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They ended up in Chase's quarters, for reasons of proximity to the lab, size of the room, and the availability of chilled bottled water. Newton had rarely felt more parched in all his life, and he was grateful to the coyote for reminding him not to guzzle. The canine joked that he rarely had use of the sofa that had become part of his furnishings, as he so rarely had company to sit upon it. Even on their games nights, he and the firefox had used the kitchen table out of practicality. Now, they rested on the sofa, both almost too shaky to move, save to bring small measures of water to their dry maws.

"That was different from the others," Chase said softly. "Can you tell me what happened?"

Newton smiled. "Now I know what you meant, when you said you couldn't come up with answers for me. I'll try to tell you what I think happened, but whether or not it's the 'correct' answer," his voice was sufficient to make the quotation marks appear, which eliminated the need for him to raise his forepaw to draw them in the air, "I have no idea. Perhaps I should start by telling you about my new friend."

For the next few minutes, the firefox told of Felice, the spirit-bear who had helped him to talk through so many things, and who led him to the du Maurier story. "Interesting tale, for the mid-1960s," he said. "The scientist in the story, MacLean, calls the 'energy' he's working with many things, but he's speaking in hedging scientific terms about the soul or spirit -- some essence that survives the death of the body. His idea was to find a way to capture it, to have it live on in the machine he called Charon Three."

"But a soul should be free."

"Exactly. In the story, however, it was described as MacLean having captured an energy that was as near to being electrical as makes no odds; that's how it would be stored and accessed in that machine. Spoiler alert: Ultimately, he lets the spirit go and dismantles the machine. Still worth the read and, having read it, I decided to take the chance that Felice was right. That was the chance I just took with you, Chase.

"From the start, I had been looking at this phenomenon as if it were electrical, because everyone called it lightning. It had something about it that could be considered electrical, because it reacted that way. During these episodes in the stone chamber, anything made of metal arced and sparked like aluminum foil in a microwave oven; that's why we got rid of them. Everything pointed to the idea that it was electrical, from the way people saw it, describing it as lightning, to the people who created this project framing it that way. They called me in because electromagnetic energy is my specialty. That narrowed my thinking. It was Felice who helped me look at it differently."

Chase smiled. "Good to have friends."

"Yes."

The coyote swallowed another sip of his water. "He was right? About the story?"

"It's a better answer than 'generating lightning' out of nothing."

"But it is something. It's..." He faltered. "I need a word."

"How about 'lifeforce,' as a starter? Less metaphysical than 'soul,' but it takes 'lightning' out of the description."

"I still don't know what it really is, or why it's happening to me."

Newton smiled. "Trying to find answers? Be careful; you'll turn into a scientist."

"No, no, anything but that!" Chase laughed, waving his open forepaws as if trying to erase the image. When he regained himself, he asked, "Was it the scientist or the friend who stripped himself down to the fur to join me in that chamber?"

"Both, probably. The scientist who wanted to know, and the friend who didn't want you to be alone in that experience, whatever it was." The firefox paused, taking in a little more water, trying to let his emotions feel over the experience while letting his mind peek in enough to try to find words. "Chase, how much do you remember from one of these... happenings?"

The coyote shook his head slowly, his ears splaying. "Not much, or at least, nothing certain. I don't have names, dates, titles, anything like that. Usually, within a day or two, I'll have a desire to go look for something at the library, or maybe search the Internet. It's most difficult with music, if my only clue is hearing some snippet of something. For books and such, a name, a title, some quote that I can search on the 'net... that's easier."

"Can you tell me how you remember? A feeling, an impression...?"

"I can tell you more, now, describe it a little better. It's like remembering some bit of overheard conversation. Something someone said, but I couldn't tell you who, or when, or even if it was me they were talking to at the time."

Newton found himself nodding vigorously. "Memories. Whispers." He drew a breath, trying to steady himself and his imagination. "Maybe not a billion furs, Chase, but a number far too large to count with any ease. They were with us, passing through us. We just heard them speak."

"Why me? Why us? Why lightning?"

"Because you're a lightning rod." The firefox smiled. "Not for lightning; for lifeforce. You attract lifeforce, and you have for all your life. That's why the spirits came to you, your invisible friends. I have the feeling that they'd be invisible to me, too, just as Felice would probably be invisible to you, but they're real. That's what we've just proven, you and I. We've just had the chance to feel many, many lives pass through us, perhaps trying to leave something with us."

The look on the coyote's face was something between horror and wonder, disbelief and hope that it was true. "Why, Newton? Why are they...?"

Sadly, gently, smiling, the firefox shook his head. "We may never know for sure. I have an idea, though, something that's just come through to me like one of those half-heard conversations. I know this quotation from before, though, so that could be some strange twist in my own mind, but I'd like to know how it feels to you." He leaned toward the coyote and spoke softly. "It is better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness."

Chase blinked, recognizing the words, from some source or other. "It feels... it's not like they're cursing, though...?"

"They aren't. They aren't even screaming, except perhaps in the sense of needing to be heard. They're saying something that they hope someone will hear. They are candles, not curses."

"Candles. So many candles." The canine nodded again. "That feels right, somehow. Each one is a light, some flicker of light..."

"...and so many of them, together, make a brightness that we can barely stand to see. Like lightning."

"But not lightning."

"No." The firefox smiled softly. "Which may very well make an end to this project."

"Newton...!" The coyote reached a forepaw to the ailurus' arm, his ears back in fright, his tail making a sharp swish of upset. "Will that put you out of a job?"

"Both of us, I suspect. You're getting room, board, expenses, and a stipend out of this. Have you saved any of it?"

Chase nodded. "Most of it, actually, but... Newton, they still think it's electricity, or lightning, or whatever. They're going to want results. They want their money out of it."

"They can't profit from what can't be recorded or captured." The firefox smiled. "And I don't think they're going to like it much when they find that the equipment isn't registering like it should be."

For a long moment, the younger male looked confused, worried, then slowly changed his expression to something like conspiratorial understanding. "What did you do?"

Newton felt his muzzle blossom into a wide grin. "Less than what I'm going to."

* * * * * * * * * *

"What do you mean, nothing?"

Dr. Newton A. Gutenberg stood respectfully and calmly erect before the desk of the well-dressed rat in an office that was designed to intimidate anyone who was unfortunate enough to be invited into it. Framed photographs of the rat with "important people" were mixed with a variety of plaques making various proclamations about the rat's own "importance" and "success." The desk itself stood higher than most desks, and Newton was certain that the rat's overlarge chair was on some bit of platform to raise it up another half-dozen centimeters, to create an impression of an emperor's throne. The surface of the over-tall and over-large desk was conspicuously tidy, save for a single file folder that had been thumbed through to the point of making its contents even more useless than the information that it contained.

The firefox, unimpressed by the attempt to impress him, spread his arms a little bit away from himself, as if in a shrugging sort of qualification of an earlier statement. "Perhaps not nothing, but nothing like the early events were recording."

"Is there some fault with the equipment?"

"I can find no fault with them." Newton didn't even cross his fingers behind his back. The statement was absolutely true; they recorded, with perfect accuracy, what he had set them to record. "The last seven events have shown a distinct lowering in both the power and longevity of the electrical phenomenon. Take a look at the tracing printout of the last one. There are fits and spurts at the beginning and, over the remaining minute or two of the event, there are only sparks, at random intervals, and they are each under three gigajoules." He paused long enough to seem polite about it before adding, "A natural lightning strike is about five gigajoules."

"I knew that!" the rat spit harshly. "I thought we were getting readings of maybe 25 gig jewels." The executive approximated his pronunciation as two words that were more likely to be in his vocabulary.

"Even higher, we estimated. But as you can see, that's much lower now, and for briefer durations." The firefox almost had to bite his tongue to keep from saying That means shorter lengths of time. There was only so far he could push.

"What's causing this?" the rat demanded.

"We're not even sure what caused this phenomenon in the first place. It could be that it's simply run its course. It did seem to grow stronger for a while, and now it seems to be waning."

"Does the coyote have anything to do with this?"

Newton carefully suppressed a bristling of his fur. "The phenomenon was happening to Chase, not because of him. He's never expressed any ability to suppress an event, beyond a sensation of feeling one coming on, he's not been able to control the onset of an event for more than a pawful of minutes, perhaps three or four at the most. When he feels it actually beginning, all bets are off; perhaps only seconds, if he has even that much control. I doubt that he's inhibiting the events at all."

"Didn't you say that he wanted to get rid of it?"

"As the phenomenon grew stronger, more painful for him, he did express a wish to be rid of it. Who wouldn't? Have you ever experienced being struck by lightning? Few of us have, fewer still have had it happen so many times, and at such a high level of power. It's easy to understand why he'd want to stop experiencing it."

"Is that what he's doing?" the rat said, his every mannerism and inflection alive with suspicion.

"It's what seems to be happening to him, yes. The events seem to be winding down of their own accord."

"You're sure he's not doing something? And your equipment is working?"

"Yes, to both questions."

"What do you propose we do?"

Newton had to use every erg of his willpower to refrain from saying what he really would like to propose the rat do, if only because he wasn't sure that it was anatomically possible. "We can continue for a while, see if the events begin to increase in their power output. There's still some activity, as the printouts suggest, just nowhere near as much as before. Perhaps it will come back again."

"Can we make him generate more power? Is there something we can do to him to make it happen?"

Tail still, ears set firm, the firefox controlled his voice as carefully as he could manage. "Since we don't know what caused it in the first place, I find that idea unworkable."

The rat considered for several moments, no doubt taking nothing but dollar signs into his thoughts. Newton could almost hear the sounds of cash registers and stock market ticker tapes (if such things actually existed anymore). At length, the rat exhaled forcefully and, with the emphasis of a judge passing sentence, he decreed, "You have 30 days to produce better results, Doctor, or the project will be terminated."

Unsure if he could control his tongue, Newton simply nodded at what was intended to be a curt dismissal, spun on one heel, and padded from the office, allowing himself the mental image of punching the air.

* * * * * * * * * *

"Will that be enough time?" Chase spoke quietly, almost too low for him to be heard above the noisy lunch crowd.

Newton chuckled softly, renewing his attack on his salad. "I don't think they've planted listening devices on us, Chase, and our handlers are in the saloon. That's why I suggested Steak'n'Spirits today. We should be able to speak freely."

"Blame the paranoia movies from the early part of the century."

"Duly noted." The red panda helped himself to another of the buttermilk biscuits that he'd stopped worrying about as soon as he'd joined the coyote in the project facility's gym. The two of them had a good routine and, between them, a sufficiency of calories were burned to offset the indulgences that they'd both become accustomed to. "We knew this day would be coming when we started making changes, four months ago. We'd be ready if they shut us down today; now, we've got a little time left, so we can set the final plan in motion with an actual date in mind."

The canine nodded, only slightly doubtful. "I guess it's different in the planning phases. Now, it's 'in your face'-like."

Chuckling softly, Newton agreed. "I'm not exactly fearless either, Chase. I can put out some discreet feelers with other scientists in my field, see what might be out there. I figure I've put away enough to keep me on my hindpaws for a year or more, even if nothing shows up. We can both stretch that further, if you'd like to go with me."

"Do you want me to?"

"Yes."

The immediacy of the answer appeared to startle Chase, but only a little. The smile on his muzzle was both shy and affectionate, and Newton was warmed by it. The last four months had provided a great many surprises for the two of them, not the least of it the growing intimacy between them. The origins of the traditional request for tactile warmth, known as the Question ("May I share my fur with you?"), were in dispute from every side, but it's purpose was always clear. It was the way that sapients learned how to bring back into their lives what non-sapients had always known: Physical intimacy was about grounding, reaffirming the self with another, a part of the pack instinct of furpile, of the genuineness of touch, the necessity of it. In these modern times, simple, genuine, vital intimacy was all but unknown, most often denied or replaced with mere sexuality, experienced by two (or more) who can't understand why the act wasn't as satisfying as it was made out to be. In a world where merely shaking paws seemed to be drifting out of practice, it's impossible not to discover genuine intimacy with someone who has shared the pulse of lifeforce with you. It had not grown into sexuality between Chase and Newton, for whatever reasons one might come up with. It had, however, grown into a physical intimacy that had found the two of them glad that the red panda had insisted on providing the coyote with a king-sized bed for his quarters. A great many nights had found them talking softly, making plans, holding each other in a quiet that used to be empty and was now peaceful.

"How many more 'events' should we try for?" the younger male smiled.

"Official ones? As many as you think you're up for. They already know that the frequency has lessened, along with the intensity of electrical output. We could scare them by having greater frequency with ever lower results, as if it's eager to be going away quickly. It's a kind of waiting game, at this point. They have no idea what it really is; they only see their profits leaking away. We can play it any way that you feel comfortable."

Chase considered as he enjoyed another bite of his chicken-fried steak, a particular specialty of this establishment. As always before a meal of this kind, he had paused to close his eyes and thank, graciously, the non-sapient animal who had given its life for his nourishment. Newton had found this the root of his idea that perhaps sapience brings with it the possibility, at least, of a greater and more conscious empathy for the world.

"How about the unofficial events?" the coyote asked.

"I think we might be able to have those as often as we wished, now that we know what we're asking for." The red panda paused in his eating long enough to gaze at the young male across from him, feeling his heart opening again, and enjoying the feeling. "I'm still amazed at what you can do."

"We, Newton. What we can do. You showed me how."

"Blame my scientific curiosity," the firefox grinned. "Along with a very special friend who gave us the clue."

With a matching grin, Chase asked, "Do you suppose any of them could just give us the winning lottery numbers?"

"I can almost hear Felice admonishing me not to be greedy." Newton considered briefly. "Although I wouldn't mind being guided to some investment manuals with ideas that actually worked."

* * * * * * * * * *

That night, back in Chase's quarters, the pair spent some time putting together a calendar for their plans, checking their finances, making a list of people for Newton to contact for new work. They agreed that, wherever they were to land, the coyote's continuing education would be a major consideration. There was no future in minimum-wage work, and he was far too curious and eager to learn; stopping at that level of work wasn't his style at all. His Tribal birthright could be used as credential for some learning grants, and between what he'd saved up from his project stipend and what Newton had already said he would be willing to invest in the coyote's future, there was nothing to stop him from getting the education that he craved. He only hoped that he could settle on one area of study, when so many looked so interesting. Even that wasn't an issue for the firefox; he had long ago advocated being a "lifelong learner," whether in a classroom or a library. The coyote was very happy with that idea as well.

The evening settled gently on them as they looked upon the plans that they had made. The atmosphere in the room made Newton feel warm, comfortable. The term "companionable" came to his mind, and he was able to let himself wonder about the word and its connotations. He was put in mind of that old British television program, about how new knowledge can change one's entire universe. His world view had evolved so expansively over the past six months that he wondered if he would ever be able to encompass it all. It was easy to recall that quote from Oliver Wendell Holmes: One's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.

"Chase?"

The coyote looked up from his laptop, a soft question in his eyes.

"Are you up for an unofficial event?"

For an answer, the canine smiled gently, closed the portable computer, rose from his chair, and invited the ailurus to the bed. They extinguished lights as they went, leaving only the few small nightlights to help them find their way in the otherwise cave-black interior of the quarters. They stripped to the fur, as was their custom when retiring for the night or for one of these "events." The term that Newton had so hated had now become their tongue-in-cheek reference for what might otherwise be called communing with spirits. Spooning closely, the coyote's back to the firefox's chest, the red panda let out a soft, deeply contented sigh. "Who do you think will visit us tonight?" he said softly into the coyote's ear.

"No telling. Shall I...?"

"I think your heart reaches out better than mine." He let the smile on his muzzle expand into his voice. "Besides, you've got more invisible friends than I do."

"I've had more practice!" the coyote laughed. "Breathe with me. Relax. All that spirituality stuff."

Newton allowed himself one chuckle, then settled in, holding the younger male gently in his embrace, calming his breathing, slowing his mind, opening his heart.

"We're here to listen," Chase told the darkness around them. "Anyone want to join us tonight?"

The firefox knew that, even now, he probably would not hear the voice of any of the coyote's Spirits, yet he held himself still, as he always did, partly to lend his own quiet energies to the invocation, and partly in hope of hearing something. Perhaps, with practice...

*Yes*

The sound was more susurration than voice, but Newton heard it, and his heart beat a little more quickly.

"We are here to listen," Chase repeated.

*Then listen*

The whisper was louder this time. The firefox was certain that he had heard it.

Another few moments, and the coyote repeated, "Come talk to us, if you wish."

Just before Newton could ask what the matter was, a voice as clear and resounding as he remembered asked, "Are you free, Mr. Humphries?"

"Felice?"

"You were expecting, maybe, the Duchess of Windsor?"

In his arms, Newton felt Chase turn his head toward him. "Is he here? I still can't hear him."

"Yes, it's Felice. I'd know that voice anywhere."

"And well you should!" the Spirit's voice smiled. "I've worked hard at being a true original for you."

"That you are." To Chase, he said, "He's taking credit for being a true original."

"This is like closed captioning for the hearing impaired."

"Now you know how I feel!" the firefox laughed. "Welcome, Felice. Have you brought someone who wishes to speak to us?"

"Yes. Me."

Newton blinked. This was different from the great majority of these "unofficial events" of the past few months. The various Elemental Spirits that comprised Chase's panoply of invisible friends had been able to help the two of them by finding a particular "visitor" who had something to share with them. Understanding what the "lightning" really was had helped Chase convey to his Spirits what he needed -- some means of not having "everyone screaming at once," as he put it. (His Spirit on that evening -- Mountain, he told Newton -- must have had something choice to say, since the coyote fell into a fit of laughing that lasted over a full minute.) Those occasions were no less powerful, emotionally speaking, than the huge sense of wailing that had Newton had experienced on that first occasion with Chase; what made the difference was that, with the presence of an individual lifeforce, the effect was that of communing, of listening, of feeling the deep sense of gratitude, relief, peace in the spirit that flowed through them. Sometimes, they heard names, places, events, stories, a sharing of something deeply personal and unsaid in life, finally heard by strangers who cared enough to listen.

That's not what Felice was saying.

"Chase, can you hear him?"

"Not so far, at least."

In the deep shadows of the room, the sense of the large bear snickering softly was impossible to ignore. "You're going to have to relay my messages to him, if you want to."

"Why would I not want to tell him what you're saying?"

"Because, my dear Newton Augustus Gutenberg, I'm going to help you understand my name just a little more fully."

Newton nodded. "He wants to make sure that you understand what his name means. It means joy, happiness, even luck and good fortune."

"That works," the bear nodded, amused. "Now explain that I want to talk to you both about your relationship, and your future."

Newton relayed the information.

"I can't see the future, mind you, but you're on a positive track. Without meaning to sound like a fortune cookie, I think that you're on the road of good fortune."

Again, Newton spoke to Chase, who squeezed the firefox's arms with his own.

"You will likely be having these 'events,' as you're calling them, throughout your lives; I and Chase's Spirits will help to keep them calm and beneficial to all concerned."

The red panda had a bit of a lump in his throat as he explained all this to the coyote. "Are you okay with that?" he asked.

"Yes," the younger male answered quickly. "It's not frightening now; it's... more like the gift I was talking about."

"Want to give it back now?"

"No." The coyote's voice smiled. "Especially not now that I have someone to share it with."

"News flash," chuckled Felice. "You aren't the only one who can do this. There are others. You're just the most directly connected, who can feel what you call 'lifeforce' as itself. Most call it 'inspiration,' not entirely sure what it is or where it comes from."

After Newton told all this to his companion, Chase wriggled gently from the embrace and rolled over to look directly into the firefox's eyes. The smile on his muzzle was so sweetly affectionate that Newton felt his heart rolling over in his chest, and the smile on his own muzzle reflected like a mirror.

"There it is," Felice's own voice smiled broadly. "Now. Tell him that you love him."

Reflexively, the firefox's head whipped upward. "What?"

"Newton?"

He felt the coyote's forepaw on his chest, heard the concern in his voice, but he otherwise was focused on trying to get a look at the bear-spirit.

"You heard me," Felice said, his voice as full as his name. "Tell him that you love him."

"But I don't..."

"Don't you?"

Newton felt strangely trapped, not so much frightened as confused, mystified. He was not unfamiliar with love, but this wasn't...

"Storge, agape, philia, eros."

The Four Loves, Newton remembered. He covered Chase's forepaw with his own, managed to look back at the young coyote's face again. "Can you give me a moment?"

"Am I being talked about?" The look on the canine's face was sufficiently impudent to make the ailurus smile.

"I think we both are." He looked back toward the rest of the room, wherever the bear might be hiding himself in the dimly lit space. "Go on, Felice."

"Testing your Latin again, Newton," the Spirit chuckled softly. "We might want to ignore storge, as I don't think yours is a parent-child relationship. Agape is a love of all sapient-kind, that one fur might lay down his life for another. So we now have philia and eros. You've shown philial love as soon as you began to treat Chase as a real furson rather than a test subject. So you already love him."

"I can't just say it like that." Anticipating Chase's question, Newton glanced at him, squeezing his forepaw gently, silently asking for a moment more.

"Whyever not? Are you afraid that the use of the word in a philial sense will be misinterpreted as an erotic one?" Another chuckle, but not one of meanness or spite. "Shakespeare comes to mind: 'Lord, what fools these mortals be.' Not only is the word a perfectly wonderful one to use, there's nothing to suggest anything erotic. Along with that, remember that eros refers to intimacy, sensuality, not necessarily sexuality. You've already experienced all but the latter anyway. Does that idea frighten you?"

"Newton, please..."

The firefox exhaled heavily, making himself look at Chase's face. His eyes had long since adapted to the low light in the room, so he saw every feature quite clearly. He quickly realized that this was both a comfort and a worry to him. Ironically, it was the scientist in him that stepped up and demanded that the data be peer-reviewed.

"Felice is talking about our relationship, Chase. He wants me to tell you that I love you."

A long moment passed in silence, the coyote's face quiet and unrevealing. At last, he asked, "Do you?"

Another breath, and Newton plunged ahead. "I'm afraid of saying anything. The word has so much baggage, at least for me, and I've never really... I don't know..."

The firefox could say no more, not only for simply not knowing what more to say but because the coyote had reached up to clamp a tender forepaw around Newton's muzzle. Looking somewhere over his own shoulder, Chase asked the air, "Felice, I may not be able to hear you, but I'm guessing you can hear me."

"Yes," the bear-spirit affirmed, and Newton nodded his head.

"You've been telling something to Newton that I couldn't hear. And you've told him to tell me that he loves me. I'm going to guess that you know him the way my other friends know me."

"Yes." Nod.

"Then I'll go first." The coyote released the firefox's muzzle gently and looked into his eyes. "You have helped me to turn a nightmare into a dream. You have held me close against you while we shared that dream. We have experienced something as close to miraculous as I could ever have imagined. We have shared our fur on other nights, simply because we wanted to. I've been afraid to tell you how this makes me feel, because I didn't know how you'd take it. Newton..."

This time, it was the coyote who was silenced, not by the firefox's forepaw, but by his lips pressing tightly to the younger male's lips, not knowing what the hell he was doing, not knowing what else it might mean and, in that moment, not caring. Part of him wondered if some visiting spirit had come to join them anyway, as he experienced the same powerful evocation of lifeforce that he discovered with Chase during all those events, official and otherwise. Slowly, he realized that the lifeforce was his own, reaching out, finding, flowing, dancing with Chase's lifeforce, his heart, his spirit, his essence, and the sounds that he heard were his own soft warbles and the coyote's throaty whines, more eloquent than any words could ever be.

Long seconds later, the kiss was broken, and the two clung to one another as if never to part. Newton's heart thudded in his chest, his breathing was quick, and he felt Chase experiencing the same as if, in that moment, they were the same being. Perhaps they were, for at the same moment, they said, "I love you."

And then they both laughed in that joyful way that lovers share so easily and so well.

* * * * * * * * * *

With conduct unbecoming a corporation, Chase and Newton were given two full weeks to vacate the project property after the thirty-day deadline had been met with "disappointing results." The severance included further pay for both of them, packing materials for relocation, a small amount for moving expenses, and even a few more visits to eateries and the mall (without their escorts). They weren't foolish enough to be extravagant, beyond another Cookie Monster dessert at Steak'n'Spirits. Unsure exactly how much time they'd have to box up, they'd done a fair bit of it in the week prior to the project's official end. On the morning of their official departure, they had all of their possessions packed to fit into a small rental truck and, without fanfare or corporate notice, they left the property in time to have an early lunch at a hole-in-the-wall place that served astonishingly good "India Indian" food. Newton wisely avoided going beyond one-pepper levels of spice; Chase had a three-pepper dish and, apart from a period of profuse sweating, survived quite nicely.

Taking a leisurely four days, they arrived in Lawrence, Kansas, in time to spend an equally leisurely week arranging their belongings and finding appropriate furniture for a large three-bedroom apartment that was easily accessible to the University of Kansas facilities -- the research building where Newton would work and the classrooms where Chase would undoubtedly have a leg-up on many of his freshman year classes. The two smaller bedrooms became workrooms and private-time rooms; the master bedroom fulfilled its purpose quite well, and the large tub was put to equally good use. The kitchen was larger than what Chase had made do with back at the project facilities, and they gladly split the cost of outfitting the space properly. Between them, they made quite the comfortable nest.

Their occasional communing (as they renamed it) brought to them a great many interesting and powerful stories, some of which made Chase consider writing about them. More books and music were discovered, along with a few interesting hints concerning their various neighbors, particularly those of the nearby Haskell Indian Nations University. With a thousand students per year, all of them Tribal, the occasional "lightning rod" was almost sure to show up from time to time. His own Tribal credentials gave Chase the option to get one of their grants for something close to a "full ride," but he was reluctant to take a spot away from someone who needed it more than he did. Instead, he found ways to meet others through various gaming and educational groups and, over time, a few of those lifeforce-attractors found themselves dining at Chase and Newton's apartment, with intriguing conversations during the evening.

Several dates on the calendar could have been considered worthy of an anniversary celebration; they chose the day on which they had first shared the communing. It coincided with Chase's completion of his freshman year classes and his first time to make the Dean's List. His grades for the first semester were just shy of the mark, as he got used to providing papers and test answers in the forms that his various professors wanted; with that sometimes arbitrary set of requirements met, his GPA rose to the required heights. They celebrated the day in many ways and that night, in the sweet afterglow of a particularly passionate celebration, the coyote and the firefox lay resting in each others' arms, regaining their breaths, feeling the tendrils of their lifeforce intermingling, when they sensed something more in their warm, darkened room. As one, they turned their faces to the space just beyond their bed, and there began the great procession, and they both could see and hear and feel...

Floating, twirling, dancing, the Spirits came to offer their benedictions. Earth, Fire, Wind, Thunder, Rain, Mountain, the essential Spirits of sapients and non-sapients alike, such as Horse, Puma, Firefox, Coyote, Fox, Wolf, so many more, more than Newton could count, but he felt every one. In they all came, anyhow and everyhow, and from each one, the warmest blessings were bestowed with a touch that no mortal paw could ever have made and no true heart could mistake. The firefox felt the coyote's forepaw in his, they felt their fur, their minds, their spirits, and as Felice joined the glorious procession, Newton knew that the most important lightning always struck more than once...