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"Why did you come out here, Mara?" I remember asking her that question, and I remember finding her answer unsatisfactory at best. She had shrugged her shoulders and murmured a simple response.

"I'm just a traveler, my vulpine friend. Much like yourself." Mara had reflected the question back at me, curious, but it felt more like she was trying to prove a point. "And why did you come here, hm?"

Truthfully, my answer wasn't any more revealing as hers had been. But in all honesty, I didn't know why I had come here. This town was a destination, but it held no significance to me in any way. It was just an escape. Her eyes almost glinted, and for a moment I had feared that she could read into my thoughts.

"We all have secrets to keep," hummed Mara. "Truthfully, I came here because I need to find something."

"Something?"

"Something."

If she knew what that _something_was, she didn't let me in on her secret. I didn't hold it against her.

Mara Blanco's room was nothing like my own. To call it grand in relevance to the rest of the motel would have been an understatement. For one, it was far larger than it had any right to be, though its size seemed dwarfed by the massive bed centered in the middle of the room. An odd place for it, I thought to myself, but it was hardly the worst thing on my mind. It was covered in a large white duvet, as plush as the down filled pillows of matching colour. Huge blackout curtains kept the sunlight from coming into the room, which instead was illuminated in a soft red glow from lights unseen. No matter how hard I tried to look from my limited space at the foot of the bed, I couldn't see the source of them.

I don't know how I got here. Thinking back, there was a blank space in my memory. Mara and I, well, we met for breakfast and had some idle conversation. She grabbed my hand, flashed me that charming smile, and in the blink of an eye, I was here.

I could hear her humming from just beyond the bathroom door. She brought me here, sat me down on her bed, and asked me to wait. How long had it been now, an hour? I hadn't moved in all this time. The thought of rummaging through her things when she wasn't looking felt... wrong. Not in the sense that I'd be caught looking like a thief, but like something in my soul begged for me to do exactly as she said.

Mara wanted me to sit and wait, so I sat, and I waited.

"I'll be just another minute!" called the amazon feline in a singsong voice before resuming her loud humming of a tune I'd never heard before. It was catchy, though. I patted my hands against my knees to the beat of her song. "You're still there, my vulpine friend?"

I nodded my head and again looked around her room. There was nothing new. "Yes, Mara." My companion resumed her humming, seemingly content with knowing that I had done as she had said. "I'm still here."

She saw that... phantom, just the night before. She'd sat at the foot of her bed, or so claimed Mara. I didn't want to think about it, but I also couldn't help but keep thinking of it. I looked to my left and to my right, feeling the sudden gust of a cold breeze. She could have sat to one corner or the other, or maybe she sat where I currently was.

My stomach churned, turning and folding in on itself time and time again. Had it not been for the creaking of a door twisting against its rusted hinges, I probably would have lost what little I ate for breakfast.

Mara Blanco was dressed much like how I first met her, on the bus stop in the middle of the night. Those baggy black pants and a large brown shirt - it was wholly unremarkable, but somehow it felt more like her style. Her hair had been made up into a lazy looking ponytail that bounced with every one of her large steps. Mara grinned ear-to-ear, crossing her arms just under her breasts to flex those huge biceps. The fur on her cheeks still dripped with water, wafting off little hints of an artificially created scent of orange.

My favourite scent.

"Ah! You're still here!" My companion sounded pleasantly surprised. Did she think that my voice had been her imagination. "I feared you might have grown bored, waiting for such a long time."

I shook my head, staring her right in those slit-shaped golden eyes. "No. You asked me to stay. And, besides," I shrugged gently. "It would have been rude to... Uhm..." I lost my train of thought. Mara had been moving toward me with sauntering steps and a light wave of her hips. I'd tried, really, I tried to keep my focus, but it was all gone the moment she pressed a sharp claw right under my chin. Her claw pushed up and so my head followed in suit. "... rude," I mumbled dumbly, as my gaze was forced unto her smirking lips.

"Yes, my friend. It would have been very rude." Her rough tongue slipped between her lips and rubbed down against her furred chin. I followed it, innately knowing that there was more in there than was revealed to me.

The moment she stopped touching me, I found that I had regained my focus. Mara Blanco's devious little smirk was no longer there, instead replaced with a wide and friendly smile. I found that I kept stumbling on my words, but stood regardless of that. Being right up against her, I could really tell just how much larger than I she was.

"Should we head out, then?" I weaved past my large feline companion and opened the door into the hallway. "It's almost midday."

Mara handed me the keys to her room and idly muttered "Lock the door, would you?" Her long slender tail flicked against my legs as she brushed past me ungraciously stomped off down the hallway.

I gazed back into Mara's room, and saw her. I could feel my blood run colder than ice as a chill ran down my spine and a shiver shook me to the core. The wolf sat where I did, staring into Mara's bathroom. She had a sharp profile that couldn't be mistaken. Her hair fell over one eye and partially obscured her face. And she grinned, like she'd just been told a great joke.

Her breathing was raspy and ragged. Sometimes it hitched on itself, like a hiccup. Other times it came in deep and smooth. Her hands were folded neatly atop one another, right on her lap, though in between them she had something. A card?

"I'm - " What had I thought of saying? An introduction? I couldn't think. My mind was as hold as my trembling fingers.

Her head snapped in my direction with an unnatural sound like breaking bone. Her eyes were wide, and her mouth moved like she wanted to say something. Open and closed, open and closed. There was no speech, only guttural gurgles of some unholy design and a contrasting feint whimper that I found myself mimicking.

With what sounded like the crack of a whip, the door was slammed shut, wrenched free from my hands with the force I could never have mustered. I was left staring at the flaking wood, trembling as everything in my brain started to click into place.

Finally... finally, I could move. I took a tentative step back, and fell hard as my legs failed under me. As I struggled to regain a proper breath of air, I noticed a shadow in the small gap between the door and the wooden floor. Back and forth in slow fluid motions.

"Hmmmmmm. Hmmmmmmm." The humming from the other side was hollow. It reminded me of a singer who couldn't quite catch a proper tune. "Hmmmm hmmmmmm. Hummmmm."

Feeling in my feet started coming to me through pins and needles, the indicator I needed to know I could finally stand. I held unto the wall for support as I got on one knee and pushed up unto my legs. The entire hallway seemed to wobble for a second as everything shot back into focus.

Mara had been idly waiting for me on a loveseat at the lobby, legs spread wide. Her frame looked like it had overflowed, the chair much too small for her. I did not want her to see me in the disheveled I was left in, so I chose to spend a couple of minutes grooming my fur as best I could. It was a useless endeavor; my hands shook too much to get any proper use out of them.

When I finally approached my companion, I could see through her changing posture that she believed something wasn't right. From comfort, to curiosity, to concern. By the time we were face-to-face, Mara seemed tense and ready to pounce.

"Reav, my friend. What's the matter, Reav? Something ails you, right?"

I shot a quick glance to the hallway, half expecting to see the wolf again. "N-No. Nothing worth being concerned about."

"Concerned?" Her head cocked off slightly to the side, her eyes lost in thought for a few brief moments. The short bout of lucidity turned to a refined focus as she leaned back on the chair. "Ah... you saw her again, am I right?"

"Y-Yes." I sighed softly. Mara saw through my lies far too easily. "You're right, Mara. I saw her." The lobby was empty - not even that stout bear was there to manage any new customers - but I still gave a quick precautionary glance. "She was in your room. She was... she was there."

Mara gently patted her lap with a large paw. I stared, wondering if it really was right of me to do that, and quickly turned away. I could almost hear a sigh from her. Probably just my racing mind playing tricks. "Did our ethereal friend try to harm you, Reav?"

"No. Not outright, at least." Mara had gotten up, silently so, and clasped one of her large paws against my shoulder. I froze, savouring the radiating warmth. "I fear I frightened myself more than was called for."

"You're alright, my vulpine friend." Her voice was as warm as her touch. "You're okay. You're okay."

"I'm... I'm okay." I heard her smile long before I saw it. "I'm okay." I found it easy to believe her words. She knew best. Better than me, at least.

"Let's go outside, hmm?" Her sentence was punctuated with a slight dip of her head as her tail slowly curled around one of my thighs, moving downward like a snake. "Fresh air. Cool breeze. I see you brought your coat with you. That's good. I wouldn't want you catching a cold. Come, friend. Let's clear our minds, okay?"

"Yeah." I closed my eyes and swallowed hard. "That sounds quite... lovely, actually."

"Lovely. That's right, Reav. It's a lovely idea." Mara comfortingly squeezed my shoulder, then passed her hand over the curve of my neck and under my chin. "And if you see our common friend? Ignore her."

"Ignore?" I stared upward to my feline companion. She nodded in response, as if her solution was the most logical answer to the question. "Is that such a good idea?"

"Ignore her," she implored, putting pressure on her words. Her hand snaked downward and took a hold of mine. It was rough and calloused and so large it dwarfed my own by a considerable amount, however she was surprisingly gentle - like a mother's soft touch. "Our little wolf friend hasn't tried to hurt us, correct?"

I nodded.

"And it seems she's taken quite the interest in you and I. Let's leave her to her devices, and move on through our day." I nodded again. Was the motel's lobby sitting at a small tilt? Her tail uncurled from my leg, parting away with a small flick. "You needn't worry, my little vulpine friend. Everything's going to be alright."

Mara Blanco led me away by my hand. No matter how hard I tried to keep up with her, she was always at least two steps ahead of me. It was obvious that she was purposefully slowing down and speeding up according to how fast I decided to go.

All the buildings in town were squat and wide. Hardly anything rose above three floors, and the ones that did were relegated to important offices and multi-level apartments. It had that comfortable small-town feeling I'd been imagining in my head from the moment I sat down on the bus. The sidewalks and the roads were kept at an average state of repair - I'd seen a whole lot worse. Some of the buildings were decorated quite nicely, too! The combination of housing and business gave the town a more organic feeling. I probably could have sat and stared at all the buildings and gotten a pretty good understanding of how this town had been built up since so many years ago.

It didn't look like a particularly busy town, either. In the ten minutes we had spent walking since leaving the motel, we'd only come across a couple of furs out on their morning routines. A few cars sped by us well under the speed limit, seemingly in no hurry to get anywhere. Nobody paid any attention to us, the outsiders fresh from the bus, and I was glad for the fact.

"Look, over there!" Mara pointed a long finger toward a flower shop. Its storefront was wildly decorated in a crazy arrangement of different colors. I could already smell the earthy fragrances. Mara nearly toppled me off my feet as she dashed across the road to the shop, her tail flicking to and fro faster and faster until we finally made it to the front door. It was simply called 'Jen's Flower Shop'. The name was plastered across the glass door in large bold letters.

Ding!

The usual acknowledgements of "Hello!" and "Welcome!" were nowhere to be found. The little bell that rang when we opened the glass door still echoed loudly in my ears as we took a couple of steps into the small store. It was an almost overbearing silence, broken by the idle droning of a ceiling fan that looked ready to fall from its hinges.

When Mara let go of my hand, I was left feeling hollow and cold.

"Where is everyone?" Mara glanced back at me and shrugged her shoulders, quite unsure herself, but seemingly not too worried over the matter. She was bent over, sniffing a couple of very light purple orchids. "Huh..."

Despite the shop's vacant state, all the flowers looked like they had been tended to recently. A few still had droplets of water from a spray bottle I found sitting at a counter. "Hello!" I called out, waiting for some kind of response. "Anybody!" I even rang the bell a couple of times, but nobody came to answer. Whoever Jen was, if there was even a Jen tending to the shop, she was nowhere to be found.

"A shame," hummed my feline companion, who had sauntered up to the front desk to stand beside me. She leaned against the counter, her massive arms lazily draped over to the other side, and took a peek behind the counter. "Certainly, somebody has been here."

"Yes, that much is clear." I took another look around. All the flowers had been trimmed, healthy as ever. This _wasn't_an abandoned store. "Maybe... lunch, perhaps? What's the time, Mara?"

"A quarter past one, it seems." She almost looked defeated. I gingerly placed a hand on her back, returning her smile back to its former self. "I really wanted some orchids."

"Maybe Jen, or whoever goes around tending to these flowers, will be back later. How about we check then?"

Mara nodded. "In the meanwhile, I'm keen on having a look at the local library. Will you stay with me, my vulpine friend?"

Was I staying? We were under no obligation to travel with one another, but... One look at her, and those eyes, and I didn't really want to say no to the. She looked both hopeful as well as ready to dash off with me at her heels. And... it went without saying, it was better to get to know somebody rather than try to learn about this new place by myself.

She had my answer before I even replied, but Mara was kind enough to wait for me to talk. "Alright. Let's stay together."

"Fantastic!" She caressed my cheek, immediately drawing me toward her as her claws scraped against my jaw. Her voice took an almost sultry tone. My imagination was playing tricks on me. "Let's go, my little vulpine friend."

Mara was the first one out the door. I wanted to follow. Her movements drew my attention like a snake charmer's flute did a cobra, but I was stopped. A cold hand clasped around my bicep, the vice-like grip burning over my shirt. I can't scream. Mara, distracted by something unseen, ran across the road, and abandoned me.

"Ahm - uh."

Long slender wolfish fingers reached out from the shadows of the flower shop. They tugged at my arm, not rough, but with a certainty that demanded my attention. My head turned, straining against my neck as I struggled to stop myself from looking at her again. An otherworldly force controlled my every move.

She watched me with a perplexed look in her emerald eyes. The wolf sat on the counter Mara and I had just been resting at, grinning wide to give me a proper look at the darkness of her maw. A long tongue slowly fell from between her canines, snaking downwards until it curled atop of her lap. She almost panted like a dog.

Muffled screams for help were about the only sound I could make, and even that quickly taken away from me. She had me trapped and silenced. I couldn't even bring myself to look away. Her head turned a little, almost as if she confused by my reaction to her. 'Am I really that frightening?' she might have asked, but I saw no emotion in her wide green eyes. 'Do I really scare you that much?'

Somehow, I got my breathing under control. The short and shallow gasps for air were replaced by a consistently deep lungful. It did nothing to calm me, but at least I no longer felt like I was going to choke on my own breathing.

The little canine had brought a finger up to her lips, urging me to quiet down. That's when I saw it. A card. It was tucked in neatly between her fingers. Her head cocked to the other direction once my eyes settled on that little piece of paper. Her hand sailed gracefully through the air, and in my open palm, she placed down the card.

"Hmmmmm. Hmmmmmmmmm huuuuummmmmmmm." Her hums were still out of tune. Being so close to her now, I could make out how badly the wolf struggled to many any sort of sound. And the feint gurgling... like a drowned man trying to talk." She let me go, returning warmth to my arm, and in the blink of an eye she was gone. The flowers inside the shop swayed slightly toward the door.

A sharp pain in my gut doubled me over. I retched, dry-heaving a couple of times as my body threatened to punish me with another unwanted bout of vomiting. I nearly knocked over a couple of plants as I reached for a handhold.

"I'm going crazy. I have to be. I'm crazy. I've completely lost it." Even as I said these words to myself, I stared down at the card nestled in my hand. It was real. Tangible. It held weight and folded in on itself when I bent it.

It was a business card, colored a soft pink and smooth to touch. It was nothing of note, save for the name printed in small letters on one side of it.

Jen Blanco. Florist.

Family?

When I met Mara outside the flower shop, there was only one thought coursing through my mind. Mara Blanco _couldn't_know. She'd told me not to pay any attention to the wolf girl. In fact, thinking back, her words echoed more like a warning toward me. I'd promised in every way save for outright saying the word. And still, through all that, I couldn't follow that simple rule.

I stuffed the business card deep into my back pocket and waited by a streetlight on the sidewalk until Mara took notice of me. She was looking through the window of an arts and crafts shop, her tail swishing with excitement whenever she saw something that caught her eye.

A small orchid had been tucked into the fur of her head, just above one of her small triangular ears. I didn't question how she got it; some things were better left unsaid.

"My little vulpine friend, is everything good?" Hints of concern appeared on her face. Her long whiskers twitched as she sniffed at the air around me. "You seem troubled. Again."

"No, nothing." I lied. "Simply... thinking of home."

"Home?" She leaned in a little. The scent of orange now mingled with the fragrance of the orchid. It was enticing and intoxicating. "Or the lack thereof?"

Her words were blunt, but they rang true. I must have made something of a pained expression. "Forgive me, my little Reav." Her... little Reav? Her paw caressed my cheek, drawing lazy little circles under my soft fur. I hummed, smiled, and found myself contemplating what she'd just called me. "I'm afraid I can be a little blunt sometimes. Forgive me, my little Reav. Forgive me."

"I..." I swallowed, breaking away from her gaze. "F-For..."

"Forgive," she repeated, etching in a little closer. She hovered just a small bit over my head. Her uncanny flexibility made it easy for her to bend low to my height with ease. "Do it for me, my little fox. Forgive me." She turned my head and forced me to stare at her lips. Just inches from me now. "Forgive me," they mouthed. Her voice ran over me like warm water.

Mara pressed a gentle kiss against my cheek at the exact moment that the words left my mouth. "Forgive you," I whispered, as my whole body trembled under her. "No harm done."

Her lips curved into a charming little smile. "My little fox," they said, as her rough feline tongue slowly snaked to lick her bottom lip. She was savouring my taste. "Thank you."

The world, the surrounding sounds, came into focus as Mara pulled away from me. Like a rush of air. I felt like I was momentarily deafened. Then came a low ringing in my ears. Then... nothing. Everything was the way it had always been.

"I spoke with the owner of that cute little arts and crafts shop." She pointed to the store, her posture straight and tall as she squared off her massively broad shoulders. "The library isn't too far away from here. A few blocks that way." She pointed South, just past an intersection we stood close to. "And he informed me of a few restaurants worth looking into. But first -"

"The library."

She smiled at me wide and motioned for me to follow. "I'm sure it's going to be fun."