"No. I prefer the desert."
"You have spent all your life on the desert?"
"All. Ever since I was small."
She turned from a wad of cotton that she was unrolling to regard him thoughtfully from under long black lashes.
"A boy. What of your parents?"
"I don't remember them, if there were any to remember. The first thing I recall is sand under my feet, and running. The sun was always my friend. I love the sun. It feeds me. I need nothing to exist, other than the sun."
Her left hand was warm where it caught his wrist. The damp cotton was swept across his flesh swiftly.
"I remember a lot of things about my youth. Unconnected things, like the first day I found the blue lake and the silver forest. The day I killed a panth with my bare hands. The first night I saw the stars, and recognized them for what they were."
Katha held his hand in hers and said, "I am going to draw blood. It will hurt—a little." As the ruby liquid oozed from his wrist, the woman went on speaking. "And you cannot recall anything beyond that? Only that you were a boy, and that you grew up?"
"Only that. It was many years before I saw another ... human. The Trylla are not desert-dwellers. They like their cities. But I saw a caravan, and came close to examine it, and when the guards saw me, I ran so swiftly they started rumors."