He was a mottled mess of grey and white, dotted with patches of pink where the fur had burnt away. He loped through his Protectorate, sometimes on four legs, sometimes on two, depending on the lay of the land and his mood. Ashes scattered as his paws hit the earth, and the scent of smoke hung heavily in the air. The afternoon sun cast rays of pink and violet across the ground, motes in the air scattering the light and littering the ground with patches of shadow.

Rising to the top of a hill, Shadowdance stood on two legs and surveyed the damages. It would be years before his territory was fully restored. He might not live to see the day that he could call the job complete. And yet, his heart felt light, and despite the tears in his eyes he smiled, his tail wagging behind him. Here and there, green shoots poked through the layer of grey, and the scent of deer and rabbit came to his nose even through the soot. In the distance, fresh water splashed along some unnamed tributary of the Colorado river, along with the chirrup of insects in the early evening. Even if he didn’t, the land would survive, and thrive once more, and that was all the Child of Wolf could dream.

A roar echoed in the distance, and the wolf’s ears perked. Letting out a howl in response, he dropped to all fours and ran towards its source, chest heaving as he burst through the treeline into a familiar clearing. The lodge remained where Watcher had left it weeks ago, at the edge of the river just outside his sacred territory. Beside the tree under which the tent had been build, the tan-furred Child of Wolf stood, his tail low, his ears back against his head, glancing about nervously. Leaning against it was a Child of Bear, his thick brown coat streaked with grey. One paw clutched a talisman hanging from his neck, while the other adjusted the pouch-covered bandoleer that hung from his shoulder.

Shadowdance stopped short, staring. He blinked rapidly, then broke into a wide grin, ears perked and tail wagging furiously behind him. “I’ll go get that deer now.”

Mountain grinned in response. “Grant us passage, Shadowdance?”

The grey-furred Child of Wolf nodded. “You’re welcome to come and go as you please.” He looked to Watcher and held out a paw. “Both of you.”

Watcher stepped forward and clasped paws with the other wolf, bowing over it. “I’ll do what I can to earn that right.”

Shadowdance grinned in response. “You already did.”

The Child of Bear held out a paw, then tapped his muzzle, sniffing the air. “Where is she?”

“Foraging,” the grey wolf replied. “She’ll be back before sunset, as will Leaper.”

The bear nodded at that, then motioned for Dancer to approach. “Turn around; let me check your arm.” The Child of Wolf whined but complied, turning so the bear could press his fingerpads in along his shoulder. “You’re healing up okay, but you still should have let me sling that. How do you feel?”

The Child of Wolf could only grin in return, his tongue lolling to one side of his open muzzle as he panted. He sprawled out over his back, and the bear knelt in front of him, rubbing his belly like an overgrown St. Bernard. Dancer growled in pleasure, batting at the air with his forepaws. “I told you.”

Mountain nodded and smiled in response. “Yeah, you did. Now, if you’re going to go hunt, go hunt. I want to check you over before nightfall.” He turned, suddenly, to the tan wolf who had been standing silently beside him. “Unless you’d show me how…?”

Watcher smiled gently. “You’re doing fine, Mountain, though I think I’m going to get a nap while we wait for the others to return. The sweet smoke will do me some good.” He knelt and gathered a few strips of bark from the leather blanket, then stepped inside the sweat lodge, letting the flap fall into place behind him.

Mountain stood, alone, for several moments, simply enjoying the feel of the light breeze through his fur. Then, he dropped to all fours and padded over to the bank of the river. Staring into the water’s depths, he saw flashes of movement beneath the surface. He watched, still, then suddenly snapped out one paw, raking it through the water, laughing with cub-like delight at the solid smack of impact and then the gentle flop of the fish onto the bank. Two more followed in rapid succession, and then the Child of Bear turned to his catch, licking his lips in anticipation. He reared, his bear’s body rising onto its hinds, head tilted painfully back against his neck. Then the world bent around him as his head pivoted on its access. His claws shrunk, splayed as five short stubby digits gave way to padded, furred paw-like hands. The blunt stub of his tail fidgeted as he stretched, trying to relieve the pleasant ache that always accompanied the physical change from four legs to two. Then, finally, he knelt by the bank, fingers laced in the wet soil, his head bowed in prayer. “Thank you, Great Mother, for this gift. I am Your cub, and I am grateful for this world that You share with me, for the gifts You have bestowed.”

Alex smiled. “Nope. I failed, and you can confirm that with Watcher.”

The man stood, trying to shrug off Alex’s paw, but the bear kept a vice-grip on his shoulder. “I said you were on his side.”

Alex’s grin threatened to split his head. “Nope,” he repeated. “I’m on both your sides.”

At that, Watcher barked a short, painful laugh. “Ridiculous. That man is a Shepherd, intent on killing every last one of us.”

“Maybe,” Alex admitted. “I got his side of the story earlier. Watcher, tell me about Mirror’s Smile.”

The Child of Wolf froze, tail and muzzle dropping. “I fail to see what—”

Alex held out a paw. “Indulge me, Watcher. Tell me again what happened to her.”

The wolf sagged, nodding. “Very well, Mr. Demont, if you insist.” He turned and walked over to the riverbank, looking down. He hesitated as he approached Mirror’s body, kneeling next to the fallen Child of Wolf but visibly afraid to touch her. “She had Pledged herself to a small tributary of the Mississippi river. Someone poisoned the water, and—”

“Someone,” Alex interrupted. “You mean AllChem.”

Watcher nodded. “Yes, but I would not learn that until later. I tried for months to help her, when I could. Every remedy I knew, every possible cure I could divine, every prayer I could remember and some I invented just for her.” He reached down to Mirror’s body, fingers hesitantly brushing against her dull fur, tracing one visible rib on her skeletal frame. “Nothing worked. Little by little, the life went out of her, until in the end she begged me to end her pain.” His voice broke. “So I did.”

“You killed her,” Walker sneered, grunting as Alex dug his claws into his shoulder. “Put all the fancy words you like on it; you murdered her.”

Watcher’s head spun back towards Alex and Walker. “No! I… I did everything I could think to do! I was so young, then. I had only just realized my nature. She…” He turned back to his fallen mate. “She was the one to show me the truth of what I was.”

Alex nodded. “Sounds right.” He looked at Walker. “How does that sound to you?”

Walker glared over his shoulder. “How does what sound?”

Alex rolled his eyes, dragging the man over to where Walker knelt next to the fallen body. “For being so smart, you two sure are dumb.” He grabbed Watcher’s arm in his other paw, hauling the Child of Wolf to his feet. “Get a good look at each other. Look down, at her. Who do you see? What’s her name?”

“Mirror’s—” “Lisa—” Both man and wolf spoke, then stopped, staring at each other.

The bear let that sink in for a few seconds before continuing. “Walker, you said you buried everything for your job, until you met Lisa. Watcher, you said you had only just come into your nature when you met Mirror’s Smile. Both of you say the woman you love took sick for an unknown cause. Walker, the wolf tried to heal your girlfriend. Watcher, you did everything you could for Mirror.” As the two stared at each other in growing horror, Alex drove his point further home with every statement. “Walker, the wolf killed Lisa. Watcher, you put down your mate. You found out that AllChem had a chemical spill upstream, the company Walker worked for.”

He let go of their shoulders, walking away from both, while they stood in shock, eyes turning from each other to Alex and back. “You—either, both, whatever—threw away your dreams for your job, then met a woman who could help you have both again. She died when you used your newfound knowledge to try to save her, turning your back on the other half of your past. When you found out it was your company, the people for whom you had given up those visions in the first place, that cost you the love of your life, you cracked.” He threw his paws up in the air, turning to face the other two. “Come on, guys, don’t make me say this out loud.”

Walker and Watcher turned to each other; the man’s face twisted in disgust, the wolf’s in shame. “Right,” Alex said into the uncomfortable silence. “You two have a lot to discuss. I’m not asking you to kiss and make up, but do you two think you can resolve your differences without resorting to name-calling?”

“Don’t count on it,” Walker muttered, his eyes boring into the top of Watcher’s head.

Alex shrugged. “If you can’t, you’re going to die. Your only path to victory is suicide, Walker. It’s your choice. Find some way to live with Watcher, or quit living. Do you see a third option?” He waited several seconds for Walker’s indignant sputters to settle back into that angry stare. “Neither could I.”

Alex turned in his seat, putting one hand on the steering wheel and the other on the Child of Wolf’s shoulder. “Hey, Watcher… it’s going to be okay.”

“No, it’s not,” Watcher sobbed, slumping in his chair. “What have I done? What have I done what have I done oh Dancer and Tundra and Nighteyes and… I’m sorry… I’m so, so sorry….” His head bent, his ears pinned against his skull. “Lisa… Lisa, I’m sorry, I… I failed….” His voice descended from there into wordless sobbing.

“Watcher, listen,” Alex said gently, trying to calm the wolf. “I can’t possibly say I understand what you’re going through right now, because I don’t. What I can say is that you’re not alone, and we’re here to help. All of us. Briar and Dancer and I, at least. We’ll get through this. You need healing.”

Watcher swallowed heavily, struggling for control. “No, Mr. Demont, I… I don’t think there’s any healing for me, not after what I’ve done. I don’t think there’s penance big enough.” He closed his eyes, tensing. “I’d like… please, Alex, I… I don’t think I can live with the shame of killing my own kind.”

At that, Alex grinned. He drew in a deep breath, and as he let it out, his face stretched, mouth and nose fusing into a short blunt muzzle tipped by a black leathery nosepad. Fur blossomed along his cheeks, spreading over his scalp and down his neck to disappear beneath his disintegrating shirt. Claws burst from the ends of his fingers, digging into the steering wheel and poking into the wolf’s shoulder. He grunted, squirming against the seat and then tugging at his jeans to free the stubby tail trapped beneath at the end of his spine. Then, after a few moments of struggling, the remains of a pair of shoes flew into the truck bed.

The Child of Bear caught Watcher’s open-jawed stare and chuckled. “If you can’t deal with it, what makes you think I’d handle it any better?”

“But….” For once, the wolf seemed at an absolute loss for words. He swallowed heavily, blinking rapidly as if trying to dispel an illusion. “How?”

The bear shrugged. “Before, I only thought I believed. Now I actually do.”

Watcher leaned back in his seat, gaping. “I really have no idea what to say to that, or to anything else. I’m at a loss as to what to do.”

The Child of Bear gestured to the steering wheel. “We go back to Shadowdance’s Protectorate. We help him rebuild. We help you and Tom rebuild. The rest will take care of itself.”

The wolf shook his head. “It’s not that easy. I’ve… killed people. I’m afraid I may try to do so again.”

“Killing you won’t bring them back,” the bear said, turning to face out the front window. “Alive, at least you can do penance. I don’t think you’re a risk, but if you do try something, there will be others around to catch you before you do anything drastic. It’ll be a long time before you’re well, and it won’t be easy, but you’ll have others around you to help. Besides, Briar and Shadowdance already know.”

Watcher looked up at that, ears drooping. “They do?”

The bear nodded. “Yeah, we caught Tom, I followed up on a hunch, they saw him change. Now, we should get going. We’ve got a lot of healing ahead, for all of us.”

The wolf shook his head slowly. “This… this is too much. I’m in your debt, Mr. Demont.”

“Please,” the Child of Bear said as he started the truck. “Call me Mountain.”

Walker knelt nearby, his shoulders hunched, his head bowed. His body shook as he sobbed softly, his arms extended. In front of him, a woman lay on a familiar leather sheet. Her sallow skin clung to her frame, her joints swollen. Dirt smudges and grass stains covered her chest and legs, while flecks of blood clung to her lips and chin. One arm lay extended out beside her, while the other Walker held in his own, his fingers entwined with hers. Her hair lay in a spill around her head, listless and dull. Her mucous eyes were vacant, staring at nothing.

Slowly, Alex approached, kneeling reverently on the other side of Lisa’s body. “I’m sorry, Walker,” he said quietly, keeping his hands on his knees.

The man lifted his head, his eyes red with tears and rage. “Sorry?” His voice was a harsh whisper. “I had to watch the woman I loved wither and die over the span of a year and you’re sorry? I had to put up with the sniveling, whining shaman who promised her health and delivered only pain and you’re sorry.” Walker spat the words through clenched teeth, fighting back more tears. “I had thrown everything into my job, until I met her. I turned my back on my dreams, devoted myself to my work. I gave up everything I ever wanted. Then I met Lisa.” He turned his eyes back to the woman in front of him, his bottom lip trembling. “She… she made it okay. She made all that sacrifice seem worthwhile. I spent every minute I could with her. When she got sick, that bastard wolf promised to take care of her. He promised to help her. And everything he did, everything he tried, only made it worse. I begged her to get help. I begged him to find a real doctor. She was so taken with him, and he was so sure of himself, and all I could do was watch as she died in front of me.”

Walker looked up once more, glaring across at Alex. “I can’t bring her back, but I can take from the wolf the thing he valued, the way I valued her. I can rob him of his dreams, destroy his precious vision, and then watch his heart shrivel up and blow away the way mine did.”

Alex put his hand back on his leg. “You’re killing people, Walker. You’re killing people who had nothing to do with Watcher, or Lisa.”

“No.” Walker’s insistence was final, his eyes cold. “I’m not killing anyone; I’m just culling the herd. If you all want to live like animals, then you can die like animals for all I care.”

Alex was silent for a moment as he stroked his beard in comptemplation. “What about Watcher?”

Walker grinned smugly. “Watcher’s gone. I caged him and sent him away.”

Alex rose carefully, keeping his hands at his side. “If he’s gone, he can’t see your revenge, can he? If you want him to suffer, doesn’t he need to be here to see it?”

“No!” The outburst was even stronger than the last. “If he’s here, you might let him go.”

“If he’s not here, how’s he going to see what you’re doing?” Alex spoke patiently, calmly. “How’s he going to know that you won?”

Walker’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t trust you. You’re on his side.”

Alex shrugged. “Why should I be? I’m not one of them. I failed his little test. You can ask Watcher yourself about that one.”

“You did?” At Alex’s nod, Walker stood and brushed the grime from his knees. “I wish I’d known that earlier. Sorry about your apartment.” He gestured behind Alex, then stepped over Lisa’s body to the cage under one of the trees. Inside it, a tan-furred wolf lay on his side, curled up like a pup, shaking. “So, the infallible Watcher fails again. How does that make you feel?” The wolf tried to look away, but Walker’s fist slammed into the cage, rattling the bars and making its occupant’s tail bristle. “Don’t turn your back on me, you hypocritical fraud. You thought you knew everything, but really, you’re just a dumb animal. Admit it!” Walker’s face distorted in a mask or rage. “Admit it!”

The wolf turned back, his ears flat against his skull. He hung his head, then nodded slowly, hunkering down on himself, his tail tucking itself between his legs.

Walker smirked, putting his hands on his hips. “So, the old wise wolf finally admits his folly. You’ve lost, Watcher.” He bent down, gloating into the cage. “There’s nothing you can do, this time. Your little friends might have gotten Parson, but they haven’t gotten me, and they won’t—”

A heavy, brown-furred paw slammed into the back of his head, knocking him into the trap; his forehead clanged off of the bars as he dropped to the ground. “He was never going to shut up,” Alex grumbled as he stepped forward. He peered through the bars at the wolf within. “I don’t suppose, with him out of the way, you can just whisk yourself out of there, can you?” Without waiting for an answer, he squatted, grabbing the bottom edge of the heavy iron cage and lifting. Once the gap was wide enough for the wolf, he grunted. “You better squeeze out while you can.”

Watcher needed no further encouragement and slunk under the cage, rising back onto his hind legs once free. “I am afraid I underestimated you, Mr. Demont,” he said softly once he was free. “Now, if you do me the courtesy of helping get Mr. Kinney here underneath—”

Alex dropped the cage, letting it slam into the ground. “No.”

Watcher’s ears flattened against his head. “But, Mr. Demont, you are quite aware that that man is one of the Shepherds. If he awakens—”

Alex turned around. “I’m quite aware of what he is, Watcher. And who he is.” He tapped the side of his head. “Every time you showed up around me, I could feel something… wrong. Like a spider crawling around inside my brain. I figured it was more of your spiritual association, but it wasn’t.” He looked down at his paws, then back up at the Child of Wolf. “It was mine.”

The wolf took a step backwards, away from the bear staring intently at him. “Mr. Demont, I… am afraid I am unsure what you mean.”

“Oh, I think you know exactly what I mean,” Alex replied, kneeling down and putting a paw on Walker’s shoulder, gently shaking him awake. “This ends, though. Now.”

The bear carefully rose, pressing the necklace into his breastbone. Snow fell from his shoulders and back as he moved, then cascaded down in a flurry as he shook off the last of his trance. “Come on, Tom,” he called out to the man on the other side of the fire.

Tom’s head snapped up to the bear’s, startled. “Go… where?”

Alex held out a heavy brown-furred paw to him, helping him rise. “To find something you’ve lost.” Once Tom was on his feet, the bear turned and began walking away from the fire, deeper into the forest.

Tom drew back. “It’s dangerous out there.”

The bear paused, then looked back. “No,” he said calmly, fingering the bear-claw hanging from his neck with one paw, the other held out to Parson. “I’ll protect you. We need to hurry, though.”

Tom hesitated, then followed, shoving his hands into the pockets of his coat. “I don’t like this,” he grumbled as he walked. “I wish I had my guns.”

Alex didn’t look back, though he did raise his nose to the faint wind. The only scents that came to him, though, were his own and Tom’s, and the fire, only visible behind them as shifting strands of light against the ground. “Why’s that, Tom? Is there something out here? And by the way, which way are we going?”

The hunter glared at Alex, stopping in his tracks. “I. Don’t. Know,” he said slowly and deliberately. “I just don’t like it here. I feel naked.”

The bear couldn’t help but grin and deliberately look down at his nude—though furred—form at that. When he opened his muzzle, though, the words were serious. “Tom, I think you know what’s out there, and I think you’re afraid of it. I know you’re scared, but whatever it is, I’m here to help. Okay?”

Tom’s eyes narrowed to slits. “I’m not scared.” His chin jutted out defiantly. “I’m… you won’t believe me.”

Alex held out his paws, pads up. “I’m here, aren’t I? Just show me, Tom. Show me what’s out here.”

Tom withdrew, standing for several seconds, looking back in the direction of the fire. He nodded, then spoke around clenched teeth. “Fine. This way.” The hunter turned, then strode into the forest, further from the flames. He was rigid as he walked, his pace almost a run, his arms held stiffly at his sides. Alex jogged lightly beside him. scanning the trees with all his senses, but everything told him that the two were alone. “Walker was the only one who believed me,” Tom continued. “He has a plan.”

“Walker?” Alex asked, trying not to sound winded. “Who’s Walker?”

Tom didn’t answer; he instead motioned towards a small cluster of trees towards which he walked. The campsite had vanished behind them, leaving them with only the faint rays of dusk and the first slivers of moonlight to light their way. “You wanted to see. It’s behind there.” His voice was hard, tense, with hints of fear creeping in around the edges. “I did warn you.”

Alex nodded, then deliberately slowed back to a walk. “Easy, Tom. Let’s go slow. I’m right here, okay? Whatever it is, I’m here. Wait here. Let me go first.” He held out a paw, waving Parson back, then carefully approached. A patch of ground had been scraped clear, and in the middle of it was the remains of a fire pit, a small pile of ash and charred wood. Beside it lay the remains of a Child of Deer. From the position of the body and the blood stains on the ground, it looked like he’d been shot once in the shoulder, fallen and tried to crawl away, then bled to death from a second bullet in the neck. One of his antlers had cracked in the fall, and his muzzle hung slightly open. One eye gazed balefully upwards staring in empty shock.

The bear put a paw over his muzzle, holding back the churning, but a familiar clack behind him made him freeze. “I told you,” Tom said. “It’s dangerous out here.”

Alex didn’t move. “Shooting me won’t bring him back, Tom. What happened?”

“He said I was one of you,” Parson spat. “And he wanted to show me. He wanted to help.” He sneered the word. “Up against the tree. I. Don’t. Need. Help.”

Alex moved, slowly, taking up a familiar position against one of the trees, his paws gripping the rough bark. “This isn’t going to prove anything, Tom. Are you?”

“Am I what?” Parson’s voice remained flat.

“One of us,” Alex responded just as calmly.

“Of course not!” The denial came fast and loud. “I’m a hunter! I’m not prey. You, however, are going to make a fine troph—” An angry yowl interrupted Parson’s voice, which rose into a scream, ending in a sharp crunch. Alex whipped around to see a mountain lion crouching over Parson’s prone form. His foreclaws were sunk completely through Parson’s coat. In the faint light of twilight, the big cat’s tan coat looked like pale shadows poured over a skeletal feline frame. His eyes were golden and flashed with anger.

“Murderer,” the cougar hissed, digging his claws in further. “I knew you’d come back. Sumac wasn’t enough for you, was it?” Tom tried to find the air to scream again, but the sudden jab into his shoulders reduced him to a breathless whimper. “At least while you were too scared to go looking, I was safe.” His forearms rippled as he gouged out more of Parson’s flesh, but his eyes turned from the man under him to the bear. “No thanks to you, he’ll be after me next.”

Alex lumbered over and dropped to the ground, for the moment ignoring Tom’s writhing. “Maybe. What’s your name? I’m… well, call me Alex.”

The mountain lion stopped twisting his claws into Tom’s shoulders, instead sprawling across his back and leaning heavily on the open wounds. He regarded the bear for some seconds, then turned and licked at one forepaw, grooming it nonchalantly. Several seconds past, while the cat made a show of ignoring both the question and its asker. Alex held up a paw. “Fine, don’t tell me. Listen… I think you two need to talk.”

The cat looked back at Alex, then down at Tom with a grin. “Oh, I don’t think there’s anything to talk about, is there, Tom?”

“Animal,” Tom gasped in reply. “I don’t… I don’t want—”

“Hey, can you ease off of him? You two need to resolve this.” Alex put a paw on the cougar’s flank. “He’s not going anywhere.”

The cat’s golden eyes narrowed, but he shifted off of Tom’s back, curling up and resuming his impromptu grooming. Alex helped get Tom up to a sitting position, though he groaned as he rose, whimpering at the claws in his back. Once they were both seated, Alex nodded. “Now, why don’t you two tell me what happened to the deer over there.”

Both cat and hunter started at once, then fell silent. The cougar went back to his paw, and Tom turned his head back towards the fallen body. “I don’t know,” he said. “Dave and I… it was the end of college. We’d gone out camping. I used to love that kind of thing. Getting back to nature, all that. It was weather a lot like this, really. We’d been hiking up through Wyoming; Dave said he’d wanted to get well off the trails, so we were well out into the woods. We set up camp and I’d gone out to pull down some small game for dinner, but when I get back—”

The cougar lifted his head at that and hissed. “You whip out your gun and shoot Sumac in the chest.”

Tom turned his head to the can and glared. “Maybe if he’d said what he’d done with Dave—”

Alex rose at that, stepping forward to physically interpose as cat and human leaned towards each other. One paw fell heavily on each shoulder, pushing them back apart. “Okay, kids, that’s enough. I guess that was Sumac back over there I saw. Now, Tom, I get that you’re angry. I get why you’re angry. I don’t get why you’re taking out that anger on us.”

The cat rumbled back in his chest, glaring at Tom. “He didn’t need a reason. He’s just a killer!”

“It was self-defense!” Tom shouted in reply. “I didn’t know what that… that thing had done with Dave! How was I to know I wasn’t next?”

Alex growled. “Okay, knock it off.” He shoved both of them back into their seats, Tom landing with a gasp of pain. “You two don’t get it, do you? You’re really this deep in denial. Tom, have you ever seen this particular talking cat before?” He rounded on the cat. “And…have you ever actually seen Tom before, or do you just know him from his sterling reputation?” At that, both human and cat turned to look at each other, eyes widening at once before they turned back to Alex. “Yeah, thought so. Like I said, you two need to work this out. In the meantime, think I can trust you not to kill each other?”

Tom and the cat looked once more at each other, then back to Alex, before nodding. Alex grinned. “Listen. Nobody said this was going to be easy, but you’re not going to be alone on this. You’ve got others around to help.” They nodded again, and Alex rose, clutching again at his necklace. “I’ll see you outside.”

He half-dragged, half-pushed himself up onto his knees, stretching out the kinks in his knotted tendons and hoping that the movement would help restore the flow of blood to his extremities. He couldn’t feel his fingertips, and his ears burned from the cold. He rubbed at his arms, the stiff hair raised into gooseflesh. With a groan, he hauled himself to his feet, forcing himself to stumble around the firepit, trying to restore his circulation.

A soft whine echoed the grunts of pain that escaped him, and he looked down to see Shadowdance, sprawled near the firepit, batting at the air in his sleep. At least someone’s warm, he thought, eyeing with envy the wolf’s heavy coat of fur insulating him from the frigid ground. The bear-mind, starting to respond again, chuckled lightly.

Alex held his hands out over the fire, until his palms started to itch from the heat, then rubbed them against his exposed skin, trying to transfer the warmth. After ten minutes of that, he started to feel more awake, less like a quivering statue, and he yawned again, dispelling the last of the sleep from his mind.

His stomach growled, and memories of the salmon he had slapped to the bank of the river in his spiritscape so many times rose up, amplifying his hunger. He looked again at his hands and sighed, shaking his head. Now was not the time for reminiscing, or for self-pity. He needed to find food. Watcher might be able to help him with that, suggesting things that, while probably not palatable, would at least be nourishing enough to get him back to his car so he could go buy breakfast somewhere, maybe at a roadside restaurant somewhere back along the interstate.

How far was the car? Was there enough gas in it? Could he even find it again? The bear-mind tried to admonish him for asking questions he couldn’t answer, but he ignored that part of his brain, the gravity of his situation and the disappointment of the night before weighing heavily on his thoughts. Here he was, the only Child of Man stuck with a bunch of shapeshifters, in the middle of a declared disaster area, potentially on the run from police, almost certainly wanted for questioning about his apartment’s spontaneous combustion. By now they’d probably found his car and impounded it. Wouldn’t being caught in the middle of a forest fire do wonders for any claims to innocence? What was a good arson sentence worth these days, ten to twenty without parole?

Alex forced his arms to his sides, clenching his fists, ignoring the churning in his stomach. He realized he’d been pacing, walking a tight line back and forth, across the fire pit from the still-sleeping Shadowdance. His chest felt tight, and his breath came in short bursts. He stopped, looked towards the dwindling flames, leaned his head back and drew in a deep breath, trying to focus on the lingering rainstorm scent of the smoke and the slight burning in his lungs as they expanded, even as the butterflies danced in his stomach. Then, out again, noisily exhaling. In through the nose, out through the mouth, he reminded himself. Tense, then relax. When it seemed unlikely that either his guts or his panic would attempt another coup, he lowered himself down to his knees in front of the ring of stones surrounding the fire and bowed his head. Great Mother, he thought, keeping his breathing regular, his pulse and the crackling of the fire loud in his ears. Even if… if You won’t have me… I am as Your cub. I ask not that You show me the way out of this, but that You give me the strength and courage to find my own way free. The prayer seemed silly, given his painful self-discovery, but the familiarity helped, even if the words themselves left him cold.

He continued his slow and steady breathing, focusing on the flow of air as it whistled in his nose and rasped in his throat, letting his mind empty of every thought save the silent supplication to Bear and the steady rhythm of his own heartbeat. All else faded into insignificance, each worry or doubt brought to the forefront of his mind and then dismissed with a mental wave of his paw. The knotting in his stomach eased, his back and shoulders truly loosening for the first time since he’d awoken. He unclenched his hands from their fists and rested his palms against the bare earth, feeling the hard ground beneath them, the warmth of the fire against his forearms.

Alex rumbled as he rose, wiping the dirt from his pawpads as he stood on his hinds. A brisk wind blew down from the mountain’s peak, and he basked in it, his shaggy pelt rustling. For several moments, he basked in the air, arms outstretched, catching as much of the air as he could in his fur, feeling it whip around him, listening to it whistle in his ears. Behind him, the entrance of the cave called to him, and he trundled towards it, the scents that clung to the rocks within comforting his soul.

The interior was dark, but he knew the way like he knew his own skin, and his feet carried him surely forward in the near-black. A great sow, his dam, rested at the back of the cave, rumbling in her sleep, and he pressed himself against her side, her heavy coat of fur a blanket over his own. Her scent covered him, filling him with peace. In the coming months, he knew he would need to leave, to find his own place, but for now it was still a great joy to be by her side, basking in her warmth, and he let himself drift back into sleep, surrounded by the great bear’s presence.

Alex jerked his eyes open in the tent, leaning heavily on his hands, the fire’s heat uncomfortable against his skin. Several times, he blinked, as if clearing sleep from his eyes, but he felt wide awake. A dream? A vision? A smile spread across his face, and the bear-mind smiled with him. Worry about what you can change, he told himself, and let the rest happen on its own. For now, breakfast needed to be his first priority, and his stomach rumbled in agreement.

What little light from the opening of the crevasse quickly faded as the passageway turned, the ground beneath his feet angled downward, into the belly of the mountain itself. In the darkness, Alex’s tension grew with each step, a knot forming in the pit of his stomach as his feet carried him further into Bear’s cave. The walls dug at his shoulders, tufts of fur catching and tearing free as he stumbled onward, his paws outstretched in front of him in the darkness. Where the wind outside had been a constant droning in his ears, here all was still, unmoving, only his own movements stirring the air.

His claws rapped painfully against the stone wall, echoes of the impact rebounding off of the narrow walls. The bearman whuffed in annoyance and began feeling in the dark for the latest turn, but what met his paws made him wince from more than the dull ache of the impact. The tunnel shrank even further ahead, half the height of the previous, already-cramped space. Kneeling, Alex could see dim flickers of movement ahead, bouncing off the wall past another turn in the tunnel: his destination, if only he could reach it.

Alex felt around the opening, measuring it with his paws, and then tried to squirm past, but he only needed one test to decide he’d have to find some other way to continue: he could barely squeeze both shoulders into the tunnel at once, and there was no way he’d get the rest of him to follow at that size. The shifting slivers of light ahead taunted him, showing him just how close he was, and yet the last ten feet might well be a hundred miles, if he couldn’t find some way past this shrunken gap.

Damnit! Alex’s thick pawpad smacked heavily into the stone floor, making his elbow twinge in pain and small clouds of rockdust swirl, settling into his fur. He wasn’t about to turn back here, and yet where was there else to go? He could find no other openings with his hands, and he hadn’t felt any along the walls as he’d entered. He could see light ahead, when he looked, so there had to be someone past this opening, but there was no way past? He simply couldn’t fit as the bear.

What about as the man? The bear-mind wondered.

Even as the idea came to him, he rejected it as unacceptable. He’d fought so hard to escape that life; he wasn’t about to embrace it here. This was his chance to be himself. Willfully adopting his human form, in his own dreamscape… could he even do so? And did he want to try? The notion rankled, but the more he studied it, the more it seemed the best solution, if reverting to the furless skin he’d so eagerly escaped could be called the best. At least it got him where he wanted to go, or so he hoped.

Alex turned his attentions inward, concentrating on the rising and falling of his chest as he knelt, his forepaws on his knees, trying to ignore the thick shag of his pelt beneath his pads. Draw in the man, draw out the bear. Focus on the trappings of humanity, the apartment, the job, the daily grind. After so long unlearning the importance of the things that held him beholden to his previous life, to try to consider them meaningful now, or even to think of specifics, made his forehead furrow, but slowly he called up images and ideas that belonged in the World of Man: the comforting hum of an air conditioner on a hot day, the steady flicker of fluorescent lighting, the smell of fresh-brewed coffee.

His body slowly bent and twisted under him, the fur receding from his rapidly lightening skin. His massive claws slowly shrank back to cracked and split fingernails, the ones on his hinds retreating back into his toes. He felt light-headed, weak. A familiar weight settled against his chest, the bear-claw poking him through the tangle of wiry, greyish brown hair. He ran his fingers through his hair, pulling it back and out of his face, then scratched at his untrimmed beard briefly before rearing back to squat over his heels, looking at his hands, pink and furless. The real me, he thought cynically.

With his reduced bulk, the tunnel walls were close but still gave him plenty of room to pass, and he crawled down the last ten or twelve feet in a hurry, cursing under his breath as the loose rocks that had gone unnoticed under his dense pawpads now dug painfully at his unprotected skin. More than once he scraped something harshly against the rocks, making him flinch and swear again, but soon he rounded the final corner, the tunnel quickly widening beyond into a large cave, in the middle of which blazed a fresh wood fire. Wisps of heavy, savory smoke rose from the flames, blending with the heavy scent of predator that so long back had attracted Alex to the cave.

Of Bear, there was no sign.

“Hello?” Alex said almost reflexively, his human voice small in the large cavern, echoing faintly in the enclosed space. “I have come to see Bear.”

No voice spoken in answer, but the bear-mind asked him if that were really why he were here.

Alex blinked, not expecting the internal response, but having gotten one, he continued. “I have come to see if I am a Child of Bear.”

Are you? The bear-mind asked quietly.

“That’s what I’ve come to find out!” Alex burst out, looking around, feeling a bit foolish for talking with himself. Not only that, he thought, but arguing with myself as well. If I lose, I’m going to feel really stupid. “Watcher sent me here to find that out.”

Are you? The bear-mind asked again, just as implacably. It seemed unconcerned by the outburst, as it had by the rest of Alex’s frustrations.

“You don’t know?” Alex asked peevishly, the hair on the back of his neck rising.

The bear-mind chuffed a laugh. If you are, then you are. Why ask me?

“You’re saying if I say that I am, then I am?” The answer seemed too simple, even for the child-like innocence of the bear-mind.

No, it told him calmly. If you are, then you know you are. If you have to ask, then you aren’t. Being a Child of Nature is as simple as believing it, but that belief must come from within. It cannot be given, cannot be taken, and cannot be stolen. It must come from within, and it must be accepted with an open mind and an honest heart.

The bear-mind then scowled, and Alex shivered, feeling its anger for the first time. You say you believe. You even think you believe. If you truly believed, though, you would already know it.

Alex rose on the balls of his feet, turning his head towards the ceiling. “I am a Child of Bear!” he called out, his voice ringing feebly off of the rocks, hollowly resounding in his ears.

Are you? The bear-mind asked him again simply.

Alex’s head dropped, and he stared down at his hands: hairless, clawless, furless. The real me. He’d thought in anger and disgust, but he’d thought it. The crushing weight of understanding collapsed inward on him, as if the mountain above him had suddenly given way. The flames snuffed themselves, plunging the cave into darkness, and Alex fell heavily to his bare knees and wept bitter tears into his pink, padless, human hands.

The Child of Wolf stopped short, tail and ears perking at the sound of his name. “I am impressed, Mr. Demont,” he said in response, his own voice low, matching the Alex’s. “Your self-discovery is proceeding apace, I can tell.” He detoured briefly by the lodge, then returned to kneel again next to Alex, dropping the aged and worn leather bandolier of pouches on the ground next to him. In his other hand, he held an array of broad flat leaves, similar to the ones that had been on the wound before. “These should do nicely. If you rub them in your hands, they smell faintly of anise and mint.” He balanced the stack of leaves on his knee, then placed one flat between his pawpads and twisted sharply, passing it to Alex.

Alex lowered his face to the presented greenery and inhaled, trying to focus on the specific scent of the plant. The leaf definitely held overtones of licorice. He caught the whiff of mint, too, which brought back memories of the leaves that Watcher had left for him to ease his sleep. “This will help heal the wound?”

Watcher nodded, laying it over the injured flesh. In turn, he took each leaf from the stack, giving it a quick grind between his paws before layering it with the rest over Briar’s wound. Rapidly, he covered the site of the injury, then pulled a length of thin twine from one of the pouches on his sash and bound the whole. “Keep your weight off that leg as much as you can. You should try to sleep in the natural, if you feel able.”

“The natural?” Alex looked quizzically up at the wolf.

“Fully as an animal, on four legs instead of two,” Briar explained, nodding as she withdrew her leg from Alex’s hands. “It feels better, thank you.”

Alex found himself grinning at that, even if he did nothing but play nurse during the procedure. “Good.”

Watcher nodded as well. “Excellent. That resolved, though, there are other matters that require attendance.” With that, he turned to face Alex, cocking his head to one side in an inquisitive glance. “You asked about Lost Ones before.”

The statement caught him off-guard, and for a moment Alex could only stare blankly, but then his mind caught up to him and he nodded. “Both Shadowdance and Briar have mentioned them now, and you started to explain before. You’ve definitely got my attention.”

The tan wolfman studied Alex for a moment, reaching out with one arm to grasp his shoulder. When he spoke next, his voice carried the low tones of a conspirator. “Do you believe that you are?”

Any words Alex might have said stuck in his throat. The would-be Child of Bear could only grasp the swaying claw at his necklace and hold it against his chest.

The shaman ran the claws of his free paw through the fur of his neck, his eyes staring into Alex’s as if trying to take in the sight of the man’s soul. “I believe so as well, Mr. Demont,” he said after several tense seconds. “However, I know of only one way to know for certain.”

“What?” Alex whispered hoarsely, this throat tight. Something was sucking the air out of his lungs, making it hard to breathe, to think clearly.

Watcher broke his gaze away from Alex’s, staring into the endless black of the forest. “You must ask Bear for yourself.”

Distantly, he was aware of the Child of Wolf chanting, of Briar sitting next to him at the edge of the real river watching the two of them as the shaman sent him into his own mind, into what Watcher could only describe as a vision of the soul. Not just a fantasy of what he wanted to see, this would be a journey to face what he truly believed, whether he accepted it or not. Where his past forays into the other life had been simple jaunts, this promised to be a harrowing trip of self-discovery.

Trying to understand Watcher’s explanations of the spiritscapes and how they related to each other and to Nature bordered dangerously on the edge of solipsism, and focusing on the part of his mind still aware of the outside world made the whole experience seem so absurd that briefly his human conscience rose in protest, making the ground pitch dangerously beneath him. He staggered briefly, stumbling to grip a heavy pine. It felt solid beneath the thick pads of his paws, as did the ground beneath his feet. Still, some distant corner of his mind protested it all as illusion, self-hypnosis and insanity.

He sighed, shaking his head and slowly filling his lungs with cool, damp air, trying to force himself to focus. He closed his eyes against the inner world as well as the outer, concentrating on the rough grip of the pine bark beneath his thick pads. He felt the tug of the jagged edges of the wood, more a light scratching than anything else against his dense flesh. He could smell the sap that clung to the needles and flowed within its branches. He turned, lifting his paws away from the tree, and ground his back against it, breathing slowly and lulling his conscious objections back to submission.

Focus on the sensations, he told himself calmly, as if he were back in his apartment, teaching himself to open his eyes. Hold the image in your mind, so intently that your nerves tingle from the imagined touch, your muscles twitch from the perceived effort. He kept up his hedonistic back-scratching for almost a minute, then spun fiercely and tore free a swatch of bark, carving four jagged gouges out of its side. Something stabbed him, a dull pain beneath his claws, and he lifted his hand to inspect it. Several splinters and bits of bark had embedded themselves within the tough skin of his fingerpads, and he picked at them with the claws of his off-hand, digging out fragments of wood and casting them aside. The fur of the backs of his knuckles felt mildly sticky with pinesap, and its sweet aroma clung to his fur.
It all seemed so real.

It is real, the bear-mind insisted, chiding his human sensibilities for still trying to doubt. To the best of his senses’ knowledge, he stood on the soft slope of a tree-covered mountain. The wind ruffled his fur, making him shiver despite its insulation. He listened to it, tracking it with his ears. It blew down from the snow-covered peak that lay ahead, winding through the trees and making the branches clatter against each other. None of these sensations came to him from outside his own mind, and yet he could not by inspection tell he wasn’t really there.

Alex turned into the wind, facing up the side of the mountain. Somewhere nearer the summit lay a cave, within which dwelt Bear. Whether autonomous spirit or the product of his own faith, the essence of what he knew as the Great Mother lay somewhere before him, and to truly know if he were one of Her children, he would have to ask Her.

It seemed, though, that She had no interest in guests, if the landscape were any indication. The soft mosses and fallen pine needles sank beneath his feet on every step, slowing his pace. The stiff breeze dug beneath his fur and made his eyes tear as he trod upwards towards his unseen goal. Even the trees seemed oppressive, leaning over him expectantly, gossiping with each other and the heavy wind that rattled their branches. He felt watched, his every misstep documented.

How long had he walked? How far had he gone? How far was left? The questions held no meaning in this mental landscape, and yet he couldn’t help but wonder. The forest was unfamiliar with him, every tree a stranger. He knew he had made progress, but in what direction? Was he any closer now than he had been when he first started? Just walk, the bear-mind told him a bit sternly. You’ll arrive when you get there. Until then, you still have more to travel. It seemed the only advice he could follow, and so he did, his world reducing to four points: his feet against the ground, the wind in his eyes, the ever-present scent of pine, and his breath rumbling in a steady cycle. In and out. In and out.

The sudden jut of the mountain, part of the ground fallen away to leave short cliff, looked unremarkable at a distance; it was just another obstacle to overcome. As Alex neared, though, what had appeared as a shadow in the rocks grew to a heavy crack in the escarpment, leaving a tunnel obviously big enough for a man or more. Something shifted, black on black within, like a shadow moving against a darkened wall. As he approached the gash, the scent of something raw and powerful came to his nose, overwhelming. This way, the bear-mind told him. Within.

The wolf’s tongue felt thick in his muzzle, pressing against the backs of his teeth. He licked nervously at his nosepad, but it felt warm and dry, robbed of moisture. He whined, tail curling between his legs as he wandered, lost in his own territory. The trails he had run for years seemed alien to him now, the landscape twisted from true by the fire that had run rampant through his sacred lands.

He tried to catch a whiff of game in the uncomfortably warm wind, some sign of life suggesting that part of his Protectorate had remained untouched by the flames, but when he inhaled dusty soot clung to the back of his throat, sending him into a coughing fit. The ash in the air robbed it of what little moisture might have remained, and every breath burned his lungs. He gazed down at the river, licking his chapped muzzle. The water looked gritty from the amount of black floating on its surface, but beneath all that should be the same river he had always known. He cringed as he neared it, whining as he waded into the polluted river. Holding his breath, he plunged his muzzle beneath the floating scum, lapping frantically at the cool water below.

The water tasted greasy, coating his throat like a layer of oil and leaving a sour, sickly-sweet aftertaste in its wake. From the first swallow, Shadowdance knew something was wrong, but his body craved the liquid and he drank as if driven to it, gulping greedily even as it turned his stomach. Every drop only fueled his thirst, making him dryer than the one before, but he forced himself to drink until his belly hung in the water, swollen and distended. He lifted his muzzle, his gorge rising, and he turned towards the bank, but before his hinds had left the river he vomited, his body purging itself, rancid fluid spilling over the fur of his chest.

He flopped onto his side, the stink of what had been the contents of his stomach mixing with the heavy soot already clogging his nostrils, making him weak and lightheaded. The once-grey wolf tried to call out, to raise his voice begging for help, but only a high-pitched whimper escaped him, cut off sharply by another round of gagging, more of the poisonous fluid coating the rocks in front of him, washing away the black of the soot with a faint greenish stain.

His flesh crawled, his stomach turning itself inside-out in rebellion against whatever noxious chemical he had just swallowed. He tried again to howl, this time managing little better than the cry of a cub, the coppery sweetness of blood lining his lips as the lining of his abused throat cracked and split. When an answering call, crisp and pure, rang in the distance, at first the wolf feared that the poisons from the river had already seeped into his brain. When the howl repeated, though, Shadowdance sagged briefly in relief, then struggled back to all fours, staggering towards the answering call.

His nose caught only ashes and the reek of his own matted and soiled fur in the hot wind, but his ears told him where to go, the howl repeating at intervals above the mindless chattering of the empty blackened branches overhead. The irregular rhythm of his paws belaboring against the ground as he staggered towards the invitation became his only mantra against exhaustion.

As if from empty air, he felt cool paws against his scorched hide, gently brushing the charred patches of fur from his ruined coat. A wet tongue dragged against his cracked and chapped nosepad, and then again at his ear. Then, sweet and pure water covered his tongue and lips, and he lapped eagerly at it, the cramping in his stomach finally starting to relax. He opened his own eyes and stared into his savior’s amber ones, tail thumping the ground in the only means he had of giving thanks.
He wasn’t alone. Past the tan-furred wolf’s shoulder lingered an unfamiliar scent. Heavier, earthy, and yet young, like a cub’s. He turned his head stiffly and saw the blunt muzzle of a bear, deep brown fur tinged with grey. He stumbled past the wolf, and then two pairs of massive paws began gently grooming him, wiping away the charred remnants of his tattered coat, the stubble of fresh growth already evident beneath their touch.

Watcher’s muzzle caressed his own. “Grant us passage, Shadowdance?”

He nodded, trying to rub back, the movements exhausting to him.

The tan wolf shook his head, resting one paw against Shadowdance’s chest. “Rest for now. You’re still very sick.” Watcher licked the grey wolf’s muzzle again for comfort. “Remember when you awaken, and tell Briar. We will be there, before nightfall, with medicine.”

“Medicine?” The grey wolf brightened, his blue eyes shimmered with cub-like hope. Then he yawned, curling up into a ball, his singed tail over his muzzle. He hurt, but the thought of not hurting carried sleep with it, and soon he was dozing, his breathing easy, thoughts of fire and fear gone from his mind.

“The spiritscape is a powerful place, Mr. Demont,” Watcher said as he rose from his own kneeling position. “A healthy soul can purge many of its body’s ills there. A sick one will make its bearer worse. The toxins introduced into Shadowdance’s Protectorate did exactly as our adversaries hoped they would, turning his mind into their greatest weapon. Even if we could treat the land, a Child of Nature in such a disturbed state would corrupt it again in a matter of months; we would be treating the symptoms, not the cause.”

Alex said nothing as he rose, the bear-claw talisman oddly heavy against his chest. Three weeks ago, the wolf had come to his apartment and, in the span of less than half an hour, turned the world he thought he had known on its head. Last night, Watcher had come again, and just as Alex had knitted together the edges of his tattered reality they had been blown forcibly apart, what passed for his home gone with them. The frenetic inquisition through which he’d put the wolf during the night had yielded only more questions, fueling his fear and frustration.

They had stopped, briefly, somewhere near the Colorado border, at an all-night convenience store just off the freeway. While the wolf had secreted himself in the back seat, Alex had scrounged for breakfast, doughnuts and coffee, wandering along the aisles staring at the brightly colored packages of sweet cakes and pastries in wonder. Somewhere, in another world, this was normal, he thought. The clerk named a number when he approached the register, and he pulled a wad of bills mechanically from his wallet. He was in shock, and the still-rational part of his mind knew it, but the rest kept trying to go about business as if nothing had changed.

Sitting on the hood of his car, he sipped from a disposable paper cup, the hot liquid searing his tongue, and watched the sun rise over the tree-covered mountainside, a thin plume of smoke visible in the distance: their destination. Memories of the blast, of the frantic escape from his apartment, of playing Twenty Questions with the wolf, sent his thoughts into an endless loop of unanswerable questions. Where would he go now? When could he go back? Was that even an option? What was really going on? Could he trust the wolf?

What would he do if he couldn’t?

Pushed to his limits, his world gone behind him, that part of his psyche he had come to call the bear-mind came to the fore. Had the explosion taken anything from him that he hadn’t wanted to lose? His contact with the hare—Briar, the wolf had called her—in what Watcher had called the spiritscape had shown him a world in which he had desperately wished to live, without even knowing what it was that he wanted. Meeting the wolf in the flesh had only made that longing more real. In his meditations, he had been seeking another life, and now it had found him. Now was the time not for panic, not for fear, but for acceptance and discovery.

With these quiet self-discoveries, a strange peace settled about his mind, the eye of his emotional maelstrom. The words came to him without effort, as if someone were whispering them into his ear. Great Mother, he thought, breathing deeply, letting himself relax for the first time since getting into his car all those hours ago, I am but Your cub, and if this is the path of my life, then I ask Your help in following it. He inhaled, the scents of pine and cedar, the crisp bite of cool mountain air filling his nostrils, and as he exhaled again a tension he hadn’t known he carried fell from him. It hadn’t been in a tightness of his chest or back, or a throbbing in his temples. It had felt more like a weariness that no longer saturated his bones. Though tired from his night of driving, he felt ready to reach Deer Run National Park, to meet the one who had called for help, and offer what he could.

Watcher lifted his gaze as Alex slid back behind the driver’s seat. “Prayer is important to a Child of Nature,” he said softly, his ears perked in a smile. “It keeps us connected, with those who give us our gifts, and with each other.”

Alex’s response was a single motion, cupping the bearclaw medallion against his chest.

“It is early evening. The crisp bite of wind fills your nostrils, ruffling your fur. You can smell water, fresh and fast, not too distant. Sunlight filters down through the treetops, casting long shadows on the underbrush. The evening is calm, the sounds of nature surrounding you…”

He had long since learned to tune out the words themselves, the sound of his own prerecorded voice coming back to him. What mattered now was the ritual, helping him ease into the proper mindset. Slowly, one by one, Alex tuned into the sensations around him, the waxy scent of smoke in his nose, the dim whisper of the ceiling fan blowing cool air over his body. As he brought them to the forefront of his mind, he dismissed them, letting them fade into unimportance as he resumed focusing on his own breath.

Swimming in the emptiness of his mind, the images carried in the droning of his own voice began to insinuate themselves. In the beginning, he would get little more than snatches of imagery, fleeting visions, sensations. All would fade as soon as he opened his eyes, and he spent every moment he could drag away from his life in meditation. The more he practiced, the easier the images came and the longer they stayed with him, retaining their dream-like state for minutes and later hours after. Now, if he slipped into what he called “the other life” more than once or twice on a weekend, he’d be too distracted for work on Monday, but if he didn’t do it at all, he’d be too stressed.

Stretching, he rose from his kneeling spot on the forest floor, dusting away the pine needles from the fur of his knees and calves, straightening his legs and feeling the back of his calves complain. The wind caught his fur, brown with greying tips and sent waves across his back. He lifted his black nose to the wind and drank in the air. The river was a few miles behind him, and fish sounded like an excellent dinner. He could smell deer in the woods, and they were probably closer, but venison didn’t make his tongue loll the way fresh fish could, and so the decision was easy.

Dropping to all fours, he spun and began a measured pace, not quite a jog, towards the water, all the while keeping ears and nose open, bringing the forest to him. The scent of rabbit, pungent and sweet, cut across his senses and for a brief moment, his world spun dangerously as his forebrain reared its ugly head, wondering where it had entered his narrative, and how he knew what it was. The other life reasserted itself quickly enough, though, with a growl from his stomach, and he resumed his fast walk to the river.

The crystal waters rippled over the riverbed, and Alex drank in the clear, blue scent as he approached. Leaning forward, he saw the shaggy, brown-furred outline of his head and muzzle, his short rounded ears. He reared, his bear’s body rising onto its hinds, head tilted painfully back against his neck, and then the world bent, squirming around him, as his head pivoted on its access. His claws shrunk, splayed as five short stubby digits gave way to padded, furred paw-like hands. The blunt stub of his tail fidgeted as he stretched, trying to relieve the pleasant ache that always accompanied the physical change from four legs to two. Then, finally, he knelt by the bank, fingers laced in the wet soil, his head bowed in prayer.

Thank you, Mother, for this gift, and for these visions. I am Your cub, and I am grateful for this world that You share with me, for the gifts You have bestowed. There was little more to be said, but he remained there, bent double, relaxing in the sensations of finally feeling like himself.

The smell of fish came to him through and above the water, and moments later his ears caught soft splashes. Eyes still closed, he leaned forward, letting his ursine senses guide him as he waited, listening, breathing deeply through his nostrils, and then snapped out a paw, laughing inside with cub-like delight at the solid smack of impact and then the gentle flop of the fish on the bank.

Opening his eyes, reached out with both paws and lifted the meal to his muzzle, biting into the cold flesh of the fish, sharp teeth cutting through scale and bone. The sweet white meat was ambrosia on his tongue and he swallowed hungrily, each bite only fueling his appetite. Soon, nothing was left but the taste in his muzzle and the stain of oil on his paws and fur.

He leaned forward to swat more from the river, when his nose caught the same scent before, this time more masked from the river but no less present for all that. A crunch came from behind him, and his ears tracked the sound downstream about twenty yards, the same direction as the scent. Rising, he turned and prepared to dash in the direction of the foreign scent, to find whatever invader was disturbing his private vision. Before he got three steps, though, he froze, mind working overtime.

She was predominantly grey-furred, with swatches of bluer grey and tan mixed at odd intervals. Her ears, tipped in black, rose from her head, twisting constantly, scanning for sounds. The whiskers on her muzzle arched from time to time. She knelt on the riverbank, sitting over her heels, balanced on broad toes and hands. As he watched, she leaned forward and bit into a thick knot of grass, wet with water from the cool river. A bit of calculation buzzed in his brain, and he guessed that she would top six feet with her ears, but that without them she might be five-eight at best. At the base of her spine twitched a short ball of fluff, grey on top, tan beneath.

Holy shit, Alex’s mind coughed up.

She chewed slowly, focused on her own meal, and if she had any indication of his presence, she didn’t show it. He stood, numb, as he watched her tug up shoots and blades of grass, chewing them slowly, swallowing them with obvious as much relish as he’d had with his fish. When the small knot with which she’d started was gone, she shifted, less heard than simply realized, starting on the next patch, her ears never stopping their movement.

She has to know I’m here, the bear-man thought. She had to have heard me, with ears like those. He tried to move and found to his semi-surprise that he could. He stepped forward, his hind-paw hitting the ground with a jarring thud.

At that, she jerked up, a few errant blades of grass trailing from her muzzle, scattering on the wind as she dashed back a good five feet in the time he realized she had moved. She stood, panting, weight shifting uneasily from one leg to the other, obviously ready to run again. “Who are you?”

She spoke English.

Alex’s mind spun crazily, stammering. The world rippled, threatening to tear at the delicate seams of his droning, audible now in his ears. His grip on the other life was slipping, tearing out of his paws, and he knelt, fingers pressed to the thick, damp earth, struggling to not to lose control. She stepped forward, hesitatingly, and then she was at his side, paws against his shoulders. “Are you alright?”

The bear panted, fingers clutching at the rich dark earth for purchase, feeling dizzily as if, were he to let go, he might fly off into the sky. This isn’t happening. None of this is happening. I’m kneeling, naked, human, in the middle of my living room, listening to my own voice chanting at me on my CD player. The scent of her fur clung to his nostrils, the aftertaste of the fish in his muzzle still sweet. He lifted a pawful of dirt, letting the soil run through his fingers. It felt real. It smelled real.

“I’ll find Watcher. He’ll know how to help.” With that the hare rose, turning as if to run.

“No!” His voice was deep, rich, so unlike the droning on the CD that pulsed in his ears. She nearly bolted at his outburst, but hesitated. He reached out, grabbing at her leg. “No, I’ll be fine, I just—”

Two jangling, purely electronic beeps tore through his senses, and Alex jerked open his eyes, blinking rapidly in the darkness. The candle had burned itself out, and a haze of smoke filled the apartment. Some voice chanted meaningless words at him, and it took him a moment to remember that it was his own, on the CD player.

The harsh tones repeated themselves, and Alex fought to identify the source, fumbling to his feet and stumbling to the wall, snapping on the harsh, artificial light. Mobile, his mind suggested, and he grabbed up his discarded pants, snatching at his belt. A little red light flashed impatiently at him, and he snapped open the cell phone, staring at the glyphs on the tiny screen. It took several seconds for his mind to register the meaning of the display, resolving out of chaos like a stereogram. Ten numbers. Work.

Alex dropped the wad of fabric, lip curled back in disgust. He lifted his palms to his nose, inhaling deeply. The echoes of waterlogged dirt, of her fur, drifted to him in a pale remembrance of his vision. He collapsed heavily onto the rumpled blanket, his prerecorded voice rambling distortedly in his ears, and stared numbly at his pink, padless, human hands.

Nude aside from the sash tied around my waist, I stepped out onto the metal balcony, muzzle turned upwards to face the heavens. As I closed the glass door behind me, sharp winds cut through my fur, but I had long since become numb to the cold. One paw I kept at my waist, steadying the katana in its saya as it bobbed against my hip; the other I curled around the thin railing, bracing myself as I gazed upwards at the sky. Even with the morning fast approaching, I could still make out the constellations overhead. To the east, Seiryū had all but disappeared, only its eye still visible against the coming dawn. Opposite, Byakko shimmered against the darkness, her tail dipping lazily into a rising pond of brilliant blue. Elsewhere, the Tortoise and Phoenix chased each other across the heavens, and Rabbit and Fox danced. Beneath them all, I stood and faced them, entranced.

No matter how long I gazed upwards at the heavens, I never tired of watching the stars dance in the sky, watching them shine and scanning for the occasional comet. I knew, as a matter of fact, that the heavens were artificial. Far from being celestial bodies of burning gas, Irokai’s stars were mere polygon clusters, spinning in place overhead and palette-shifting to give the illusion of twinkling in a sky unfettered by air pollution. They gave off no heat, only light. If I wanted, I could download a copy of the night sky and, in much-reduced scale, hang it from my living room ceiling.

Yet, for all that, I never tired of looking up to them. Stretched out against an endless blank slate, they gave Irokai a sense of infinity. The world was not boundless, but a night sky filled with stars fostered a sense that it could be. As far back as I could remember, the stars had transfixed me, and I could spend hours doing no more than lying on my back and watching them, imagining flying among them, reaching out and touching them. Knowing their truth had never diminished their impact. In many ways, it had heightened it.

For several minutes, I stood, watching as the approaching day washed out the stars, until a flood of brilliant light broke through the skyline, outlining Murasaki Prefecture in gold. The last of the stars disappeared behind a wash of sun, and I lowered my gaze from the sky. I had delayed starting the day as long as possible. It was time to begin.

Stepping back from the railing, I drew the scabbard from my sash. Kneeling, I rested it in front of me, then bent reverently over it, my muzzle not quite touching the ground, forehead just barely brushing against the intricately woven sheath. With arms outstretched, I held the pose of a supplicant, focusing on my breath as it entered my nostrils and then escaped between my lips. Prostrate before the sun, I emptied my mind, waiting to see what filled it.

As expected, the vision of the distorted sky was first to mind, and with it a wash of anger. Stepping out of my apartment to be greeted by such a crude scrawl against the heavens was an offense both professional and personal. Until then, I had taken the graffiti in stride, the childish hacks of vandals who sought to destroy something they could never have built. Their acts against the stars themselves had been a blow too far; it was proof that they, whoever they were, would stop at nothing until their aims had been achieved. It also served as the strongest proof yet that my superiors either didn’t understand the danger that hackers could pose, or didn’t care. It didn’t seem to matter how strident my demands, how imploring my requests. Every attempt I made to illustrate the threat to Irokai seemed to fall on deaf ears. My reports went unread. My support requests were closed, unanswered.

Eyes closed, vision turned inward, I studied my response, and my response to my response. It wasn’t just anger that motivated me, I realized; it was despair. I no longer believed that there would be an official response to my requests, any more than there would be a public revelation that anything had ever happened. In beautiful Irokai, hackers were an archaism, like paper currency. To admit that someone had, not once but multiple times, broken through the security measures in place and tampered with things publicly considered immutable would have revealed a world unready to be treated as just as real as any other. Even if someone were to answer my cries, it would be in a way that never admitted there had ever been a complaint. I would never know if someone were listening, until one day I found my prayers answered, with no sign that they had ever been made.

The weight of memory hung heavily on my shoulders, but I dragged myself consciously back into the now of meditation. Your breath is real, I reminded myself, ignoring the inherent absurdity of a digital sapience in a simulated world worrying about air. In. Out. In. Out. I focused on the sounds of my breath, on the feelings of the air moving, the rise and fall of my chest. Feel, and accept the feeling, but do not succumb to it. I felt anger, and helplessness; this didn’t mean I needed to be angry or helpless. The question was, what was there to do about my emotion? How could I resolve this tension?

I considered, briefly, quitting my job with security. I had, in the past, manually reverted changes that I had found, and once I had requested and received a restoration from backup files, but the problems were beginning to arise faster than I could resolve them alone. Others within the department had helped me, and even my manager had thanked me for my efforts. It seemed, though, that outside of a limited few brave souls, most of Irokai’s management had traded honesty and diligence for appearances. I could foresee a day, not too far into the future, when I simply could not keep pace with those trying to break Irokai from within. What would I do then? It would be better to leave a final warning and simply walk away from it all while I still had some dignity, to give up on trying before burning out and coming to hate something that I enjoyed. The world would disintegrate around me, but I, at least, would not go with it.

And yet, were I to quit, what would I do instead? Where would I go? There was no “outside” for me, not in the way there was for the analogs who worked for Tadashiissei. Irokai was my only home, and I was as intimately tied to its existence as the world was to its hardware. The hackers were not just an artistic annoyance; they were a threat to my home. If the hackers were to get out of control, or worse, to gain control of Irokai, its creators might decide to simply end their grand experiment. What, then, would happen to those of us who lived within it? If Irokai were to disappear, I would surely go with it. The thought of death was alien to me, as it was to any resident of this world, but contemplating the end of Irokai itself was one that filled me with dread. There would be no waking up from that final shutdown.

I opened my eyes and leaned back, resting my paws on my hips, considering the sword that lay before me. If I was displeased with my decision, it was because the other options available to me were worse. No matter how pointless it seemed, the best option I could find was to keep my position with Irokai Security. At the very least, I could continue documenting every breach in hopes of forcing some form of response. I might never get a formal acknowledgment, but at least the problems would be fixed. Plus, as long as I held a security clearance within the company, I could continue to revert most of the changes myself. For those too invasive to manage alone, I could enlist others to help, people outside of Security, or even outside of Tadashiissei itself. I smiled tightly, remembering my conversation with the Hospitality specialist from the other night. Laid out in such bare terms, Mitsuko had been disturbed, to say the least, by the prospect of going behind her employers’ backs, but even she had seen the necessity of action if Tadashiissei refused to do so. If she could convince her lover to help, so much the better.

I reclaimed the sword from the ground, bowed over it, then held it briefly upright, balanced on the tip of the scabbard, before sliding it back into the sash at my waist. My knees slightly spread, I waited until I felt still, then placed one paw on the hilt of the sword, drawing it and rising onto one hind as I slashed forward, the opening stroke of the Mae kata. In time with the blade, I launched the security interface and pulled up the administration panel. The tip of the sword wobbled slightly, my concentration split between the physical and practical. Turning to the blade to the side, I raised it overhead and gripped the hilt in both hands, sliding forward on one knee to draw the blade down in a vertical slice, accompanied by opening the local lockout menu. The blade wandered wide as I scanned through database references, then snapped down in a decisive stroke as I rose to both hinds and flagged an account. Then, finally, I closed the menu and completed the noto, returning the sword to its scabbard, sinking slowly back to the opposite knee.

Through each of the forms I progressed, the Ushiro and Ukenagashi, and on through to the Nukiuchi. Each draw matched an opening of the interface, each stroke a command, and each return exited the terminal. I ran through the stances twice, once for thoroughness and once for speed. Then, practice done for the day, I bowed over the sword, then released it back into my personal archive. By the time I had finished, the sunrise had long finished, and the clock in the den hovered at a few degrees shy of eight. I scowled at the time, tail and ears flat in irritation, but I hastily dressed and then left, making my way down to the lobby and the streets of Murasaki Prefecture.

Inside, the atmosphere was decidedly cool. The most incongruously unhappy element within the room was a female rabbit wearing a black shirt with an animated silver-and-blue logo advertising something called FutureShock and a skirt with some kind of pseudo-randomized texture running through the range of violets. The bright red security-rings around her ankles and wrists prevented her from leaving the store, but beside her stood a teenaged fox in a yellow employee’s polo and black slacks, staring at her as though to lock her in place through the force of his gaze alone. He held his arms folded defensively across his chest, leaning forward domineeringly, his tail curled tightly against his back. A few other patrons looked on with a mixture of interest and contempt, while an older female bear wearing similar corporate apparel, stood behind the counter, watching distastefully.

As soon as they realized I was there, both the rabbit and fox started to speak, their voices canceling each other out in a blur of noise. Ignoring them and holding out a paw, pads facing them for silence, I walked up to the cashier’s station and drew my security credentials out of the interior pocket of my coat. “My name is Giri. You called for security, akibito-sama?”

The bear nodded, clacking the claws of one paw against the yellow countertop. She pointed with the other towards the rabbit in the middle of the store. “She tried to make off with one of our specialty mods without paying.—”

“I did not!” The outburst from the rabbit was automatic, her voice at once petulant and pleading. “I—”

The younger fox immediately snapped, “You did! I saw you! I caught you myself! I—”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” The rabbit put her paws on her hips, the silver rings in her ears jangling angrily as they shook. “I did nothing of the sort!”

The two fell instantly into bickering, their volume quickly rising as each tried to shout down the other. I sighed, shook my head, and opened up my security terminal, putting into place a local mute on the two of them. Instantly, their voices stopped cold, but it took several seconds for them to realize what had happened. They both glared at each other, then at me, as though trying to convince me that the other was at fault.

Turning away from the bickering couple, I looked back to the manager, pulling up her name out of the user database. “So… Eliott-sama, please explain.”

The manager blinked, standing a bit straighter when I referred to her by name; apparently she had never had to deal with Irokai Security before. She motioned towards a display on the wall near the cashier’s station. Within a clear case, the figure of a bear-sow slowly spun, motes of light sparkling through her fur irregularly. Beneath the case, a sign in Japanese and English announced the Firefly package, available on sale now for forty-percent off with any other avatar upgrade. “I was up at the front of the store helping some other customers, but Aaron saw her standing there staring at the display. I heard him ask her if she needed any help, and she asked him how much the new Firefly mod cost by itself. When he told her, she started screaming about usury and monopolies. That’s when I excused myself and approached. I tried to get her to calm down, but she refused to listen to me either, and then Aaron said she started to make an unauthorized copy! That’s when I hit the security lockdown.”

Throughout the manager’s speech, the rabbit started gesturing more wildly, while the other store associate tried to grab her arms and pin them down. The confrontation appeared to be headed to blows, so I put a movement lockout on them both and then relocated the rabbit next to me. She jerked around in surprise, almost falling when her feet refused to leave the ground despite her vigorous response. I removed the vocal lock from her and frowned. “So, usagi-san, is this correct?”

The rabbit snorted, paws again on her hips. “Hardly.” She turned first towards the fox, then the manager. “I was trying to figure out if they used a pseudo-randomizer or if they had a real analog random function on the lights, and he told me to stop trying to hack their code. I could’ve bought two custom bodies for what they wanted for one little mod, so I whipped out a decompiler—which, by the way, is neither illegal nor against the service agreement—to see for myself. The kid freaked out and screamed thief, and she hit the panic button.”

The bear’s silver-tipped brown fur bristled, her eyes narrowing. “You can’t just go around trying to steal source code! That’s illegal!”

“Terms of Service, Customized Avatars, section fourteen.” The accused let out an exaggerated sigh. “I have the right to ensure before purchase that any mod I buy is compatible with other code I already have installed. I’ve got some heavy mods that I paid a lot of money for and I’m not going to plunk down that much credit for something that’s going to clobber something else I already own. Legally.”

The manger sniffed. “I don’t see a single mod on you.”

At that, the rabbit smiled tightly, and the logo on her shirt froze into the image of a single world emblazoned on her chest in metallic silver. “Yeah, well, I wouldn’t wear most of them in a place like this.”

At that, I held up my paws, forestalling them both from continuing. “I believe I understand what has happened here,” I said quietly. “I will take custody of her, akibito-sama.”

As the manager smiled her approval, the rabbit’s eyes went wide and jumped from me to her and back. “You gotta be kidding me! I’ve done nothing wrong!”

In the security menu, I switched the target of the rabbit’s location lock from the interior of Sunny You to a five-meter radius centered on me. “Are you disobeying a direct order from Irokai Security?”

The rabbit’s ears shook, her rings chiming angrily, but she looked down at the ground. “No.”

I nodded, mostly to myself. “Good.” To the manager, I bowed deeply. “Thank you for alerting Irokai Security to this matter, Eliott-sama. I will ensure this is handled appropriately.” As soon as she bowed in return, I turned and walked out of the store, the rabbit dragging behind me on an invisible leash. I ignored the sales associate when he stuck his tongue out at my charge, but only as the door closed behind me did I relinquish his voice to him.

I made a point of ignoring the passers-by as I walked. I could see at the edges of my sight how they stopped to stare at the “criminal” in her awkwardly blocky red cuffs and anklets, but I did nothing to acknowledge them, other than to motion for the occasional pedestrian to step out of my way. To her credit, my charge did nothing to engage them, neither challenging nor pleading. She merely followed in silence as I led her to a nearby office building, up an awkward elevator ride and then three sullen flights of stairs, until we stood on the roof, alone in crowded Murasaki Prefecture.

When I did finally stop, the rabbit stumbled into me and then jerked backwards. “Sorry,” she mumbled automatically, her eyes not meeting mine.

I didn’t move from my spot for several seconds; I merely stood and looked over the edge of the building, down to the streets below.

“I said I’m sorry,” the rabbit repeated, her voice louder but still nervous.

“What is your name, usagi-san?” I asked, not looking at her. Far below, people moved, like little blobs of color twinkling against black asphalt.

The rabbit hesitated before blurting, “Briar.” It was a challenge as much as a declaration.

I opened my terminal access and performed a quick scan. “Your account says otherwise, Summerfield-san.”

The rabbit snorted again. “Oh, yeah, clever,” she sneered, reflexively. “You can look stuff up in a database. If you don’t like my nickname, at least call me Caitlyn.”

I turned away from the streets, back to face her, a frown on my muzzle and my ears flat. “I work in security; giving me an alias, even a common one, was not your wisest decision.”

Briar rolled her eyes. “I told you what I wanted to be called. You gonna give me guff about it?”

I looked away, towards the skyline, watching the morning sunlight reflecting off of the buildings. “No.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her gesture at me with one paw, resting the other on her hip. “What’s with the outfit, anyway? Coat, sweater, slacks. Samurai sword. Sure, you’re Security, I understand, but do you have to look like a poorly-animated police officer?”

Without looking back at her, the corner of my muzzle rose in a wry smile. “Perhaps the fact that you knew what I was as soon as you saw me is proof of its effectiveness.”

At that, she crossed her arms in front of her. “Yeah, insecure and trying to prove something.” We both stood in silence at that, until finally she said, irritably, “Look, what’s going on? Am I getting banned or not?”

I shook my head, still not facing her. “No,” I said again.

The rabbit let out another heavy sigh and gestured to one wrist with the opposite paw. “Why all the theater, then? Why didn’t you just tell them to buzz off?”

“I had my reasons, Briar-san.” I looked back at her. “Sunny You has a partnership with Tadashiissei. I could not simply do nothing.”

“Politics.” Briar spat the word.

I merely nodded in response, taking a seat against the railing at the edge of the building. “Would you have stolen the upgrade, had they not caught you?”

Briar’s face registered an instant of guilt before returning to her defiant glare from before. “You can’t steal code. Code’s just an idea given a form. I was trying to figure out how they did it so I could do it myself for cheap.” She paused briefly, then continued. “Everything they sell is overpriced, anyway, and their code’s always a mess. I know folks who could do the same thing in half the space.”

“I see,” I said, more to her expression than her words.

“I didn’t do anything wrong,” she snapped. “You said as much.” She drew away, then, looking down at the roof, as though suddenly remembering to whom she was speaking.

“I did,” I agreed quietly. Before I could say anything else, though, a buzzer rang twice quickly, indicating a work call. I held out a paw to Briar, then tilted my head, checking my communication requests. It was from Mori Koneko, one of my analog coworkers. I accepted the contact. Hai?

Giri? It’s Koneko, she transmitted unnecessarily. I think we’ve had another incident like you described. This one’s … it’s big. You’d better come see for yourself. Following her words was a relocation invitation.

I sighed. One moment; I have another job to complete. I closed the connection, then looked back at Briar. “I will let this one go as a misunderstanding. I suggest you stay away from Sunny You for some time.?” I dismissed the location lock, and the angry red circles around her limbs disappeared.

Briar blinked and rubbed at her bare wrists. “Wow. You had me worried for a while there. I thought I was busted again for sure.”

At that, I raised one brow. “Again?” I performed a quick scan of her visitor history but found nothing in her record. “Your file appears clean.”

The rabbit’s eyes widened briefly, but then she shrugged. “It’s… must’ve been a while. Maybe these things fade over time.”

I waved off the excuse, standing up from the ledge. “I have more pressing concerns than someone trying to save a little money.”

“You know, I like your attitude, I think.” Briar sent me a contact information memo, which I filed automatically. “Next time I get in trouble, I’ll call you.”

I sighed and shook my head, then accepted Koneko’s invitation to go survey the latest assault on my home, leaving Briar alone on the rooftop to contemplate the sun.