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With his flight cancelled due to weather and nowhere but a small cabin to stay, it looked like Max, a young raccoon from Florida, would be unable to make it home in time for Christmas. Sitting alone in a scantily furnished shack, he curled up on the only couch he could find and resolved to wait out the storm. Hours passed and nothing changed. The only sound to be heard was the wind beating up against the side of the cabin, making him colder and colder. A fireplace in the corner provided him with hope, but a lack of materials meant that he would have to go outside to gather them himself. Looking out the window gave him a grim reminder that the sun would be nonexistent within an hour. Fine. Don't really have a choice, do I?

He stood from his seat on the couch, leaving the only space in the shack with warmth created by his own body heat. He threw on his jacket, pushed the rest of his luggage in the corner, and pulled the doorknob. It came off in his paw.

"...Shit."

At that moment, the door flew inward, whacking him in the snout and causing him to stumble back. He landed on the hard floor and immediately recoiled as the wind from the outside punched him in the face. Opening his eyes, he could make out a figure standing in the doorway.

"Oh, hello, did I startle you?"

Ignoring the intruder's question, he stood up, pulled them inside and slammed the door shut.

"Are you insane?!" He rubbed his snout.

"No actually, my name is Pendulum. Who are you and why are you here?"

He stood there for a moment, in the center of the room, staring. Who is she? This girl is easily two social classes above me. How did she end up in this cabin with...me?

"I asked you a question, dummy." Her bright gold collar cost more than his house. That he knew. She turned to the side, crossing her arms and revealing a slender figure, complimented by three long tails. That tail in the center is worth more than me.

"Umm...Well I'm Max and I was supposed to be on my flight to Florida by now, but they cancelled due to weather. So now I'm here. And you're here. And it's cold."

She began to smile a little. "Really? That's why I'm here! My name is Pendulum, by the way."

"You're from Florida?"

"Well no, I'm from New York. But my flight did get cancelled, and the airline sent me here. You'd think they would send us somewhere with a little more...ambiance?"

Max rubbed his shoulders and his tail fell a little. "Yeah, I know right."

Pendulum looked over at the empty fireplace. "We should build a fire."

"Well, I was about to when you almost turned my face into a pug's."

Her face turned red, and she covered it with one of her tails. "Sorry. I was cold."

"It's alright. The sun is almost down, we should hurry. I don't know what we're going to use to chop wood though. There's nothing here."

Pendulum walked over to the first closet and opened it. An axe fell out. "Did you bother looking at all?" She smirked.

"Oh."

Together, Max and Pendulum walked out into the woods nearby and chopped wood for the fireplace. Once they had gathered enough, they scurried back inside and started a fire. The two curled up with on the cabin's single couch with blankets they found in the attic and passed the time by staring at the crackling embers.

"Hey." Pendulum smoothed her ears back and looked at Max.

"Yeah?"

"Let's get a tree."

Max scratched his ears and looked at her dumbfounded. "You want to go back outside? It's dark. And cold. For the first time all day I have more than just my own body heat to keep me from freezing my ass off."

"But..." She looked at him, her eyes wide and gleaming brighter than her necklace. "It's Christmas."

"No, it's Christmas at home in Florida. You know, where it's 70 degrees and I can go outside without dying."

"Fine. Stay. I'm getting a tree." She stood up, her deep blue fur shining in the moonlight and casting a long shadow across the wall. "I found some cheap lights in the attic with the blankets, and it's dark in here. This is depressing."

"I don't want you going outside in that. I won't let you go alone."

"You think I can't handle myself, trash panda?"

Max stood up as his tail bristled, pointing at her. "Hurtful."

She shrugged, a daring smile across her face, showing her teeth.

Max grabbed the axe and threw open the door. "Pick your tree."

With a tree standing in the center of the room, held up by a makeshift stand of wood and sticks, the two looked with arms crossed at their sad excuse for a decoration.

"I'll go get the lights." Pendulum bopped him on the head as she left the room. Max flattened his ears and glared at her. "Oh, shut up. You know you're having fun."

She entered the room a few minutes later with the saddest string of lights he had ever seen. Every other bulb was out, and the ones that weren't blinked as if they might go out at any minute. She also carried a few makeshift ornaments, namely glass balls and paper circles. Pendulum dropped the lights into Max's paws, walked outside without a jacket, reemerged with a ladder, and propped it next to the tree.

"Help."

Max rolled his eyes, but smiled a little. "Alright." He began to feed her lights and ornaments as she hung them around the tree.

"You missed a spot."

Pendulum looked down at Max from her step on the ladder above him. Suddenly, an ornament fell from out of nowhere and hit the floor by his foot.

"Hey! What the heck?!"

"I missed that spot too." She muffled a giggle and pretended to look occupied. As she turned to arrange the lights, she would brush each of her tails against his face.

"Oh, sorry. My bad." She giggled a little louder.

"How do you manage those things? Jeez."

"Oh, you'd be surprised."

The two were back on the couch, admiring their work. The tree shone as bright as it could, much to Max's surprise. He looked over at the warm fireplace. Then he looked at Pendulum. For what he thought this Christmas weekend would be like, it certainly turned out to be a lot better.

"Hey, Pendulum?"

Her ears perked at her name, and she looked at him. "Yeah, Max?"

"Thanks so much for this. I needed it."

She smiled, turning her head. "Not a problem. I needed it too."

"When you get back to New York, promise to keep in touch. I never would've been as happy as I am right now if you hadn't come along."

"Oh, yeah!" She looked down at the floor. "So...Max. You said your airline sent you out here to wait out the storm? I don't mean to get personal, but don't they send their passengers somewhere...nicer?"

Max became red with embarrassment. "Yeah, well sometimes the fancy airlines don't take kindly to 'filthy raccoons' and like to send them out in the middle of nowhere as their version of a joke. I'm not sure how someone as beautiful and upscale as you got stuck with me."

Pendulum grinned, then moved closer to him. "Can I tell you something?"

"What's that?" He looked her dead in the eyes, as she made avoiding eye contact impossible.

"I'm not sure where you think you're supposed to be, but wherever that is, you're not there." She giggled, brushing her middle tail across his face. "I know that because this cabin belongs to my parents. "You're in the wroooong place raccoon."

He pushed himself away from her and practically climbed up the arm of the couch. "I don't believe you."

"How do you think I knew where everything was so easily? You don't have to believe me, but it's true. Truth is Max, I was in the area and I saw you walk in. I come out here to be alone sometimes, but when I saw you..."

"What were you thinking?" Max softened a little.

"When I saw you, and how sad you looked, I thought about how close it is to Christmas and how it might be fun to spend it with someone new."

Max started to cry. "I don't deserve that. I was stupid enough to get myself to the wrong cabin and I got rewarded for it. I suppose if you hadn't been so nice to me I'd still be sad as hell."

Pendulum put her head against his shoulder.

"I wouldn't change a thing."

...

Max clutched his cellphone tightly in his paw as he slunk up the crowded New York streets. Every once in a while, he would sneak a glance at the screen, at the white text bubble bearing the address of his destination. Passersby would occasionally shoot the raccoon a nasty look; he drew his tail flat against his back and attempted to ignore them, but each one made him feel smaller.

His eyes scanned the buildings looming above with a kind of claustrophobic feeling. He had always been exposed to open air back in Florida, and the confinement brought by the skyscrapers was unnatural and tight. The raccoon abruptly came to a halt at the mouth of a wiry brick-built building with a face littered with windows, and checked his phone again. This seemed to be the right place.

Drawing a deep breath into his lungs, Max strode through the glass doors and immediately scurried up the winding stairs. He did not like to remain stationary when he was nervous. In the back of his mind he fervently counted floors: one, two, three, four, five...

Arriving at long last on the seventh floor, the caniformia took a moment to straighten his clothes and hustled silently down the long hallway. Polished doors flew at him from both sides. Large, fanciful numbers were embossed in the walls, and he barely registered each one as he scuttled past: seven hundred twenty, seven hundred twenty-one, seven hundred twenty-two...

Max stopped at the 725th door and stared at its countenance sheepishly. Why was he so nervous? It was a simple task of knocking on the door and speaking to a friend...

The raccoon raised a quivering paw to the door, but before he could strike the glossy surface, it swung inward with a slight groan. A disheveled, dark blue cat bearing an acid-green hoodie and jarring bright pink irises stood in its wake, a half smile on her face.

"Hey, Max. Didn't expect you here for another thirty minutes."

Max was stunned. The first time he had met this girl, she had boasted shining fur and laughing eyes, a slender build and a prominent chest. Now, as he looked at her, he saw that her fur wasn't brushed, her immense bangs fell haphazardly into her sunken eyes, and there were large inky bags beneath her lashes. She looked as if she hadn't slept for weeks. The feline took apparent notice.

"Oh, yeah, haha. I didn't get ready yet," she said casually with a dismissive flick of her leftmost tail. "Come in. Sorry if it's small."

The smell of beer was strong in the studio apartment as Max entered the room. It was, however, clean: although cramped, it was well-organized and clutter-free, decorated in neutral colors. The navy cat motioned for him to sit down, which he did gratefully, before whisking off into the kitchen in a swirl of tails.

Gazing blankly at his trembling paws, Max recounted the events of a few weeks prior, where he had entered the wrong cabin and had been treated hospitably by this cat, who had asserted herself as a Pendulum. He had been made privy of her contact information when he was due to leave, and the two had been conversing ever since. Pendulum had invited him over for a stay, which he had eagerly accepted in hopes of meeting the feline once again.

A clinking behind him made the anthropoid spin around in the springy couch. Pendulum had arrived, grinning cheerfully, and, with a fluid motion of a tail, sent a stemmed glass of what appeared to be soda into Max's grip. She sat down next to him with a glass of something amber-red. Max assumed this was red wine.

"Sorry about my condition and all, I'm not one to prep in advance," Pendulum admitted.

"No, it's fine." Although he detested the smell of the studio, everything else was generally very pleasant. Even the woman sitting next to him looked less shocking now that he had adjusted to her features.

"So... what happened?" Max had asked before he could restrain himself. Immediately he regretted it.

"I know it might not have seemed apparent at our first meeting, but. . ." Pendulum gestured abstractly to the apartment they were in. "As you can now tell, I'm an avid drinker."

Max said nothing, only took a large gulp of Coke. Beside him, the feline sipped her wine. Silence fell awkwardly for a few moments, before a loud note of an electro-pop song pierced the air.

Pendulum swung her glass into her thick, slightly matted tails and withdrew her vibrating phone. Max watched out of the corner of his eye as she murmured to it softly.

"No, we aren't cutting prices. We need to sustain ourselves, you know . . . I get it, I get it, people are scared, but we can't go flaunting around going 'Hey! We're dealing extremely illegal substances!' . . . Yeah it's bad for business, but we have enough to get by for a year anyways . . . Since when did you begin caring about . . . ? Oh my god, you're impossible."

With a dissatisfied hiss, the cat ended the call and shoved her phone back into her pocket.

"Illegal substances?" Max asked as soon as she looked back at him.

Pendulum looked uncomfortable. "Yeah."

"So are you drug dealers?"

"Essentially, yeah." She grinned, embarrassed. "Not exactly how you thought I spend my Christmas, eh?"

Max couldn't resist a tiny grin. "Yeah. Not exactly what I had in mind. Who was that guy, anyways?"

Something happened in Pendulum's eyes. Something seemed to disappear, but she was still smiling when she said, "Business partner. He's the dealer. Grows the stuff in his own place, too."

"Are you two dating?" Once again, Max had the sudden urge to kill himself for saying what he had just said.

Pendulum didn't seem to notice, but her expression hardened considerably. She seemed to be considering something.

A long minute passed in which both cat and raccoon sipped their drinks. Max began to wonder whether he should make a break for it when Pendulum replied.

"We used to," she began in a monotonous voice, lacking any emotion and sounding quite otherworldly. "We don't anymore. We just do business together."

Max tried to engage Pendulum in several more conversations, and she took part in them, but the cheery voice she used was noticeably fake. Max felt increasingly anxious when she refused to make eye contact with him and began replying in one word answers. Eventually, she stopped replying altogether. Feeling as if he was weighed down on the inside, the raccoon stood up, biting his lip, and started for the door to leave.

He reached the door, half expecting Pendulum to interject, but she didn't. She only hummed a low tone of acknowledgement of the fact he was leaving, a cold, dismissive sound that made his hair stand on end.

He exited and shut the door behind him, staring blindly ahead. He had done something to hurt her feelings. . . he felt extremely stupid and angry with himself. Then, he realized he was holding Pendulum's empty glass. Hastily, he turned to the door again to return it, but at that moment, his phone buzzed against his thigh.

When Max withdrew it, only two words were there: a text from Pendulum reading "keep it."