There are others now, all of them crowding around us with deep low voices that echo about the clearing.

"Who is she?"

"Is that the Green One and her companions?"

"He is leaving, then."

"May he have good fortune."

Gash casts a warm smile on all of them in turn, stating plainly, "The angels I told you about have come for me. I will have to depart upon this eve."

"You will receive the feast of heroes, my son!" calls one of the biggest Canis of all, standing near the back, and the crowd echoes her sentiment.

Well stocked as we are, a feast is sounding pretty good at the moment. Several Canis escort us away from the cleaning, Gash following excitedly.

"Feast of heroes!" Gash whispers to me. "What an honor!"

"I wish we had had a feast when we left. They practically shooed us out of our old pack." I mutter bitterly.

"Harsh. Anyways, do you like it?"

"Your home? It's beautiful."

Gash nudges me, pressing into my side and making my whole body tingle all the way up to my Verhamera's Horns. "I like to think so." He says.

 In the distance, something roars far louder than any beast or monster, making my whole body ring with its sound. "What's that?" I ask, concerned.

"You'll see." he says, as the guides stop. Before us springs an enormous waterfall, water gushing down from a gap high as the trees. It almost seems to be shouting something in a low and immensely loud voice, though I can't quite make it out. Awestruck, I stand before it, the force from the water cascading making my fur ripple in the wind.

"It comes from an ancient spring, given to us by the first settlers here. Bathe and be cleansed for tonight." says a guide.

Aislyn immediately walks towards the waterfall itself before being steered towards the pool below it.

"It will break you and your wings." a guard informs us.

Well, that's pleasant. I think, but I say nothing aloud, trying not to insult Gash's home or customs.

"Can you hear that?" Lotus asks.

"Hear what? Hopefully it's not another Obsidian attack." Vivian says, tail and head raised from the water as she stands on the shallow edge of the pool, shivering.

"There are voices." Aislyn says.

"Non-villagers would not hear them. The angel and the butterfly dog are exceptions."
Aislyn and Lotus both grow bashful at this, leaving the water and trying not to shake off. I myself let the water hang, not knowing how sacred it is, though my body itches to shake off and at least numb the cold spreading over me in the chill air.

"You have keen friends, capable of hearing the spirits. It is an exceptional gift for an outsider to have. Not that it would not be expected of Verhamera's angel and the butterfly dog." A guide tells me on the way back. "Oh yes. Is it tradition not to shake off after bathing? You and your companions look very cold."

"I-I just..." I say, but without hesitation Vivian begins shaking vigorously, having heard us.

"Could've told us!" she half laughs, half accuses.

"My apologies." Gash says as we return to camp. "I thought you would know. Next time, I'll try to be a little more culturally sensitive!"
"We're only a month's walk from here." Vivian points out.

"True. Wonder what it's like further away?" Gash ponders.

"The whole planet has many packs of Canis from many different worlds. Every one of them is immensely different and those differences are what makes it so beautiful. Someday, we may unite and share our cultures, but for now it's simply too dangerous of a world and we know so little." Aislyn says.

"Wow." Gash states. "That was... intense."

"I think like this alllll the time." Aislyn tells him, "I just don't usually blurt it out. It tends to annoy others. Nat knows, I vent all my feelings to her at night. We talk about all sorts of cool stuff! Right, Nat?"

"Right." I say, remembering fondly many nights spent discussing multiple worlds, anomalies in the timelines, and of course, my dreams with Gash (though that's more on the emotional side, which neither of us are experts in).

We are taken from our conversation by a guide, who gruffly brushes against us, escorting us to one very large and slightly less lopsided 'room'. One guide lifts what appears to be a plank of wood covered with leaves while the other walks ahead of us. Inside is a very warm and very festive atmosphere.

"Welcome to the eatingplace!" Gash tells us enthusiastically.

The inside of the eatingplace is authentic, to put it kindly. The floors are messy with the leftovers of old kills and there are no furs like the palace. There's less order but far more energy, and the nearly identical Canis bustle through holding a very large animal that appears to be...

No way is that a bird.

"We bought down a roc!" cheers one.

"The feast is served!" calls another.
"Ay, first, the toast!" yells a loud voice, and the whole room falls quiet. The large Canis from before bustles forwards, her bulk intimidating yet at the same time profoundly maternal. By her side is a slim Canira, her polar opposite, and the two of them have their tails twined.

Are they... mates?
Looking about, I see that the pointy ears are accompanied by the rounded Canira ears and not all of the creatures peering around the huge bird have Verhamera's Horns.

"You're a mixed species pack?" I ask, knowing immediately it may have been a bit too direct.

"Mixed species family." he corrects me quietly. "Why?"
"It's... it's very sweet," I say, though I know the dangers of Canis and Canira interbreeding. The two species' magic rarely meshes well in a child. Having so many children without a single miscarriage... incredible.

It's almost as if the family is held together with...

"Tonight, we stand as one family to say goodbye to a loved one. Though Gash may be leaving us for a grand destiny, we know he will return home to us, if not in flesh, then in spirit. May fate be kind to him as it has been to us!"

Trust.

As we devour the meat, which is a bit dry and stringy for my taste, friends and family cluster around Gash, who is clearly a little overwhelmed by all the attention.

"Our brother, a hero!"

"Don't let us down."

"Tell us about all the heroic things you do!"

"We are so proud."

I stop eating, knowing what I've had is good enough, and decline a sleazy looking Canis who asks me if I'd like to try the clearly well fermented cider.

Gash and I sit in stunned silence, taking in what we both know will be his very last night at home, and neither of us wants to break the dramatic melancholy of this bittersweet end.

After what seems like forever, the large swaggering Canis, clearly the leader, comes forwards and in her mouth she carries a silken thread dyed a bright purple. "My dear son- this is one of our only pieces of cloth. It was given to us by Canira long ago as a sign of friendship. This thread is what first bound our families together into one."
"The Binding Band? You can't give this to me! I don't deserve it!" Gash says, backing up.

"Gash, listen to your mother and close your disrespectful mouth. I refuse to send you into the world without this. We can replace a cloth. We can not replace you. If you are far from home and something goes wrong... I want you to know that we are thinking of you. Now, quiet so I can put this on."

She holds it tight around his throat and telekinetically ties it.

Gash shivers a little as she puts it on, and his mother finishes, "Now go."

I watch him leave, and upon gathering up the others (Aislyn is sitting in the corner with Lotus while Vivian is being challenged to a cider-downing challenge, which I pull her out of), I exit to find Gash sitting nobly with his new bandana on his neck.

Starlight shines on his pelt as he looks upwards, and I feel my heart pick up beats until I could be racing. It's like watching Aislyn fall out of the sky again- he's beautiful and kind and understanding and he's standing in front of me, reality at last.

"I'm ready to go." He tells us, and he himself leads us out of the camp. I can see his legs shake as he does so.

Together, we depart into the night. It's already late and we're just looking for a place to stay, which we find at the same place where we left it. I settle down into the cozy underbrush made by several small trees, where it rained only this morning. So much has happened since, and yet...

We're back on the road. The warmth of the village seems far away. The warmth of my own home seems like a lifetime ago. I've seen too much of the world to feel the old pain now, but on nights like these, when there's nothing but the darkness to keep me occupied, I think about my mother and my sister growing flowers. It makes me feel empty.

Gash has already fallen asleep, and I feel warm and fuzzy up against him. It's a better feeling. You aren't alone after all.

You have him. He's finally here.

I let myself drift into sleep by his side, but now only the darkness calls to me. It seems that our little dream connection, whatever it was, has dispersed upon our physical meeting.

As I look around, still conscious I'm dreaming, I hear something loud as the waterfall and find my eyes blinking back open. "W-what..."

"Hey, Natrina?" my ears perk as I hear her voice. My tired eyes blink as I look up at Vivian's concerned expression. "I'm sorry. Did I wake you from a conversation with Gash?"

"He's not in my dreams anymore." I murmur, having confirmed it after I went to sleep and found dreams did not come moments after, like they did before we came here. His warmth by my side is far more rewarding, but the dream world is a fantasy I will remember fondly. "I'm not missing much. Do you need anything?"

"I need advice." she tells me.

"Advice on what, exactly?" I ask, head tilted, though I'm about to fall back asleep.

"S-say you were in love."
"I am."

"Now, say you fell in love with someone you barely knew, but the second you saw h- I mean them, you knew they were perfect. Say that Canis is going to sleep near you for who knows how long and it hurts not to get up and curl besides them to keep them warm. Say you can see them shivering and you watch them fall asleep, thinking you deserve so much better than this and I can and will protect you until it becomes your lullaby. Say that every word they say is like liquid sunshine. Say they smell like flowers in the morning. Say you would give the entire world to tell them that you love them. Say that your throat is dry whenever you're around them and it's killing you from the inside. Knowing all of those things... what do you do?"

"Are you- are you in love with Gash too?" I say, bile rising in my throat though I'm utterly confused because it doesn't sound like she's describing Gash at all.

"N-no!"

"Well, who else would you be in love with? Is this just theoretical? Are you messing with me? Look, I said I wanted a truce, but that doesn't mean you can wake me up in the middle of the night to mess with my head."

"Nat, that's not it at all! I'm a coward, I admit it, and I didn't want... I didn't want to tell you. I just wanted advice and there's no one else I could go to." She lowers her head, and the words barely slip from her lips, "Nat, I'm in love with Lotus."

"What?" My heart stops, an icy dread creeping into it.

"I like females!" she tells me. "I always have, and- and-"
"B-but... that doesn't make any sense. You're a female." I insist.
"I know. I know it's strange and I've never met anyone else like me. I've always been so alone in this and... I feel like I'm a mistake. My own body, my own hopes and dreams, my own fantasies, everything I've ever wanted... I hate all of it. I hate all of it and I can't stop thinking about her."

We both stand for a moment in the cool silence. Gash's ears twitch, Vivian's eyes are alight with moonlight as wet tears moisten around her eyes, and I find that somewhere inside of me, something burns.

It is a fire unlike anything I have ever experienced. It burns cool and hot within my soul, simultaneously burning my insides and giving me a perfect relief, a second of clarity.

Love courses through me for my sister, Vivian, Aislyn, and Gash, and I realize what is best for all of them.

I look up at her, and sigh. "You know what? It doesn't really matter."

"What?"

"We live in a world where no one will understand what you're going through, but... think of the deer. He's alone too, but chances are that there's someone else like him out there and the two of them are meant to be together. I don't care who my sister ends up with. Okay?"

Vivian nods, but the words continue sizzling inside of me as I keep talking.

"I don't know what your situation is. I have no idea what you're going through. I just can't understand it. All I do know is that what you have is real and I've felt it too. I've been a terrible Keeper of Love, and at the end of the day, I'm just the daughter of a Gardenkeeper. I grew up isolated by love. I grew up trapped by my mother's obsession over someone who had never loved her to begin with. If I've learned anything, it should be that love isn't about who we are, but how much we care on both sides. It needs to be a communication, not just some pitiful pining. As long as you care about her that much, and as long as I know that you two will be happy together... I can't say no to that."

Vivian, previously shocked, rams into me, almost knocking me backwards. I find us locked in an embrace much like my earlier one with Gash, but this time it's not between old friends but new ones. A warmth grows within me, my fire relieved, and I let her sob it out, glad that Gash hasn't woken up through all the commotion.

"One condition. Whatever this... relationship that you're thinking of is? If she says no... you leave her alone." I tell her.

"Deal." she says, her voice muffled.

Vivian pulls away, looking back for a second with pure joy in her eyes, and I whisper, "Good luck."