Narrator:
The boy returns before she leaves.
Boy:
He said, "I would appreciate that, since friends are so hard to replace." and that I should get a hat to pass around too.
[grins at her]
Is being an Anchor hard to learn?
Blackbird: [unspoken]
Thank you, Richard. I wish I'd seen it.
Narrator:
Blackbird notes his clothes. He's as dirty and tousled as any little boy but, but his clothes are fine. He's most likely the child of some lesser nobleman.
Blackbird: [kneeling, cupping the boy's face in her hands]
Sometimes it's the easiest thing in the world. Sometimes it's the hardest. It seems easy if you love it more than anything else. But it can be hard, because you have to love it more than anything else.
[smiles]
I suppose that doesn't make much sense. I guess I'm trying to say that the hard part of being an Anchor is all the things a young nobleman like yourself has to give up to be one. But that's what apprenticeships are for, to find out if an Anchor is what you really want to be.
You've got a few years before you have to decide. Until then, listen to music all you can and learn to make it part of you, listen to stories and think about how you would tell them, and how the things that happen around you every day would sound if put into stories. Make people happy however you can -- the ways may not always be obvious. Those are the things you have to do to begin to be an Anchor.
Narrator:
Blackbird says goodbye to the boy and goes back to her wagon, a little depressed by her conversation with the boy.
Blackbird:
It should be that simple. It's bad that I've made it so complicated.
(You can back out. You can stop all this. Give it up, like you told the boy)
I will. After this is over, I will.
Narrator:
In the quiet time she has before dinner, Blackbird practices a very special magic trick using some flour and an empty vial Portnoy gave her to keep any small finds in -- the very simple trick of emptying a hidden vial of powder into a goblet. It's a trick she plans to practice every day from now on, until she can do it in her sleep. She's well on her way already -- it incorporates elements of many classic sleights.