A dog will make eye contact. A cat will, too, but a cat's eyes don't even look entirely warm-blooded to me, whereas a dog's eyes look human except less guarded. A dog will look at you as if to say, "What do you want me to do for you? I'll do anything for you." Whether a dog can in fact, do anything for you if you don't have sheep (I never have) is another matter. The dog is willing. - Roy Blount, Jr.

Frigid

I woke at the coaxing of Aiken's voice, eager and anxious and low, rumbling in my ear. I opened my eyes to see her crouched beside the futon, hovering half a meter away from me. "I'm going now," she said.

"What time is it?" I asked, sitting up.

"I… I don't know," she said, brows furrowing. "I lost my scouter. It exploded, remember?" But she added, "The sun's up." And then, again, "I'm going now. Or, I mean, he said that we ought to go now. The Super Saiyajin did. That's proper, isn't it?"

"Aiken, I am not entirely awake," I said, slowly, trying to make some sense her words. "Where are you going, now?"

"To go and find the other balls. The Dragon Balls, those are. With Son Goku."

"That's good, Aiken," I said.

"I'm going to come right back here after we've got them," she promised. "I'm not going to go running off like some people did."

Uragiru. "She's still gone, then?"

"Yeah," Aiken, said, but then backpedaled. "Well, she almost came back. They knew she was coming before she ever got here, and that scar-face went out to meet her. Then he came back again and begged one of those bean-pills off Son Goku, and left again. And then they didn't come back anymore, but you were sleeping. Is that Yamcha a Saiyajin?"

"I don't know, Aiken."

"They can see people with their brains, I guess."

"Aiken, you're being very silly."

"Sorry," she said, instantly contrite. "Sorry. But I was going to go…?"

"That's good, Aiken," I repeated. "You should go do that."

She started to go, but I stopped her. "Aiken?"

Aiken hand dropped from the doorknob, and she turned back to watch me expectantly.

"I suppose a shower might be too much to hope for?" I asked.

"There's… it's like a barrel outside. I think they're using it like it was a bath. There's room for a fire under it.

"Of course," I said, and sighed. "Primitives.

"But you ought to go now, Aiken. It's better that you shouldn't keep him waiting."

"Right!" she said, and opened the door to leave. But then she stopped in the threshold, turned back to look at me again. "I'm going to fix this," she said. "It is going to be okay."

"Aiken…" I said, but she was already gone, bounding down the steps three at a time.

I waited until I was sure that they had gone - too early in the morning to face him - and then I went downstairs.