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If I thought I was confused after the little episode of weirdness that occured when Sharra tackled me and sat on my chest, it was nothing compared to what she went through. She actually knew what was happening between us and it scared her. An extremely unlikely sequence of events had been set in motion and there was no stopping them. I really had no idea what I was in for in the months ahead. Even if I had known, there was no way I would have believed it.

Sharra glanced up at the darkening sky; her jaw clenched and ears at half-mast. Confusion ruled her thoughts as she stood alone in the clearing, the long shadows of trees crawling slowly over the snow as the evening grew deeper. She understood what she was feeling but she was at a loss as to why she was feeling it. John wasn't even of her own species, for Gods sake! How could she and him be even remotely compatible? She shook her head in dismay. She must really have been alone for far too long if someone as alien as him was starting to get inside her head. She had never even considered that such a thing was possible. The Mad Season was still nearly six months away so it couldn't be a case of her hormones raging out of control. She sighed heavily and plodded through the snow to the shed. Yet, despite all of that, she could feel the tenuous bond that was forming between them, and it scared her. She didn't know if she was ready for what lay behind the doors that would soon be opened between the two of them.

Why for God's sake would she form a Link with him of all people? It shouldn't even be possible. He wasn't even Tokran! Sure, he was the only other person around, and he was male, but still... Something was out of place, and she couldn't quite put a finger on it. Sharra paused for a moment when she reached the doorway of the old shed and tried unsuccessfully to force the troubled thoughts from her head. She sagged against the door frame, and stared back up at the cabin. A wisp of smoke curled up from the chimney and into the still evening air.

Sharra scratched her chin thoughtfully. Whether or not John realized what was going on was another matter entirely. Judging from the confusion that she saw in his face and felt wash over her every time the nascent Link sprang to life, she doubted it. Maybe his kind didn't Link, she just didn't know. If his kind did not Link, there was no telling how he would react as the Link grew stronger. She swallowed nervously. There was still so much that she didn't know about him or his kind. She was going to have to ask him some rather delicate questions soon before the situation turned potentially embarrassing for the two of them. Sharra understood what was going to happen in the coming weeks. She'd been through it once before, a lifetime ago it seemed. Sadness suddenly welled up as old memories danced in her mind, and she questioned whether she had the strength to deal with what was coming in the months ahead. She knew that as the link grew stronger, thoughts and feelings would begin to be transferred between the two of them. A frown briefly appeared on her muzzle. Both of them would have to exercise some measure of mental control to ensure that neither of them would unintentionally give up their darkest secrets and fears. Sharra crossed her arms over her chest and breathed in deeply. Once the Link had begun to form, there was no undoing it. The only option available to the two of them was to deal with it as best as they could. She muttered a growl and thumped her fist against the side of the shed. The future had suddenly turned very uncertain, and she didn't like uncertainty.

Sharra pushed herself away from the door frame and entered the interior of the shed. She rummaged around in the gloom for a moment before emerging with a length of rope. Unsheathing her knife, she walked over to where the quarters of deer lay in the snow. She grabbed a front quarter and made a cut in between two ribs. She threaded the rope through the cut and tied the rough cord into a knot. She pulled hard on the end of the rope, testing the strength of the knot. It held. She dragged the heavy quarter through the snow and up to the door of the shed, and paused there for a moment to catch her breath. All in all, she had to admit that it had been an interesting day.

Twice in the same day! She had a hard time wrapping her mind around that fact. The first time her and John's minds had touched she had been lying in wait by the creek this morning, waiting for the human to herd the deer in her direction. When his thoughts had suddenly and briefly linked with hers, it had given her quite a shock. The instant of joining had lasted only seconds, but it had been long enough for her to suddenly understand what had been happening over the last few weeks. She had felt something different about John right from the beginning, but over the last two years she had made a practice of pushing her feelings into that part of her which had been destroyed on the day where the fabric of her life had been torn to shreds. Ever since the human's arrival, old feelings and memories were clawing their way up out of the pit and out into the light. She was starting to feel alive once more, something that she never thought she would feel again. She thought back to the most recent connection between her and John. A smile came to her muzzle and she giggled a bit. Gods! She was acting like a thirteen seasons old pup! The smile melted from her muzzle and she abruptly sobered. Why in the name of all of the spirits of the forest was she being so affected by a furless, tailless giant that had a face that looked as if it had been smashed with the flat of a shovel? She tilted her muzzle skywards, wondering why the Gods saw fit to play such cruel and unusual jokes upon her. Perhaps this was the punishment for which they had judged her deserving.

Linked to one that wasn't even of her species. Sighing, she sat down morosely in the snow, the last rays of evening sunlight filtering through the trees and dancing across her fur.

Why was change so difficult? What was it that she was so afraid of? Sharra's shoulders sagged, and she hugged her knees to her chest. She'd longed for an end to the endless and unspeakably lonely days that had plagued her for the two years. Now that she'd been offered the chance to feel alive once more, some part of her was holding back. She stared sadly at the setting sun barely visible through the branches of the trees opposite the clearing. Perhaps she was afraid of the feelings that were awakening within her, feelings that she had long pushed into the darkness that lay at the centre of her soul. Sharra drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. Those old feelings were clawing their way out of the pit, and old pain was being dredged up with them. She was being forced to remember things that she had tried so hard to forget. She'd known that one day she would have to deal with the past, but she didn't expect to have to confront it so soon, or in the manner that was being pushed upon her.

Sharra's ears swivelled sideways as the sound of the cabin door being closed drifted across the clearing. She turned her head to look and was barely able to make out a tall figure standing on the porch. She sniffed the air for a moment.

What were the human's thoughts? Sharra wondered. Did he worry about the future as she did? Did he agonize over his past? Did he understand what was beginning between them, or did he not even know that it was happening? She watched as he headed across the clearing towards her, tall, strong, and possessing a confidence that hadn't been there short weeks before. She'd caught glimpses of what lay in hidden in his mind, fragments of images, memories, hopes, and fears. Much of what she saw there she could not understand. She sighed and looked towards the setting sun. For the most part John was a rather quiet individual and he didn't talk much about his past or where he came from. To make things worse, he had a habit of deflecting her questions and deftly changing the subject whenever conversation drifted towards such things. She wondered whether he would ever feel comfortable enough to reveal something of his past to her

Sharra stood up as John approached. The human gave her what she had come to know as a friendly smile.

"Taking a break and enjoying the sunset?" He inquired.

She nodded. "I was doing some thinking. How was your dinner?"

One corner of his mouth twitched upwards. "A little burnt, but surprisingly it wasn't too bad."

"It would have been better raw."

John laughed. "I doubt it, but I do know for a fact it would have been better if I had cooked it properly. A few onions, some mushrooms, and a pinch of salt and pepper would have done wonders, I think."

Sharra looked at him curiously for a second then shook her head and chuckled. "Is it a typical human behaviour to burn perfectly good meat?"

John smiled. "Don't knock it 'till you've tried it Sharra, but yeah, for the for the most part, we humans do cook our meat. Those that eat it raw are looked upon as being a little strange.

"Strange? Is that what you think of me then?" Sharra asked, quirking a small grin.

John paused for a moment and the smile faded from his face. Instead of the joking reply that Sharra had expected, he turned serious and his voice quiet. "No... Not so much strange as different, though I admit during my first few days here I didn't know what you were and I thought you were pretty strange back then." A small half smile appeared on his lips for a moment. "If I recall correctly, you scared the crap out of me."

"I did?" Sharra wasn't wholly surprised at his admission. She had seen the fear in his eyes during those first few awkward days.

"You better believe it. Put yourself in my place Sharra. You wake up in completely alien surroundings. You have a broken arm that you don't remember breaking and three days are missing from your memories. When you first come to, you are alone, so utterly alone in a wilderness that is so far removed from where you know that you should be that you can't even comprehend it." John smiled sadly and looked away. "You know that someone has brought you to this old cabin. You know that someone has tried to help you. Your broken arm has been splinted, your clothes cleaned and put within easy reach, but the cabin is empty. The first sign of life that you see is what you think is someone's dog. Imagine your surprise when it talks to you and you actually understand what it says, even when you know that you don't have a clue what language it speaks. That is what scared me Sharra." He turned to watch the sun set behind the distant mountain peaks. "Then, as the days turn into weeks, realize that the life you once knew and loved is gone to you and the memories of everything and everyone you knew and loved are slipping away like sand through your fingers." He shook his head sadly.

Sharra blinked in surprise, not knowing what to say. In the space of barely a minute, he had volunteered more information about how he felt about being here than he had in the past three weeks. She didn't know what to do. Taking a leap of faith, she raised an uncertain hand and placed it on his arm as he stared desolately into the setting sun.

Shaken from his reverie, John looked down to where her hand rested upon his arm. Gently, he put one huge hand over it and held it in a firm grip for a moment. He stroked a thumb over the soft fur on the back of her hand. Sharra looked into his pale eyes. There was a warmth that shone there that made Sharra's heart soar.

"Sometimes, you are not so different Sharra. There are times where you seem so familiar to me that I almost forget that you're not human." He placed her hand against the palm of his hand. His smooth, bare skin was warm against the pads of her palm and fingers. The tips of her bluntly clawed fingers barely reached the second joint of his fingers. He smiled wistfully, and laced his fingers through hers. "I don't know if this makes any sense at all, but sometimes I feel as if I've always known you." He shook his head slowly from side to side. "I'm not entirely sure why I feel that way. Perhaps it's because that in some ways you remind me of someone I knew many years ago. I don't know. There are so many things I don't understand anymore..." His voice trailed off and he released her hand. His arm dropped to his side.

Sharra didn't know what to say. His words had struck a chord deep within her, and a storm of emotions and old memories brewed up within her. She clamped her jaw tight shut and stared at John as he gazed into the spectacular colours of the sunset. Sharra's mind mulled over what he had said. She had long had the same inexplicable sense of familiarity concerning John, but she had never suspected that he felt the same way. Lost in thought, Sharra began to wonder whether there were other forces at work here. Everything that had had transpired so far pointed towards the two of them having been drawn together for a reason that was as of yet unknown. Frowning, she pushed that thought away. Perhaps something was going on, but she wasn't going to drive herself crazy trying to figure it out. Her questions would be answered when the time came...

"You've been a good friend Sharra. You've done nothing but try and help me. I owe you more than I can put into words and I don't know how to pay that debt."

Sharra grinned at him, her tail wagging happily. A warm glow began growing within her. Perhaps, she thought, being linked to this strange human wouldn't be such a bad thing.

"You can start by helping me hang these quarters up in the shed."

John chuckled. "I think I can manage that."

In one fluid motion, John reached down and grabbed the quarter of deer that had the rope tied through it and picked it up almost effortlessly. Sharra blinked in surprise as he carried it through the door of shed.

There was a moment's silence before John called out. "Well? Are you going to give me a hand hanging this thing up?"

Sharra gave her head a brief shake and collected herself. She'd had to put considerable effort into dragging that quarter to the shed and he just picked it up like it's nothing? She still wasn't quite used to seeing him doing things like that. She stepped through the door of the shed and into the gloomy interior. "Sorry."

"No problem. Throw the rope over that rafter and I'll lift this thing up."

Once the rope was over the rafter, he grabbed the quarter with both hands and heaved it up so it was about eye level with Sharra. She jumped up on the bench that was against the wall and reached up to tie the rope into a knot around the rafter.

"Okay."

John relaxed and let the quarter hang from the rope. The roof creaked ominously. He scrutinized the knot and the ancient timber that the quarter hung from. He grunted thoughtfully. "Hopefully the roof won't collapse once we get the rest of the quarters hung up."

Sharra followed his gaze and nodded. She had worried about that a time or two herself. Nimbly, she hopped down from the bench. "How did you do that?"

"Do what?" John looked confused.

"Lift that quarter so easily. I had to put quite a lot of effort into just dragging it here."

He shrugged. "It wasn't that heavy, maybe twenty kilos at most."

Sharra stared at him, hands on her hips. "Not that heavy?"

John smirked. "I'm a fair bit bigger than you are Sharra, if you hadn't noticed that already."

She looked up at him. "You are right about that at least. Are you sure you even need my help for this?"

"I could probably do it myself but it would make it easier having you help. It's kinda hard to tie knots while holding a chunk of half frozen meat in both hands."

"Uh huh..." Sharra didn't look convinced. She turned and took another length of rope from the bench behind her. She tossed it to John. "Go on you great lumbering bear. Go get the next one then. I will wait here to tie your knots for you."

John caught the rope as it hit his chest. He raised an eyebrow, then he shrugged and ducked out of the shed.

"Males..." Muttered Sharra. Where they all show-offs?

Even after all of the hard work I'd done that day, and despite the fact that I was so damned tired that I could hardly function, I couldn't get to sleep. Go figure. I guess I had just too much on my mind. The events of the day wouldn't stop beating on my brain.

The cabin was dark and quiet. Sharra had long since fallen asleep, leaving me cursing the insomnia that had taken me in an iron grip. I could do little but stare up into the strange patterns of light thrown from the fire in the stove that danced across the ceiling. Odd thoughts raced through my mind.

What a strange day. I couldn't get it out of my head. The image of the cliff scarred with the ancient remnants of blasting holes floated in the darkness in front of my eyes. A familiar sight, but so unfamiliar when I took a closer look. That stone was so eroded, the marks so ancient in appearance that it should have been impossible...

I rolled over, the coarse deer hair rough against my skin. I sighed and stared emptily into the darkness. What I wouldn't have given to be lying on the comfortable expanse of my old bed, the softness of a mattress beneath my body and a pillow under my head. The questionable comfort of several layers of old deer skins between me and the rough floor and my rolled up sweatshirt in place of a pillow had been playing hell with my back over the last few weeks. It would have been nice to breathe the fresh scent of clean sheets and not the overpowering mustiness of old leather. I felt a frown settle on my face. Such things were in the past for me now. A very long way in the past if what I was thinking was correct. Stone takes a very long time to erode, and evolution takes even longer yet to work its magic to come up with something like Sharra.

Unbelievable as it seemed, that's the direction that all the evidence I'd seen to date was pointing. I was still on planet Earth and the human race had once lived here, but no longer. They had died off, left, annihilated themselves or been wiped out by some natural disaster. It suddenly struck me that I was the last of my kind, a lone stranger in a familiar land, and that thought was not a happy one.

Sharra's species must be the new intelligence to walk the face of the planet. Who'd have thought that wolves would ever evolve to that point? Mind you they do have a complex social structure and are fairly intelligent as far as animals go, but there is quite a leap from four legged animal to bipedal, tool using and intelligent humanoid. One would think that such a change would have taken several million years to evolve instead of the ten or so thousand that I suspect have passed since humans ruled the planet. Why would Sharra's species have filled the gap left by humans so quickly?

There was so much that I didn't yet understand and much of it that I wasn't sure I would ever understand. I'd been trying not to think about it. I was afraid that if I did, it would eventually drive me crazy if I hadn't already passed that point already. It was just my luck to fall off the trail that was my life and not realize that it had been winding along the edge of a cliff. The climb back up looked to be a long and hard one indeed.

I tossed and turned some more. I really hated it when I couldn't get to sleep.

For some reason, I'd been having a lot of rather weird dreams of late. One in particular recurred almost every night and each time it left me with a considerable sense of unease that took some time to fade away after the dream wrenched me awake. Like most dreams, it was not easy to remember it with any clarity. As soon as I woke it began to slip away, soon becoming as intangible as the morning mist. What I did remember were fragments of the larger whole, puzzle pieces that I was slowly piecing together. I remembered driving my old pickup, the radio muttering in the background while I squinted through the cracked and chipped windshield. Snow was falling thickly outside; the twin cones of light from headlights pierced the night and created a surreal tunnel of snow bordered with the abstract shapes of dimly lit trees. I remembered the horrible sound of crunching glass and the squeal of tortured metal lingered in my ears. There was cold blackness and then I was staggering unsteadily through deep snow in a barren forest of skeletal trees...

I think I may have smashed my truck. That did provide a believable explanation for the shape I was in when I arrived here but it did not shed any light as to how I got here. That was as much of a mystery as ever.

There were other dreams too and, I wasn't sure what to make of them, and that scared me. What baffled me the most about those other dreams was that they were not so much seen as sensed on some subconscious level. They were confusing flashes of blurry images and echoes of unfamiliar and distorted voices. Wave after wave of emotions washed over me and sounds were crisper and clearer than should have been possible. Scents flared to life with an impossible vividness...

When consciousness finally returned, confusion and depression took over. I sighed and tried to make some small bit of sense out of what had been happening to me over the last few weeks, but everything was as clear as mud. There was a hauntingly beautiful image of the autumn forest lodged in my mind. It came to me night after night. Tall aspen trees, their once green leaves burnt gold by the September sun stood tall overhead. A small creek was near at hand, winding through the forest, the clear waters trickling brightly in the sunshine. A clearing stretched out before me, a ragged but necessary interruption in the monotony of tree trunks. Scrub willows grew there and long golden grasses swayed gently in the breeze under the endless vault of the autumn skies. The shadows beneath the tall trees were deliciously cool, and the occasional ray of sunlight pierced the canopy overhead to dance playfully on the forest floor. The heavy scent of damp earth and leaves and the spicy, resinous scent of the trees were both reassuring and relaxing. The gentle gurgling of the creek in the background and the rustling of the autumn leaves overhead tickled my ears. Home, sang some part of my soul, this was where I belonged...

Another long sighed escaped from between my lips and I rolled over yet again. I couldn't understand why that image affected me so. It may have felt like 'home', but it was not my home. My home was an old house in a rather questionable neighbourhood of a large city, not some remote forest retreat. The strange thing was that there was such a piercing feeling of loss tied to that forest landscape, and I didn't have a clue why.

Over the past week, those strange flashes of images and feelings had begun to intrude on my waking hours I was getting more and more confused each time it happened and with each passing day. I knew that Sharra was tied to these weird experiences in some strange way but how, and why, escaped me. Several times, when I had been thinking of her, or had been in close contact with her it had felt as if something had passed between us, an exchange of feelings perhaps. It is an indescribably difficult thing for me to explain, but I felt some connection with her and I didn't understand why.

I wondered if Sharra was feeling the same thing as I. I thought that perhaps she was experiencing something similar, but I couldn't say for sure. I had come to understand over the last few weeks that she saw things in a completely different way than I did. She had a connection with nature that seemed impossible to me. She claimed to be able to draw on that connection to heal some types of injuries. I wasn't sure what to believe, but I couldn't deny the fact that there was something to what she tried to tell me. My thoughts flashed back to the time when she had healed my broken arm in a matter of minutes. Then there was the time earlier today that she 'thanked' the forest for providing us with the deer that I had lucked out and killed with my spear. I had definitely felt something on both of those occasions. I could only liken it to being a small part of something much bigger, bigger even, than I had thought possible. I shook that feeling away and stared upwards into the darkness for a long moment. During the hunt this morning, there had been that little episode where I had known exactly where she was hiding beside the creek. It had been as if I was looking through her eyes for a moment. There was a distinct feeling of surprise from her before whatever connection we shared flicked off as if a switch had been flipped. At least I thought it was from her, because I was pretty damned sure it wasn't coming from me. I knew what my own surprise felt like. I scratched my beard for a moment, thinking. When she tackled me this afternoon, there was also something that had snapped to life between us when she was sitting on my chest. The same feeling, though not as strong, had tickled the dark depths of my brain when I tried to explain to her some of what I was feeling before we hung the meat in the shed. I sighed heavily. I was going crazy, I really was...

I rolled on my side and looked over to where Sharra was curled up in her usual spot beside the table. She was barely visible through the gloom, the subtle reddish glow cast from the fire burning behind the part ways open door of the stove was the only source of light. I watched her quietly, wondering what went through her mind. One of her ears twitched as the logs popped and snapped in the old stove. I could see her hands jerk and twitch as she dreamt. Her breathing became quicker and she voiced a garbled bark. Her hackles lifted and I caught a glimpse of her sharp canines gleaming momentarily in the flickering firelight. I propped myself up on one elbow. Did her dreams haunt her as mine did me? Did she see and feel things that she could not understand, things that made her question her sanity?

Did she feel the same subtle connection with me as I did with her? I frowned in the darkness. Sharra's twitching hands stilled and her breathing became slower and deeper. I rolled over and faced the wall and tried my best to turn my brain off and get some sleep before I went nuts.

Behind me, Sharra started snoring gently.