Amythra 39

"It hurts," Anna said, softening her voice a little, "and that may never fade, But he's not dead, Amythra."

"He will be. I feel it. I don't care if he'd be a slave to the family. He'd be alive. He'd still be laughing with his idiot friends at the pub. He'd still be elbowing me and pointing to sailor womume ask'n me if I thought they were hot. He'd still be do'n this job instead of me, bring'n back different looking coins to add to my collection." Amythra rolled up the map and put it under her belt. She already knew where she needed to go. The map wasn't lost anymore, she thought, her finger tips to her eyes.

"But he's not dead." Anna didn't know this girl. She had only just met her. Why did it matter? She tightened her gloves and put a hand on the girl's shoulder. "Stop mourning him, Islander. Wait, at least, until you have grave dirt to soak those tears."

The others races in Mash'ta always berate mume-kin for worrying over nothing, but that's because they underestimate the power of mume imagination. It's valuable, agile, and vivid, fore what happens in a mume's mind is just as real to them as outside their heads. Roose and Boose, being dragon-kin stood and watched the two womumes, light fading around them under a red sky, and could not see that to Amythra, Marvate had been dying over and over and over again.

"Can we go, now?" Asked Boose impatiently.

Amythra felt the squeeze of Anna's hand. "Come on, then," Goldeyes said, smiling. "Time to do your brother's work."