Kheri stood silently for several minutes, then left the camp and climbed up the slope of the hill. Standing on the top, he looked out over the countryside, then turned and stared up at the mountains in the near distance. The sun glanced off the snow on their tops, and the air sparkled around him.
He stood, thinking about the last few weeks, then turned back and looked out in the direction that he knew his aunt's home lay. Memories of his life there, the town, the people he knew, drifted through his mind.
"That didn't happen to me," he thought, "that was someone else, a very long time ago."

He came to a sudden realization that he had no desire to go back to that life.
Back to hiding in dark alleys, stealing to exist and being spit on by those who took any notice of him at all. He thought for a moment of his aunt, alone on her farm, then recalled Paw Tucker promising to look after her.
"She's fine," he told himself. "I can't live with her anyway, not for more than a day or two once in a while."
"You're a fool boy," his aunt's words to him when he moved out coming back to his mind. "You're a dreamer, always got your head in the clouds and your mind full of fantasies. You don't get those feet on the ground, you're gonna be walking off a cliff and you won't see the bottom till you hit it!"
He smiled to himself at the memory.
"Well I've got my feet on the ground," he told it, "and there's nothing wrong with dreaming."
He thought a moment longer then turned and walked back down to the camp, certain of what he was about to do.