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The way Vin led me on, I was assuming that we would be making our way to the heart of an impending nuclear apocalypse or plague outbreak or something; not a field of screaming girls that coordinated a stampede when we walked outside the compound to a small town a half mile away. What started off as one overly excited fifteen year old fox turned into a dozen chattering anthros eager for a picture, and that snowballed into a mob of squealing estrogen crazed females, anthro and human. I got out of the way as Vin was swarmed under the shifting collective mass of bodies.

He took it all with practiced ease as he posed for pictures and signed a few autographs. He looked over at me and smirked before announcing in a big, loud voice, "Well I have to take my friend here to get a few things."

Within seconds, all of those eyes were zeroed in on my position and staring at me. I had no clue what was going on and had no desire to stick around to find out. Vin was able to get over to me fairly easily and laughed in the same practiced way that he had been using to handle the crowd.

He backed us into a store, and soon the crowd outside dispersed. His poise slipped away as quickly as it had established itself.

"Fucking vultures," he muttered to himself and turned around to begin walking through the rows of merchandise like nothing happened.

"What the hell was that?" I asked, dreading leaving the sanctuary of the store and returning to that.

"That is the reason for my trepidation in the departure of my sanctuary, more commonly known as the Facility," he said, weighing two separate lengths of rope in his paws and then putting them both back on the shelf.

"Repeat in layman's terms please?" I asked.

"Those crazies follow me everywhere that isn't the Facility," he stated.

"Why would they do that?" I inquired, already coming up with my own theories.

"That's because Mr. February is a celebrity," a female voice said from the back of the store.

I made my way to the counter to find out who this third party was. Behind a register was a Siamese with a bell-shaped earring in her left ear and piercingly blue eyes. She tucked a lock of bright pink hair behind her ear absently as she looked at me with an idle sense of curiosity, like she wasn't sure if I was interesting enough to bother with inquisition.

"Hey Ray, how are things going?" Vin asked, walking up to the counter with a pair of gloves and a small length of wood.

Looking at what was in his hands, I turned around and tried to figure out what kind of store I was in. It looked like a general supply, camping, and magic shop all tied up into one. I couldn't make heads or tails of anything in the store, excepting a few items like rope or canes.

"It was going well until you stirred up the shit pile by showing up here," she replied with mock disdain. She turned to me. "I'm Raven, and I keep the shop every now and then while the owner is away. See anything you like?" Her attitude was a complete 180 from what she just showed Vin.

Vin was cackling in the background to his own private joke as he idly watched the exchange.

"Um, I . . . that is to say that I'm," I stuttered, thrown off course by the sudden change in attitude.

Vin hit the floor, having a fit as he failed to contain his merriment at my expense.

Confusion wracked my brain. I had no clue how everyone seemed to derive so much amusement from my discomfort and social ineptitude.

"Well Ray, we need help getting Aaron here set up with some of the basic gear for a visual contractor," Vin managed, holding his sides but still on the ground.

I looked down at him and asked. "Does the type of contractor depend on the type of catalyst someone has?"

"Ah, you are either well informed or highly intuitive; both are impressive. Yes, your catalyst determines what type of contractor you are. It helps when sending someone on a job; they can't exactly send someone with a visual catalyst to deal with a blind person," he informed, still not bothering to get off the ground.

Ray came out from behind the counter to help and gave Vin a healthy kick when she walked past him. "So cutie, you need the basics then? Don't worry, I can help you out," she said sweetly.

"I don't want to cause you any trouble," I replied lamely, a little afraid of being on the receiving end of the next blow.

"Aw, don't worry; it's no trouble," she smiled and hugged me. A muffled grunt came from the ground as she kicked Vin again. I hoped he would be okay, but the whole time he was laughing like a cracked out hyena on the ground, so no permanent damage must have been done.

She walked down aisles and picked up items at random and put them into a bag she was carrying with her: a rope, pocket knife, handkerchief, and a lot of other items that made no sense.

"So when did you become acquainted with February?" she asked as she led me back to the counter.

"About two hours ago, I think; things sure do move at a fast pace around here," I replied, looking at my cell phone and trying to remember the time.

She looked up from the register. "Yeah, but they slow down after a bit. It doesn't take long to adjust," she explained.

Vin finally got off of the ground and leaned against the counter, bored. Raven shot him a look. "Are you done yet?"

"That remains to be seen," Vin said, looking extremely pleased with himself at the prospect of causing miniscule mayhem.

Raven rang up my order and I handed her my new card. "If that's the case..." she began, reaching for something beneath the counter.

Vin's ears fell back, and his eyes got huge. "Aww, come on Ray, I'll be good," he begged.

"Too late February, you had your chance," Raven replied as she came up with a calendar and placed it on the counter with my card on top of it.

He reached for the calendar in hopes of stealing it away. "Ray, this isn't cool," he whimpered.

She took it off of the counter and put a finger to her lips in a gesture of thought. "How about this; since I am in a gracious mood, I will let Aaron decide if he wants to see it."

Vin was on me instantly. "Name your price! Just tell me, and it will be yours," he nearly shouted.

I slipped my card back into my wallet as I contemplated the situation. I felt bad for him but couldn't contain my curiosity. "So Raven, why do you call him February?"

Vin whimpered again. "Traitor."

With a flourish, she pulled the calendar open and let me have my fill. On the page was Vin, flexing in a tough guy pose. I did a double-take as I attempted to make sense of what I was seeing. Vin was standing with a quiver of pink arrows strapped to his back and a little bow in his right hand. A small pink heart was painted over his left nipple. He had tiny angel wings on his back outlined in a light red, and to top it all off he was wearing a Speedo with a giant safety pin through it to complete the ensemble. I took the calendar in trembling hands. I held it up next to Vin and tried to make the connection between this Joker and the flamboyantly dressed Shepherd on the page. Truth be told, it gave me the weirdest boner. The longer I hung around with anthros, the stranger I realized my life was going to be.

Vin looked mortified and slumped onto the counter in defeat. "Damn you Ray," he muttered dejectedly.

I closed the Calendar and looked at the cover and wasn't surprised to see a blazing triple X on the front. Without a word, I handed it back to a snickering Raven.

"Don't fuck with me, puppy," she laughed, turning to me. "So, do you have any other questions?"

"I guess I know why you call him February," was all I could manage as shock numbed my brain.

Vin began to slam his head onto the counter repeatedly. "Fuck," SLAM "my," SLAM "life!"

"Serves you right," Raven said, sliding the calendar under the counter again.

"That's one way to keep someone in line," I muttered in amazement.

She tied off the bag. "That should be all you need to get started; but if you need anything else, just let me know."

I picked up my bag and looked at Vin as he pulled himself together and started to walk out the door.

"It's good to take him down a notch every now and then, or else he can get a bit of a big head," Raven said as I followed him out.

Vin looked around and made sure it was clear before he made his way to another shop right next to Raven's.

"So what did you think of one of our local shopkeepers?" he asked, trying to get over the blow to his ego.

"I'm pretty sure I just met the devil," I replied.

Vin guffawed as he heard me and walked with a skip in his step as his mood improved.

We quickly got into the other store and picked up a few pairs of clothes for me to wear and carefully made our way back to the facility without incident, much to Vin's relief.

We walked into our dorm and shut the door as I put my bags onto my bed and rifled through the bag Raven gave me. "Am I really going to need all of this?" I asked, not seeing how any of it could tie in with what I was supposed to learn to do.

"Most of it, yeah. It's hard to tell what the instructor is going to make you do and when," he said as he fell onto his bed, completely over his earlier embarrassment.

"How is any of this going to be of use in anything other than some creepy BDSM role play?" I inquired, holding up a length of rope and a strip of leather.

Vin sat up and scratched the back of his head as he looked at the items. He looked from side to side like he was making sure we were alone. "I'm not supposed to do this; but I have no clue how else to explain it, so just keep down and don't tell anybody," he said, reaching for the items in my hand.

I watched in silence as he tied the leather into intricate knots. After that, he closed his eyes, and after a few moments, he shuddered and his fur stood out on end. When he opened his eyes again, all that was in them was an indefinable depth that seemed to distort reality around them. I flashed back to seeing Fenrir staring at me earlier that day by the train tracks and at the school. This time, no fear came to surface, but my vision swam like I was staring through warped glass. I blinked, and my vision cleared.

"Now look," Vin said gently. The strip of knotted leather was gone from his hand and replaced by a black butterfly fluttering in his hand softly. I looked down at the rope in my hand and stifled a scream as an albino snake sat wound where I had held the rope. The initial terror settled as the snake sat motionless. Something wasn't right; I still felt the woven fibers of the rope against my skin in place of the slick scales of a snake, and the smell wasn't right either. I looked toward the butterfly and noticed that it too was artificial in design.

A moment later, the illusion was shattered, like smoke being blown away, and the butterfly turned back into leather and the snake back into rope. Vin grunted in surprise. "You broke that a lot quicker than anticipated."

"Maybe it was just because I was expecting it," I guessed. Exhaustion weighed on my arms and legs like lead.

"I guess that could be it," he said, not sounding convinced at all. He looked at me and smiled. "Long day?"

"You have absolutely no clue," I muttered, falling on my back and closing my eyes for a few seconds.

"The first few days are going to beat the crap out of you. Most of the energy you get will go into the chemical balancing stage, and you will sleep like the dead until that stage resolves itself," Vin stated, lying down in his own bed.

I cracked an eyelid and glanced at the clock and saw that it read about 8 o'clock at night. This was quite the busy day. Actually, the plane ride carried me through until after midnight. Damn, it had already been two days and I barely noticed.

I closed my eyes again and settled into my pillow as I let my brain fade into the warm, heavy fog of sleep.

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I laid down in my bed, sleep just out of reach.

"Damn it all," I muttered; no matter what trick I tried, I couldn't get my mind to slow down. My thoughts kept returning to Aaron. There was something different about him that just wouldn't stop bothering me. At first, I assumed it was just because he reminded me of Trent, but that wasn't the case.

Trent.

I mentally slapped myself; things wouldn't change just because I worried about them.

Soft waves breaking across a nearby shore.

A tear slipped out past my sealed eyelids. I had to stop thinking about it.

Short blonde hair that curls at the temples and a voice slightly higher than most people his age.

With a sigh of defeat and resignation, I let the memory wrap me in its deceitful tendrils.

The beach was always nice this time of year, but now wasn't the time. They were on a mission, and they had to see it through. Trent, as usual, threw caution to the wind and let himself enjoy what the weather had to offer. My heart leaped at the serene smile on his face.

I noticed the presence first and tried to warn Trent, too late. There was a deafening crack as gunpowder ignited in an iron chamber, and a bullet buried itself inside Trent's chest.

Hospital wires and machines sticking out of Trent's pale body at odd angles. I couldn't bear the sight of my partner lying there, next to lifeless. For all his power, Trent couldn't stop the bullet from penetrating his fragile skin. Even his thoughts were out of reach from me.

A steel door slammed shut over my mind as the memory came to a close. I let loose a pained breath as the wall of emotion and pain faded away to a manageable level. I thought of Aaron again and felt a twinge of annoyance. Why was it that this boy could bring those painful memories up from nowhere? I looked down at my hands and remembered the dream I had shared with Aaron. He was something else entirely; completely different from anyone else I had ever met, besides Trent.

If I focused, I could feel Aaron's cluttered thoughts fade away as he fell asleep. It would be easy to get his attention, and there weren't any rules about this specifically. I stretched out my consciousness to the sleeping boy but stopped when I was close enough to feel his emotions. There was joy simply oozing from him, totally different from that strangled desperation that had been so potent that it stained the air around him. Despite all the flirting and crude jokes, he was still clothed in the innocence of youth; but it was tarnished by hurt and anger. There was so much to see in this one person; but those with power are always the easiest to read, and Aaron was not lacking in power. I made to pull away and leave the boy be, but just like last time I couldn't do so easily.

Aaron's conscience recognized me and wrapped around me like a puppy eager to play. There was just so much energy that I decided to hell with it.

I slipped away and followed Aaron back into his dreams.

The room was the same as last time, but now there were two chairs in front of the twin mirrors. Aaron occupied one of them and was having another conversation with his doppelgangers. Ardor saw me and waved enthusiastically, and Acumen nodded his greetings. Aaron turned to me and beckoned me over to the chair. I smiled and stepped into the dreamscape, all thoughts of responsibility gone from my mind.

"Hello again Fenrir," Acumen said in the same expressionless voice as last time.

"Hey!" Ardor said without any form of formality.

"So, what are you up to?" I asked, not sure if, or how, I should address the other two.

"We are just discussing the day's events and wondering if I've gone crazy yet," Aaron explained.

"You are talking to yourself about the possibility of you being insane? Shouldn't that be a clue in its own right?" I posed the question in a thoughtful tone.

Acumen nodded. "The wolf has a point."

Ardor scowled at his twin. "Maybe so, but the other side of sanity is where all the fun happens."

"Are you saying that I was boring and dull at one point in time?" Aaron asked.

"I guess, if you are assuming that you were actually mentally stable at one point in time," Ardor deflected.

Watching the three of them, I couldn't decide if I wanted to laugh or take a few aspirin. They talked seamlessly and in a constant flow that made my head spin.

"So Fenrir, how has your day gone?" Aaron asked off handedly, leaving Ardor and Acumen to argue about the validity of Ardor's argument.

"It's been pretty boring and uneventful," I said.

"Sorry to hear about that," Aaron replied. He looked at the other two and sighed. "We've gotten all we are going to get out of them for now. They can go at this for hours on end. So, want to go do something fun?"

I shrugged my shoulders and followed him out of the room and into the corridor with its plethora of mystery doors. Aaron led us past the door marked fear and already the door was back on its hinges and closed. It looked like nothing had happened, but when Aaron opened the door it was empty. Black iron cages hung from the ceiling and swayed in the gentle breeze created from opening the door.

Aaron looked up at the empty cages sadly. "I didn't want to do this in the first place, but they kept destroying everything else," he explained.

"Why bother feeling bad about it?" I asked. I knew a million people who would jump at the opportunity to seal away their fears in a heartbeat.

"I don't like it. It's putting a part of me away to rot. Those fears are key parts of who I am; and without them, life wouldn't really be worth living. They are constantly shifting too. As a kid, I was afraid of going outside at night time because I thought I would be swallowed up by the big black sky. After a while, I found the stars and the moon, and then I loved the night. Now, the very thing I was afraid of has its own room down the hall," Aaron explained.

He looked around at the empty cages again and then turned around to leave. He pulled out the phantom key again and locked the door.

When the door was closed he brightened up and turned back to me, all traces of sadness gone from his features. "So, have your ever flown?" he asked coyly.

"I have frequent flyer miles on most airlines," I replied. Aaron already knew this. How did he think we got here?

He shook his head fervently and began to laugh. "That's not what I meant," he said.

He took off jogging down the corridor, and I followed him. I tried to ask a few more questions, but he wouldn't answer and just laughed harder the more I persisted. He stopped at a door, bouncing on the balls of his feet as he unlocked it. I followed him in, and we were in a park with giant buildings on all sides of us. The door stood open on a tree trunk behind us.

Aaron looked at me expectantly. "This is one of my favorite rooms to come to," he explained.

I looked around and finally asked. "What does this have to do with flying?"

"Everything," Aaron laughed. He continued to watch me and wait for something. He snapped his fingers as realization dawned on him. "That's right; you don't know how to fly."

I shrugged. "Guilty."

He rocked back and forth as he thought. "Let's go for a run."

"Didn't we just-" I began, but was cut off.

Aaron waved his hands in a dismissive gesture. "That didn't count."

Without another word he took off at a dead sprint. I followed closely behind as he picked up more and more speed. Neither of us needed to stop for breath or for cramps. I had completely forgotten the freedoms of dream walking since . . . no, I won't think about it.

He looked over his shoulder and smiled. "JUMP!"

Without waiting for a response he leapt into the air and landed twenty feet away. On the next step I crouched and shot myself forward matching his distance easily. I landed in a roll and shot back to my feet without slowing down. Aaron jumped again and cleared another thirty feet. I did the same and managed to stay on my feet this time around. Once again, Aaron skipped forward, and this time his feet barely skimmed the ground before he was off again. My legs worked hard to match him stride for stride, but despite my size over him, he managed to stay in front of me the entire time. He laughed in his exhilaration as with one final leap he shot straight into the air and alighted on the edge of a roof with all the grace of a gliding hawk. I shot up next to him and barely managed to grip onto the edge with the tips of my claws.

Aaron sat down next to me, his legs swaying in the air. Offering a hand to me, he said, "You're letting yourself weigh too much."

I was able to get myself up to my elbows on the ledge and let out an irritated sigh. "Care to explain how I can change that?"

"It's a dream," Aaron said simply as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

My irritation melted quickly as I heaved myself up onto the building. "That's not how it works. You can do whatever you want because this is all yours. I'm an outsider and I have to follow your rules," I explained. This would be stuff that he learned later, but the situation called for a quick instruction. "You decide how the world works and the freedoms I can have. Otherwise, I can't do much. I can run and jump like that because that is specifically what you allowed me to do."

Aaron fell onto his back. "Well that takes a bit of the fun out of it," he muttered. "Surprises are what make dreams fun. Wait, if you can only do what I let you do, then how did you get inside my head the first time?"

"Technically, I wasn't inside your head at first, but then you invited me in. Otherwise, I would have been stuck observing through a window," I explained, omitting the reason why I was near his mind in the first place and stretching the bounds of truth just a little bit.

"So I have to grant you specific permissions before you can do anything outside of normal boundaries?" Aaron asked, an idea forming in his head judging by the look on his face.

"Yep," I replied, wondering where this would go.

Aaron bit his knuckle as he chewed through a chain of deep thoughts, something that I couldn't help but notice made him look boyishly cute.

A few moments went by until Aaron finally decided on something. "So how do I give permission exactly?"

"It's weird; it's more like accepting something as a fact. Like letting a snail be as fast as a leopard. You accepting that will warp reality around it and allow it to happen. I'm not sure how else to explain it," I replied, hoping some of this made sense to him. All around us, I could sense the new knowledge being assimilated into a bigger collective. He knew a lot more than most people do their first days, no doubt courtesy of Vin.

Aaron closed his eyes and concentrated on his new task. I yelped as the air around my body sparked and tingled like a miniature firework. Weight left my body like a bunch of air and I held onto the roof to keep from being blown away.

Aaron smiled at the change. "I think that worked."

I got to my feet, quickly adapting to the new weight. "I'm sure it did, but what did you do?" I asked.

He smile became shy and a little uncertain. "I made it so that you can stay with me. It seemed vague enough to cover most situations, but specific enough to work."

"Well, let's test that theory," I said, bending my legs and taking a small jump. I stood suspended in the air as my momentum left me and slowly slid back down to the roof next to Aaron. He was ecstatic and immediately took off to the nearest roof.

I jumped after him, and we repeated this until we were standing at the point of the highest building, something resembling the Seattle Space Needle. We sat there and enjoyed the view presented to us. Aaron sat smiling next to me and gazed out over the landscape.

Aaron started to gnaw on his knuckle again as he thought about something new.

"What's eating at you?" I asked.

"Just something that doesn't fit in with the current circumstances. I've been lucid in my past three dreams. There's usually a dry period between them when I just dream normally. I haven't even been keeping up with my reality checks on a regular basis like I am supposed to," he answered, getting ready to go off on a rant. I had my guess to this but wanted to see where he would go with it. "Very few people are naturally lucid dreamers, the rest of us have to work at it. We have to perform reality checks and work on dream recall countless times a day and it would still take a while before any of it took root. A few years ago, I found a method that works fairly quickly; but it still takes a bit and dreams are usually few and far between. Now, I don't even have to do those things, and I still get to dream."

I waited for him to finish before I opened my mouth. "What you describe is a bit uncommon. We have a name for what you are going through, but that is a conversation for another time. Plus, I'm not really supposed to tell you because it could influence your decisions in the future. I've already bent a few rules, so I would rather not push my luck."

Aaron shrugged his shoulders. "I guess I will just have to wait for now," Aaron looked at the sun and squinted. "It looks like this cycle is almost over."

"It looks like it," I said, vaguely aware of the fading focus of the city beneath us.

"You should probably go then. I'm going to go look around for the remainder of the dream," he said, getting up and turned to a door behind us. "See ya later Fenrir," he replied.

I waited for a few more seconds before I let my mind pull away from Aaron's. I slipped back into my own body and felt gravity crash back into me. It was already past midnight and I was due to get up at 5 for an early assignment departure that would take me away for a week or two. "See ya later Aaron."