Noah still looked ashen, his gold eye still dull and the film of Shinjitsu over his skin still faint and tired, and the faint gold and silver shape of Lygara still lay coiled around the sapling with her eyes closed.
He had not moved for some time, because the question he had asked himself had not gone anywhere.
How could something small keep facing things so much greater than itself, and live? He turned the question over slowly as it was not a new question at all. Small things had been asking it for as long as there had been small things and great things in existence together, and some of them, against every reasonable expectaton, had found answers.
The first answer he found was the simplest, and it was the one every small thing had to learn before any other. The strong did not need to win quickly, because nothing ever truly threatened them, and so they grew careless and certain and bored, while the weak could not afford to lose even once.
