“Fauve means tawny—so I almost decided it was a bad idea, you know. But from it we have les fauvettes, our wild songbirds, and we also have les fauves. Wild cats. Not quite so little.”

He carries the staff to the armoire against the back wall, voice raising to carry back over his shoulder while he puts it away.

“And from that, sometimes we say fauve to just mean wild or fierce.”

Heading back to the desk, he ignores his chair and sits on the edge of it instead, closer to her. Who likes talking across a desk? Terrible.

“When you translate it to Trade, you lose that. Songbird, warbler. Sweet little things. But in Orlesian, the word has some teeth. A songbird,” in conclusion, “that you do not want to fuck with.”