As long as he remembered himself, Tzecich was always a swamp guard. A young, young, green lizard brought him to the Outpost the Elder Male of their kind, the genus of the Dropped Scales of the Great Jasper. With huge, soft yellow eyes, he looked at the world around him, leaving Sadk's cozy twilight for the first time. He had no one to grieve for, since in his race of lizards there were no such concepts as "relatives," "loved ones." There were "those who put me off," "those who sat us out" and "those who raised us..."