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My next genuinely aware thought was that I was being held and rocked, not quite in Heartsinger's lap, still there on the log, the creek and forest still keeping us safe from the rest of the world. I hadn't truly lost consciousness; it was more like I had scared myself into a moment of not being able to think coherently. I was slowly becoming more aware, and I gave the Borzhvolk a squeeze to let him know that I had more or less returned.

"How can I help, Max?" he whispered into my ear.

I chuckled softly. "The question of the day, it seems."

"Every day." His voice held a smile.

Giving him another brief squeeze, I pulled back from his embrace to look once more into his warm golden eyes. "Maybe I'm more Vulcan than I thought."

"What does that mean?"

"Something I said to Lightwing. She had asked me if you -- the tribe -- had hurt me by being too open, or bringing up to much of my emotions. I told her that it was okay, that I wasn't a Vulcan after all."

He nodded at me, smiling. "I don't know the series as well as I might, but I think I get the idea. For some reason, it was supposed to be bad for a Vulcan to get emotional. There's something in the canon about it, I'm sure."

"The connection in my head said that it was because Vulcans are supposed to be so completely ruled by logic that being emotional was bad form, at the least, and maybe even dangerous, at worst. I thought of it like that because I was afraid of how much emotion I was feeling last night. This morning." I swallowed. "Now."

"Are you okay, Max?" His eyes searched mine. "Can you tell me what you're feeling?"

Shocked, I realized that the first answer was, I feel like I want to kiss you. What the hell was that? Too much emotion turns you gay? Heartsinger didn't seem to help matters much when he reached up to pet my headfur with amazing tenderness. I closed my eyes, almost whined, felt my tail wagging uncontrollably.

"Listen to me, Max." His crushed-velvet baritone became another caress to my system. "New term for you: Emotional overload. If I'm sensing you right, you're feeling way too vulnerable. You've opened up a huge cache of emotions, and words are getting kinda crazy right now. Can you hear me?"

I was able to nod but not much more. Some part of me tried to focus on breathing while another part of me wondered about the kiss, the kiss that couldn't happen, that mustn't happen, that seemed like it should happen, and the sheer shock and fear that whole idea was causing in me.

Heartsinger hugged me again, then helped me to my hindpaws. "Let's get you back to the house, Max. There's someone else you need to talk to. More than one, I expect. C'mon. It's not far."

All but tugging me away from the clearing, the Borzhvolk held my forepaw in his. It was no trouble, keeping up with his pace, but I still felt mightily confused. Moving helped. As I padded along with him, slightly behind and on his left, I began to use my breathing technique to better advantage. The trail wasn't physically challenging; I wasn't panting from exercise, just taking more breaths, trying to deepen them. He complimented me from time to time, encouraged me, seeming to understand something that, so far, I absolutely did not. When we got to the head of the trail, not quite at the barn, he turned to me, speaking softly again.

"Max, do you still want to hold my paw?"

Yes, my mind or heart or whatever wanted to shout. I had the crazy idea that I needed to be tethered to the ground, that I might run away or start screaming if I didn't keep hold of something, someone, and it frightened me to think that I would have to start doing things for myself. I had to have Heartsinger's warmth, his strength, his connection. Did he not want me?

I blinked and looked at him again. Not want me for what? He looked at me with so much compassion and patience that I felt embarrassed all over again. Through all this, he simply smiled, so very softly. I finally managed to croak out, "I guess you've seen this before."

"Lived it, Max." He gave my forepaw a squeeze before we mutually let go of each other. "Emotional overload. It makes you wonder about... everything. It's why it's best to get through it with one or two trusted friends, to help you. It changes you, but it takes a while to figure out just how, and how you want to show those changes to the rest of the world. So, in case anyone's around..."

A soft bark accompanied a smirk that probably said volumes about my confusion. "What would they think?"

"In truth," the white wolf smiled, "they wouldn't think anything the least bit negative. The problem is more what you're afraid they might think. That's what would hurt you, Max, and I don't want you to hurt."

His compassion flowed out from him in waves, even though I wasn't sure what it meant to me. That was the point that finally started getting through my numbed brain: I was putting my interpretation on things. I was judging, not everyone else. I managed to regain myself a little and, nodding, I returned his smile. "Thank you, Heartsinger. I think I can make it to the house."

"Of course you can." He gave my shoulder a squeeze. "Let's get inside."

The rest of the walk was fully under my own power, although I still felt disconnected from things, or perhaps from myself, or both. There was a fair bit of afternoon left, and the day was still beautiful; it surprised me that we didn't find anyone else enjoying it, on our way back to the house. I supposed there was no one there to notice if I were still holding Heartsinger's paw and, like he said, they wouldn't have thought badly of me for it. For my own part, I still couldn't understand why I wanted to, why it felt so reassuring to be tethered. I wasn't floating away (and if I ate much more cooking like I'd experienced in the past few days, I would be firmly anchored by the kilos added to my weight from pure overindulgence). I tried to order my mind enough to get some idea of whether I had felt like this before, or at least something similar. If so, I couldn't recall it.

For that matter, I couldn't remember exactly what caused it. Something I said, I think, something I felt. I remembered talking with Heartsinger, remembered his story, and I felt so deeply with him that I... No. I couldn't catch it. The thought floated somewhere just beyond me, like that eerie sensation of worrying that I needed some means of holding myself to the Earth before I lifted away and became lost, gone from everything that I'd known.

Once we were inside the house again, I no longer felt like I was going to fly away into outer space; the ceilings here should stop that. I found myself looking at the thought from an entirely sensible standpoint. I knew that I wouldn't literally float away, that I was not literally in danger of losing my body or even my spirit (whatever that was) to some kind of weird antigravity effect. I also knew that I was feeling something, and the way that I was interpreting that feeling was being afraid of letting go, being lost, separating from myself, or from my life...

Heartsinger had his arm around me even before I was fully aware that I had staggered where I stood. I felt light-headed as well as momentarily disoriented. Part of my mind tried to diagnose something physical, anything from tripping (while standing still -- good trick) to some sort of small stroke or an issue why my heart. My physical heart. It wasn't that. The rest of my mind, the part of me that somehow knew to come find the tribe, told me that it wasn't a physical condition at all. It was the words that I had spoken, back at the creek, the words about not wanting to kill myself.

Unless I already had.

"It feels physical."

I blinked. The voice had come from in front of me. I saw the young doe standing before me, her black eyes as tender and open as they had been last night and this morning. Stellamara was alone, standing quietly, her russet-colored clothing setting off the light tan of her hide. She had been more hidden before, half-cowering behind others, mostly Lightwing, but always with someone nearby. As I learned more about her, I could understand why, just as I understood that her standing here before me was an act of trust.

"Are you okay, Max?" she asked me softly.

"Maybe I should sit down."

Heartsinger guided me toward the chairs in the pit area before the fireplace, reminding me of the shallow steps leading down, holding onto me. The feeling was a bit like being drunk, although I was starting to come out of it now. With the white wolf's help, I seated myself in the chair I had sat in only last night. He once again folded himself onto one of the bean bags, pulling up another for the doe to use. She sat near to me, closer than she had been during my entire visit here, and she continued looking at me with her comforting gaze. It was so easy to imagine that she was looking into my heart, my mind, my spirit, looking at everything that made me who I am, and that look was so complete that she could somehow rip me apart, if she wanted to... and I knew that she wouldn't. No judgment, no violence, nothing but understanding, caring, support, because...

"You've been hurt enough."

I did not know if she read my mind and completed the thought, or if I had heard her words and coupled them with my thoughts. It was easy for me to believe either one. "Thank you," I said softly. My own voice sounded distant to me, as if I actually had become as separate as I was afraid of becoming earlier.

"Have you found your answers yet?"

"I think I have more questions."

The doe nodded slowly. I had the strange feeling that she was trying not to frighten me. "That's part of finding the answers. I have to imagine that your work has shown that to you, Max. I'm not a big fan of television, but there are some tropes that filter through even to those of us who prefer a more sheltered life." She smiled at her own words. "The tropes are fiction, but I have to imagine that there's at least a grain of truth in them."

"Some," I admitted. "You might like the British detective shows better; they don't rely on violence and gore. Even I prefer those."

"Because they use intelligence more than brawn," Heartsinger observed. "I have a few favorites on my own lists."

"You use words, too," the doe ventured. "You investigate. You ask questions."

"Yes. A lot of questions."

"Do you get answers?"

"Eventually."

"Why does it take so long?"

Before the answer reached my maw, my brain finally kicked in enough to bring understanding to the party. "Because I don't always know what questions will bring me the answers that I need."

Stellamara nodded again, slowly. "What questions would you like to try? There's time to ask as many as you need."

I smiled softly at her. "I think I need an answer to this one first. Can you read my mind?"

Her laugh was beautiful, tender, genuine amusement rather than derision. I realized then that she was truly comfortable with me. Real laughter doesn't happen without trust. "No," she assured me. "I can't pull words or thoughts from you. I am empathic, like Heartsinger."

The Borzhvolk shook his head gently. "You're much stronger than I am, lovely star. I wear my openness in order to invite others in. I seem to have developed stronger shields and resistance to negativity than Stellamara has. I also prefer life in the safety of Starhold, but it's easier for me to venture out more often."

Looking at the doe, I asked gently, "Do you ever feel trapped?"

"No," she answered simply. "I feel safe. When I do venture out, someone goes with me. I never learned to drive, so it's a given. Everyone here is good at helping me ground myself, if I get overloaded. It's probably easier for me to be overwhelmed; like Heartsinger said, I never really learned how to shield myself."

"What were you feeling from me last night? You seemed so frightened of me."

"Not of you. Your ghosts." With a gentle smile, she raised a slender forepaw to forestall my follow-up question. "When I sense things, I don't always get an easy way to interpret them. You were a stranger, in my home -- in our home -- and inside my safe place, so I was a little nervous. What I sensed was something I had felt before, from someone who described himself as haunted by things in his past."

She paused, looking to the white wolf, the question in her black eyes. He nodded. "Yes, I told him. Thank you."

Returning her soft gaze to me, she said, "You seemed haunted in the same way. It's why I asked Heartsinger to talk to you about it."

I took a breath and nodded. "I've been battling with Airdancer's ghost. It's why I asked if you could read my mind. Your description of that ghost, that feeling, was exactly the way it felt to me. Unicorn asked me to imagine what that ghost felt like. Words like 'slithering' and 'grasping' came to mind. It feels like a weight, something tangible, pressing down on my shoulders."

"Trying to make you collapse, to make you small."

"Yes."

"To make you less than yourself."

"Yes."

"To destroy you."

"Stop," I pleaded, and I felt them reach out to me, to hold me. I returned the touch, my forepaws to their arms, and I made myself breathe. Something was happening, in my mind, in my heart, somewhere inside me, I didn't know where. A connection, like a battery, an electric circuit, draining off power, the excess energy, the fear... Words left me briefly, and I let the sensation flow through me, less electric, more water, still no words...

Sounds. Voice. Words? Are those words?

"How are you feeling, Max?"

I swallowed, tried to get some words of my own. "What," I managed to eke out, "happened?"

"Grounding." Heartsinger's voice was close to my ear. "It's a word we all throw around, yet there seems to be a genuinely physical component to it, like grounding an electrical circuit. I don't know if it's scientific or logical; it's something Stellamara and I do automatically."

"You did something."

"Touch. Hold. Help you feel safe."

I shook my head slowly. "Something else."

"What did you feel?" Stellamara asked softly, not quite a whisper.

"So much pain, and then... something like having water flow through me, or draining off the pain, the fear..." I looked into her eyes. "Is that the grounding you mean? Did you take it from me?"

"It depends on how much science you believe, or what type." Her smile was almost as enigmatic as one of Darkstar's. "In one sense, everything is energy, and consciousness channels energy. That's my cop-out nod to science. The mystical hoodoo version is that we opened our hearts to you, letting the emotions flow between us, to try to heal your pain."

"And you thought we weren't some bunch of flakes," Heartsinger grinned.

Laughing, I said, "Whatever it is, I'll take it. Thank you."

"It's all communication," the Borzhvolk continued. "Words, yes, but there is communication through touch, through sight, sound, scent, taste, and even communication that is somehow outside of all that."

"The sixth sense." I nodded. "Intuition, gut feelings. I guess nobody really knows what it is, how it works. You two seem to know more than most."

"It's part of us." The doe's cheeks reddened slightly. "It's not something that's easily explained.

We're usually just thought of as crazy. It's easier for most fursons to keep things in mental boxes. Things they call 'normal,' not always able to explain what that means." After a pause, she added, "I hope that doesn't sound cynical."

I shook my head. "It sounds true. Even my experience agrees with you, and I don't have your gifts. Or perhaps they aren't gifts...?"

"Sometimes. Like a lot of things, it has good points and bad."

"Max," Heartsinger squeezed my forepaw gently. "Do you feel up to looking at the words you said to me, down by the creek?"

A jolt of fear would have been expected; I'd been cowering like a whipped pup all day, or so it felt to me now. What I felt instead was my forepaws held by two fursons who were connected to me, plugged into me, as crazy as that sounded. A physical analogy might be that they were on either side of me as I took my first steps after some accident had taken away my ability to walk. Physical therapy, translated into something emotional, spiritual. I had absolutely no understanding of what that all meant, but it felt right. Feelings, it would seem, are important after all.

So much for being Vulcan.

"One more breath," I said, suiting actions to words, in through the nose, out through the maw. I squeezed their forepaws once, then recounted the essence of my and Heartsinger's talk for Stellamara's benefit, ending with those strange words: unless I already had.

The doe's soft voice asked, "Can you tell me what that means?"

"Can I get Darkstar's help with that?" My smile felt weak, but it was there. "It's some sort of poetic conundrum, or something like that. It's not literally true, of course; I mean, I'm still here and breathing. I guess... I'm not very good at existential thinking."

"But you're a good detective." The white wolf spoke gently but earnestly. "Where does an investigation start?"

"Crime scene," I said automatically. "Called in to view the crime scene. Look at the body. Look for anything that might be motive, any evidence that lets you pursue whatever leads you can track down."

"There's no physical body, no physical crime scene. Maybe work backward. What evidence do you have that the crime has taken place? What leads can you find?"

Whatever else the Borzhvolk was, he was also a good therapist. He had hit on exactly the right formula. "Max," I said. "Max is the evidence. The dog who came here for answers, the dog I've been while I've been here. Max is different from Detective Luton."

"Why? In what way?"

"Max has been listening, learning, opening himself. Feeling. Crying." I squeezed their forepaws. "Touching. Reaching out."

"Detective Luton doesn't do that?"

"It's been such a long time. Even Lightwing teased me about it last night." I felt myself flinch, realizing suddenly that I'd said too much. Instead of any rebuke, both of them squeezed my forepaws at almost the same time.

"No judgments, Max," the doe soothed. "No shame. Sharing fur is a special joy, an important one. We trust you, and we trust Lightwing. Whatever you shared with her is private; we won't pry."

Heartsinger added, "Is it a lead, Max? Something about your not having shared your fur with anyone in so long?"

"Yes," I admitted. "Something else you and I talked about, Heartsinger. The idea of intimacy and sex being one thing. I am going to take a chance that Lightwing won't mind if I talk about myself, in connection with last night. I resisted sharing our fur because I was afraid that I wanted too much of her. We talked, and we held each other, and I cried still more." Another headshake seemed both cliché and necessary. "I haven't cried so much in years."

"Detective Luton probably can't afford to cry. He sees too much pain in his world."

"Was it always like that, Max?" Stellamara wanted to know.

"Honestly, I don't... well, no, maybe it's just that I just can't be sure." I tried to remember what I was like when I started. Is it why the yappy Labrador, Parsons, irritated me? Was I like that as a newbie? I didn't think so. I was intense, not bouncing off the walls. I wanted to learn everything, to find out the secrets that the TV shows didn't reveal, the tricks, the wiles, the way to get to the bottom of any mystery.

"I think I started out okay. Learning the job, the techniques, the procedures. I had friends, on the force and off. I met Barbara, and we married, and Michael came along..." I thought about it now, the beginning, the various points where I had hit some new self along the way. "High school would have been enough to get me into the police academy, but I had to be 21, so I whiled some time taking courses at a junior college. Barb and I met there, in fact. She encouraged me to become a cop, be on the detective track. That's where the college classes came in handy after all."

"You were a policeman first?"

"It's where you learn the ropes," I explained. "Academy teaches a lot; experience and mentoring does the rest."

"You had a good mentor," the Borzhvolk said rather than asked.

"Moshe," I nodded. "Moshe Gillette became my rabbi, in the cop sense. He was Jewish too, so it was a joke between us."

"He was a rabbi and a police detective?"

My chuckle made me realize that the term wasn't as popular now as it used to be. "No. To cops, a 'rabbi' is a higher-up on the force who helps pave the way for a good career. Moshe had influence, but he only used it to make sure that his proteges learned and kept on the straight and narrow. No short cuts, no mavericks, just good detectives. I practically worshipped that mastiff."

"What happened to him?" Stellamara asked.

"Retirement. He didn't have to take it, but he felt it was time. He told me..."

The thought welled up so fully that I could almost relive the scene. It happened at his home, his small, well-kept house, where he lived alone, his wife gone, his two pups grown and married, a few grandpups to visit from time to time. He was ready for the quiet, ready to listen to the peacefulness of his later years. He made tea for us, in the days before I knew much about what tea was supposed to be for, long before Michael tried to teach me, in real life or in dreams. He told me he had one last bit of wisdom to impart to me. What got him to "last this long," was how he described it. Holding my gaze with his insightful eyes, he said that there was one thing that I had to remember above everything else.

"He told me, 'Learn to recognize what to let go of and what to keep, or you might get them mixed up. Don't ever mix 'em up, Max. You can't always make it right'."

"Did you, Max?" The doe's voice was nearly a whisper. "Did you mix them up?"

Memories can be brought forth individually, or in groups, or in hordes, or not at all, depending upon what it is that you want of them. Generally, they pick the form least helpful in any given moment. Right then, they elected to appear as a deluge of impressions and fragments that let me see myself in every possible form of horror that one could imagine. I was always wrong, always inept, always incompetent, always inadequate, a complete waste of fur...

I squeezed their forepaws, made myself look at them both, made myself speak. "Help. Me. Please."

"We will, Max." Heartsinger leaned closer to me. "Listen to us. Focus on us. Let go of the voices, let go of the fear. Keep hold of us."

Nodding vigorously, I tried to breathe more slowly, looking to each of them in turn, the wolf, the doe, Heartsinger, Stellamara, letting go of everything but them. "Working," I managed.

"Emotional overload, Max," the Borzhvolk reminded me. "Your mind will return."

"Our voices," the doe murmured. "Let yourself trust us again. You're safe here, Max. More than that -- you're a far better dog than you're telling yourself."

My exhale let itself be a laugh. "I thought you said that you couldn't read my mind."

"More like reading mine," Heartsinger explained. "You have to hate yourself a lot to try to kill yourself."

"That." I said, my eyes growing wide. "What I said before, about looking for leads, for evidence... for motive."

"Tell us." The Borzhvolk's crushed-velvet baritone seemed to hold me as he had done before. "Tell us what you've found."

"More like what I see." I swallowed hard. "Detective Luton. I think he's my murderer."