He nods. "I'll be out here a lot," he says. "The pup needs to get used to the cold. When she pulls one down-" He nods at Ash. "-I'll be about, and I'll help."

When he was younger, he went into the open lands that lay past his father's ranch and spent a summer on his own to see if he could. The next year, or the year after that- it blurs together after a while- he took his leave of his kin and spent a full turn of the seasons in the wild. There was someone to teach him what he didn't know then, an old and bitter man named Weng Hao, and Weng Hao had strongly suggested he'd better be ready to pass those teachings on to others someday.

Some things you don't forget, not even thousands of miles and a country's gulf away.