They passed through the last of the tiger trees and she said, "We're safe, now. The tigers never attack anyone outside their forest."
She was walking slowly and he said, "We should get on back before you're missed, shouldn't we?"
"Who would miss me?" she asked. "So long as I remain physically intact for the marriage night, who cares where or why I went away?"
There was the cold bleakness of winter in her eyes as she spoke, and in her voice the first undertone of brass. He saw that this was already the beginning of the change that Narf would make in her; the transformation of a girl young and wanting to love and be loved into a hard and cynical woman.
He put his arm around her shoulder, thinking that he should tell her that he cared and that she must never let Narf change her.
"Lyla, I—"
He realized how futile and foolish the words would sound. She would marry Narf, he would return to Earth, and they would never meet again. There were no words for him to speak on this last walk together, no way to tell her that he wanted to help her, to protect and care for her. No way to express the feeling inside him....
He did what seemed as natural under the circumstances as it had been for him to put his arm around her in the clearing. He tilted up her face and bent his head to kiss her.
And walked with jarring impact into the knobby elbow of a ghost tree limb.