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My eyes opened, not suddenly, not from any stimulus that I was aware of. I had no sense of time, and the quiet seemed absolute. Either the room was very well soundproofed, or the rain had stopped. I became more aware of my body, realizing that I had rolled over onto my side. My long nose stuck out past the quilt that wrapped warmly around me. I could see the bedside table, which held a pitcher and a clean glass. I pushed the cover gently away from me, raising up on an elbow. I saw curtains, a dark color but not black, drawn across a window. The light for the scene came from a nightlight of some kind in the ensuite; the door to it had been left open a little for the amber glow of a nightlight to pour in, just bright enough to make sure no one would trip on anything.

Something flickered, just outside my visual range. I sat up, pushing the covers back, looking around the room. A chair sat near the window, a small table on the far side of it from me; a paperbound volume lay on it, although I couldn't read the title. Across from the foot of the bed, a mesh-backed office chair tucked its seat underneath the lip of a worktable arrangement. To my right, on the wall with the door, a dresser with a mirror above it held a large bowl of water in which floated a flat disc of candle, lit, its flame reflecting warmly in the mirror. It had no scent that I could detect, but its tiny fire brought a warmness, an old-world comfort that pushed away the fear-filled thoughts of the evening before.

I pulled the pillows up, fluffed and plumped them, set them behind me, lay my back to them. I breathed in through the nose, out slowly through the maw, the usual calming trick, except that I wasn't anxious or frightened. I was confused as all hell. I remembered the conversation in the den space, and I remembered the feeling of being frightened, terrified, but I couldn't remember why. Not clearly. I remembered thoughts, fearful images, and I remembered crying. That, in itself, was worrying; I rarely cry, and never in front of strangers.

They had all risen, I remembered, all to their hindpaws as I began crying and saying I needed to get some rest. Only Oaknail and Darkstar actually got me to this room, the others keeping a distance, offering quiet support. My memory skips a little as I got here, into the room, guided to the bed, helped out of the cotton shirt and pants, "for comfort's sake," Oaknail said. I was told that there were numbers to other phones in the house, some sort of inside intercom system, the list set next to the phone on the desk. I saw the phone distantly, on the work desk, but I couldn't imagine calling anyone. I couldn't imagine talking with them, not yet. Tomorrow will need... well, something.

The rest is... for tomorrow.

The young doe's words came back to me. I still had no clue what she knew, or how, or why she said those words, and in exactly that way. I looked back at the dresser, wondering all at once where my clothes were... or, perhaps more precisely, where my shield was. Darkstar had seemed surprised at the doe's words; my cop instincts aren't infallible, but I believed that he hadn't told anyone about me, unless he'd done it since dinner, since I was brought here. That wouldn't account for what she'd said.

I looked around the darkened bedroom, which was more like a hotel room but with much more home-like accoutrements. For a few moments of wishing, I wanted it to be home -- comfortable, close, safe. It was a warm feeling, welcoming, an invitation to give myself over to the relaxation that one could find in the realm of hope. The thought of it stirred something in my belly and, at the same time, something in the room itself. The shadows seemed to shift, subtly, bringing back the space for the Idea to return. Different, now. Almost visible. Almost tangible. A predator, stalking, with the power to make the prey think that succumbing would be a good idea, a welcome outcome.

Was this what Glover felt? In the non-sapient world, a tiger is an apex predator. Even an old dog like myself could hunt, if need be. To feel hunted as well as haunted... Timewind was an idea for him, and Starhold, though not on this grand scale, had been his home. He began with so much hope, and then came the Idea. Suddenly? I thought not. It had to have been there for a while, a long while, working its tendrils into him like some parasite, until he finally succumbed, finally gave up. It was so much easier to give up. So much, for so long, and one grew tired, and hope becomes dangerous, and I would be a fool to think that I --

I blinked. I couldn't give in to that, not now, not here. I tried the calming trick again, and my breath caught. The door to the hall opened inward, slowly, quietly. The light from the hallway was muted, but still brighter than the light in the room. I could make out a general shape, a head that appeared more canine than anything else. Not tall enough for Heartsinger, and this shape was more compact. Could it be...?

"I'm awake," I said softly.

"Sorry, I..." The voice faltered. "I guess I'm checking up on you. May I come in?"

"Yes."

Lightwing opened the door wider and took a cautious step into the room. She still wore cotton pants and shirt, although the sash she'd worn earlier was missing. The garb was casual enough for use in just about any situation, I reasoned. I wasn't at all sure that she slept in them, but...

She turned her face to me and, even in the dim light, I could see clearly by her eyes that she was concerned. "Are you okay? Is there anything you need?"

"I'm okay, or trying to be."

"Do you want me to leave you?"

I took half a moment to see how I felt, or if I felt anything at all. Yes, I felt something. "No," I said.

She paused only a moment, then entered and closed the door behind her. Turning toward the bed, she gestured to the other chairs in the room. "Shall I...?"

Shaking my head gently, I moved my legs a little to one side, my forepaw indicating the large space remaining on the king-sized bed. "If you're comfortable...?"

The Husky smiled softly, padding silently closer and taking up one leg to fold onto the bed, her lush tail giving a brief wag as she sat a short distance from me. "I trust you," she said. Her demeanor sobered a little. "You seemed so upset, earlier."

"I didn't mean to frighten anyone."

"Not frightening, just..." She looked down for a moment, then raised her muzzle to me again. "You looked so hurt. I felt bad. I have the feeling that you really aren't used to being so open."

I hesitated -- probably at the openness -- then nodded slowly. "You're right."

"Did we hurt you?"

Chuckling softly, I said, "I'm not a Vulcan, I promise."

Lightwing laughed, and I found myself wanting to make her laugh more. The emotion went all the way to her eyes, shining in the candlelight. "Sounds like you've got your humor back."

"As long as it's not hysteria, I'll take it."

She looked at me closely. I felt like an open book, turned to a passage that its reader wanted to study more closely. "Max, who are you?"

Every fiber of my being told me to keep hiding. I had the strong feeling that Darkstar still hadn't told anyone else that I was a cop. Cop. I always hated that word. It was a simple shortpaw word, came from copper, which had some origin somewhere in Latin or French or something. Darkstar would know, or he'd find out. I just felt it was disrespectful, cheapening. But even "detective" was a word that could alienate me from her, at least now. Tomorrow, maybe, when I could tell them all at the same time, redeem myself somehow.

The rest is... for tomorrow.

I tried part of the truth. "Just an old dog who got caught in a downpour and was rescued by Timewind."

"You were looking for us."

"Yes."

"Why?"

"I thought you might have the answers to some mysteries in my life."

The Husky considered this for a very long time. The passage that she was reading in my book must have been very interesting. At length, she said, "She's an empath."

"What?"

"Stellamara is an empath. It's part of why she's here. We provide a safe haven while she learns how to control her gift."

"I'm not sure I understand."

"Few do," Lightwing sighed softly. "She is highly 'sensitive,' to use the common word for it. She has tried to explain it to others, in words, in art. She came to us about four years ago, more by accident than anything else. She, too, was storm-tossed, although it was emotional turmoil more than the weather. Darkstar found her at a 'starving artists' show in the city, commented on her paintings, talked with her, slowly discovering just how damaged she felt. Over a little time, he convinced her to visit here a few times and, finally, to live here with us."

"Didn't she think he was just some guy trying to pick her up?"

"Five things helped." She enumerated them on her fingers. "First, her empathy told her that she was safe with him. Second, part of why she trusted him is because he genuinely is tribal; he has roots in Mi'kmaq, and he has something of 'the Sight' himself. Third, he gave her a copy of The Tribal Manifesto -- yes, the updated one, like the one on the table over there -- and her gift told her that it, and Darkstar, were real. Fourth, she knew that she had to get out of the city, to get away from the crowds of people who seemed to fill her mind with their emotions whether she wanted them or not. Fifth, he's gay, not to mention a gentlefur." The Husky smiled at me. "So no, she didn't think he was trying to pick her up."

I considered a moment before nodding and saying, "Yeah, that might do it."

Lightwing laughed at the joke, as I wanted her to. I chuckled also, fighting strongly against the idiotic concern of stripping down in front of a "gay guy," twice, in fact. I despised myself for even having the thought. It was part of the paranoia of a cop-shop mind -- all the guys had to be oh-so-butch, even in these "enlightened" times. I made myself think about Darkstar, made myself try to find the slightest word, gesture, or action that made him even the least bit threatening to me or my alleged masculinity. How masculine could I be if even the mention made me doubt myself?

Her laugh fading softly, the Husky looked at me candidly. "Stellamara told me that she was worried about you, Max. She said that you had a secret that you were afraid to tell."

My blood froze as I tried to control the look on my face, the set of my ears. "Does she think I'm dangerous?"

"No," Lightwing said softly, "certainly not to us. What she feels is that you're in pain. A lot of pain. It's why I came to check on you."

"I see." My hesitation didn't help me, but the Husky was very patient. "I guess that I wasn't expecting all this."

"How can I help you?"

She asked the question without guile or hidden agenda. The look of her, there in the soft candlelight of this midnight room... I felt a sensation of falling. When a female sparks poetry in the way you think, you're already in deep kimchi. "Would you tell me what Timewind means to you?"

"I was born to it."

I frowned. "You're not one of the founders. Were your sire and dam part of it?"

"No." She brought both legs up onto the bed, crossing them, shifting, getting comfortable. "I found the tribe about eight years ago, but almost from birth, I knew that I was part of it."

"I don't follow you."

"Timewind is more than a group, Max; it's a tribe based on a philosophy, one that bind us, and one that I feel I was born to. When everyone else I knew was learning that their elders were always right; that the world is what it is, and there's not much you can do about it; that church was a place you went to because it was expected of you, and because they told the Only Truth That Matters... in all of that, I was busily questioning, trying to understand why all of this was so damned unquestionable."

I shifted enough to offer her a pillow. "You weren't Catholic, were you?"

"Why do you ask?"

"Because you would have been the Devil Herself, as far as Catholic school teachers were concerned."

Lightwing laughed, placing the pillow on her lap, resting her arms on it. "Bring back the rites of exorcism!" She flashed a wicked grin. "Nope, not Catholic, but I did get my teachers frustrated a lot. I was the pup who asked questions no one had easy answers for."

"Like what?"

She considered, opening up her own self-book. "I wanted to know what happened to the magic. Yowens get to read about magic, elves, unicorns, so-called mythical beasts, and they go looking for them, until they're told to 'grow up' and realize that there's no magic in the 'real' world. I couldn't believe that."

"Did you ever find any magic?"

"All kinds. Rainbows, sunsets, mountains, smiles... the bright eyes of yowens who still believed." Another grin from her. "When I was a yowen, the best magic I found was pizza. You can't stay miserable when the pizza shows up. It's like a ready-made party. Sharing a pizza brings out the jokes, the smiles, the good conversations."

"Bagels," I said. She giggled. "My first bagel with a schmear, I knew I'd found the food of the gods."

"Ever tried sashimi?"

"I prefer my meats cooked, thank you, but you can always count on me for good fish, grilled, baked, or fried." I raised an eyebrow, suspiciously. "Leafy greens?"

"Great for composting; let's put them right into the pile."

"Good answer, good answer!" I applauded softly as Lightwing giggled, clutching the pillow to her chest. All of her joined into the laughter, her body, her bouncing, wagging tail, her smile, her eyes... her beautiful ice-blue eyes...

The feeling washed over me like a wave of... desperate pain. I don't know where those words came from, but they paired together and locked themselves inside me, making a hurt that I thought I would never be able to get over. Somewhere in the shadows, the Idea moved, just a reminder of his presence and his power. I must have done something, made some sound, as Lightwing looked at me with some concern, her eyes holding me even closer than before.

"Max, are you all right?"

"I'm... not sure." The truth came out of me, whether I wanted it to or not. She leaned forward, took up my forepaw in hers, and I felt and heard my breath catch.

"It's so very deep," she said. "I can't help feeling that we did something to you..."

My head shook almost violently to say no. "Not you. Been here. It's been here with me. Brought it in with me--" I heard babbling, not entirely sure it was me talking. "So stupid, so stupid..."

Her forepaw squeezed mine. "What's stupid, Max?"

"Me," I hiccoughed, feeling tears trying to come back again. "Crying."

"I don't think you're stupid for crying, Max. None of us does." She paused, looking, seeing, reading. "Stellamara felt a lot of hurt from you. Darkstar said something that I didn't understand; he said that he had underestimated you. We asked what he meant, but all he would say is that he hoped to talk to you in the morning. Thinking about all that made me come down here to talk to you. To listen."

I held her paw, her gaze, and I still felt that I was slipping, that something was falling inside, and that I was going to lose my grip on whatever it was I was trying to hold on to.

"Max?" Lightwing's voice was soft in my ears, in my mind. "Max, listen to me. Would you share your fur with me?"

Swallowing had become difficult. She waited for me, waited through my hesitation. Asking too much, she was, I was, asking is... I finally managed to swallow; the clicking sound was huge in the quiet of the room. Still, she waited. I let the war play out, swiftly, deciding what it was that I wanted, realizing that the Question allowed me to postpone thinking about that too closely. The basis of the ritual protected both parties, gave us the guidelines... Snuffling slightly, I made myself control my maw, my throat, my breathing. It took two tries.

"It is warmth to us both."

Giving my forepaw a squeeze, she then released it, returning the pillow, leaning back, moving off of the bed. She began removing her shirt, and I turned away, shifting myself to the left to make room for her, readying the pillow for her. In moments, she raised the quilt and slid into the bed next to me, rearranging the duvet to cover us both. Her body was warm, solid, her fur lush. I looked at her face, close to mine, her smile, her eyes shining from her perfect dark mask. I felt like a department store mannequin, plastic, unyielding, laid out, waiting.

"Max," she whispered to me, "may I hold you?"

I tried to make some sensible word, but I could produce only a soft squeak.

"It's okay, Max. I trust you. Now... will you trust me?"

Closing my eyes, I tried to breathe, tried to remember, to have faith in the Response and all it meant, to believe that I wasn't the scumbag I felt like right now, that I wouldn't do anything I wasn't supposed to, that I wouldn't... ruin it. Like I had ruined so much. Or was that...?

I breathed deeply, opened my eyes, looked into those beautiful eyes, so near to me, and I made myself speak. "I need... to trust. Is... is that okay?"

"Yes." She smiled at me. "It's okay."

"Safe."

"Yes."

One more swallow. "Please... hold me."

So very tenderly, she snaked one arm underneath my pillow, reached across me with the other, pressed herself gently against my side, as I let loose with a sound that could only be described as a whimper. I felt her breasts against my arm, her head upon my shoulder, her leg upon mine, claiming me with compassionate warmth.

"What are they telling you?" she asked softly.

"What?"

"The voices in your head. The ones that are hurting you. The ones that are making you cry. What are they telling you?" She squeezed me gently for just a moment. "They aren't you."

"How can you know that?"

"Because the Max I met doesn't need so much pain."

I managed a brittle smile at the ceiling. "I'd like to meet that guy."

"He's kind. Accepting. Curious. I met him in a barn on a dark and stormy night." Her voice smiled with a gentle tease. "I loaned him my cloak, so that he wouldn't catch a chill. He was very grateful, I think." She paused, and I could feel something shift in her. "I surprised him. When he looked at me, in that first moment, he let me inside. I felt things."

"Are you... like Stellamara?"

"No." I felt her head move gently against my shoulder. "She's far more perceptive than I am. I just listen to what feelings I have. They don't often lie to me."

I shifted my arm, moving my free forepaw to find hers near my belly, and I clasped it gently. "What did you feel?"

"Surprise. A little fear. Something confused, lost." I heard the smile in her voice again. "Some of that might have come from what I've learned of you since. I still think my first impression was the right one."

The quiet wasn't awkward. Me, on the inside, that was awkward. I tried to reconcile the warring thoughts, part of me feeling that I had brought fearsome ghosts into a peaceful place, and I wanted to protect Lightwing from them. How could I let them out of me and still keep her safe?

Will you trust me?

"They..." I faltered and tried again. "The voices. Not real voices. Just feelings. They're telling me not to trust this place. Not to trust what I see here. Not to believe it."

"Do they tell you why?"

"Because the darkness always wins."

She hugged me, her forepaw squeezing my own. "Can you tell me who these voices belong to? Are they specific or generalized?"

"A little of each."

"I see you don't play favorites."

My smile was spontaneous. It was almost like talking with Michael. I had no idea how she knew to treat me with such affectionate humor, but it worked just as well here as it did with him. If she was guessing about me, she showed good intuition. I became aware of her closeness again, and my manners finally kicked in. "How's your arm?"

"Good, actually; how about yours?"

Between my shifting and hers, we rearranged ourselves. My right arm was free to wrap around her, and she pressed closer to me, now laying her head on my chest, her body nearly covering me. She felt familiar, as if we had been this way before. I caught myself wondering if I was trying to think of Barb, but that wasn't the case. This was someone else entirely, and not just anyone else, this was Lightwing, and she was very warm, and comforting, and familiar, even though I knew almost nothing about her.

"Lightwing."

"Hmm?"

"Where did that name come from?"

She chuckled softly. "Doesn't fit a big dog like me, do you mean?"

I gave her a gentle squeeze. "I mean that you're not a butterfly or a hummingbird, and I'm not at all sure either of those would be nearly as warm to cuddle up with."

That earned me a squeeze in return, and I again heard the smile in her voice when she spoke. "What do you know about dragonflies?"

"I know they're beautiful. I don't see them often."

"They always fascinated me, from my earliest days. I remember seeing them, once in a while, in the garden that my dam had made near the edge of the house. She loved black-eyed Susan flowers and something I eventually learned was called giant coneflower. Those looked like black-eyed Susans but with a huge, beehive-shaped thing in the middle. Dragonflies love them, it seems. So I started drawing dragonflies, collecting pictures of them, eventually having a really nice stained-glass panel showing them."

"And you thought of their light wings and speedy flying?"

"You're close," she said, snuggling up with me, the sound of her tail brushing against the quilt. "You remember how I was the pup who questioned everything? I found legends and stories about dragonflies, and I learned how they were thought by First Ones to be guardians of mystical gateways, to other worlds, or other ways of being, other ways of seeing. Darkstar told me that the Mi'kmaq don't have many stories about them, since they're not common in that part of the world; he knew some of the other First Ones' legends, though, and he told me more about them. Dragonflies have beautiful wings, iridescent, some clear, some with markings, and it's like they can change the way light works..."

"Like magic?"

She laughed a little, burying her face into my chest fur, seeming embarrassed. "Maybe, yeah. Harbingers of change, guardians of the gateway... It sounds silly, I guess."

I pet her head gently. "No more silly than a bunch of dreamers trying to change the world."

"Is that silly?"

"I know some voices that would say it's actually damned dangerous."

For a long moment, she said nothing. I was about to ask if I'd said something wrong, when she rearranged herself again, pulling back her lower arm, raising up on her elbow, turning her head to look me in the eyes again. "Max, you truly don't have to tell me about the voices, where they came from. Can you tell me why you're listening to them? Why they have such a hold on you?"

Reaching up to skritch behind her ears, I let myself trust her, trust that she didn't yet have to know what had brought me here, what was dragging at me with such black, poison-tipped claws. "I don't know if I have the right words. I've seen so much ugliness, lately, maybe over the past several years. Sometimes, it becomes all I can see, and I start feeling that it's all there is. Makes me into a very different Max. Not a very nice one. Maybe that's the one that Barbara saw."

"Is that your mate? Or... excuse me, former mate?" After I nodded, she gave me one of her gentle smiles. "You call her by her name, instead of some neutral term. She's still real to you. You show respect. That's positive."

"It's taken a while."

"How long has it been since you've had someone to hold?"

I gazed at her, trying to disguise a sense of desperation. "A long time."

"Has no one asked to share your fur? Haven't you asked?"

"No, and no."

"Can you tell me why?"

"Too much darkness."

"In the world?"

"There too."

For a long moment, she simply looked at me. "I'm going to take the chance of saying too damn much." She took a breath and said, "What you're afraid of is that you're going to ask too much."

I said nothing.

"Because you need too much."

I said nothing.

"You're safe here, Max. Especially right here. C'mere."

She rolled onto her back, then waved, pulled me to her, reversing our positions. I lay on my side, one arm under the pillows, the other across her stomach, my muzzle at the ruff of fur at her neck, indelicately sniffing the warm scent of her. She pet my back so gently yet firmly, rubbing my back as much as smoothing my fur. No words from her, yet I knew what she was asking of me, what she wanted of me. I wasn't sure, I was afraid, I couldn't ask this of her. The emotions churned within, and something rose through them that was determined to prove them wrong.

My body jerked a little as a sound came from my maw. I felt her nod, and she shifted her hold of me slightly. I knew that I wasn't going to be able to stop myself, and her only response was to whisper my name so very softly, then to say, "Yes."

The dam burst, and I wept against her as if I hadn't cried for years... and perhaps I hadn't.