“I, um… I-I-I-I’m Shi­iai,” I mut­ter, ashamed of stut­ter­ing even as I was halfway through doing so.

Lilac elbowed me in the waist. “Con­fi­dent, remem­ber? Y’supposed to be bein’ confident!”

“Yeah,” I said with a sigh. “Yes, right, I’m Shi­iai. Once, years ago, I looked after Lilac after her vil­lage rejected her. I was always frail though, and since we’ve been trav­el­ling together, it’s been more like her look­ing after me.

“We work pretty well together, I think. When we have to camp, she can find food in the wild, and I can cook it. When we have to talk to peo­ple, I can do the thought­ful bit, and she can do the con­fi­dent bit. And as time goes by, I think we’re rub­bing off on each other.

“But yes, we’re trav­el­ling. Even after ten years, even on reach­ing adult­hood, Lilac was never accepted back home. So, um… We ran away. We’ve been on the road ever since. When, one day, we find a lit­tle vil­lage or a big city where no-one thinks she’s weird, there we’ll stay and call it home.”