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When the hawk lands on the fence beside him—skin-bone, shivering—John’s heart is wrung. He brings meat from the kitchen, leaves it in reach when the hawk refuses his hand; and the next day the same, and the day after that.
'Too long out of your own skin again, cariad, and what if I am not here to bring you back,' John says, when the eyes that meet his out of the sharp-carven face are human again, and his voice breaks like a bird's as he strokes back the white hair springing like feathers from Merriman's forehead.
And if Merriman could wrap his tongue around speech—but he cannot, not yet—he would say: Then I would not wish to come back; instead he says nothing, and he sleeps, forgetting both feathers and fear.