His walk out of the cave was not like his walk in. He knew the dark 
now and it had more of a face on it. It was cruel and evil, but it 
had allowed Goldie to show him Azalea. The unowns had said that she 
was the only one who could do it. Why they had let her do this he 
could only guess, but if he had to swim to the ends of the oceans, he 
would get Goldie out of there. 

"Let's go back...back...to..." Selden stopped talking. He didn't know 
where. "Back to a nice safe sunny place?"

"Of course, Selden. I want to be on a sunny place too. But we have to 
still swim back to shore, and then we have to come clean and light 
again. I don't know how to do it, but I have to."

A form was already taking shape in his head. He longed to draw it 
upon these rocks, but he knew now that this spire, the lake's face, 
had the power to twist and corrupt anything that he gave to it, 
including forms.

He would wait until he got ashore. He knew it was a risk to leave the 
apricorn with Goldie, but she was the one pinprick of light in this 
place. She needed a part of him to stay with her. Until he came back 
it was the least he could do. 

"Phos don't let me lose my light...the vry light you gave me..." he 
chanted softly as he approached the cave's exit. No one was there. It 
was pitch dark. The Zubats were gone to hunt and their guano was all 
they had left here for now. Chirin tried to step around it, using his 
tail to illuminate the best places to step. 

He had not realized how stale and old the air was until a fresh 
midnight breeze whacked his face on his exit. It carried scents of 
many things--the water, the autumn aspens and the evergreens. And the 
pokemon within them. It tensed his legs into springing up the last 
few paces of the path and out into the air. He started to climb the 
rocks, but saw a faster way then the path he had taken. Going up 
there would only bring him back amongst the berries and grasses, and 
however tasty they might be, he did not want to eat them. He felt 
like evrything here was tainted, and like they too had been marked, 
Burakuru's lambs rubbing their scent on his skin. To eat of anything 
here might corrupt him inside too. And the last thing he needed now 
was to succumb and get sick. He had not one but two missions.

"This way, Selden, I'm going to swim us back like we came. I have to 
check on Karama, I'm worried about her." 

"I'm scared, Chirin--the water's so cold and my wool was pulling me 
in."

Chirin grinned over his shoulder as he stepped onto a low rock that 
the lakewaters lapped at. "You're going to ride on me the whole time."

Selden's tail brightened. "The whole...time?"

"As sure as Watakko is up." He nodded upwards at the stars. The moon, 
he noted, was gone now. "And when we get ashore, you can sleep some. 
I know I'm tired too."

He sat down on the rock, dangling his feet in, and let Selden get his 
front legs around his shoulders. Chirin eased himself in, which 
wasn't easy with a mareep on your back.

"Whoa!" Their splash was answered by a couple more distant ones, 
some Goldeen or Magikarp fry startled by their entry. The lake itself 
didn't seem evil, he thought...but perhaps below the lake, or deep 
within it...There was a great wind who blew cold and twisted, and 
down in that spire he had met it. Chirin swam slowly towards the 
shore, having a hard time seeing where it actually was. There was a 
current, and he let it drift him along a bit southward. He perked his 
tail up as he kicked, trying to find the shoreline. Calming himself 
with the rhythms of his paddling, the gentle splashing he made and 
his deep breathing, he lit the shoreline in blue-tinted white light. 
His light had grown a lot; evolution had granted it greater reach. 
Something small scampered into the bushes and out of the light; 
pausing to listen, he heard the rustling. 

Soon after, his feet brushed the bottom. He lt Selden off his back 
and plodded ashore heavy and slow.
"Karama?" he called, and he heard how cracky and tired his voice was. 
When he didn't hear her answer he started hiking his way through the 
dark woods, fumbling through foliage even with his light curled round 
in front. It illuminated the globes of frost that he breathed out in 
the cold night. "Selden, where did you last see her?"

Selden sniffled absently, from the cold, and took a moment to answer. 
If she had gone far they could not follow her tonight. "She went away 
in the woods. I was watching for you. I got scared." He sighed. "I 
know I'm not big and brave like you. And when Karama left I got too 
scared to stay."

"It's okay." Chirin reached down and petted him, and he noticed 
Selden's tail alighting in a richer glow.

Chirin definitely smelled her when they reached the stretch of beach 
where he had swum off from. By night, the beach was a different 
beast. Where it ended blended with shore and forest, the distinctions 
blurred by shadow, even when he cast his light the borders seemed 
unsure. Shining it over the water's edge he caught glimpses of 
swaying sea plants and maybe a small fish or two that darted away, as 
if the light would harm them.

By scent, he even found the bushes Karama had walked off among. He 
thought of sleeping here and now, but sensed that the beach was 
touched by Burakuru. He could not stay here if he was to shed the 
spirit-scent of the spire. 

Pushing through bushes up onto a trail, he shone around for a sign of 
the mareep, dead or alive. "Karama..."
Selden just followed on, waiting for what happened next. As long as 
he was with Chirin, things would be okay. Chirin had gotten him out 
of the mountain cave place. He had saved him from drowning. There was 
nothing the great big brave flaaffy couldn't do.

He licked his own apricorn shell, just like Chirin always did (when 
he happened to have one) and walked on, listening to Chirin's calling.

"I think she's gone," said Chirin. "Oh I hope she's okay. She's just 
a little lamb out there all alone."

He sighed, looking down at the trail floor. He wanted out of this 
forest, out into open air. Forest harbored that many more dangerous 
beings. They were like caves in their own way. Breaking back out of 
the woods was as easy as turning to his left and trotting down the 
beach, but Chirin did not want to look at the lake. It looked back at 
him too strong. Even now he felt it watching him right through the 
trees. No forest felt thick enough to veil him and Selden from its 
eye.

"Where are we going to go?" said Selden. "What are we going to do?"

"I'm going to find help," said Chirin, still walking. "I'm getting 
Goldie off that island."

"But--you said you were going to bring back a friend to her." Selden 
was confused.

"I know. But that would be bringing a free pokemon into a--a blocked-
off life, away from the light-path. Even digletts and sandshrews see 
the light, they tunnel where they like. There, they would have to 
live in that dismal place, draped in darkness. It would be no better. 
How can I do that if I can't bring myself or you to stay there. I 
could never do it."

"So did you...you..." Selden couldn't say it.

"Yes. I hated to do it, but I had to lie."

Something or someone whacked him on the head. But though the stars 
sprang into his vision and the ground tilted up at him, nothing 
pushed him. Only an excruciating pain slicing in, not unlike the thin 
little thorn that the spirit possessing Gonga had tried to drive into 
him. In reflex Chirin's electricity popped off, driving a bolt into 
the trees with a bang and a shudder.

*You will not defy us
The wheel has turned
You have asked and the seer has granted
The bond is made.*

"What...I..." Chirin buried his head in his arms. Selden bleated 
fearfully, standing in front of him on the path. "But I'm 
not...I'm..."

It couldn't be them. It must have been his imagination. They could 
not be here still, in his body and mind. Chirin crouched down in 
fear, flicking his tail back and forth behind him. His own huge 
beastly shadow swayed hypnotically over the spruce trees. It towered 
over him in the night. "Unowns...you...are you...You can't..." 

*The bond is made
You must not speak of us
You must not pray ill of us
You must carry out what you promised
For Goldie's good.*

"It's not...But it's not the way," he said. He took a 
breath. "Unowns...I never...There must be some way. Once I get 
help..." 

*You must not speak of us.*

The pain pricked him again, less intense than before. A warning. A 
warning that they would use his own body to hurt him. They were 
wrapping his thoughts and striking down the ones they did not want. 
His mind had always been a sacred cavern, a grotto where the spirits 
spoke to him from outside, and he let their messages flow in. It had 
been broken into. 

Chirin had to run. "Selden...we have to get out of here. 
Away...Away..."

"What? Chirin...I didn't hear you..."

Chirin tried to make his words come out intelligibly, less rippled by 
his fear-shakes. His teeth chattered and sparks flew. "Now!"

He took off west, away into the forest with Selden keeping up on his 
four legs. Roots and sharp twigs scratched at the soles of his feet. 
He did not feel the pain.
ooc: Whoops i meant "east" not west. Why do I keep doing that??

IC:

"Where are we going?" Selden ran after the blue beacon of Chirin's 
tail, dodging low branches and leaping over roots. 

"I have to go away," said Chirin. "Before I can do anything I have to 
get both of us away from them." Chirin did not want to tell Selden 
what had happened--that he had been possessed. It would scare the 
poor little lamb too much. And fear...the monster preyed on fear...

Where was Chirin running to? He was trying to escape by running from 
something that had lodged itself inside of him now. The unown had 
said that their powers did not extend very far beyond the lake. He 
had to get away, and get help from beyond the lake...But who would 
help, who would listen to him? 

No matter. He could not exist with evil spirits living in his body.

He fell down and rolled in the dirt, kicking at a tree trunk he 
bumped into. He didn't know why, he was not thinking anymore. He was 
only feeling, and he felt them all over his skin. 

"Chirin!" Selden cried. "Oh, Chirin! What's happened?"

Chirin lay still, catching his burning breath, suddenly prickled by 
tons of scratches all over him, on his feet and body where bebris had 
scratched him. He lay there on his side crying. "The unowns," he 
panted, "they possessed me..."

Again they flung the stone at him from inside his head. He clutched 
his skull and screamed in agony. "This is me! This is me! You! You 
can't! GET OUT OF ME!"

*We are not inside you
We merely warn you
Do not speak of us.*

Chirin picked himself up and started running again. He would run till 
his feet wore down to his ankle bones if he had to, to come clean. 
How he had taken the freedom of his mind for granted. He had pranced 
about all over the place with no caution, paying the darkness no 
heed. That purple light. That had been the spirit entering him. 

"It was the purple light--"

Pain pushed him to the ground and his nose bluntly struck it. Getting 
back up he continued to run, more slowly now. He was not as light as 
he had been as a mareep, and his legs were two fewer and more stubbly-
-though by flaaffy standards he was rathher skinny. 

"You're bleeding," said Selden. "Your nose..."

Chirin wiped it on his woolly chest, smearing a little red 
smudge. "I'm okay, it'll stop. Come on." He worried for Selden; was 
he, too, possessed? He tried to remember whether the light had fallen 
on him too.

He tried not to think of the unown. He thought of anything else, of 
Azalea, of his flock, of luscious delicious clover. But even all of 
that was now about the unowns, because he deliberately thought of 
those things to leave the unowns out. 

His songs, his dances, his forms, his prayers. All of it tainted, all 
of it black. Until he found a way to come clean he could continue no 
mission. To seek the light one had to have light in themself and now 
he felt that he was full of darkness. But it wasn't his fault. The 
spirit had got him. He was not evil, but he harbored evil. He could 
be a danger to anyone he met because the spirit could send out part 
of itself to possess them. Every time he opened his mouth, he could 
be letting it out. He slowed to a walk, trying to remember the first 
step to exorcising an evil spirit from oneself. To do this, one had 
to communicate with the spirit, learn where it was and what its 
weakness was, and herd it out of your own body, not necessarily 
harming it, just shooing it out. All the while staying aware that 
because it was within you, your own soul hd less room. Any day now he 
could sicken and die if it got worse. 

But had he come this far, only to be stopped by this evil lake spirit?

"Selden, I know we can do this," he said to the frightened lamb 
trotting next to him. "I'm scared too Selden. But I'm going to do 
everything my flock taught me and everything else I've learned. I'm 
going to get this evil spirit far away and out of my body."

It was very, very hard to force out an evil spirit during the night, 
unless a whole flock was there to shine enough light. He realized 
that until tomorrow morning he would have little chance. By then, 
maybe it would have faded away. He kept on walking away from the 
lake, trying to remove himself from the powers of the spire. But he 
still thought about it and felt it all through him. The aftershocks 
of the still throbbed in his head. "In the morning, tomorrow is when 
I'll begin. Maybe we should find a place to sleep till then."

Up ahead, fresh scents dancing in free air over grass, came to him, 
with the strong scent of wheat. He found himself standing at the edge 
of a wheatfield, gone golden, but showing up purplish blue in his 
light. The stalks nodded higher than the top of his head. He nibbled 
on one of the ripe seedheads. Never before had he seen a field like 
this, which seemed to be all one plant, except for some smaller 
plants interspersed beneath the wheat, and some daisies on the edge 
of the field. 

Then, as he walked alongside it, his tail shed light onto the 
formation of the field--all the plants were growing in straight rows. 
Dead straight parallel lines daggered down the field. It was not 
natural. "This is a place that humans used their magic on," said 
Chirin, edging back out of it. He stopped to eat a little more 
anyway. "We'll stay at the edge." He remembered that they came at 
night, and dimmed his tail so they wouldn't see. Then he remembered 
that they had taken his flock in the middle of the night, when 
everyone's lights had been dimmed in sleep, and he brightened it 
again. The dark spirits were so confusing and so hard to understand. 
It was said that creatures of light could never really understand the 
dark.

The grain was delicious--dry stalks and all. Chirin nipped off 
several seedheads and dropped them down to Selden. Had it been any 
other night, Chirin would have lost himself in the joy of eating, the 
wonderful taste exploding in his mouth as he crunched down on the 
seed pods. But tonight it all felt tainted. He thought of the unowns 
again. "I wonder how far we have to go to get away from the unowns," 
he said, more of a test than anything. The pain swept over his head 
in a wave, before he could brace himself. 

"Let's go," he said, not wanting to stay in a human place now that 
they were full. He headed southward now, near the forest's edge. Now 
he was looking for a place to sleep. He usually sought a place that 
felt free of enemies and let him look around him for a while, to spot 
anything coming. Here the forest touched human farmland, and there 
would be no safe haven.

How he missed home. Pharos was a distant peak inhis memory now, and 
horribly mixed in with the memory of the spire. 

With a start that illuminated the wheat to his left and trees to his 
right, he realized that he could not distinguish them in his mind's 
eye. He could no longer picture Pharos' outline without seeing the 
spire. Was it just fading memory, or...

"How could you," he whispered, tears rolling down his face. "Oh, 
Pharos, I miss you." As he picked his way down between forest and 
field, going slowly from exhaustion rather than choice, he felt a 
deep sense of having fallen from the beacon peak, long and hard.
It was a miracle they had not been attacked, he thought as he stood 
by a place in the grass beyond the field, thinking of sleeping here. 
An ampharos alone was safe from attack by most predators. A flaaffy 
was not, although it was better than being a little lamb alone. As 
long as there was nothing big around, he would be okay for the night. 
But many ringuma were known to nose around at night and this, along 
with early spring, was the worst time to find one. 

He lay down in the spot, right at the edge of the forest. Why did he 
fear ringuma? They had escaped one, but they had not escaped the 
lake. It had pressed itself inside him. 

Chirin turned in a circle and shone his light over the place where 
they would sleep. Why now was a song coming to him? Cracking and 
beyond exhaustion, yet called to sing, he stood looked out at the 
field, listening, and his voice came out a tired whisper.

"Phos is away
I hear a hoot down the wheat-field
But darkness has come, and tied up my mouth.

Wheat strands sway like my wool in the wind.
But darkness has come, and burned in my brain.

I hear a song, I think a song,
And for the first time cannot sing.
The darkness stabs my thoughts.

Phos lies away beneath Mother Megga.
Wheat-stems march in rows
The starlight of ancestors shines on me.
So far I came, so far I fell
I look up at them pleading
Pleading they are hearing, reading
what the dark has done to me

The circling shapes unseen by eyes
Now I see them everywhere. 
Once I sought them, now I flee them
You showed me my mama's face
But I have met your shadows now, unowns--

The darkness..."

NO! He fought through the pain, bracing his feet and clasping his 
ducked head. He breathed into his wool. It was the last line of the 
song...NO!

*The darkness chokes my voice...*

"The darkness chokes my voice!"

He stood there in a squat, slowly straightening his legs again. He 
could not speak of them or sing of them. Like a poison released into 
a body of water it reached all parts of it. He was poisoned, like the 
lake was poisoned. 

"Chirin!" Selden shivered against him. "What happened? Are you hurt?"


"Yes...But I'll be okay till the morning. When morning comes...we 
will continue on and I'm going to get this evil out of me." Yes, 
tomorrow was what he had to wait for. Then he could shine out the 
shadow from himself and get help for Goldie. Chirin wiped his face 
dry again, amazed he had any tears left to cry. He lay down and with 
a sideways nod of his head, motioned Selden to sleep here too. Selden 
snuggled up against Chirin's stomach and the two of them closed their 
eyes.
Chirin dreamed. The river fled the stalking lake, trying to cry out. 
Chirin stood at its bank and the waters rose up. A black wall of 
water came down on him. Where was Selden? He would drown. Chirin 
paddled on and on and found himself on the island. 

And the unowns chorused in a droning chant.

*You must not hear
You must not speak
We are the ones that the forest fears.*

"Goldie!" Chirin ran through the dark caverns, never having enough 
light to reveal what was ahead of him. "Goldie where are you! I came 
to get you!"

The room shuddered as he saw Goldie running to him. He grabbed her 
up. "I told you I'd come back. I'm going to take you far away to a 
place where you can be free and happy..."

And as he clutched her tight against him, feeling her heart, the 
unowns chanted with their hexing voices.

*Sometimes a light will shine past its borders
Sometimes a river will flow past its banks
Hear what you must hear, see what you must see
But never will you venture
To what cannot be.*

"You don't understand!" he screamed. "You can't trap a baby in the 
dark! She'll die!"

Selden had already run a way up the tunnel and he bleated for Chirin 
to follow. His sparks played against the folds of rock wall. With his 
arms around Goldie Chirin took off and ran.
Run, dart, dodge the leaping stone. 

As if the rock had stood up to stretch, the cave floor jumped up 
under him, knocking Goldie neatly out of his arms and rolling her 
harmlessly away. Chirin landed on his back. *No,* he thought as he 
kicked and squirmed, trying to find the floor, *it's them...they're 
taking her away.*

"Goldie!"

The Ruriri rolled out of his tail's swinging light, tucked in shadows 
as another reverberation slammed him against the wall. His head 
smarted with stars. Or was it him rolling away from her? The cave's 
uniform dark color, only changed by his tail, tumbled him over and 
over, trying to grind him to bits. But worse than this pain was the 
pain in his head.

*The wheel has turned
The deal is made
Too much you have learned
It must be repaid.*

Chirin was running in the grass back on Pharos. "The unowns are 
coming! The unowns are coming! Help!" He stopped, trying to tell 
whether the pain was coming or would come. Not yet, but would it 
soon? He ran on...

A purple light surrounded him and glowed against his skin as he ran 
up Pharos' peak. "Pharos! Chenja! MAMMA!"

He climbed up to the top, trying to brush the light off his 
skin. "Please...oh leave me alone..."

There was nothing else he could do. He looked far down at the 
churning sea. Only one way to shed this light-of-dark. But would he 
survive it? He took a breath and jumped.

He hit the water rear end first but as he kicked his way up and 
spluttered to the surface he found that it was not salt water. It was 
lakewater. He looked up and saw not the great bluffs of Pharos but 
the island and the spire. He began to swim away and found that his 
limbs would not move. His lungs would take in no air, he had nothing 
to scream with. He began to sink. And as the water filtered around 
his ears he heard the voices in his head, chanting deep with the 
water's fluid song.

*Fly in the sky or swim in the sea
You cannot escape
A promise.*

Chirin tried to scream but could not exhale. He gave a pull with his 
locked-up lungs but breathed in water. Or was it a thin pallor of air?
*...uh....uh...* He was a silent stone dropping to the bottom of the 
lake, following the path of his pebble and the grave he had given the 
ram of Denrai.

"Chirin," Selden's little bubble voice cried from somewhere above 
him. "Chirin...what's wrong?"

But Chirin saw no one's light. 

*uh...uh...* he tried to scream and only sucked tiny scratches of 
bleats from pulls of air.

"Chirin, please, you're scaring me!"

He fought his paralysis, trying to lift limbs heavy as logs. 
Instantly, as the dream dissolved plucking back in his body, he 
realized it had all taken place in the other realm...

"Oh, Chirin," Selden hugged the flaaffy. "You're okay?"

"Yes," said Chirin, hugging Selden back.

"You were making these scary little noises. I, got scared."

"They tried to drown me," said Chirin, realizing that Selden might 
have just saved his life. "You pulled me back somehow before they 
could do it. Oh.." He hugged Selden tight, laying there with him 
under the trees, in the fading night. Their lights no longer seemed 
as bright.

Selden, caught in Chirin's crying embrace, felt his fear climb a 
notch. But something else also climbed, striding up his veins, 
something good and scary at the same time.

* * *

Ivy climbed on the rocks where Chirin climbed. He had been working 
his way through the woods beyond the wheatfield's end, and now he 
clambered over this outcropping, zigzagging, jumping, leaping and 
dancing denryuu circles around it. While Selden, ears flickering in 
puzzlement, sat atop the highest of the boulders and watched his 
friend. Chirin was scanning it over for a spot nude of ivy, flat and 
smooth, where a form could be born. He found just the place.

"Now for colors," he said, shining his light around the place, 
sanctifying it. "Come on, let's find the things we need." If this 
took a while, so be it. It must be the best form he could possibly 
make. As he thought some more on it, munching some leaves off a bush 
he picked berries from, he thought of some tricks to try with this 
one, possibly dangerous ones. But he was already threatened. Each 
breath could behis last. Yes, he could live a very full life, but it 
would never be one where he could relax. No matter how high up a 
mountain face he climbed, no matter how big a thunder he struck, he 
would never escape an enemy that could not be seen, smelled or even 
felt until it was too late. An enemy that had already found and 
secured him and was only toying with him now like a Persian with its 
prey.

Chenja and Lararu had never done this, or he could not remember, if 
they had. But he thought it just might work. He imagined the form, 
and recalled the unowns of the lake. They were close to the dark 
stone of the spire. And this rock here was also dark, and it felt 
very much like the rocks of the island had. 

Before he did the form, though, he must acquire certain powers. 
Something that would weaken the spirit he wanted to expel from 
him...he regretted that he could not simply reason and negotiate with 
it, and took solace in the fact that he would not have to truly hurt 
it, only dampen its powers just enough to shake it loose. Perhaps 
even just lull it gently to sleep.

But what would work against the spire and the lake? Rock and water 
made this being, and something else with a living essence deeper and 
older than anything he had ever known. He could think of no pokemon 
with an edge on this power. It stood above and below the plane that 
the animals lived on.

A small object the color of heather blooms lay on the freshly fallen 
yellow-brown pine needles. He bent, sniffed at, then picked up a 
sneasel's feather. 

It had been shed by a young nyuura, maybe an older kitten, very 
recently. Smelling around a little he caught the sneasel's fresh 
scent against the nearby pine trunk and on the needle carpet. They 
traveled alone and by cover of night.

He turned it in his hands and ran it along that sensitive spot under 
his nose and above his mouth, enjoying its smooth softness. Dark to 
speak to dark... Sneasels did not survive by might and fight. They 
sneaked and slinked and tricked their way along their light-path. 
Mother Megga had given them good minds. Perhaps he would need the 
sneasel's cunnng to unhook this cloying thing's claws off the inside 
of him. For even now its power could be absorbed by him. He dabbed 
some sap from a pine cone onto the feather's shaft tip and stuck it 
behind his ear. He checked it to make sure it was on there good.

Now to embellish this, and endow himself even more with Sneasel 
talents. He was beginning to feel cleverer already--its power 
releasing into him and well under his own control. With Selden's help 
he accrused several more paints: black from a brushfire's ash, mud, 
grass, blue and purple and red berries. Cud spit out made dark green, 
and an interesting texture too. Chirin brought it all over to the 
rock where he would be working. "Thanks Selden," he said, taking 
berries of a lighter red from a bush Selden had found. He crept 
almost silently as he shuttled the supplies. His ears flicked and his 
tail sinuated.

Pine needles, applied with sap to either side of his nose, bristled 
like whiskers. 

"Are they straight?" he asked Selden, who smiled and shook his head.

"They're almost straight."

Looking out the sides of his eyes and blessed by wide vision, Chirin 
nudged the needles into place.

"That's good," said Selden.

Chrin brushed aside the wool on his head. Feeling where the center of 
his forehead was, he painted on a pink-purple jewel. When the juice 
ran, he wiped it off, knocking his whiskers askew. Singing to himself 
of clever sheep stalking in the clouds overhead, he redid the jewel 
and whiskers to his satisfaction and completed it by trying to dab 
another jewel on his chest. It ran and stained his wool. But it was, 
he decided, closer to a Sneasel that way. 

"You look more and more like a Sneasel," said Selden, although he 
could barely recall what they looked like. There had been one or two 
kept on the farm along with the Meowths. All the farm was a hazy 
memory for him now. 

"Thanks," said Chirin. He felt like one and was taking on the essence 
of the one who had shed that feather. Clever Chirin-chirin thought of 
something else. He gathred more ash and, patch by patch, reaching 
with difficulty in some places, he became black. Or at least a smoky 
sooty uneven gray color. He finally just rolled in the ash to get his 
back. Selden joined him.

"I'm a sneasel too!" he said. 

Chirin painted his tail pink, although it turned out purplish and 
still had black stripes. Selden looked at him askance.

"Wow, you really are turning into a sneasel."

"I am one. I have the quiet and the stealth and intelligence of 
Nyuura. I--I can move without a sound." The sooty mokoko took a 
careful step, barely crunching the leaves. He flicked the end of his 
tail, which was still stiffer than a nyuura's would be, but oh well, 
he still had yet to truly transform. "I'll need these powers soon."

Chirin took up the small drawing rock he had selected and began the 
form with one strong bolt of a line. This rock was harder to get a 
white line with, but he had found a good sharp rock. "Nyuura, nyuu," 
he purred. He drew a sneasel with a light on one of its tail 
feathers. That was him. 

Chirin circled the rock like the sneasel he now was, and sang in a 
low hiss and purr of a voice.

"Nyuu, nyuu
I am a shadow under a rock
Rrraahhh...
I am a gentle flicker of lights at night.
Nyah, nyah,
I creep up dark like ripples
Nyy--urr--uhhh
Come into my paws.

"Nyah!" Chirin landed with an artful pounce upon the place where he 
had begun the form. Now for the rest of it. He weighed the risk in 
his head and decided it was worth it. He drew the unowns and the lake 
and the spire, waiting for the pain and the voices. They did not come 
this time. At this point he thought of giving this up, if they really 
had fled from his Sneasel form already, but like sneasels themselves 
they were sneaky and very patient. 

He completed the form by showing the unowns leaving him, out from his 
mouth and his outstretched paws. They left him and drifted up and as 
they left they acquired the dancing glory of colors that they had 
taken on so long ago on that special night.

"I think I found the plant you were looking for before," said Selden, 
smiling. 

Chirin put the finishing touches on the great big drawing and laid 
down his tools. "Wonderful! Where?" He followed the lamb's proudly 
held tail to a healthy patch of pokenip. Recent near-frosts and 
waning days had only just begun to yellow the lower leaves.

"You did," said Chirin, gently picking several leaves and carrying 
them all back to the rock with the form. He sat down with his back to 
the form now and closed his eyes, giving the air a last sniff and 
finding all was safe. 

"Selden," he said, "now here comes your important job. I will be away 
on a journey to the spirit world to talk to the unown--" He clenched 
his molars together as the pain took him by surprise. "I will talk to 
them and try to get them to leave me. But while I'm gone I need you 
to guard my body. If an enemy comes, you have to try to wake me up. I 
think we're safe here, but just in case. Do you think you can do 
that?"

"Yes," said Selden. His tail light beamed brightly, but betrayed a 
nervous flicker. "All I have to do is wake you up?"

"Yes," said Chirin. "But only if it's a real danger coming. And try 
to be gentle when you wake me up."

"Like..." Selden pondered. "Like I woke you up from the bad dream?"

"Yes, oh, yes, exactly like that," said Chirin, feeling genuinely 
safe with Selden now that he remembered him helping him out of such a 
dire dream-trip. 

Chirin settled himself down again, taking deep breaths. With the 
stone warming up against his straightened back, he relaxed himself. 
Thinking sneasel thoughts he took one leaf and ate it, then another, 
then another, always eating one more leaf after he told himself that 
it was enough. Maybe he shouldn't have picked so many...Maybe he 
should have stopped eating them before there was nothing left in 
front of him... Only now, as he began to feel his soul lifting out of 
him, did he remember what the flock had said, that eating too much 
whisked you too far into a world wilder than this one.
He let his soul bleed out of his body, and he was not aware of when 
he toppled over. The ground his body lay on no longer had a grip on 
him. Gone was the hard stone at his back, the ground under his butt 
and legs, the air on his face and the slightly bitter aftertaste of 
the leaves. He was tumbling through the tunnel into somewhere else, a 
jumpluff in an updraft. 

Unlike the last time when he had blundered into this place, he didn't 
need to travel anywhere. The dark was not just around him, but in 
him. 

And the unowns appeared. Transient and amorphous like clouds, so much 
more alive--dazzling and blooming with splendour, a garden in the 
air. They billowed like smoke and drifted like autumn leaves.

"Unowns," he said, then remembered he was a sneasel. What did he do 
while he was here? How did he get them out of him? 

And why did he get this sudden feeling like something was very wrong?

The unowns flitted around him till they were all that existed, just 
them in a dark place. He had eaten too much. The magic was too 
strong. The dancing forest shrank away from him, shunting him 
elsewhere, spurning him. Like someone had grabbed him and shoved him 
into a cave, light and color all sucked away from him. 

"Chirin," said Selden, although there were no enemies. The mokoko had 
tumbled sideways and now lay there, not moving. "Chirin."
Chirin was in nothing. He saw no light, not even his own tail. Where 
was he? Was he anywhere? He waved his legs and arms and tail but felt 
no air resistance. He was movement and thought and that was all that 
existed here. He was not sure if he was falling...his stomach felt 
unsettled, although he could call up no cud; but no wind blew. He 
took a breath but did not feel the cool whoosh of air pouring in. 
Trying to feel his way back to his body, he found no connection.

Was this being dead? Was it the place you went to just before you 
died? Was this where his soul would slowly suffocate, like Goldie in 
the island caves?

He was no sneaky sneasel. This was not normal for a sneasel. Or was 
it? How did he know what kinds of dream-places sneasels could go? 
Whatever it was, he sensed it was dangerous. Wherever it was was too 
far from his body. 

But the body waiting for him was already inhabited. He could not step 
back into a desecrated home. If this was all that his journey had 
taken him to, it might mean he had no hope of shaking the spirits out 
of him. He would eat, sleep, mate, and die all under an unown's 
shadow. It was no light-path. 

Better to let himself sink down now. They channeled his thinking now 
but they could not force him to come back into his body--into their 
hands. And Selden? Once Chirin died they would lose their hold on 
him. Selden would be free. If an enemy killed him, better even that, 
than to walk knowing the path could never be pure. That you were 
always being watched and invaded.

He felt his mind pad into that place where it would have triggered 
tears if he had still been in his body. He would miss the fragrance 
of flowers and the feel of rolling in grass. But it would have all 
been a ruse. He would have had to pretend he was free to sprawl 
wherever his heart and light took him. And he could not fool himself. 

*Oh, to not have made so many mistakes so soon.*

But Azalea...to see Azalea again. 

What was he thinking? To give up on life? Just because he had a 
spirit trying to shoulder him aside and take his light-path from 
under his feet? Who was he to give up so fast? Swimming against a 
current of cold he fought back towards his body. But he found it cold 
and forbidding. 

No.

*No!*

The more he strained towards it, the colder and harder his body was, 
the veins were winter tide pools and the light in his tail was a 
Lanturn beached.

***

"Chirin!" At the sight of his dear friend's tail light barely 
flickering, Selden shook him. The pidgeys singing high above him in 
the treetops seemed to mock the two of them here. And Selden was 
alone again. He looked at the fresh, soot-smeared face, so handsome 
and even pale, lying there on the brown dirt and yellow autunm leaves 
with the colors of the drawing he had made stretching a playful 
rainbow up behind him.

***

It was too late. Like vision doubling he shrank back from his body, 
the only one he would ever get and that he had carelessly thrown away 
in angst. Mah-mah's own body had made it. She had birthed him onto 
green grass on a warm sunny day and licked him clean. How could he 
have done this? How?

Out of the black and cold sang a voice, distant but coming nearer.

*Chirin.*

*Mure?*

A dark tumble of marowak and cave and blue water--no, ice--no, stone--
flashed like the unowns had flashed. Here and there he glimpsed bone--
red eyes peering from skulls.

*You are far away from me. I can't help you for long...*

*Mure...help me...The unowns...*

*I know. And you can't despair. You can't die. And you will be free. 
You have the power to free yourself of anything that dares to touch 
inside of you and shake your freedom. You did it once, a long time 
ago.*

*Mure, I'm dead already.*

*No, you are not. Use your gift!*

*I did, I tried to sneak them out like a Sneasel!*

*No. Your real gift.*

He felt a warm wind, twinkling with a drapery of faint sparks, take a 
gentle hold of his limbs and push them towards his empty body. *You 
must help me here. Your body is an apricorn. Enter it.*

Two pinpoints of light, they might have been stars, oosed out like 
sap from a distance where the sky might have been, had he not been 
stuck in the dark. Distance ws all he could judge by. There was no 
up, no down here, only all around, like a sea. And those two sparking 
trickles of light, might have been tears.

His gift. That thing he had done with his *denki* was a gift? It 
certainly wasn't any good in fighting! But as he began to 
concentrate, he realized she was right. Little by little he sent his 
denki out ahead of him, focusing into his body. 

*That's it...now you must pull yourself in. You can do it.*

His body was aching, cold and stiff. But it was all he had. Slowly he 
flexed into it, feeling gravity and a sense of the world again. He 
was leaving.

*The unowns, they hurt me if I try to tell about them. Mure, I can't 
get rid of them with my gift or any gift!*

*Yes, you can. The unown simply want to hide. And Goldie will be free 
one day. You may not be able to expel the unowns now, but hone your 
gift, Chirin. And you will.*

Just as he reached his body again, fitting into his skin like a 
caterpie in a metapod shell, the spark-dust reached out towards him. 
A soft tingling wind brushed his cheek as Mure began to fade away. 
With her all the other sensations--Marowak, cavern, floor and glowing 
blue stone, all were dragged away from him.

*Mure, how do I get Goldie free!*

*You cannot now. Until you hone your gift you can do nothing but 
bring her the friend she so needs.*

*Who are you?!*

*I am Mure, I am helpless, and I was your mah-mah, a long, long time 
ago. Sleep well, Chirin-chirin.*

Chirin's eyes were trapped behind closed lids and his limbs twitched, 
feeling ground. He sighed into normal sleep.

He was dimly aware of the passage of time, brought to him through 
smells and winds that only came at certain hours. In between more 
usual spirit journeys, he would try to break the shell of sleep and 
see where and when he was, if only so that he could see if Selden was 
all right. Now and then when he bobbed closer to the surface, he 
sensed someone brushing him or licking his face, and smelled Selden.

In between dreams and awareness, thoughts came to him. *I was your 
mah-mah a long time ago.* Then she was an ancient ancestor. His 
ancestors had not left him like he had thought so many times. But why 
her? Why not his real mama? 

It was all too hard to think about right now. He let the cool river 
of dreaming pull him away into sunny lands where he ran and tumbled 
in summer grass with Azalea. 

But just for that brief time when Mure had helped him to save his 
life, he had felt like Mama was back. He had had a mother again.

His life had become desolate now, from what it had been. A wintertime 
of life.

Suddenly cooler wind shook him more fully awake, and he had not 
realized it had grown warmer, till it had grown cooler again. His 
pounding headache protested when he tried to open his eyes. It was 
not the unowns this time, but the trauma of too much pokénip.

The icky yucky taste in his mouth, coupled with stiffness and sore 
spots where he lay on the forest floor, told him he had slept a long 
time. 

"Selden?"

An icky cracky voice, too. But he would recover all right. He was 
lucky to be alive. *Thank you, Mure, thank you to all my ancestors. I 
owe you much.*

He heard the quick running of hooves through the forest litter 
towards him. "Chirin? Chirin! You're awake?"

Selden's face was hard to focus on. Around him it was pitch dark, the 
deep of night. But what night, of what day? 

Did it matter now?

"Oh," Selden leaned his face close to Chirin's nose. "You were asleep 
for a very, very, very, very, very, very..."

Chirin cracked a weak smile. "It's okay now, I'm okay."

The very effort of speaking sighed a wave of sleep back over him. But 
it was brief this time. So much had his soul gone through that it 
needed all this time in the other world. When he woke up again, he 
lifted his head and saw that a few alder leaves had fallen on him 
while he had slept. The trees had tried to make a bed for him... this 
was a blessed place of healing.

"I was so scared that you were going to die," said Selden while 
Chirin forced himself to sit up, if only for a little while. If he 
was better he shouldn't lay about for long. "But, you didn't."

"No, I didn't." He found it hard to focus on conversation right now, 
he was just grateful to be alive and back and in this world again. "I 
went on a long and dangerous trip that I probably shouldn't have 
made, and my ancestor helped me. She spoke to me, and said that 
someday I will be free of the unowns." At that he experienced the 
sharp pain, but the disapointment that he had not overcome it yet as 
he had hoped, hit him sharper. "She said I have to...hone my gift." 
He concentrated on not getting dizzy as he chewed cud. It tasted 
soft, like it had been down there a long time. "I didn't know I had 
a gift. It's a little one, but..." He trailed off, not sure if he 
wanted to tell Selden all abut it yet. Selden didn't seem curious to 
hear more. He was just so happy, beaming at Chirin as he sat there, 
still coated in ash and dirt, chewing cud.
He looked around him more curiously now, rousing a little more. He 
brightened his light and saw a ring of leaves around him. Selden must 
have pushed them there.

"I made a bed for you," said Selden, seeing Chirin looking. "I tried 
to draw more forms on the other rocks around you but I couldn't hold 
the rock and the berries just got squooshed."

"Oh, Selden, that's okay." Chirin opened his arms and Selden ran up 
to get the hug. "You did a great job guarding me."

He heard the rumble of Selden's stomach, mirroring his own. He was 
very hungry. 

"Can--can I stop guarding you now? It's just that I'm, a little bit 
hungry."

Chirin's ears drooped and his light flashed behind him. "You 
mean...you didn't eat?"

"Well...of course I ate," said Selden, gesturing to the few tendrils 
of ivy hanging down on this part of the rock, which had been cropped 
short. He trotted over to the couple of alder sapling branches 
hanging nearby, which had been nibbled bare as far as Selden could 
reach--only a few mouthfuls of leaves. The sapling's trunk had been 
stripped of its bark. No other trees grew right in Chirin's vicinity. 
To eat anything else he would have had to leave Chirin's side for a 
moment. 

"Oh, Selden. You--When I asked you to guard me, I didn't mean you had 
to stay right next to me! You must be so hungry!" He tried to stand, 
and found he had to do it in stages. His head pounded. At last he had 
to sit back down. "Selden, go over there to that bush," he shone his 
light on them, "or just around to the other side of the rock, with 
the ivy! You must eat, friend." He stroked Selden's back and nudged 
him over towards the greens.

Selden wasn't gone long, due to his fear of the dark and being alone. 
When he came back he was carrying a trail of ivy. 

"For you." He dragged it into Chirin's lap.

"Thanks." Chirin ruffled Selden's hair and dug into his much-needed 
meal.
"I don't know what I'd do without you," he said to the lamb, igniting 
a richer yellow orange on his little tail's end. After he had 
finished the ivy, he chewed some more cud and thought of what gift he 
would leave for Mure and his other ancestors right on this spot by 
the rock where he sat now. He felt them in the very stone and dirt, 
warming him and sending him strength.

Later on, Chirin was finally able to rise up on his feet. It was a 
good thing too, because he had to do his business. After leaving 
droppings just round the other side of the rock, he led Selden out to 
the forest's edge, where they enjoyed a nighttime graze. The moon 
hung high, little more than half. 

He would be free. And so would Goldie. And he would find Azalea. It 
would just be much harder than he had thought it would be. Watakko 
above, if it had been as easy as running to get help from the nearest 
pokemon, Goldie would still not be locked away in there! 

And maybe, if he brought Goldie a friend, she would have rested up 
and be able to show him Azalea again.

Still unable to move very far or rise to his feet without getting 
dizzy, he grazed along slowly, savoring the grass's taste and 
texture, a pleasure he had almost given up forever.
Mure had told him to go back and find a friend for Goldie, for now. 
He figured that it was all he could do. The poor ruriri must feel 
betrayed by him, because he had kept on telling her he would never 
leave her, and it had turned out to be a lie. While he piddled around 
out here trying to fight a force he could not even flicker against, 
she sat down in the depths of darkness with only those...things...for 
companionship. 

If that was companionship he'd rather be alone. He took an especially 
large bite of grass and chewed furiously, trying to calm himself 
down. He couldn't let himself get all angry again over it. It would 
do Goldie no good. 

"Where are we going to next?" said Selden, grazing with his head 
across from Chirin's. They almost bumped heads and Chirin-chirin 
giggled.

"I don't know. I guess to the lake." He felt a little shaky, but as 
long as the moon shone, why not begin to work their way back 
lakewards a little bit before they slept? A slow pace would suit them 
both. Chirin couldn't go very fast, and Selden had to graze. "Yes, 
the lake's where I'm going. I need to find a friend for Goldie."

"But...you said...but..."

Chirin nudged against him. You won't have to go back to the island 
at all. I might, but...I won't go in nearly so deep as I went on that 
horrible, dark last trip." He shivered a little, and his head 
pulsed. "May the spirits find me safely through. I may not have to go 
in at all."

"But, if you go in you could die!"

"I won't die," said Chirin. "I promise."

"And I won't?"

"No, you'll be safest of all."

But it didn't matter, thought Selden, if Chirin was not safe too.

"If possible," said Chirin, allowing himself to walk along the woods' 
edge with Selden eagerly keeping by his side, "I won't swim to the 
island at all. I just...feel so dark and terrible. I will be 
condemning some innocent being to dwell and languish...down there in 
the spire." He ducked his head and gave it a shake to dislodge 
tears. "If only there were a way, to send someone in there who could 
bring her out. And what if the friend also gets possessed? I will 
have become one of the *burakos*, spreading darkness."

He realized that Selden might not even understand what he was 
saying. "I'm sorry to be--possibly scaring you like this. I'm just 
afraid."

"I'll help you," said Selden, not knowing what else to say, and they 
walked on.

Chirin had still found nothing to place by the rock--he realized he 
had forgotten to leave a gift for his family spirits. "Uh...I'm sorry 
to just--slap our trip short like this, but I have to go back and 
leave an offering by the form." 

"That's fine," said Selden, turning right around. 

Chirin searched around and picked some of the best grass he could 
find. He carried it back to the rock amid the rustles of the night, 
fighting dizziness all the way; his soul's connection to his body was 
still very fragile. He added a few berries to the little altar, and 
spread them all out over the fresh-fallen broad leaves. "Come 
morning, it will be beautiful. My ancestors, take my little gift and 
dance in the energy that may flower in you."

On his knees, he bowed his nose to the ground, brushing against the 
edge of the leaves. He had no apricorn now, nothing left to give, and 
yet he felt that in making these forms and going as Nyuura into the 
other world, he had helped to reunite himself with the spirits who 
had first shaped him into what he was. If Mure was right and he did 
have a special gift, his ancestors had given him that, too. One more 
thing tying him to those who were dead, but never, never gone.

"Maybe we should sleep here," he said to Selden with his eyes 
glistening rivers down his face. "The spirits sway me, they are 
welling up in me. They hug me, they want me to give them light for 
tonight."

"Of course we can stay," he said, joining Chirin by the rock. Beside 
the offering, Chirin lay down to give himself over to the sleep that 
had been calling to him. It was dark and they were alone out here, 
and the unowns still stood sentinel in his head. But it had been a 
long time since he had felt so safe and loved. He closed his 
eyes...melting into relaxation, his spirit spreading its nightly 
wings...

"Who's Burakuru?" 

"Oh..." Chirin yawned and opened his eyes again. "Burakuru is the 
dark ewe...She won't get us out here, you're safe here with me." He 
licked the lamb's snout.

"I can't sleep. Can you tell me a story?"

"Oh, Selden..." He was so tired. "I'll tell you a very short story, 
before this heavy weight in me just, makes my eyes drop closed. Would 
a small story be all right?"

"Yes," said Selden. "Tell me about Burakuru."

"Oh, lights above and lights beyond, I don't want to scare you."

"You won't. I'm brave with you."

"You're brave anywhere, dear Selden. You were my light while I swam 
in pokenip." He sighed. "All right, I will tell you a story of 
Burakuru. Maybe the chills will shock my *denki* awake again." He 
gave Selden a squeeze as they lay there, churning up all he 
remembered about Burakuru. Which, owing to his many nights in 
forests, was plenty.

"Deep in the hadow woods there lives a dark Ampharos. Instead of 
light, she shines darkness. She is all black with gold rings where a 
denryuu's black stripes are. They are dark gold, the color of the 
stardust that clouds your eyes when your soul flees your body too 
soon, and you become dizzy and die for a moment. Burakuru has a head 
jewel like an ampharos, but that shines dark, and her tail does too. 
Some say she hs many children who are her flock. She has the power to 
melt into shadow. And she is much swifter than we are. She is big as 
a ewe, and can outrun any one of the light-folk on four feet, for she 
can walk on two feet or four. 

"When her *denki* shoots her dark aura, it can swallow the most 
powerful light-of-spirit in black. The spirit-light does nothing 
against her dark powers."

"Spirit-light?" said Selden.

"Oh...yes." He sat up. "When an ampharos is still growing but getting 
stronger, there comes the glorious day when he, or she, gains the 
power to shine from not only the head or tail, but all over, as the 
denki radiates beautiful white light in an aura all around. Sometimes 
so bright that they become hidden in their light. And this light 
protects against other powers. Someday, Selden, both you and I will 
shine with this deep soul light.

"Those gold rings around her body, are how she grabs others into her 
embrace and turns their shine to a shadow. She can taken them off, 
and a new one will grow in its place. With the ring in her hand, she 
will reach out of the shadows and try to get one around your tail. If 
she succeeds...oh, you will soon die, for without light the soul 
suffocates, and then after death you are reborn in shadow. You become 
one of her flock. A curse of Burakuru is a curse worse than death by 
an enemy. 

"Some say the Sneasels are her children, but I have also heard that 
they were made by Mother Megga like everyone. But back then, they 
were fully feathered and lived among the birds. Burakuru ringed mah-
mah sneasel and nyuura survived, but transformed into a creature of 
the night. But I believe that they can be good nonetheless. The dark 
ewe, even, may not be all bad. But she lives by shadow, and for us 
that would bring death."

"But...You turned into a Sneasel!"

"I did." Chirin hugged Selden, reminding him he was here and keeping 
him warm. "And I used the light that still lives deep within the 
sneasel. All creatures are of Mother Megga first. For Bangaa is a 
child of Mother Megga too. And so is Burakuru.

"Once, Burakuru tried to get Phos. And she almost succeeded. She 
climbed up there somehow and put her rin around Phos's tail."

"Oh...What happened then?"

"It got suddenly dark as Phos was consumed in shadow. But the flock 
of Pharos helped to save him. It happened before I was born. They 
screamed and danced and cried, and all shone their lights so dazzling 
bright, and it was close, but they shone away the dark and scared 
Burakuru back into the forest where she still stalks. Phos's *denki* 
lit again. And day returned. But Burakuru has tried it before, that 
wasn't the first time she tried it on Phos."

"Would she do it...again?"

Chirin had wondered that too. With his flock gone, would Phos succumb 
to a second attack? "I don't know. But there are other flocks out 
there who would shine to help him. Oh, and the Dark Ewe has tried to 
get Clef too. Always when Clef is full. That's because Burakuru is 
sad inside, I think. She wishes she had a light like other pharamps. 
But no one knows why she was cursed to dark, or how. Some say it was 
Bangaa, but no one really knows."

"Oh," Selden whimpered. "I don't want to go to sleep now. What if 
Burakuru's in this forest?"

Chirin sighed, wishing he hadn't got carried away. "I would protect 
you, you're my dear friend. I swore by my mama's light, remember? 
This is a sacred place for us to sleep amd Burakuru would sense that. 
Wherever she is I'm sure she's taken her steps very far away from 
here." He licked the lamb's warm little cheek. "We'll be beacons 
while we sleep. We'll be all right." 

He said aloud a song for the night, and then a second time so Selden 
could join in. "Now, let's sleep. I'm so tired and we'll be going to 
the lake tomorrow." 

"Okay. Good night."

He watched Selden until he closed his eyes, then at last he lay down 
his own head, and went to sleep, sinking in a mist of slinking night 
clouds held up by black skeleton trees of november, stretching up 
towards a big black ewe in the sky.

He passed between worlds a few times in the night, and he woke for 
good just before dawn, still not feeling quite back to balance in his 
body. His soul still wavered with the pokénip and it would be a long 
time before he tried to use its bitter-yet-sweet leaves again. It had 
brought him in contact with an ancestor, and given him great peace 
and knowledge, but he had almost not survived it. Without the gift 
that Mure had told him he had, he would still be there now, in that 
formless dark expanse filled with marowaks and tears. Where was that 
place? *And why are you helpless, Mure? You weren't helpless to help 
me. You saved me. Yet you sounded like you were trapped.* 

He felt no indication that she had heard him. The trees were still 
against the barely paling sky. Morning breezes were still on their 
way. Leaves trembled, barely moving, on the alders, but weren't ready 
to drop yet. Chirin tried to get up without waking Selden, but the 
lamb's body gave a stretch and squirm, the muscles animating. 

His little mouth yawned. "Good morning," he said to Chirin, dropping 
his head to rub his eye. "Are we going to go to the lake now?"

"Yes. Now's the time. And I sure am hungry." Chirin was hungry and 
ready to walk--a lot stronger. He stretched himself out on the 
ground, letting out an "Ahhhhh," of pleasure. "Oh I love stretching 
when I wake up. Mother Meggaa!" He stood up and brushed himself off, 
then realized he had stepped in the offering of last night.

The soul of the food had been consumed by the dead. Chirin ate a few 
of the berries and left the rest, just in case there was any left 
over for them. He nibbled a few of the remaining green leaves on the 
alder, passed droppings and headed off. He sniffed the north air and 
found it clear. "Come on Selden! We journey to the light and keep our 
tails to the shadows! Hoppips take our feet and...Leap!"

His feet left the ground in a running jump. As he landed he staggered 
through a swath of dizzy stars. He had forgotten that he was still on 
the mend and had to take things a little easier!

They were a blue light and an orange light bounding gently side by 
side as they walked north in the growing light before dawn. Chirin 
imagined Phos just waking up and stretching.