FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Heavy grey clouds rolled silently in from over the mountains to the west and slowly drained away the strength of the midday sun. An uneasy calm settled over the land as the clouds descended to drift like forgotten ghosts among the tips of the towering trees. The silence that gripped the forest as it waited under the shadow of the approaching storm was like a physical presence, and Kendri hated it. She shook her head and clenched her teeth, casting uneasy glances at the surrounding trees as she walked down the narrow trail. The StormWalker prowled the woods at times like this, unseen, unheard, but always sensed on some instinctual level as it carried a warning to the creatures of the forest. By the sounds of things, or rather the lack of sounds, the forest that surrounded her understood the message loud and clear and was hunkering down to endure yet another blast of winter. Even Kendri's own instincts cried out for her to seek out some sheltered corner among the trees and curl up into a ball to conserve warmth and energy and wait until the storm passed through. She couldn't do that, not yet anyhow. The two grouse that dangled by their necks from her left paw were a constant reminder of the task that lay ahead.

Kendri stopped for a moment and was mesmerized by the pale disc of the sun as it fought a losing battle against dense tendrils of attacking cloud. A solitary flake of snow drifted down from the ominous sky and settled on her muzzle. She stared at it, cross-eyed and watched as it melted into a drop of water that sat perched on the very tips of the short fur just behind her nose. She shook it off and growled, brushing at her muzzle with the back of a paw. From the look and feel of things, there was going to be snow in plenty. That meant in all likelihood, she was going to get wet. And if there was one thing that Kendri truly despised, it was getting wet. It took forever to get her fur straightened out afterwards, especially considering that the only means she had to groom her self were her own claws. She slouched through the trees, grumbling to herself about the weather in general and water in her fur in particular. She continued growling and grumbling to herself the whole way to the stranger's camp. Her plans of making a meal for the stranger and herself looked as if they were going to get smothered under a blanket of snow. It figured, she thought. Trust the weather to turn a relatively simple task into a disaster. However, there was shelter at the stranger's camp and a fire too. Perhaps he would permit her to share the warmth of his fire and of his shelter until the storm blew past. Maybe, but maybe not. Just as likely he would chase her away after the meal. Or worse, he could attack her and take the food for his own. She shuddered at the thought. She doubted that she would have much of a chance against him should he try that course of action. Perhaps she would be able to outrun the stranger but there was always that weapon of his. She knew she wouldn't be able to outrun its deadly effects.

She sighed and mentally chastised herself for thinking such unworthy thoughts. After all, it had been the stranger who had made that first unlikely move and offered her a share of his meal yesterday. Would she have done the same thing if their positions had been reversed? Given the circumstances she wasn't entirely sure. Come to think of it, there wasn't much that she was sure of anymore. Too many strange things that had happened since the creature had showed up. The only things she was sure of now were that there was going to be snow in the foreseeable future, and that she had to somehow convince a total stranger to let her prepare him a meal, and then hopefully he would let her endure the storm beneath the dubious shelter of the pine branch roof of his makeshift shack.

The creek was near at hand and the gentle gurgling of water against protruding fingers of ice guided Kendri to its bank. The trees thinned out a bit on the opposite side and she briefly caught a faint whiff of wood smoke as the wind swirled around her. It was not far now. She walked along the bank of the creek, following the scent trail and keeping an eye out for a good spot to cross the icy waters. Here and there, a solitary flake of snow spiralled down from the heavy clouds and in the distance and the impassive grey wall of mountains disappeared behind a haze of oncoming snow. The wind picked up, swirling through the trees, cold, and biting deep with the fangs of winter. Kendri located a narrowing of the ice-encrusted waters and with a graceful leap, she easily cleared the stream and was safe on the other side.

Kendri knew the way from here quite well by now. After her first meeting with the stranger it had been indelibly etched in her mind. She was unnaturally calm as she approached the stranger's camp from the upwind side. Perhaps she was thinking too far ahead, but it seemed that the future, her future and maybe even the stranger's would be decided within the next few hours. Oddly, she felt drawn towards this meeting by forces beyond her control. Uncertainty swirled through her thoughts like the drifting flakes of snow the wind whipped around her head.

As Kendri rounded a bend in the trail and stepped out from the lee of a boulder, her heart began racing. She was fighting a losing battle to keep her ears erect as she made the final approach. Snow began to descend in heavy flakes as the outstretched fingers of the storm reached out over the valley.

The camp was deserted. Kendri blinked in surprise and cocked her head to the side, ears straining against the sounds of the wind in the trees. When nothing out of the ordinary reached her pointed ears she sighed and leaned heavily on her spear, shaking her head in disbelief. Were the Gods playing some cruel trick on her? She eyed the sky accusingly for a moment before turning her eyes back to the empty camp. Perhaps the creature had fled when he scented her coming towards his camp. Whatever the cause, he was nowhere to be seen. Even the fire, which he took great pains to keep burning, was nearly extinguished. Only the tiniest wisp of smoke rose from the black pit of ashes to be lost among the swirling snowflakes.

Something wasn't right. Kendri didn't know what, but a sense of foreboding filled her as she crept into the midst of the camp to stand near the fire. She sniffed the air for a moment and then barked out a cautious greeting. The falling snow muffled the sound of her call. Her tail wagged a few times in hopeful anticipation of a reply but stilled as nothing but the sounds of wind through pine branches and the subliminal hiss of descending snow reached her ears. Fear rose within, fear that maybe walking boldly in from the upwind side hadn't been such a good idea after all. The stranger would have scented her coming and had ample time to prepare an attack. Even now he could be crouching behind a boulder or a tree, training his deadly weapon upon her, waiting for just the right moment to strike...

No! Not that, it couldn't be that! She would have known if he would try something like that. Or would she? The dark clouds seemed to descend a little further, and the snow seemed to grow thicker. The stranger was an unknown. She couldn't expect him to react as one of her kind would.

Kendri dropped the two grouse beside what was left of the fire and then grasped her spear in both paws. She raised it high above her head and held it there for a brief moment before bending over and placing it beside the two grouse. She stepped back a few paces and held her arms wide, turning in a slow circle, her eyes scanning the snow and trees. Perhaps if the stranger was lurking out there somewhere, he would understand by her actions that she was not a threat to him. It had worked once before.

The wind abated for a moment and nothing but the eerie silence that only a heavy snowfall can create reached her ears. The fear that had welled up moments earlier lessened and she moved over to crouch in front of the stranger's shelter. In front of her, lying amid the trampled snow as if it had been hurriedly cast away, was a bundle of dark green cloth. She picked it up and held it at arm's length. It was thick, heavy, rectangular in shape and absolutely saturated with the stranger's scent. For a moment, she was at a loss as to what purpose it served, and then she recalled the stranger's disturbing lack of fur. The cloth was certainly large enough for one his size to wrap it about himself. It must be some sort of thing to keep him warm or bedding material perhaps. She ran a paw over the material. The weaving of the cloth was incredibly fine and she wondered for a moment who would have had the skill and patience to make such a thing. She sniffed at it, trying to sort the overlapping traces of scent that leaked from it. Some of the scent was old and stale, but much of it was more recent, barely hours old. Concern and unease gripped her when she detected a faint hint of fear scent lingering on the cloth.

Had something happened to the stranger, something terrible enough to scare him away from the security and warmth of shelter and fire? Such a thing must be terrible indeed, for a storm like the one that was in the making was no thing to be caught out in for one of her kind, never mind a furlees stranger. This was most perplexing. Kendri crept forward to the mouth of the shelter. With her ears flat and tail tucked and acutely aware that she was violating the stranger's territory, she entered the dark interior, her black nose working overtime. She tucked the pile of green cloth in a corner to keep it out of the snow. The creature's scent was strong here, but it was still hours old. As her eyes adjusted to the gloomy interior, she caught a glimpse of something that made her blood run cold. The stranger's weapon was there, exuding a silent menace from where it lay against the side of the shelter. She stared at it fixedly for a moment before backing slowly out of the shelter. She stood up slowly, her eyes never leaving the dark mouth of the shelter. Troubled thoughts raced through her mind while the snow drifted silently down around her.

During all of the long days that she had tracked this strange creature, there hadn't been one single minute during that whole time that she had seen him without that weapon within easy reach. Why would he have gone and left it behind?

Out of ideas, she licked her lips nervously and shook some of the snow from her fur. There may be a way to find out what had happened here, she thought, as long as that part of her was still alive. She clenched her paws into fists. Two years ago she'd buried that aspect of her being deep within a hard shell of protective forgetfulness. She'd sworn that she would never again allow it to surface for fear of the painful memories that would escape with it, but that was before she had found this creature, before the stirrings of life had returned to the dark pit of her soul. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, and her whole body sagged like a deflated balloon. She had little choice in the matter. If it would help her find the stranger and possibly save him from injury or death, she had to do it, regardless of the cost in old pain.

Kendri relaxed somewhat and tried what she could to calm her nerves. After a moment of slow, deep breathing, she closed her eyes and concentrated hard, bringing up a picture of the creature in her mind's eye and holding it there as she concentrated on her breaithing. All of her species were empathic to a degree, a holdover from their distant past before speech became the primary means of communication, and Kendri was more so than most of her kind. Usually close proximity to the source of the emotions was necessary for one to sense them, but that was not always the case. Such was Kendri's sensitivity that certain strong emotions, anger, fear, joy, sorrow, could be sensed from a distance, maybe fifty spans at most. If those feelings were intense enough, intense to the point where those emotions took over conscious thoughts, there was the possibility that she might be able to sense the faint emotional echo that lingered in the area even hours after the person had departed. She was uncertain whether it would work with the stranger but she had to try. Her instincts were telling her that he was in some kind of trouble, and time was short. She stood still as a statue, eyes closed, mind searching...

Snow continued to spiral down in silent accumulation, the flakes gathering on her head and shoulders. Held away from the warmth of her body by her thick fur coat and long black tipped guard hairs, the snow did not melt, but instead collected in an ever-thickening layer as she stood motionless.

After a few moments, an ear twitched. Her hackles lifted, revealing a glimpse of her sharp teeth. Kendri jerked convulsively. A flash, like that of lightning, arced across her thoughts, leaving a blurry after image that slowly faded away. Her eyes snapped open and she shivered uncontrollably, but not from the snow or the cold. There was so much hopeless despair around her; it blanketed the camp like thick fog. The stranger had been lost in the depths of anguish and loss and had fled his camp in despair. The lingering traces of his hopelessness pointed a clear arrow in the direction of his rapid departure.

After a brief moment of searching, she found a trail that led away from his camp. Many times the stranger's large feet had travelled it and it took all of Kendri's tracking skills to pick out the hurried footprints that lay among the jumble of prints.. They headed straight downwind. A foolish thing to do, she thought. It was far too easy to run into danger with the wind at your back. The invaluable warnings carried on the breeze would be useless, but the creature would not have been thinking rationally. The fear and anguish would have possessed him and he would have been running blindly away from whatever it was that tormented him so.

She had to go after him. At the rate the snow was falling, it wouldn't be long before his trail would be obliterated and she wasn't sure how long she would be able to follow the lingering trail of despair that he had left behind him. If stranger wasn't lost already, he soon would be and Kendri didn't know if he would be able to survive the storm on his own, away from his fire and shelter. Her mind made up, she paused only briefly to breathe life back into the nearly extinguished fire. Once it was burning steadily, she threw an armload of wood on it from the pile that was near at hand. She stooped to pick up her spear and brushed a few pawfuls of snow over the grouse that she had brought with her. The meal would have to wait.

It was not without some trepidation that she took up the trail that led away from the camp and into the trees. Once more she was heading towards the unknown, a fact that was all too clear as she looked at the prints that marked the snow. The stranger had been running with giant strides, haphazardly jumping over deadfalls and swerving through the trees. Kendri followed as quickly as she was able.

Trees creaked and groaned as the wind suddenly picked up and the steady onslaught of snow continued. Where the stranger had fled across a small clearing, fresh snow had drifted over the footprints and Kendri lost the trail altogether. She paused for a moment, concentrating, trying to detect the ghostlike remnants of the anguish that accompanied the stranger's trail. After a few worried moments spent searching, it was with intense relief that she located the trail once more. She fairly ran along it, pausing every few minutes or so to sniff the wind in hopes of catching scent of the stranger.

As she ran along the trail, memories long repressed wormed their way to the surface...

"...Remember this well Kendri. Every trail tells a story of the animal that made it, but you will have to look very carefully to read it..."

The voice was that of her father, and the memory was one from many years ago when she was a young pup and he was teaching her the ways of the hunt. She fought back the sadness that threatened to overwhelm her. The memory flowed on, unchecked.

"...See these deer tracks here in the snow? Follow this trail for a while and you will begin to see how the deer lives. You will learn what they like to eat and where they find it, you will find the places they like to bed down, the places they drink. You will see how they move from place to place as the seasons change. You will learn what predators follow their trails as we do. You will see how a life comes to an end, yet still goes on. The deer will die, but in doing so it will provide others with the means to live..."

The memory faded and she stopped to lean against a tree for a moment to catch her breath. A pained expression crossed her face. She had been afraid of this. So much effort on her part had been put into keeping such memories forgotten but now they were thrashing about just below the surface, fighting to be remembered whether she liked it or not and there was nothing she could do about it. She took a couple of deep breaths and forced her mind to stay on the task at hand. She began jogging down the trail again.

Remembering her father's advice, Kendri began read the story of the trail she was following. She could see by the tracks that the creature had been getting tired. The pace of the footprints slowed and they became clumsier. She found a large area of trampled snow where he had apparently tripped. She sniffed about the area for a moment before moving on. After recovering from his fall, the stranger had resumed his wild pace through the forest. She could still sense the despair that drove him as it drifted down the trail like a dark cloud. A premonition flickered at the edges of perception. A confused jumble of images flashed through her mind. The stranger fighting his way to his feet, only to collapse into the snow. Pain, hopelessness and fear. The creature dragging himself through the snow on all fours. Icy fingers slipped through her fur to send a shiver down her spine as the vision faded. Cold. So cold... She looked around helplessly, a new sense of urgency coming to the forefront. She took off down the trail as fast as her legs could carry her, praying that she wouldn't be too late.

Another memory broke through her barriers and flared to life with a vividness that nearly overwhelmed her.

...Early fall, at that glorious time of year when the heat of summer finally gives way to the welcome cool of autumn and the leaves on the trees begin to turn from green to beautiful hues of gold, yellow and red. Kendri remembered this day all too clearly. It was the day before she was to come of age. She had gone to her favourite place to sit and think, a sheltered spot down by the river where a clump of poplar trees strung out along the bank provided welcome shade from the warmth of the sun. It had been an absolutely spectacular day, she recalled. The late morning sun glittered through the branches of the trees while around her the hills of golden grass gently swayed and waved under a light breeze. She sat back amongst the tall grass and thought about what was to happen in the days ahead. Soon she was to be initiated into adulthood, and the carefree days of her youth seemed to be coming to an end. Nevertheless, she had been excited at the prospect of her new status. Adulthood meant a mate, a family, and much more responsibility. A sad smile came to Kendri's muzzle as she recalled what had happened next. She had been so lost in her thoughts on the future that she had failed to notice a familiar figure sneaking up behind her. She had realized what was going on at the last second and barely had time to utter a startled yip as Rennik pounced on her. They rolled through the grass, a tangle of furry limbs, wagging tails and laughing faces, their mock growls and yips echoing among the hills until at last they came to a stop. One year older than she, Rennik was a tall, silver-grey male with warm brown eyes. He had been a close friend of hers as long as she could remember. He had made his intentions to become more than just a friend known to her that day. In a move that was so unlike the fun loving joker she knew him as, he had taken her in his arms and given her a tender lick on the cheek. In quiet words full of emotion, he had told her that if she would have him, he would ask her father if he could take her as his mate in two days time. She had grinned happily, given him a quick lick on the nose, and told him that she wanted none other than him...

A tear rolled down Kendri's cheek, clinging to her grey cheek fur. She clenched her jaw and brushed it away with a numb paw and stepped up her pace through the trees, seeking to distance herself from the memories that hounded her. That had been the happiest day in her life, but it hadn't been fated to last. Rennik never got the chance to ask for her to be his mate. Two days later, he and everyone else in the pack were dead, victims of a surprise attack from their warlike enemies to the east. Kendri alone had survived, but her once happy life had been ripped to shreds that day. She had wandered aimlessly for days, numb, empty and desperately alone. When she had regained some of her senses and realized that the person she had been no longer existed, such was the depths of her despair that she fled her ancestral home on the prairies and headed ever westward, not caring where she went or what happened to her along the way. On some instinctual level, she tried to distance herself from the source of the pain in the hopes that she might eventually recover from it, but she never did. Hardly a day went by where she didn't wish that she had died with the rest of her Clan. She shook her head sadly and felt the tears threaten to start flowing anew. She struggled for a moment to control her emotions and nearly lost. Only by sheer force of will was she able to hold back the tears and keep the sadness at bay. Now was not the time for despair, there would time enough for that later. She plunged onward down the trail, forcing herself to think of nothing but finding the stranger.

It was perhaps three hundred spans later that she reached the spot where trouble began. At the crest of a hill, the stranger had tripped on a snow covered log and gone sprawling, tumbling several spans down the hill and coming to rest against a tree. She sniffed about the trampled snow. The creature had lain here for some time, either unconscious or resting. Her heart skipped a beat when she discovered a few red spots of blood seeping into the snow. He had been injured. Judging from the amount of blood left on the snow his injuries weren't serious but they were enough to slow him down. The trail that led away from there was quite fresh, barely an hour old and the quickly falling snow had only just begun to fill the hurried tracks. Kendri knew she was close. She found where the stranger had regained his feet and had made a few wobbly steps before collapsing again. Her heart sank when she saw that the trail after that has a laboured one. The stranger had been crawling on all fours and favouring one leg by the looks of the tracks in the snow. Kendri clenched her jaw, trying to fight back the worry that possessed her. She was close, but she could no longer sense the fear that had accompanied the trail. That probably meant that the creature was unconscious, or worse.

If Kendri had not been looking for the stranger, she would have walked right by him. As it was, she was barely able to make out his huge form where he lay huddled amongst the roots of an uprooted tree. A finger's breadth of snow covered him and he was completely and utterly motionless. Her ears wilted and she sighed heavily. Was she too late?

Kendri walked forward hesitantly, desperately wanting to help but unsure of what his reaction would be. She approached to within a couple of spans and called out to him, tail wagging hopefully behind her. There was no response. She approached closer yet and knelt down beside his inert form, looking closely for signs of life. He was breathing! An unbelievable wave of relief swept through her. He was alive, but unconscious. A spider's web of blood traced down the side of his face, dripping down from his chin to stain the snow collecting on his chest with bright red droplets. Kendri sucked in a troubled breath. A head wound, that was not a good sign. If he had received a heavy blow to the head, he might be beyond any aid she could provide. For a brief moment she wondered what to do. She had to wake him up somehow. She knew that she would never be able to get him back to the safety of his camp all by herself. She reached out a tentative paw to his shoulder and gently shook him. A faint groan was her reply. Her ears perked up and her tail thumped against the snow behind her. Still, he remained motionless. She shook him again and got no response this time.

"Come on! Wake up!" She almost yelled. Still no response.

Worried, Kendri reached out and touched her fingers to the stranger's face. At the moment the pads of her fingers contacted the stranger's bare skin a jolt, like an electric shock, crackled up her arm. Kendri jerked back, startled. A spark burned brightly in the back of her mind for a split second before dying away. The creature's eyes opened, stared unseeing towards her for a moment then closed again.

Kendri drew back from the stranger and stared at him with wide eyes. What had just happened? That spark was unlike anything she had experienced before and it brought with it a fleeting sense of familiarity. A storm of emotions brewed up within her and memory jarred. Images and feelings she couldn't quite place flared up in her mind for the tiniest fragments of seconds before fading into nothingness. She sat unmoving for a few short seconds, jaw hanging open and her ears back, completely stunned by what had just transpired. Then, without even realizing what she was doing, she reached out a trembling paw to the stranger's cheek once more. There was no jolt this time, only a faint tingling sensation that faded almost instantly. The stranger opened his eyes again and held her gaze for a second. This time there was recognition showing in those pale depths. Kendri hurriedly drew her arm back. The creature blinked a few times and groaned softly. He stirred feebly, one paw brushing at his bloodstained face. He eyed the blood that lingered on his fingers for a moment before turning unsteady eyes back to her.

The strange jolt forgotten for the moment, Kendri was at a loss as what to do next. She had to get the stranger back to the safety of his camp but she was unsure as to how exactly she would go about doing that. She sure wasn't going to be able to carry him, or even drag him for that matter. Would he even understand that she was trying to help him? The stranger stared back with unfocused eyes. His head lolled after a moment and his eyes closed.

"Hey! Try to stay awake!" She cried out in near panic. She was terrified that if he fell asleep again he might stay that way, permanently.

At the sound of her voice, the creature's eyes popped open and his head swung around. He stared at her, eyes wide. Some unrecognizable and vague expression flickered briefly across his pale features. She'd startled him, that was for sure, but she didn't sense much fear from him. She took that as a good sign.

"We must go find shelter, now." Kendri motioned with her paws down the trail behind her.

The stranger looked right through her with vacant eyes, his mouth working as if trying to speak. Kendri was getting worried. With the combination of the cold and his head wound, the stranger was clearly not fully aware of what was going on. She decided to try a different approach. When she spoke again, she spoke softly, gently, almost whispering.

"Can you hear me?" Those faded blue eyes focused on her for a moment and he murmured something unintelligible.

"I need you to stand up." For a tense moment there was no reaction.

"Come on!" There was a desperate edge in her voice.

Almost as if he understood her, he struggled to rise to his feet. Kendri stood with him and struggled to support his weight as best as she could. By the stars, he was heavy!

The stranger swayed heavily once he regained his feet. Kendri took a few deep breaths and began to gently guide him back down the trail. After only a couple of paces there was a cry of pain from the creature and he stumbled. Kendri tried her best to steady him but she was pulled to her knees as the stranger crashed into the snow. He lay on his side, moaning softly, his paws reaching for his left ankle. Kendri smacked the snow with a paw in frustration. How was she supposed to get such a huge creature back to safety if he couldn't even walk on his own?

"Get up! Do you hear me? Get up!" She tugged on his arm, trying to pull him to his feet. She may as well have been trying to move a mountain. The creature wouldn't budge. She pulled with every last ounce of her strength. The stranger stirred weakly and managed to force himself to a sitting position.

"That's it!" His progress was excruciatingly slow, but he at last managed to regain his feet. He stood unsteadily, and leaned heavily against a tree. He blinked unfocussed eyes at her and drew in deep shuddering breaths. Kendri sensed his confusion and also an underlying current of fear. She moved up to his left side and put one of his heavy arms over her shoulders. Perhaps with her supporting his left side she would be able to take enough weight off of his injured ankle to at least allow him to stagger. She put an arm around his back and gently steered him back down the trail.

The trip that followed was the stuff nightmares are made of, the type of thing that sends an involuntary shiver down the spine years later when some insignificant event suddenly triggers memories long repressed. It was a period of sustained effort, a battle against exhaustion and the storm, a struggle to regain the safety of fire and shelter at the stranger's camp.

Their progress was excruciatingly slow. Kendri soon found that she had not the strength to support the creature, and it seemed that every third or fourth step would send them both crashing to the snow. A vicious cycle soon emerged. The odd pair would stagger a few spans, the stranger towering over the diminutive form of Kendri like a giant. Then he'd stagger and fall to lie in the snow, blinking distant eyes up at the spinning snowflakes, groaning and mumbling softly. Kendri would yell at him, pull at him, yell some more, and plead with him. Finally, painfully, he would lever his bulk out of the snow and stagger another few steps before collapsing again.

It was not long before Kendri's throat was raw from all of the yelling she was doing, and she was panting up a storm. It dawned on her during a brief lull in the madness that she had used her voice more in the last half-hour than she had in the previous two years. She sat morosely in the snow, catching her breath. She wondered if the stranger understood a thing she had said so far. Not likely she told herself, the only thing she felt coming from him was a distant sense of confusion, which was a little unusual. Perhaps he had taken a heavier hit to the head than she had originally thought. Such an injury was not good news. She had seen cases before where people had died and all of the healing songs and prayers of the Elders and the Seers had been in vain. There were others she remembered as well. They had not died, but some important part of them had been destroyed and they were changed people afterwards. She hoped that would not happen to the stranger. Such a thing would be a fate worse than death. The stranger sat in the snow a couple of spans away, his back propped against the rough bark of a spruce tree. His head hung loosely, his chin against his chest. Kendri rose to her feet and walked to his side. She reached out and gently shook his shoulder.

"Time to go." She said, voice strained and haggard from her raw throat.

The stranger's head wobbled up and he swivelled glazed eyes towards her. He sighed and turned his eyes away. Kendri gently tugged at his arm. After a moment of stillness he began the painful and slow process of regaining his feet. Kendri's exhausted muscles cried out in pain and she staggered when the stranger leaned heavily against her. Only by dint of extreme effort did she manage to stay on her feet. She gathered what little strength she had left and stubbornly refused to give up. She had to keep going, there was no other way. To give up now would mean a slow death by hypothermia for the stranger. The clothing that he was wearing was soaked right through and she could feel the shivers that wracked his giant frame. She had to get him back to the life giving warmth of the fire at his camp. Onwards they stumbled, the creature hobbling on one good leg, clutching at trees and branches to steady himself.

All sense of time had been lost to Kendri. With the leaden skies and falling snow, it was an easy thing to lose track of. She didn't know how long she and the stranger had been struggling through the forest but it felt like an eternity before she caught the first hint of smoke from the fire at the camp borne on the wind. Her tail started wagging and she gave voice to an exhausted but excited yip. Almost there! The stranger looked at her, clueless as ever. She grinned at him and tried to step up the pace but the stranger was unable to manage it and he stumbled and fell with a cry of pain. He crawled on all fours for a span or two before he came up short and leaned against a convenient tree, breathing heavily. Her fatigue forgotten for the moment, Kendri gestured excitedly in the direction of the camp. "We're almost there!"

The stranger looked up at her, face deadpan, then slowly turned his head in the direction that she was pointing.

"Just over that ridge." She said, pointing up the trail that wound through the trees to the crest of a hill that was at most, fifty spans distant. "After that, maybe another two hundred spans and we're there. I don't know about you but after what we've been through, some food and rest would be nice." She smiled.

He turned back to her and those two strange strips of fur above his eyes drew together, and a vague expression flickered across his angular features. Using the tree he was leaning against to his advantage, he pulled himself to his feet without any help from her this time. He stood unsteadily, balancing himself on his uninjured leg, one paw gripping the tree for balance. Kendri looked at him curiously. His eyes were less vacant now, and he seemed to be regaining some of his strength. A good sign, she thought. He hobbled forward a couple of steps on his own. Kendri quickly ran to catch up with him.

"Easy now, I don't want you to fall over and hurt yourself again." The stranger looked at her with what appeared to be a questioning glance and waited for her to catch up with him.

Going up the hill proved more difficult than Kendri thought. It was steeper than it had looked from the bottom. The struggle that ensued trying to climb the hill completely drained the strength that the two of them had left by the time they reached the top, necessitating another short stop to rest and recover what little strength was left after the exhausting trek through the snow. Kendri eyed the stranger curiously as he leaned against a tree. He returned her gaze, pale eyes searching, questioning. Once again, Kendri was struck with a distant sense of familiarity. There was something about this stranger that she had seen or felt before, but she couldn't put her finger on what it was. The moment was broken when the stranger looked up and appeared to sniff the air. He turned back to her with a large grin and fought his way to his feet. Kendri smelled it too, strong and pungent, smoke from the fire at the camp was carried on the back of the wind as it swirled through the trees around them.

"Not too far now." Kendri said with a grin. Her tail began to wag when the stranger returned her smile.

Even though it was a relatively short distance to the camp, it still took Kendri and the stranger the better part of half an hour to struggle over the last two hundred spans in their exhausted states. When at last the camp came into view, the stranger began to hobble forwards as fast as he could manage. Kendri did her best to keep up with him and keep him upright. He collapsed into the snow at the mouth of his shelter, breathing heavily. Home, at last.

The first thing Kendri did was to refuel the fire. Despite the armload of wood that she had thrown on it before leaving to search for the stranger, the fire had died down to a pile of black cinders from which only the faintest wisp of smoke rose. She stirred up the ashes with a stick and revealed a few dull red embers. She gently blew some life back into the embers and carefully added the smallest and driest pieces of wood that she could find while the stranger crawled on all fours into the shelter behind her. She cast a worried glance over her shoulder. He spread out the bundle of dark green cloth that Kendri had tucked into a corner earlier and sat down upon it, looking exhausted beyond words. Outside, the sky gradually grew darker as the evening wore on. The snow tapered off into flurries and the wind died down slightly. The fire was soon crackling and spitting as the wet wood finally caught and burned. The flickering orange light threw a welcome circle of warmth and light into the shelter.

The stranger began to take off his soaked clothing. First came the bulky coverings that he wore on his feet. The right one came off without much trouble but he paused for a moment before removing the left one. Kendri could see the muscles in his jaw move as he clenched his teeth, steeling himself against the pain that was sure to come. His face contorted in a hideous mask of pain and a small groan escaped him as he pulled on his injured foot. He tossed his footwear aside and gingerly massaged his ankle. After a moment he pulled off another covering that was over his foot, a thin one this time, and sucked in a sharp breath as the flickering firelight revealed the extent of his injury. His ankle was badly swollen and the skin was an ugly mottled blue. He tilted his head back, groaned, and uttered something that sounded suspiciously like a curse.

Kendri feared that his ankle might be broken, but she wasn't sure. There was only one way to find out, but she wasn't sure if the stranger would let her examine his ankle. She swallowed her uncertainty and decided to ask anyway.

"Would it be okay if I looked at that?" She asked, pointing at his injured limb and wagging her tail in a friendly manner. She tried to sound as friendly as possible. Perhaps if he didn't understand her, he might pick up the emotion in her voice. He stared at her evenly, his face completely devoid of any expressions. She slowly crept closer to him. He stiffened, and she sensed fear from him, echoed by the look in his eyes. She pointed at his ankle again, trying to indicate that she meant no harm. She reached out, very slowly and very gently, and placed a paw on his lower leg. He flinched but otherwise made no move. He stared at her with wide, frightened eyes and his fear drifted in the background like the ebb and flow of waves on a lakeshore.

For a brief moment Kendri marvelled at the sensation of bare skin beneath the pads of her fingers. She saw now that the creature was not totally without fur, he just had a lot less of it than she did. Sparse dark hairs covered his lower leg and thinned out down towards his foot. She moved her paws down to his ankle and probed here and there as gently as she possibly could. She heard the stranger's sharp intake of breath and felt the muscles in his leg go rigid. A soft cry escaped between his clenched teeth. Kendri swallowed nervously and tensed. If he wanted to strike at her, he had plenty of opportunity to do so.

The blows never came. Kendri examined the stranger's ankle as carefully and as quickly as she could. Much to her relief she could not find anything broken. She was pretty sure that he had just twisted it when he tripped and fell. As long as he stayed off of it, the injury would heal in a few weeks. When she was done her examination, she gave him a smile and a gentle pat on the leg and turned back to the fire. The stranger followed her every movement with wary eyes for several minutes before he resumed taking off his soaked clothing. Kendri snuck a few glances at him as he did so, noting some differences in anatomy. She was momentarily fascinated by the way his muscles were so easily seen moving under his pale skin. She could not understand how wearing so many layers of clothing could be anything but uncomfortable. Even wearing just a leather cloak had a tendency to chafe and mess up her fur. She shook her head. She couldn't imagine living like that. She turned back to the fire. Behind her, the stranger wrapped himself up in his bundle of green cloth and was asleep sooner than Kendri thought possible.

Kendri yawned, her own fatigue suddenly remembered. She was hungry, but she didn't think that she had the energy necessary to make a meal tonight. The two grouse she had caught that lay under a paw's breadth of snow would still be there in the morning. There would be time enough then to make the meal that she owed to the strange creature asleep behind her. She yawned again, the last few hours catching up with her now that she was sitting down. She longed to lay down and get some sleep but she knew what would happen if she did. So many memories of her past had been dredged up over the last few hours. She knew that as soon as she lay down and closed her eyes, the nightmares would return. She sighed and stared out the mouth of the shelter at the silently falling snow. She had known that there would be a price to pay for awakening old feelings. She hoped that she was strong enough to bear the weight of what would come in the weeks ahead.

Before she curled up at the mouth of the shelter, Kendri threw another armload of wood on the fire and collected the stranger's wet clothing from where he had dropped it in a pile. She took a few minutes to carefully arrange it close to the fire so it would dry out instead of freezing to the ground. When that was taken care of, She curled up just inside the mouth of the shelter, and was asleep as soon as she closed her eyes.

The dreams that came to Kendri that night were not what she expected. She was spared the nightmares of darkness, pain and despair that normally ruled her sleep. Instead, she had a curious dream of the stranger. He stood alone on a barren, windswept hill under a sunless sky. Below him, stretched out on an open plain was what could only be a city of his own kind. Great towers of metal and glass reached up to touch the sky. Strange contraptions on wheels roared up and down the streets and a pall of haze and smoke rose above the great city. Thousands of the pale-skinned creatures swarmed on the streets, eyes downcast, hurrying to and fro with hardly a glance at their surroundings. The stranger turned to her, a deep pain showing in his pale eyes. He shook his head sadly and slowly turned and walked away from the city. He disappeared from sight into a forested mountain landscape that crawled up from the ground as he walked. Kendri turned to face the city. A million voices whispered in her mind, the voices of the city. Suddenly, they all cried out in despair as one and were eternally silent. The city crumbled to dust and was swept away by a great wind. She stood alone on the barren land, hearing the moaning voices of ancient despair whispering on the wind. Darkness slowly swallowed up the land, closing in on her from all sides...

Kendri snapped awake, the dream slipping away like sand between her fingers. She yawned and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. The fire had died down to a pile of coals that glowed a deep red and cast a feeble light against the walls of the shelter. She cocked her ears and listened in the darkness, concentrating for a moment on the deep, regular breathing of the sleeping stranger. She stood up and stretched briefly, then yawned again. She gathered up some more wood and carefully arranged it over the bed of glowing embers. She returned to her place by the fire and after turning in a circle a few times, as a dog would, she lay down and curled up. She blinked sleepily a few times. There was something that was nagging at her but she couldn't remember what it was. As she drifted back towards sleep, she realized that a strange word had lodged itself in her mind, an alien word that was not designed for a mouth like hers.

Human.

Just before she drifted away completely, Kendri realized that she knew what it meant.

The stranger, that's what he was. A human.