"For everyone."
She considered this, her expression far too serious for one so young. Then she shook her head. "You're not hungry right now, are you? You ate from the deer."
Remarkably perceptive, this child who had survived the citadel's horrors. "No, I'm not hungry right now," Sebastian confirmed.
Sarah set her wrapped doll carefully beneath the shelter of Boarstaff's doorway, placing it beside the buck's massive form. Then she approached Sebastian's tree, stopping at its base and looking up through rain-drenched branches.
"Come down," she said simply. "Just for a little while."
Sebastian hesitated, years of noble caution warring with a simple desire for connection. "I shouldn't."
"Please?" Her voice carried no fear, only the straightforward request of a child who somehow understood more than she should. "No one else is around. Just for a minute."
Against better judgment, Sebastian descended, his movements a fluid cascade from branch to branch until he landed lightly on the ground. He stopped several feet from her, maintaining careful distance despite the hunger being temporarily sated.
Sarah studied him with unnerving directness. "You look different than before. Less... metal-y."
Sebastian glanced down at his body, at brass components that now flowed beneath his skin like liquid metal rather than rigid enhancements. "I am different," he agreed.
"Do they still hurt? The metal parts?"
The question struck deeper than expected. In the citadel, children were taught never to inquire about enhancements, never to acknowledge the pain of transformation.
"No," he said softly. "Not anymore."
Rain fell between them, creating a shimmering curtain that somehow made conversation easier. Sarah wiped water from her eyes, her gaze never leaving his face.
"The orcs are nice," she offered unexpectedly. "They teach me things. Not like... before."
"I'm glad." Sebastian meant it more deeply than his simple words conveyed. "They're teaching you to read? To understand their ways?"
She nodded. "Moonsinger teaches me letters. Thornmaker shows me how to track animals." A small smile appeared. "He says I'm quiet enough to be good at it."
Her smile faded slightly. "Do you miss your home?"
"No," Sebastian answered without hesitation. "It was never really home. Just... where I existed." He gestured toward the settlement around them. "This is more real than anything in the citadel ever was."
She seemed to understand, nodding solemnly. "Even though you have to stay away?"
"Even though I have to stay away." The rain began to ease slightly, the downpour softening to a gentle shower. "I should go back to the cave now. Before others return."
"Will you come again?" Sarah’s voice carried hope that made his heart ache.
"When it's safe," he promised. "When I've been... when I'm not hungry."
She startled him by stepping forward suddenly, arms wrapping around his waist in a quick embrace before he could react. The contact lasted only seconds, but it sent awareness surging through his components. Not hunger, not predatory instinct, but something else entirely. Something his father's synthetic alterations would have deemed irrelevant to noble purpose.
As she stepped back, movement across the clearing caught Sebastian's attention. Ochrehand emerged from the Heart Tree, leather satchel held above her head against the diminishing rain. She stopped abruptly when she spotted them, her free hand moving instinctively toward the protective crystals at her belt.
Sebastian immediately stepped away from Sarah, showing his empty hands in clear demonstration that he meant no harm. "I was just leaving," he called to the shaman, already moving toward the forest's edge.
"Wait." Ochrehand approached cautiously, her gaze taking in the buck on Boarstaff's doorstep, the distance Sebastian had maintained between himself and the child, the calm in Sarah's expression. "You brought this offering?"
Sebastian nodded once. "I took only what I needed. The rest seemed..." He hesitated, searching for words his noble training had never included. "Wasteful to leave unused."
Ochrehand studied him with the same measuring gaze she'd used when first capturing him in the forest. "Thornmaker will be pleased. We've had poor hunting with the rain."
"I'm glad it's useful." Sebastian took another step toward the forest, but Ochrehand's voice stopped him.
