FSE

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This is where the telling of this story will get a little different. I wasn't sure when exactly I should begin this next part but I figured that now is as good of a time as any.

I have all of these memories from Sharra locked up in my mind and I have to somehow get them out of my head and down here in some sort of order. That won't be an easy task. Sharra saw the world in a completely different way than I did. Not only were we of completely different species, but there was a gap of at least several thousand years between our understandings of how the world and all things within it worked. To Sharra and her people, the most advanced thing available is iron, and that is only obtained through great effort and huge amounts of time. They live a nomadic lifestyle, following the animals they hunt for food. They believe in Gods and Goddesses, spirits and demons. Their religion and mythology revolves around nature and they have no knowledge of chemistry, physics or even of anything beyond the borders of their territory. They don't have the human drive for knowledge, that insatiable curiosity to discover how and why the universe works and that seems strange to me. My twenty-first century knowledge and different patterns of thought were a constant source of amusement, wonder, and sometimes even conflict

Not only were there differences on a psychological plane, there were physiological differences as well. Getting a grasp on Sharra's heightened senses is a difficult thing for me. Her people have no written language and there are no words in my native tongue that can describe the things she could scent, or the sounds that are out of the range of human hearing and as a result some of my descriptions of her memories may be a little lacking. Despite those shortcomings, I will do my best to write down Sharra's memories as they reside in my head, even though doing so will cause me some emotional trauma. Sharra became such a large part of my life over the years that it is going to be very difficult to relive these old memories. Even writing this I am already reminded of how empty my life has been since she passed on, but I resolve to tell this story the best I can despite the pain I know it will cause. I have only one chance at this. Soon enough my time on this world will be over and such things will no longer concern me.

Here then, is my first attempt of many to thread together the memories Sharra left me with the things she had told me over the years, beginning on that day long ago when she and I crossed paths for the first time...

That fateful day had started like so many others for Sharra. Sleep had fled from her in the cold grey hours of morning and she simply lay unmoving for some time on the floor of the old shack she had come to call home. The drive to get up just wasn't there anymore. The dark and cold days of her second winter isolated in this wilderness had driven such things from her and she felt herself slipping farther and farther away from the world around her with every single day that passed. She just didn't care anymore. There was nothing out here for her to care about other then herself and as time dragged on even that one thing began to matter less and less.

Sharra spent the better part of an hour blinking lazily at the room around her. The dreams had come again last night as they did most nights. Dreams of home, of familiar scents and faces of old friends and relatives, and a curious dream of a tall stranger with features hidden in shadow and scent always just out of reach of her nose. He was always there in her dreams, that stranger, watching her live through the memories of a life that was no longer hers. He often seemed sad as he watched her from the shadows of her dreams and Sharra often wondered who he was. Perhaps some sort of spirit that was watching over her? Or maybe an echo of someone she once knew. A Shaman, a disciple of the Watcher Above might know but there was no such person within two months travel from here.

A sigh and Sharra rolled over onto her back and just stared at the ceiling for a time. There was nothing new up there. She'd only seen it a thousand times before and had memorized the patterns of the grain on the rough boards and the cobwebs frozen into winter stillness between the rafters. She yawned and let out a long, drawn out, groan. The floor was too hard this morning and she pushed herself up on an elbow and yawned again. She pushed herself further and managed a sitting position. There she paused for a moment, scratched at an ear and then shook her head. She blinked several times and almost lay back down. If it hadn't been for her stomach rumbling in hunger she might have stayed in bed all day.

Another sigh escaped her as she stood up and stretched. She dragged herself over to the table and sat down in the chair with a thump.

She caught her reflection in the mirror from her spot by the table and stared at it in disinterest. She needed a good brushing. And a bath too. How long had it been since she'd had either? She couldn't quite remember. She had taken a bone chilling dip into one of the deep pools of the creek that flowed past the cabin several months ago but it hadn't really helped things out and her pelt showed the lack of care. It was unkempt and dull, even a bit matted in a few hard to reach spots and she was certain that she didn't smell the best either.

The mirror showed the forlorn look that darkened her face and Sharra slumped in her chair. Staring emptily off into space, she questioned why she was here and why things had gone so wrong on that one day nearly two years ago. Hardly a day went by where those questions didn't cut deep. Memories of home, family and friends floated just beneath the surface of her thoughts and she stared dully at the worn tabletop in front of her as old pain bubbled up. She'd cried often enough over what she had lost but now the tears would no longer come. There was so little left within her now that more often than not she just felt hollow and numb and she wondered on some level if she would ever be able to feel alive again.

It was some life she found herself living. Every day was the same as all the rest. Hunt, eat, and sleep. Try to find enough food so she didn't starve. Try to keep her mind occupied so that the past wouldn't force it way through to the present.

A sad smile slowly spread across Sharra's muzzle. If only she was back at home surrounded by the warmth of family and friends. She thought of how they would comfort her and how Mallek would be there to welcome her with a loving embrace and kind words. She thought of how he would give her a warm bath and then lovingly brush the tangles from her pelt...

She couldn't go home. There was nothing there except pain and there was no one left to return to. The old sadness welled up and the tears almost came this time but the look of empty despair on her face betrayed the fact that there was little left within her that could feel.

Nearly two full turns of the seasons she had endured this solitary life, and that too had extracted a toll. She forced herself to live day to day without thinking too much lest the spectre of her past was raised by some innocent thought or memory as so often happened in the first few months of her exile. It was no easy task. She soon withdrew from everything, even herself and did nothing but watch as the person she had been died a little more with each passing day.

After her life had been ripped apart, Sharra had felt a pressing need to get away from the source of her pain and in some small way it had helped. Out here in this isolated and unexplored wilderness she was spared the pain of seeing others talk and laugh as they enjoyed their lives when she could no longer enjoy hers. At first even the quiet solitude of the forests helped her to forget but only for a short time. All too soon she found that the quiet allowed her too much time to think over old times and wonder if there was any way that she could have changed what had happened. The silence eventually became more of a curse than a blessing, joining forces with the loneliness to drive her to the depths of despair, and then further yet. She had recently come to understand that there would be a day in the near future where she would head out from the cabin and not return to it. She would let her life join the forest and return to the Earth, and a good part of her looked forward to that day.

Forcing herself to think of nothing but the present, Sharra decided to do something about the hunger that gnawed at her belly. She pushed herself to her feet and she stumbled out into the bright morning sunshine. Shielding her eyes from the glare of sun off of snow, she walked down to the old shack where she stored her supplies of meat. She glumly looked at the meagre remains of a deer that hung from the rafters. There wasn't much left there, may a week's worth if she went a bit hungry. She took up an old hatchet and chopped off a small chunk before returning to the cabin. She would have to go hunting again soon.

To an outside observer, it would have seemed a normal scene in the cabin as Sharra thawed out her meagre breakfast. Only a close examination would reveal that her movements were mechanical. If one looked closer yet, the emptiness lurking in her eyes revealed itself, giving some clue as to the truth behind her movements.

She ate her meal of slightly charred and barely warm meat in silence, then sat and stared at the wall for a moment, gathering the energy to get up out of the chair. She knew what she had to do.

By the time Sharra left the cabin the sun was up high and radiated a welcome warmth on the frozen land below. A gentle wind blew from the west, bringing with it the promise of spring to a landscape held long in the iron grip of winter. Snow was melting off the roof of the cabin, the water cascading down to drip from the myriad of icicles that hung precariously from the eaves of the cabin. She headed down the packed path and stabbed her spear into the snow, pausing for a moment to stretch in the warmth of the sun. At long last, some warmer weather. The winter so far had been very long and very depressing. Now that spring was on its way, the days of deep snow, intense cold and short hours of daylight would soon be a thing of the past and she felt better for it. I was so long since she had felt the warmth of the sun on her fur that it seemed a memory from a different lifetime. She closed her eyes for a moment and a rare smile shone briefly on her muzzle as she lifted her head to the sun and spread her arms wide, feeling the warmth breathe some much needed life back into her soul. Maybe today wasn't going to be such a bad day, she thought and she headed down the trail to do her rounds with somewhat of a spring in her step.

There was something different about this warm morning, something that tickled the edges of her perception as she followed a trail her feet had been over hundreds of times. The forest was eerily quiet and all of her senses were on edge as she checked her scent markers. Several times she paused and scanned her surroundings, spear clenched in wary hands, ears twitching this way and that and nose sniffing intently as she tried to pin down what exactly it was that was different. When nothing revealed itself to eye, ear or nose, she would continue on down the path, wary and not completely sure that there wasn't something out there that watched and followed her from shadows she could not sense.

The morning wore on and Sharra jogged down the trail. There were prints of deer, moose and elk in the snow but none were fresh enough to convince her to follow in the hopes of getting food. She sniffed hopefully at every scent marker she had placed along the trail, but none held any answering marks from any of her people nor had they at any time over the past two years. She truly was alone out here. Several times over the last two years a local pack of her four legged cousins had found her marks and left their own in return and she knew them in a simple manner because of such things. She knew how many ran in the pack and when one went missing or when there was new addition. She knew how many males and females there were and knew which were the Alpha pair. She knew how many pups were born in the spring and how many survived to the winter. She often heard the evening songs of the pack from deep in the forest and envied them in the simple lives they led. Sharra squatted at several of her markers to freshen them up before moving on. Hopefully one day there would be an answering mark left for her that would tell her she was no longer alone in this wilderness.

Early afternoon found Sharra working her way back to the cabin. She had encountered a moose close beside the trail an hour or so earlier and had given chase but had backed off when the huge animal had turned and charged at her. Hungry she was, but not hungry enough to risk getting crushed by sharp hooves that were nearly the size of her head. She tried to find easier food but had no luck in that task. For some reason the rabbits were scarce this year and she had found hardly any sign of them. Grouse too seemed to be in short supply, which was unfortunate because they were relatively easy to catch. Larger game was fairly abundant but difficult to bring down on her own. She remembered the group hunts back home and felt a brief twinge of sadness.

Sharra was almost back to the cabin when things took a turn for the weird. I still have a hard time believing that what follows is what actually happened but the incident is so indelibly etched into her memories that it's almost impossible for it not to be true. She believed it anyway, and that's good enough for me since I don't remember any of it at all.

The strange feeling that had dogged Sharra all morning suddenly grew stronger as she approached the cabin. It was a curious sensation, like that of some sort of power or energy in the air around her. It was almost like the feeling one had when a large thunderstorm approached. It was just at the limits of her perception and she no longer wondered if she was imagining it. It was there all right, real, tangible, and very worrisome. She shook her head, trying to clear the strange sensation from her mind but it stubbornly remained. The forest grew deathly still and silent, as if it too could sense the intrusion. Almost imperceptibly the sensation grew stronger until it became an undeniable presence in the air around her.

Suppressing the low growl that was involuntarily forming in her throat, she backed up a couple of steps as her nervousness grew. She'd felt the touch of Power many times before but never anything like this. This was something different, something alien and it set her on edge. She scented the wind and listened intently, pointed ears twitching this way and that as she tried to locate the source of this disturbing sensation. Nothing but unnatural silence came to her ears. Eventually, she turned an accusing glare up to the clear blue sky, as if it could be the source of this strangeness.

The hard glare of the sun betrayed nothing.

Acutely aware that the fur on the back of her neck was standing straight up, she shook out her pelt and tried to calm herself down. She tried to think of a rational explanation for this unusual sensation but she was caught off guard as the sensation of power in the air around her spiked violently. Every hair on her body stood on end and she gave voice to the low growl that had formed in her throat. She looked around wildly, unsure of what to do, her fear building. She was just about to sprint for the cabin when an unusual noise grabbed her attention. Difficult to hear at first, it blended in and out with the gentle gurgling of the nearby creek, but it soon grew louder and threatened to drown out the background noise. It was a crackling, sizzling sound, reminiscent of the sound of frying meat. It continued to grow in volume as it came from everywhere and everything at once. As the noise rose to a crescendo it ended with a blinding flash of light and an echoing explosion that shook snow loose from the surrounding trees. The blast made Sharra jump, then cringe and flatten her ears as the shock wave slammed into her.

She half turned to run but stopped and screwed her eyes tight shut. When she opened them again she thought at first that she had gone mad.

There, back in the trees, maybe thirty spans away and coinciding with the blast, a blinding light had exploded into existence. A couple of trees toppled over with a splintering crash at the source of the light as if a giant hand had pushed them. The light was so bright that Sharra was unable to see anything but a stinging glare. It was almost as if the sun itself had come down from the sky and into the forest. She held a hand up in front of her face to block the glare and squinted uneasily into the trees. Every instinct she possessed was telling her to go elsewhere and right quick but for some strange reason she stood rooted to the spot. She couldn't deny that this thing had piqued her curiosity.

As the light began to fade away Sharra began to wonder if this wasn't some sort of message from the Gods. Perhaps the Watcher Above himself had come down to Earth to give her a message, or maybe even to judge her and claim her soul if she proved unworthy. A sinking feeling grew in the pit of her stomach and her ears went flat against her head. She had strayed far from the teachings of her clan over the last two years and held no illusions of what her fate would be if indeed she was to be judged. She shifted nervously and tried to swallow the lump that had grown large in her throat. She'd often wondered if her lack of faith would catch up with her.

There was definitely something back in the trees and it was only about thirty spans away. She could see the suggestion of a shape there as the light faded away. Whatever it was that was down there, it drew her towards it. She almost didn't notice when her feet started moving and she tentatively began to approach the mysterious thing back in the trees.

Something darker than a midwinter night lurked back in those trees and every sense that Sharra possessed was working at full capacity as she cautiously approached it. When she finally beheld the object in its entirety terror took root and she almost fled. It was a totally impossible object, something that could have been an apparition from the deepest and darkest depths of one's nightmares. It terrified and intrigued her at the same time but somehow the curiosity managed to wrestle the terror into submission and she drew even closer yet. Briefly she wondered why she had to be so curious about things. It had caused her nothing but trouble over the years and this situation wasn't looking so great either. Still, she kept moving closer. One of these days, she thought wryly, her curiosity was going to be the end of her.

When she finally got a good look at the thing, she stopped and stared in wonder and fear. It was a circle of unearthly blackness that floated a hand's breadth above the snow. No, not a circle, she realized, a sphere. Roughly two spans in diameter it was so dark that it seemed to be a hole in the world, a thing that pulled in the surrounding light and sent it into a bottomless pit from which it could never return. The object was totally reflectionless and Sharra found it difficult to determine where exactly its surface, if it had one, actually began. She circled it slowly, nose and mind working overtime as she tried her best to figure out just what this thing was. Her foot bumped into something and she glanced down at one of the trees that had fallen over when the light had flashed into existence. The trunk was as thick around as her thigh but it had been cut so cleanly that the scar was almost polished. She looked up sharply. Wherever trees and the branches of low bushes intersected the hard edge of the sphere they simply ended. Nothing of them could be seen protruding into the object. Sharra shivered slightly as the temperature dropped suddenly. A cold breeze had sprung up and it seemed to be blowing into the sphere from all sides. No, not blowing, she suddenly realized. The thing was pulling in the surrounding air and bleeding the heat from it. She took a worried half step back.

Something stirred within the sphere. At least she thought something had moved there, she wasn't sure. She found herself staring into the inky depths and the longer she stared the more the darkness mesmerized her. It whispered strange things in her mind and she found herself reaching towards it. Her arm moved almost as if it had a mind of its own. She watched curiously as her hand reached out, fingers spread wide, and touched the surface of the sphere.

In the blink of an eye, the blackness changed. Ripples like those left on the surface of a pond spread from a thrown stone spread out from the point where her fingers touched the surface. A tingling sensation began in the tips of her fingers, slowly spread down her arm and in short moments encompassed her entire body. The darkness swirled like a living thing, growing lighter and resolving itself into a washed out grey that slowly faded towards the edges as an image coalesced. Her eyes widened, and every muscle grew taut. She was on the razor's edge of fleeing from this object yet she simply cocked her head and stared into the object, listening and watching intently.

There was snow falling in there, and Sharra stared at it in awe. It was like watching a blizzard from behind the safety of a window. Through the silence of the forest that surrounded her, she could hear the howling wind that blew the snow almost horizontally to the ground and she could see trees bent almost double by the force of the gale.

Like a dark tunnel to another place, she thought. As the image slowly grew clearer, she could see a black spot against the background of snow and wind whipped trees and was haunted by the suggestion of movement. She cocked her head and squinted at the distant speck and the image changed instantly. Sharra almost jumped back from the sphere but somehow managed to keep her composure. The image was greatly magnified this time and the speck was revealed to be a figure prostrate in the snow. It lay motionless for a long moment before it stirred again. It struggled weakly for a moment, manage to drag itself on hands and knees a span or to and collapsed on its face into the snow. The trail it left behind it stretched back to a smouldering black wreck in the center of a circle of stained and melted snow. Something had happened there, Sharra realized, something very bad and very unlucky for the hapless figure below lying in the snow. Sharra was saddened by what she saw. Whoever it was out there in the storm faced a very uncertain future at best and on some level she wished she could help. She'd never liked to see anyone suffer and her heart went out to the figure in the snow as it thrashed about weakly and rolled onto its back.

What happened next was very, very strange. It was like when you're having a dream and you know you're dreaming but you can't wake up. Sharra knew what was happening but she couldn't do a thing about it except watch. She watched as both of her arms reached out and touched the sphere, and the sensation took her breath away.

For a moment, just for one split second, she shared the stranger's body and shared his pain. She felt the cold numb his limbs and mind and felt his consciousness fade. Then she was back in her own body, watching from a distance as the sphere disintegrated with a deep rumble that echoed through the mountains like distant thunder.

Sharra stood blinking in the sunlight, not sure whether the whole episode had been real or not. The pull on her mind was gone and so was the sphere. Not a trace remained of it's existence save for the toppled trees, the two span opening cut in the forest where it had so briefly existed, and the crumpled up figure lying on the ground with an arm over its face, breathing shallow, raspy breaths.

And thus I came into Sharra's company. A strange story for sure and perhaps distorted by some of her beliefs and preconceptions but she swore to me many times that those events happened exactly as she remembered them. Maybe they did. Ant any rate I was in no shape to argue with her at the time.

What happened next still surprises me even thirty years later and I can't help but wonder that had our positions been reversed, if I would have followed the same course of action. I'm not so sure that I would have, and that saddens me.

Sharra stood motionless for a long moment, her brain furiously trying to comprehend what had just happened. She stared curiously at the two span opening cut into the forest undergrowth by the object and then at the prone form lying in the snow where the object had just been. She backed up a few paces and picked her spear from where she had dropped it into the snow at the start of all of this strangeness and only when it was clutched reassuringly in her hands did she cautiously advance towards the inert form lying in the snow. She came within a span or so and used the blunt end of her spear to gently prod the figure.

There was no response.

Ever more carefully she came closer and stood beside the figure, ears and tail twitching nervously. She stalked around it a couple of times, working up the courage to get even closer yet. She could hear that it was still breathing. She had at first thought that it was one of her own kind but its scent was like nothing she had ever encountered before. The only thing she could figure out from the creature's scent was that it was likely a male and that it had been injured. The familiar metallic scent of blood tickled her nostrils and that did not bode well. She began to wonder how badly this stranger was injured. She looked down at the coarse light brown fur that covered his head and the patches of bare skin that showed around the arm that hid his face and she grew very confused. Strange, so very strange she thought. From the rusty red colour of the cloths that covered his torso to the deep blue of the coverings on his legs, the stranger was covered in clothing from head to toe. There were even coverings on his feet. He wasn't of her kind, she was now sure of that, but what was he? Her curiosity wouldn't let go. She had to find out what this thing was. Nervously, she reached out with the blunt end of her spear and flipped his arm away from his face.

She let out a yelp of shock and staggered a few steps backwards when she saw the creature's face. She stood there with shaking hands and a pounding heart as she stared at the stranger with wide eyes. She couldn't believe what she was seeing. This thing's face was almost completely hairless! His fur only covered the top of his head. The rest was bare skin except for two unusual strips of fur right above his eyes. His pale face was almost flat except for a short triangular nose and his ears were squashed flat against the sides of his head. There was a deep gash above his right eye that had been bleeding quite badly, leaving patterns of bright red blood that traced down his cheek.

What manner of creature was this?

She was loathe to get close to it again and she paced back and forth just out of reach of it. She paused every now and then as she tried to figure out what to do. She suspected that this thing, whatever it was, was no simple animal. It was hurt and doubtless needed help. She stopped her pacing and once again warily approached the prone form. She knelt down beside him, muscles taut and ready to flee at the slightest sign of danger, and reached out with a trembling arm to touch the flat, hairless face. The flesh there felt cold against her fingers, far colder than it should have been. The eyes opened at her touch, stared unseeing towards her and then closed again. Startled, she jerked her hand back and stared curiously. Such strange eyes. Once she had seen them she couldn't put them out of her mind. They were a pale blue-grey, like the colour of steel when it reflected the sky, and they reminded her of the eyes of a scared young pup. Where had this thing come from? It was unlike anything she had ever heard of before.

Whatever kind of animal he was, he was badly injured and nearly frozen. Sharra did not know why she made the decision to try and help him, but she did know that if she didn't help he would soon die. She reached down and grabbed his arms and tried to pull him into a sitting position. She felt the bones of his left forearm grind together as the limb bent in an unnatural direction. The creature gasped in pain as she pulled and his eyes opened again. Quickly she released the broken limb and looked into the creature's eyes.

"Can you hear me?" She spoke softly. The eyes seemed to focus on her for a moment and he murmured something unintelligible.

"Can you stand up?" At those words, it was almost as if he had understood her. He struggled in the snow and after several failed attempts he managed to force himself into a sitting position. Pulling on his unbroken arm, she heaved with all of her might and barely managed to get him standing. He towered over her and wobbled unsteadily on his feet. Acutely uncomfortable being so close to this alien giant, she did her best to support his weight as he leaned heavily against her. She staggered slightly and only managed to guide him for a few wobbly steps towards the cabin before the creature stumbled and crashed into the snow, pulling her down with him.

This wasn't going to work, she said to herself, and she began to wonder just what exactly she was doing. She shook her head slowly from side to side as the strange creature moaned softly in the snow.

She tried to pull him to his feet again but he was too heavy for her to lift and he didn't seem to have the strength left to get back up on his own. She coaxed him, yelled at him, did everything she could think of to get him back on his feet and moving. When nothing worked she almost gave up and left him there. There was no way she could think of to get this huge stranger back to the safety of the cabin if he couldn't move under his own power. She crouched morosely in the snow and stared at the stranger. There had to be some way to get him back to the cabin. If she didn't get him there he would die. After thinking hard for a second she reached down and grabbed the strange cloths that he wore and gave an experimental pull. Despite the creature's weight, he slid over the snow fairly easily. She readjusted her grip and gave another pull. Again he slid across the snow, one arm falling from his side to trail pale, hairless fingers through the snow. Why did he have to be so heavy? Walking backwards and pulling steadily she made slow progress but it would have to do.

It took her several minutes to drag him into the cabin and by that time she was nearly exhausted and panting up a storm from the exertion. Once she had gotten him through the door he was quite unconscious and he was so cold to the touch that she feared that he would die before she could get him warmed up. She left the creature halfway through the open door and ran over to the stove. She took a minute to throw as much wood as she could into the stove then returned to the stranger and struggled to drag him across the rough, uneven floor and onto several deerskins. She pulled the skins and the creature closer to the stove and prayed to whatever Gods that might be listening that he would warm up quickly. The clothes that he wore were soaked right through and she knew that was not a good thing. She had to get them off of him in a hurry but she was worried about how exactly she was going to do that. She was still a little scared about being so close to this alien stranger and was worried that he might wake up and become violent or something. She thought hard for a moment before grabbing a pot off of the shelf and heading outside. She returned shortly with the pot packed full of snow. This she then put on the stove to melt. There would be several more trips outside to refill the pot required before she would have enough hot water to clean his wounds.

As the snow melted down in the pot on the stove and the cabin began to slowly warm up, Sharra sat on the floor just out of arms reach from this strange creature that she had pulled into the cabin. She really didn't know what to do next. The creature was silent and motionless, only the sound of his breathing gave a clue that he was actually still alive. The fire crackled in the stove and Sharra remained deep in thought, her muzzle resting on her hands as she sat cross-legged on the floor. She suddenly let out a long sigh and stood up. She moved towards the door of the cabin and opened it. She stood in the doorway for a moment, looked back at the thing that lay quiescent beside the stove, shook her head and shut the door behind her.

A couple of minutes passed before she returned to the cabin. When she did, a somewhat corroded knife as long as her forearm was clenched in her right hand. She cautiously approached the stranger and when he didn't move or show any other signs that he was aware of her presence she once again sat down just out of arms reach of him. She placed the knife on the floor beside her, rested her muzzle on her hands and eyed the prone figure suspiciously. She understood that she had to get those cloths off of him otherwise the water in them would draw away what little heat remained in his body. She didn't want to do it though. She was scared. Scared of what the creature might do if he woke while she was undressing him and scared of what she might find under those strange layers of cloth. She began to wonder why she had brought him into the cabin. Her curiosity and compassion had gotten her into quite the mess this time.

She drew in a deep breath, held it for a moment and let it out slowly. She inched closer to the creature and reached out and prodded his shoulder. He remained still and motionless. Sharra drew closer yet, and brought the knife with her. She reached out hesitantly and began to figure out how to get through all of the layers of cloth that this stranger wore. The knife she kept within easy reach at all times in case the unthinkable happened.

It took her much longer than she thought it would to get the stranger out of his soaked clothing. It was hard work and she was dead tired by the end of it all. She'd had to roll him on to his side a couple of times and it took nearly all of her strength to pull the soaked clothing from the creature's limbs. Many times during the process as she pulled and tugged did she question the sanity of her decision to bring this thing into her home.

When the job was finally done, she sat back and panted desperately in an attempt to cool off. With the stove going full out the cabin had become terribly hot, but her plan had worked. The stranger was now dry and had warmed up considerably. Sharra had nearly buried him beneath a mound of skins and for now he appeared to be resting peacefully. She listened intently to the slow intake and exhale of his breathing and suddenly realized that the cabin didn't seem quite as dark and empty as it had been before. After a moment she shook that thought away. She had definitely been on her own for far too long when thoughts like that entered her head.

As Sharra tried to push herself to her feet she realized just how tired she was. She longed for a quick nap but there was no way in hell that she would be able to sleep with that thing so close at hand. Stifling a yawn, she stretched out a few cramped muscles and wandered over to the table. She poured herself a quick drink of water and then turned to eye the creature curiously.

The things he had seen as she removed his soaked clothing would not soon leave her mind. So much pale skin and strange bunches of sparse fur in the oddest of places. It was a mystery to her that anything like that could survive a winter. She now understood why he had so many layers of cloth wrapped around his body and she shook her head in wonder at that. Cloth, no matter how much, was a poor substitute for a good thick pelt and in this case the stranger had almost paid a heavy price because of that.

There was still work she had to do and she was loathe to do it for it meant having to get closer to the creature again. There was blood on his face, cuts on his head, and a broken arm that needed to be splinted. Those injuries needed to be cleaned and checked lest evil spirits should find them and cause the wounds to fester and burn in the days ahead.

The pot of water on the stove boiled furiously, sending a column of steam up to curl around the rafters and further add to the stifling atmosphere inside the cabin. A precious piece of cloth was picked from the shelf beside the door and thrown into the pot and left to boil with the water for a few minutes. With a couple of pieces of leather to protect her hands, Sharra crept forward and pulled the pot from the stove. She set it down gently as possible beside the creature and then retreated quickly back to the table, ears perked and sniffing intently while she watched the stranger's face for any sign of wakefulness. She relaxed slightly when he didn't move a muscle and the deep rhythm of his breathing didn't change.

It would be several minutes before the water would cool down and Sharra used the opportunity to try and cool herself down and get some much needed time to think. She crept out the door of the cabin and a delicious shudder ran down her spine as the cold winter air stung nose and tongue. She sat at the edge of the porch for a few minutes, lost in thought as her mind worked over the strange events that led up to where she was now. The forest watched her silently, too silently, she thought. She had this odd and rather unsettling feeling that there was something out there that was observing how she would deal with this situation. Once again she wondered if this whole situation was a test laid at her feet by the Watcher Above, perhaps one last chance at redeeming herself in the eyes of those that watched over the world and all life within it. Would the measure of her soul be judged on the final outcome of this odd situation with an unbelievable stranger? What exactly was the course of action she should follow?

Sharra drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. She had a very hard time believing in such things these days. The things she had been through over the last two years had killed her faith and had made her question if the old legends and beliefs were actually real. How many times had she screamed in rage at those above, cursed their names, and called for them to be cast down from the heavens and into everlasting darkness for allowing her life to be ripped apart? Sharra shook her head slowly from side to side. She'd done so many times. So many, in fact, that she had lost count. There had never been any reaction from them, any consequences until today, and she had grown bold in her disbelief and ridicule of those whom she had been taught held the power of life and death over the mortals that lived on the land below. If this actually was some sort of test from them, she had a gut feeling that she was royally screwed. The old legends told that the Gods did not take kindly to being ridiculed by mortals and she knew that she had done and said more against them than anyone else she had ever heard of. Their wrath was often total, their judgement quick and the punishment for such transgressions severe. She swallowed nervously and drew her arms around her knees and pulled them tightly up against her chest. Her ears were back and her eyes were wide and worried. Why oh why did she get herself into this situation?

She couldn't help but think that maybe she should have left the stranger where he lay in the snow. Things would have much simpler. In her mind she was far beyond salvation and she figured that leaving the creature to die would have made little difference in the long run. One good deed could not undo two years of heresy and profanity against those who had created the world and all the life within it.

Why then had she pulled him into her home?

Despite the person she had become there was some small spark of the old Sharra that still burned deep within her. That person had once been a Healer, a person of great compassion, curiosity, and understanding that hated to see anything suffer and always did her best to try and help those in need. Not even the loss of everything and everyone she knew could snuff out the last ember of the person she had once been. It was just not in her nature to leave someone to die if it was in her power to help.

Sharra stood up slowly, eyes, nose, and ears searching the silent forest. If there were any deities or spirits out there watching, let them watch, she thought. She would do her best to save this strange creature, but after that all bets were off. Life had become something that she endured more than enjoyed recently and she cared little for it anymore. She thought that whatever judgement was passed upon her couldn't be much worse than what she'd endured over the last two years.

The heat and humidity in the cabin was so thick that thought that she felt it push down on her as she entered. She left the door open a crack to let some of the heat bleed out. The long knife was picked from the table and she approached the creature cautiously.

He lay quiescent, breathing deeply and rhythmically. His skin glistened in flickering light that escaped from the partially open door of the stove. Sharra paused just out of reach of him and watched and listened carefully for a couple of minutes, making absolutely sure that the thing was still unconscious.

When she was as certain as she could be she carefully knelt down beside the creature. She pulled the pot of water a little closer and tested it with a finger. It was hot but not unbearably so. She pulled the cloth from the pot, wrung most of the water from it, picked up the knife in her other hand and crept right up beside the stranger's head. She looked at how badly her hand was shaking as she held the cloth over the stranger's face and willed herself to relax. Far easier said than done considering the circumstances. Questions of what the creature would do if he woke up ran through her mind at a furious pace and she almost pulled her hand back. After a brief struggle she took control and gently brought the cloth to the stranger's face and began to clean the blood away from pale skin.

An odd thing happened as Sharra cleaned up the creature. As the minutes passed she began to relax and there was gentleness to her touch that belied her earlier thoughts. Old habits die hard and she couldn't deny that caring for people had always brought the best out of her. She was a natural at it that was why The Mother of her people had chosen her to be a Healer so long ago. A smile actually came to life on Sharra's muzzle as she worked. It felt good to help someone out again.

There was a large gash above the stranger's right eye that started bleeding again as she cleaned. She wished that she had a needle and sinew thread with which she could stitch it together but she was lacking such things. She held the cut closed with her fingers until it stopped bleeding and kept on cleaning with her other hand. The stranger slept quietly as she worked and the knife lay behind her on the wooden floor, forgotten.

There were several smaller cuts on his face but they were nothing severe and should heal up nicely. When the blood had been all cleaned away she did a brief check for other injuries. She found a lump on the back of his head, hidden by the strange patch of fur that grew so thickly there. Such strange fur, coarse but still fairly soft. Three fingers long and a rich, deep brown with the faintest hint of copper when the light hit it right. There was no thick woolly undercoat near the skin and Sharra really wondered about that. That patch of fur wouldn't keep his head very warm at all. Where had this thing come from? Sharra wondered. She hadn't even heard stories about a creature like this.

Sharra stepped back and stretched for a moment. Some scraps of leather were gathered as well as two fairly straight pieces of wood from the woodpile. A precious scrap of coarse cloth was pulled from the shelf and held uncertainly in one hand for a long moment. A decision was made and these things were carefully laid out on the floor beside the creature. A deep breath was drawn in and held for a moment while she thought about just how exactly she was going accomplish this next task. This part she really dreaded. The chances of the creature remaining unconscious through this next procedure were somewhere less than zero. She had to set that broken arm and splint otherwise it wouldn't heal properly, or even at all. It was going to hurt, and hurt a lot. She had set many broken bones before and often it involved having a few extra sets of hands around to hold down the poor bastard who was going to be put in the middle of a tug of war. This time, it was only her and a strange furless giant who, for the moment, was in a state that could pass for sleep and very likely wouldn't stay that way once she started tugging on his fractured arm. She really hoped that she would be able to run faster than he would. Doubtless he would be far stronger than she would so her only hope may be in putting some distance between them in a hurry.

She wasn't really sure how to proceed. As a precaution, in case she had to make a rapid escape, she went and propped the door wide open. If things did go sour, having a blocked exit could really ruin her day. The knife she looked at long and hard. She desperately wanted the reassurance it provided but she had no desire for the creature to get a hold of it if he woke up in extreme pain as she set his arm. After much thought she placed it on the table where she could grab it on the way out if need be.

This time Sharra did not kneel down beside the stranger. Doing so would have put her at a disadvantage as far as a quick escape was concerned. She reached down tentatively and pulled the hides back from his broken arm. She lifted it carefully and placed it on top of the hides. She watched his face intently. So far so good. He showed no signs of waking up. Sharra took a deep breath and stood back to think for a moment.

For the first time in two years, she offered up a short prayer to the Gods above. So many times she had cursed them but on this occasion she asked for their help instead. If this was some sort of test she needed all the help she could get. She prayed that she would be able to set the stranger's arm quickly and that he would remain unconscious while she did so. There was really nothing else she could do.

With her heart in her throat and all of her senses on edge she took careful hold of the stranger's arm. There was a strange band of metal that encircled his wrist and she searched futilely for several minutes in an attempt to remove it. It suddenly popped loose with a sharp click when she poked at it with a claw. She slipped it from his arm and eyed it curiously. Small pieces moved under glass and she could hear a gentle ...tick....tick...tick... from a circular piece in the center of the flat band. She had no idea what purpose this object served but she was in awe at how beautifully and intricately it had been crafted. The metal band has composed of many small links that made it flexible and the locking mechanism that held the band together was nothing short of a marvel. The object captivated her attention for several minutes before she reluctantly set it on the pile of his clothing. This stranger's people were incredible craftsmen if they could do such things with metal.

She gently ran her fingers over the creature's arm, checking the misalignment of the bones. There was a lot of swelling but she was able to determine that it was a clean break and she relaxed slightly at that. Easier to set by far than those where there were multiple fractures and pieces of bone floating around. Far less painful to set as well. Sharra gently tried moving things back into place, one eye on the creature's face. Fortunately with him being out cold his muscles were also very relaxed. Most people she had dealt with that had broken limbs were usually all tensed up from the pain.

Using one foot, she held his upper arm against his side and slowly began to pull on his wrist. She could feel the bones sliding around under her fingers. The sheer size of his arm gave her a few troubles but after a moment of tugging she finally felt the fractured ends of the bones line up. As soon as she felt that she sprang back and eyed the stranger's face warily. He hadn't moved the whole time but she had heard a change in the pattern of his breathing. She watched him for a moment, hoping he wasn't about to wake up and undo all of her hard work. He simply lay there, mouth half open, and dead to the world. Unbelievably, he hadn't even twitched as she worked.

When his breathing patterns stabilized Sharra approached cautiously. Taking up her flat pieces of wood and the scraps of leather, she bound them tightly around his forearm. The splint would help keep the bones aligned while the injury healed.

Sharra sat back as several thoughts crossed her mind. There was a reason she had been a Healer in her village. She had a gift, a natural talent to heal certain types of injuries. She had the ability to draw on the life energies of the world around her and use them to renew and repair those who had been hurt. A knot of nervousness settled in her gut as she thought. It had been ages since she attempted a healing and she wondered if the ability was still with her after everything she had been through over the last two years. The concentration required was intense and the personal cost steep but the ability to heal certain injuries was something that was an undeniable part of who she was. She could no more ignore it than she could her own hands. The first words of The Song of Healing crept easily into her mind even though she had not even thought of them in over two years. The sensation of the Power contained in the living world around her ebbed and flowed in the background. All she had to do was call it into her and it would be hers to use to heal and renew.

Perhaps if the creature survived through the night she would attempt to heal his arm. She couldn't do it now as there were inherent risks attempting a healing with an unconscious patient. Only the best healers in the most dire circumstances would ever attempt such a thing. Healing required a conscious patient to help guide the healer and also to let the healer know how things were progressing.

Sharra wasn't even sure that her abilities would work on the stranger. He wasn't of her kind and she wasn't sure if he would understand what she would try to do and be able to guide her as she healed the broken bones. Maybe it would be better and easier to let time and nature heal them even if it meant one and a half turnings of the moon of pain and discomfort. A sigh escaped her and she began to feel her fatigue catch up with her. The cabin was cooling off rapidly now so she shut the door and returned to sit down heavily in on of the chairs by the table. The afternoon was wearing on quickly and sunset was only an hour or so away. She had entertained ideas of going out hunting again but she decided that it would be better to wait until tomorrow. There was enough to keep her busy here for the time being.

Several minutes passed before Sharra pushed back her chair and stood up. She approached the pile of the stranger's soaked clothing and began to search through it. It needed to be spread out to dry at any rate but there were things there that had caught Sharra's attention earlier. The metal band was one of them and she spent several more minutes studying it before she placed it on the table and turned her attention to other things. When she took hold of the cloth that had covered the stranger's legs there was a thud on the floor as two other objects fell from it. She hung the dark blue cloth over the back of a chair and bent down for a closer investigation.

Sniffing intently, she carefully picked the objects from the floor. One of them was a folded leather pouch of some sort. It smelled of strange and alien things. The exquisitely tooled leather was well worn and when she carefully unfolded it there were several curiosities inside. She found rectangular pieces of paper of different colours, two blue ones, one purple one and one green one. Each was inscribed with astonishingly intricate patterns and pictures that were similar yet slightly different. There were other oddities as well. Small rectangular pieces of a material that was unlike anything she had encountered. It was thin and flexible, yet resilient. They were brightly coloured and had strange inscriptions on them. One of them even had a small yet incredibly lifelike picture of the creature on it. Sharra just stared. She didn't think it was possible for someone to draw that accurately and with such true colours. Several minutes later, after which a rather unsettling feeling had come over her, she put everything back into the pouch just exactly as she had found it. She placed it on the table beside the metal band and stared it uncertainly for a moment. She didn't quite believe what she had seen in there. The stranger's people, if they had made those things, were an incredibly talented bunch.

The last object sat alone on the rough tabletop in front of her. It was a cylinder, flat on two sides and a little longer than her index finger. Most of it was made out of a bright, shiny metal but on the flat sides there was a bright red material that was similar to some of the objects in that leather pouch. She poked a claw at it, almost afraid to touch it. She had no idea what purpose this thing served and decided to put it with the other things and just leave it alone.

Stifling a yawn, Sharra sat and stared at her new roommate for some time, all kinds of strange thoughts running through her head. What exactly this thing was and where it had come from were to of the big questions that plagued her. Another one was whether she was going to get any sleep tonight. She didn't think so, not with that thing lying there and potentially waking up at any time.

With a bit of a groan, Sharra stood up and stretched a bit. Hunger gnawed at her belly and wouldn't be ignored. She stumbled out the door of the cabin in into the cold, still air and winter twilight.

She walked down to the shed and stared glumly at the meagre remains of the last quarter of the deer she had killed two weeks ago. There was maybe four or five days worth left, depending on how much her new roommate ate. She gathered up her hatchet and hacked off a small piece and returned to the cabin.

Once again as Sharra cooked her meal, her thoughts were elsewhere. Her movements were still mechanical in nature but the emptiness that lurked in her eyes had been banished for the time being. Her gaze was fixed across the room, at the creature sleeping peacefully under a pile of deerskins.

She wondered what to do when he woke up.