This continues where the first chapter left off. There is a list of French-English translations for the French in this chapter, as well as the previous one.
A few minutes later, Champion, Sonya, and Bruno each descended the stairs in their fashion. Sonya stepped quietly alongside her human, who was still wearing yesterday's training clothes. Bruno was lumbering pathetically down, shifting his bulk from step to step, his sticklike legs bravely attending to the task. As they neared the tile-floored hallway, Champion's heart started beating wildly. He looked from the half-open kitchen door to Sonya, then back towards the kitchen again. He whispered to his dæmon that his grandmother didn't know about dæmons; what was he to do? Bruno, meanwhile, unsure of why they had halted on the stairs, nudged Champion's shins aside and bumbled down. He nudged the door open and entered the kitchen. Champion heard his grandmother utter a few syllables of greeting to the dog, then resume whatever she was doing. Champion turned to Sonya and held up his hands. He explained that his grandmother might not understand.
Sonya sighed. "She'll understand; I'll make her understand. She has a dæmon too. If need be I can speak to it, try and render it corporeal...this sort of thing doesn't normally happen in this world, I've learned." Champion drew back. "Il y a d'autres mondes?"
"Yes," Sonya said. "There are many that are like ours, but different. Some of them even have a country called France..." Champion pressed his fingers to his temples. This was not happening. A dog had materialized in his house. A talking dog, who claimed to be his soul. Fine. "Je veux seulement cycler," he moaned. "C'est compliqué, ça?" Sonya felt hurt, but kept her cool. "I am your dæmon." She nuzzled his overworked leg. Feeling a strange sensation, Champion sat down on the stairs and petted Sonya. He stroked her back, finding where the grain of the fur was; he examined her paws; he looked into her eyes, so pure and knowing. She was his dæmon. He started to scratch her behind the ears, but just as his fingertips grazed her fur, he stopped. She isn't really a dog, she isn't Bruno, he told himself. She's above all of that doglike pleasure...Slowly, with his hand still on her head, Champion stood up. He gently lifted his hand from the crown of her skull and peered at the kitchen door. "Allons-y," he muttered, half to himself. Then he realized that there was no one there but himself. Sonya was himself. This would take some getting used to. Human and dæmon crossed the tiled floor of the hallway and nudged open the kitchen door. Champion strode in, Sonya walking proudly beside him.
Madame Souza looked up from the bowl of thick, brownish tea which she had been sipping avidly a few moments before. Attired neatly in a green blouse with patched burnt-sienna sleeves and a nondescript skirt of a similar color, her squat, friendly figure was relaxed upon a kitchen chair. She smiled at Champion, and then her keen brown eyes fell upon Sonya. She automatically glanced around; seeing Bruno asleep under the round kitchen table, she frowned in confusion. "Qu'est-ce que c'est? Le chien là?" She gestured at Sonya. Champion turned and looked imploringly at his dæmon, asking her wordlessly to sort things out. As though he had communicated telepathically (which he had), Sonya trotted in front of him and spoke in that foreign language which they somehow all understood. "Hello, Madame Souza." Madame Souza accidentally knocked over the bowl of tea, and now a viscous, brownish concoction was seeping slowly all over the yellow tablecloth. She took no notice, however; instead, she stared at the talking dog. She gasped, then breathed chokingly for a few moments, during which Champion rushed over to make sure she was all right. When she had started breathing again, Sonya approached her, but Madame Souza's eyes grew wide behind their spectacles and she tried to beat the dog away with a dish-towel.
"Non, grand-maman, arrêt!" Champion said urgently, as he knelt and tended to a ruffled Sonya. He stroked her and whispered apologies into her fur. Madame Souza compulsively pushed her glasses higher up on her nose and stared at the pair of them. "Le chien a parlé!" she said disbelievingly. "C'est impossible!" "A lot of things are impossible," said Sonya tentatively. She waited to see if Madame Souza was going to try and launch another dish-towel attack. She didn't, but instead had her eyes glued to the dog, waiting to see what she was going to say next. The dæmon continued. "My name is Sonya. I'm Champion's...soul. You have something like me too. Please don't be alarmed." Madame Souza forced her gaze away from Sonya and groped for the overturned tea-bowl. She grabbed the nearby teapot, poured the bowl half-full, and took a few hearty gulps. Champion watched nervously. Sonya closed her eyes, a look of utmost concentration on her canine face. Champion looked from her to his grandmother. He thought he saw something on the table; a shimmering form, like a heat haze. It looked like particles coming together, assembling. Then he blinked, and it vanished. Sonya looked dejected, and Champion realized what she had been trying to do. "Ça va," he said reassuringly, seeing how sad she looked. She looked blearily at the spot where the particle cloud had been a few moments before. Madame Souza set down the tea-bowl and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. She hadn't noticed the shimmer at all. Champion tried to explain to her that she wasn't crazy, since the dog talked to him also. She really was his dæmon. He told her that Sonya said that she, Madame Souza, had a dæmon as well, and was attempting to materialize it. Madame Souza looked perturbed. Materialize it? She asked doubtfully. Tu es sûr, c'est une bonne idée? Champion assured her that it was, although he glanced over at Sonya. It's a good idea, Sonya thought to him. Champion twitched slightly at the voice in his head, almost indistinguishable from his own thoughts. Without another word Sonya turned away and began the arduous process of gathering Dust and giving it the properties of complex matter. Champion watched her with burning curiosity, as did Madame Souza. Champion thought he saw a cloud of swirling particles form; they seemed to be giving off their own kind of light, golden in color. At an astonishing speed, they conglomerated, becoming more and more dense, until they were swirling and moving in complex intricate patterns like the electron cloud in an atom. Then, in a whirlwind of thought and feeling that filled the room, a duck appeared on the table. "The most resilient of birds..." Sonya breathed. It was a drake, actually. A mallard drake, to be precise. Although not very large, he was a sturdy and pleasant-looking creature, with a glossy green head, yellow bill, and strong, dun-colored wings. His intelligent black eyes glinted boldly from his iridescent head as he looked piercingly about him. He looked around the room with a quick sweep of his head, then ruffled his wings. He opened his spoon-shaped beak and spoke. "Well, you finally noticed me." Madame Souza's hand went up to the spectacles and pushed them up on her nose with a vengeance. "About time, you know," the dæmon continued. "Sometimes I felt a bit ignored, being hidden away in your heart.""Comment tu t'appelles?" Madame Souza asked in wonder. "Gérard," the mallard said happily. His voice was rich in vivacious energy, but had a no-nonsense clip. Below the brazen and copper tones of his voice lay a wealth of kindness. There was something in that beady black eye that was indicative of an indominable will. With as much dignity as he could muster for a creature that waddled, he stepped purposefully over to the edge of the tablecloth, where Madame Souza's tensed hands lay. He looked her square in the eye. "Touch me," he entreated. Madame Souza reached out in spite of herself, but, perceiving the Dust aura surrounding him, drew her fingertips back fearfully. Champion broke out of his entranced reverie and placed a slender, long-fingered hand on her shoulder. She jumped, her long earrings swinging around unchecked. She smiled in a strained, perfunctory sort of way and indulged in some more tea. Gérard was still looking at Madame Souza expectantly. He looked so pitiful that Sonya slipped over to the table and rested her head and forepaws on the tabletop, looking sympathetically at him. He caught her gaze and gave a mournful quack. Sonya's tail thumped commiseratingly. Madame Souza put down the tea-bowl gently, and stared at the duck. Champion lissomely settled himself onto his stool, the only chair tall enough to accomodate his legs, which were so many times longer than his grandmother's. Sonya quietly turned and placed her forepaws back on the floor, walking over to Champion and sitting down on her haunches, her thin, supple form contained seamlessly in its greyness. Madame Souza turned and glanced at Sonya, finding it easier to accept the existence of someone else's dæmon than her own. Everything was so clear and grounded in reality, so not at all dreamlike, that it made the circumstances seem all the more strange and disagreeable. Champion felt his grandmother's gaze upon Sonya before he saw her eyes trained on the greyhound dæmon, and reached down to stroke her, tracing his hand in accordance with the smooth grain of the fur.
English translations for the French in chapters 1 and 2:
-Au secours! Help!
-Bruno, tu as maigri! Tu n'es pas gros! Bruno, you lost weight! You're not fat!
-Non, c'est faux, Champion. No, not true, Champion.
-Qu'est-ce que c'est? What is that?
-Quand j'étais un enfant... When I was a child...
-Tu es ici! You're here!
-À la salle de bains... To the bathroom...
-Pourquoi? Je dois t'attendre? Why? I have to wait for you?
-Mais—mais— But—but—
-Voiture-balais Medical aid van
-Il y a d'autres mondes? There are other worlds?
-Je veux seulement cycler. C'est compliqué, ça? I only want to bicycle. Is this complicated?
-Allons-y. Let's go.
-Qu'est-ce que c'est? Le chien là? What is that? The dog, there?
-Non, grand-maman, arrêt! No, Grandma, stop!
-Le chien a parlé! C'est impossible! The dog spoke! It's impossible!
-Ça va. It's okay.
- Tu es sûr, c'est une bonne idée? Are you sure that's a good idea?
-Comment tu t'appelles? What's your name?
