( He thinks, at first, to surrender the rabbit. Then, in a fit of quiet obstinacy before her unscrupulous, uncharitable description of the poor creature's wants, to deny her once more.

Then, she speaks her wants — and his eyes dance up, dark as the charcoal burners beside him. As graves. )

Your sorcery is not foolish. ( Nor stupid, in lesser tongues, of which the clan Gusu Lan possesses precisely none. Let them not be misunderstood, even with a small rabbit between them. The animal peers up again. ) Nor incomplete without it.

( But here: he is permitting the rabbit to nose up once more. Bask in his bunny brilliance. Take him. )