends, though no one could fault her care for her son. Save perhaps that she was a little too protective, a little too coddling.

"I thought you'd be--less," was all Maite could think of to say. He still felt his jainko? He wasn't lost, then, or if he was, maybe his jainko could find its way back. It was possible. "Less feelings, less words, less..." She moved her shoulders uncomfortably and looked down at the crumbs stuck to her fingers; she brushed them off on her trousers. "I've wasted some of your food. I'm sorry. But I don't know, I'm not a shaman, I don't know anything, really, except that you don't seem faraway. You're here."

It seemed like the right way to put it, but Maite had never been completely sure with words. She found herself, inexplicably, blushing.

Otsoa caught her blushing, and even though he wanted to keep from hurting her, he chuckled a little more, remembering her words. "Here? Oh, Maite." He'd fooled her, completely and utterly fooled her into thinking that he had all the capacities of any Ekaini. It was slightly gratifying, a feeling that was as far-off and intangible as his jainko.

"I am here as the grass is here. An object -- a thing. Yes -- I walk, I talk -- I breathe. But you speak of feelings. Maite, there is one thing about -- there is one thing about us, the Lost Ones -- no one realizes. I feel -- we feel, Maite -- I feel nothing, nothing except pain. I am selfish -- feel nothing but my own pain -- and I neglect myself still. Something is wrong with me. Missing from me. I know what it is -- but I can't find it. And I can't bring myself to look, because all I can feel is the constant reminder -- the pain -- of its absence."

The meat pie finished, Otsoa picked up the leaf wrapper it had been in and slowly peeled away the dried greens, leaving only the stiff, dead veins behind. A husk, a piece of something, dried and dead, that had once been part of something greater, something alive. He looked at it for a moment, pondering its sameness with his soul, and then tossed it to the side, daring a glance at Maite in the aftermath of his raving.

"You haven't wasted anything," he murmured, silently wondering if she thought she had wasted her time on him. "The horses run from me. Your child -- why -- why aren't you afraid of me?"

Maite reared back, a little insulted at his condescension. And put off by his next words, which sounded almost gratuitously strange. But certain words caught and held.

"I am selfish -- feel nothing but my own pain -- and I neglect myself still. Something is wrong with me. Missing from me. I know what it is -- but I can't find it. And I can't bring myself to look, because all I can feel is the constant reminder -- the pain -- of its absence."

Was that what made him a Lost One? She felt the same way and her jainko was still with her, as much as ever. But he was not... he... there was something different about him because he had stayed there. Was that the only difference? Were the people who kept their spirits only the ones who made it to the precipice and then pulled back, again, and again, and again?

It was very confusing.

"Why aren't you afraid of me?"

"I am," Maite said, looking away, and crossing her arms tightly around her body, her hands on her elbows. "I am afraid, but I am also lonely. Some of the women think badly of me because the Warlord rejected me as his wife, and because I was cruel and hard to be around after Jokin passed. They remember it." She shrugged a little, and swallowed, her throat working as though trying to take back the words. But it had felt strangely good to admit that. After all, facing Otsoa, it was as though she looked down into the deep, black pit of How Bad Things Could Be, and was able to face the bleak grayness of How Things Really Were--as painful as it was--with equanimity.

"You are a jainko'erle, Maite," Otsoa said, after listening to her talk. It all seemed so incredibly simple to him, the more she spoke to him, the more he understood. "You have two colors. You are black and you are gold, and at your best, you bring sweetness and beauty -- at your worst, your sting hurts bitterly." The Lost One spread his hands before placing them in the grass, sinking in up to his wrists in the soft, lightly scented meadow. "You are gold -- you bring me food and water, clothing and company -- you risk scorn. And you are black, but you have not yet shown me your sting."

Otsoa looked into the sky for a long moment, glancing over his shoulder into the trees as though he'd heard something before he spoke again, and as he said the words, he imagined he felt the brush of coarse fur against his shoulder and shivered, pulling into himself.

"Otso can be many colors -- white, black, grey, russet, brown -- as many colors as the Ekaini horses. They have many faces -- one howls at the moon in sorrow of a lost loved one while the other rejoices in the presence of the ones that remain. One bites at an enemy; the other licks the wounds of a friend. Another barks and snaps, always ready to fight; another still submits with a whimper, knowing his place and his duty in the pack. We -- they -- are ever-changing."

He shifted uncomfortably, realizing that in his tirade he'd begun to lean forward with the intensity of his words. Otsoa lifted his hand from the grass, running it over his face as he tilted himself backwards, inhaling the sweet scent of it. "So I think you are good. Not to be scorned. And I think -- I know -- that I deserve to be feared. I am less than Ekaini. You, golden erle, are not selfish. It is -- you are -- brave to come back. To sit with me. Thank-you."

"How can I fear you, when you talk like that?" Maite couldn't help but smile a little at his compliments. He called her kind, but she was only caring for someone in need. Real kindness appeared to her to be a state of being--a way of moving through the world constantly, all of the time. And she did not possess it. Her mother did. Her mother seemed surrounded by a kind of glow of kindness, as though her cloud jainko were always lit by Eguzki's warmth and light.

"I did fear you, when I saw you, but I don't now." She shook her head and leaned forward, looking up at him through some disheveled strands of hair with a slightly wicked smile. "Should I? They say that Lost Ones will sometimes prey on women. And yet, I don't fear you. I think you say things of yourself that aren't true," she added, matter-of-fact, sitting neatly back on her heels. "I think you believe things that aren't true and you've split your jainko, and maybe it will come back, if you stop believing them."

Her gaze at him, now, was very bold, and she felt as though she had just finished a difficult weaving job, or solved a shaman's riddle.

"They say that Lost Ones will sometimes prey on women."

Otsoa had to grin at that comment, displaying a little of his old humor as he responded quickly, "I've never preyed on a woman that didn't want me as predator." He shook his head at the less than subtle flirtation, trying to clear it from his mind. Maite was an Ekaini woman, and apparently was wife to the Warlord, which was an achievement in itself, even if he had 'rejected her'. And he was a Lost One. Perhaps he was just exercising a forgotten charm, he thought, because he knew that there was no chance of a woman like Maite bringing him anything more than meat pies.

"If my jainko'otso would come back to me I would be happy forever. I fear it will never happen -- but I have hope. And you've renewed my hope." He smiled at her, one corner of his mouth tilting up in a half-cocked smirk, giving him the look of a devious little boy. But his glance away was quick, afraid to get too comfortable. It would soon get dark and Maite would return to her tribe, to her tent, and he would lie in the meadow in her dead husband's clothes, his dead friend's clothes, and dream of an empty black plain to swallow him.

And perhaps he would feel the brush of his jainko. Perhaps the otso would sleep by his side tonight with a restored faith in him.

But he doubted it.

Maite stared at him as, for a moment, that old expression came back--a shock almost as deep as though she had seen Jokin again. She knew that look, it was Otsoa when he was teasing, as when he had ribbed Jokin about her. At the time it had been a terrible embarrassment, but she had been so young--fifteen? Sixteen? It was years ago now.

"You have every reason to have hope," she said at last, reaching over to touch him for the second time since they had encountered each other--just a brief squeeze of his hand in her own. His skin was warm and a little greasy from the meat pie. It was a living hand. "I'll pray for you. Maybe my jainko'erle can help yours, even if they don't get along."

She realized she was still holding his hand and pulled back. "I should go, but I will come back, and bring more food. Soon. I promise."

Maite reached over to touch him, laying her hand over his where it rested against the grass. Her skin was warm and live with the jainko'erle, buzzing and humming. Otsoa let his eyes rest on her face, taking her in, knowing that the simple touch had committed her to his memory. Their eyes met, briefly, and it seemed to startle her back into movement.

A constant reminder of the absence of his jainko.

She promised him hope, along with the food and water, and he nodded sagely, his eyelids fluttering as he blinked. Soulless eyes, they had been called, dead eyes. But there was warmth in them as he looked at Maite, willing her to keep her promise, knowing she would. "I trust you," he said, his voice quiet among the still grasses of the field. Otsoa sat on the grass, looking up at her, his hands going to one of the tunics, pulling it into his lap. He would wear it after she left, in remembrance of Jokin, of Ekaitz, of Maite and her kindness.

"May Eguzki light your path. Perhaps, Maite, we can pray for one another."

Maite gave him a little smile.

"Yes--I'd like that." She stood up and saw that the sun had moved quite far in the sky, and she would have to hurry or miss the meal her mother had prepared. And now that her brothers had wives of their own, it was only her and Ama and Aita, so she could hardly skip a meal unchastised. Besides, she had to help Ama finish cooking.

"I should go now, but I'll be back in four days' time." She spoke rapidly, as though talking about something illicit. It was, a little... she thought guiltily of what her father would say. He would not approve. "Go with Eguzki, Otsoa sem'Patxi." Just speaking his full name seemed to bring him back to life a little.

She turned and walked away, fearing to look back, because now that she had looked away she did not know what she would see in him. Would some reality reassert itself, and the truth of his state be revealed? It sent shivers down her spine. But she did turn, at the last, and saw only a faint figure. For a moment she thought it was Jokin, but that was only his tunic.

Then she turned back again, her heart pounding very fast, and walked back to camp.