Quiet woods. The Procession's light, a cool glow like that of a hunter's moon, casts shadows from sparse trees, the underbrush just masses of blackness that trail like ground-clinging clouds. The lights of Rephidim City burn to the east, and even now, Zephyr can hear the occasional howl of lupine guards. But for the moment, their eyes do not seem to be turned here.

Zephyr stays in the shadows for a moment, panting. He glances down at his fur … .and wishes he hadn't. {I need to find a creek, or something.}

Zephyr keeps panting, stopping, finally … to think. {How did I get there, in that square? Did someone hit me? And… } He closes his eyes and shakes his head. {Why didn't I have anything? Why can't I remember things? Where's my plan, and my friends?}

Zephyr wanders to looks for a stream, his silhouette shadowed among the trees. {Who am I? I'm … am I?} He looks up at the stars. {Those … I … something about those. I've been up there. No … I can't have been up there. That's outside the world. But … a metal can … so much metal! … and lights, and colors… } He shakes his head.

Zephyr sees the stream he's looking for in the distance, padding towards it, his mind a blur of contrasting images that make no sense. {I'm looking at myself, but it's not me. And there was a desert. Then that person I killed… Did I kill them? I must have… }

The fox approaches the stream, first kneeling beside it to splash cold water over his muzzle and face, then slipping into it, scrubbing at his fur with clumps of sand from its bottom. {Someone must have hit me really hard.}

From her makeshift concealment in a near thicket of brambles, a wolf stares at the fox. She does not move, for she does not want to be discovered.

Wyn thinks, { Faugh… what a smell. At least he won't be able to sense me with his nose all fouled. }

Zephyr keeps scrubbing vigorously at his fur, dipping into the stream and coming up again. He grabs tufts of grass from the bank, more handfuls of sand from the stream bed … anything abrasive to scrub out his fur and tail. As he works at it, the smell begins to fade, carried away on the water.

Wyn thinks, { I bet you're who the bugs an' wufs were looking for. They weren't chasing me after all. }

Zephyr scruffles sand and rough grass through every inch of his fur and tail, until it's completely soaked and scrubbed … then settles down in the stream to rinse sand out of his fur. But … his ears swivel a little, and he looks around. Feeling as if he's being … watched?

The sounds of the night have quieted here, as if sensing the fox's change in mood. The bubbling of the stream seems loud.

Zephyr dips his nose into the cool water again, snuffling a few times to clear it, then lifts it to scent the air carefully, ears swiveling.

Wyn thinks, {Drat! I'll have to leave some things behind to run. I'll keep the knife… the rest I can afford to lose. }

Zephyr's hackles don't rise, yet he feels as if he's being watched. But the presence is … vaguely familiar? Almost as if it's something he needs to find? {What's wrong with me?} He looks around, then calls out. "Who's there?"

Wyn slowly backs away from her vantage point. Perhaps she can duck out the back way and keep the thicket between her and the fox.

Zephyr's eyes catch the … tiniest flicker of motion. Hardly more than a leaf moving, but it's enough to make him focus his ears in that direction. He stares. "Hello?" {If it's one of my 'friends' … if not, they would have attacked.}

Wyn curses herself. The fox is a woodsman, the first she's discovered here. This has been a setup to catch her after all. She backs out of the thicket and runs lightly away from the fox.

The fox, aware that when he's soaked he looks slightly less than imposing, slowly climbs out of the creek … then runs to a vantage point to see the rapidly receding source of the sound he hears. {A wolf? A sentry? Uh-oh … better get away from here, fast.}

Zephyr turns to run in another direction, but halts as he catches a glitter of light off something near the thicket and trees. {Dropped something? Weapon?} Curious, he pads over and finds several items lying there. Some small coins, a bedroll … and a brush. {Well! Good fortune, anyway. Can use this stuff.}

Wyn thinks, {It is a perverse nightmare I am trapped in. My own kin regularly bump noses wif bugs, and my cousins swim in the water closet.}

The castoff items smell oddly familiar, like a misplaced memory.

Zephyr picks up the brush, first of all, intending to brush out his soaked and heavy tail, but … stops. He sniffs. Then sniffs again, and slowly moves the brush up to his nose. As he inhales deeply, a strange expression fills his eyes … and he looks off after where the wolf left without knowing why.

Zephyr takes another deep sniff of the brush's scent. Clouded images fill his mind for a second, but they make no sense. A cave, pillows, a warm fireplace, and a warm presence close. Snow, an icy lake, and green fire. But the images make no sense, other than that … there was something about the figure that fled that he knows he should know, but can't remember…

Wyn begins to run in a wide curving arc away from the fox. She shies away from a minor estate fence, doubling back towards the Old City wall and her third-best thicket.

Zephyr shrugs, picking up the bedroll, tucking the coins and brush into it, and setting off in the other direction. {They must have drugged me good or something. Must have been a sentry. In any case, I'm not going back to the city for at least a few days, 'til things cool down. Better head off somewhere and camp out.}

Wyn walks in the shallow river for a way, knowing it won't throw off a determined woodsman.

Wyn thinks, {No pursuit, and no horn to call friends. Oh well. I only lost a blanket, and I like the ground OKie. Today freedom is bought cheaply. I'm hungwy. I wish I could hunt, but I'll hafta wait out a few hours, I think.}

Zephyr looks after the way the wolf ran, then straight down to the city. {Part down there with the walls has dimmer and fewer lights. Probably a good place to hide when I go back in. I might as well head that way.} Zephyr stops for a second to sniff at the brush again, pausing, uncertain… {What does this mean?} He shrugs, then keeps on walking towards the darker, walled section of the city.

The wall is made of ancient quarried stone and is in varied states of disrepair. In one section the stones have been removed for about a hundred yards going, no doubt for a building project. Tunnels have been dug under the wall in two places, and in another there's a new door with a shiny padlock.

Short of the wall, Zephyr stops in a thick grove of trees. He clears some ground of leaves, spreads out the bedroll, and … stops again, as unrolling the bedroll releases a good bit of the scent that affected him before. He kneels, picking up its end and sniffing deeply, then closing his eyes and lowering his head, his mind filled with strange images again. {What does it mean??!!} He opens his eyes, looking up at the stars, then closes them again … softly lowering himself onto the bedroll, brushing at his still-damp fur, and looking … off somewhere into the distance.

Zephyr finishes brushing, his fur still a little damp, but once again neat and clean. He lies down softly on the bedroll, curling his tail over himself, his ears flattening as he once again has an image of a warm fire, falling asleep in front of it with something warm and fuzzy with the same scent, and now … something missing, but he doesn't know what. He fades off into fitful sleep, tormented by the images.

The smell of tea, the feel of a warm mug held in both paws.

Fire crackles in the hearth. The fox in the dream is sitting on a blanket.

A wolf wearing a well-loved (chewed and ragged) bathrobe sits down next to the fox, and offers him her mug. "Choklit?" she wufs.

"Thanks, … um, Miss… ?"

The wolf lays her ears back halfway. "You're teasing," she wufs, smiling. The smile disappears. "You're not teasing."

The wolf growlies softly. "I can't believe this could happen so soon. I only left the room a few minutes ago. This is what you meant by, "I'll never forget you?" Foxes have such pickup lines. Lady Kainudy warned me this might happen. Here, snuggle up to this. I've a sudden urge to go walk in the snow," she says, pushing the choklit into the fox's paw.

The fox sits by the fire watching the fire turn green and begin to consume the room. "At least the tea and choklit will be warm," he comments.

The dream ends abruptly. Zephyr goes from sleep to wakefulness in what feels like an eye-blink. It's still dark outside, about two hours before dawn.