Asira caught the wave, and her face lit up. She crossed to their table, set the tray down, and slid onto the bench beside Tomek.
"Hi, Tomek."
"Hi." Tomek smiled shyly at her. "Did you bring your pencils?"
"I always have at least two. Usually more."
"Are you going to draw me again?"
"Do you want me to?"
He thought about this with the gravity the question deserved. "No. I want to play."
Asira laughed. "I totally understand. Maybe next time?"
Tomek nodded.
Sullha stared at the girl. That laugh had sounded so carefree that it had been jarring to hear it from a woman of breeding age in the enclosure. Asira was young, but she'd been to the breeding building, and the fact that she could still laugh like that indicated that she wasn't broken.
"Tomek has a class with Saphira this morning," Sullha said. "After that, he has free play time until lunch, and we are going to the playground. Would you like to join us? You could draw my portrait."
Asira's eyes sparkled with excitement. "I would love to." She picked up a piece of flatbread. "We are on vacation, after all, so we should take advantage of all this free time until we have to resume our sacred task."
The bitterness in her tone made it clear that she didn't think of their task as sacred. Without it, her statement would have had a very different meaning, and Sullha would have been forced to deliver more bad news to Yaaf's friends.
Asira was obviously angry.
Underneath the brightness and the drawings and the laughter, the girl was bitter. The art and her cheerfulness served as a protective coating around that bitterness so it wouldn't burn her from the inside.
"Yeah, I know what you mean. Let's enjoy the respite for as long as it lasts."
Asira nodded. "What time will you be at the playground?"
"Tomek's class ends at ten. We'll be there a few minutes later."
"I'll meet you there."
"I can't wait to see what you'll do with my face."
"I'll just draw it as it is. There is nothing to improve on."
Saphira's class was the same as always.
Sullha sat on a bench at the back of the covered area and helped wherever help was needed, which today consisted mostly of herding Pol back to his spot every time he wandered off. Tomek was in the front row with his back to her, concentrating on the letters he was tracing.
He was such a good kid, smart and kind. He would be an incredible person, given a chance to grow up somewhere that did not need him to become a weapon.
When the lesson ended, Tomek came running over with a page of white paper held up. "Mama, look. I made all the letters. Saphira said mine was the best in the whole class."
"You did a wonderful job."
"I know." Tomek thrust the page at her. "You keep it." He turned and ran ahead of her down the path toward the playground.
When they arrived, Asira was already there.
She had brought a blanket and spread it on the ground in the corner of the playground where the mango trees provided shade. Her art supplies were arranged on top of it, and she was sitting cross-legged with her clipboard in her lap, watching the children on the climbing frame and sketching.
The girl must have realized that Sullha wanted more than a portrait and had chosen the most private spot she could think of.
