FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

The snow crunched softly under foot as two wolves walked briskly through the narrow alleyway between buildings. Snowflakes fell around and on them softly as they went, the sparking haze finding its way through the crack between rooftops to settle on the ground where it had lain thus far untouched, unswept. The air was still, cool and silent but for the distant sounds of city markets that made their way over the smoking chimneys, for the two were quite alone here, their path quite evidently untrodden. One wolf turned to the other and made the point to speak his mind aloud, for their minds were joined and the other already knew what he thought. Even then though, the soft tone sounded loud in the quiet as he said "You're lost."

"No I'm not." Zen retorted. "I just don't know where I am."

Natani felt those meant the same thing and made them known to his brother without words. Their minds were linked as a side effect of Natani's soul now being a patchwork held together by binding it to Zen's, and now the two could share thoughts and feelings and senses and words. Currently, Natani was mostly sharing distaste for the season.

"Well we're still going north, ish." Zen took an optimistic view of their direction "And we've not run into the Christmas market on Kings street yet so we've managed to go around it for the most part so far."

"No sign of Abbot's road though." Natani was unimpressed with Zen's half-found approach to navigation. "And this snow is fresh, no one else thought to go this way."

Zen grinned at his brother, a smug, sickly cheerful grin that Natani could feel pressing against him through his mind "That's because there's a Christmas market on Kings street, and it's Christmas. Everyone else wants to be on Kings street."

The alleyway curved around to an even less northerly direction and Natani began to worry it was going to drop them straight onto Kings street. "Bah." he said aloud. The sounds of merriment were growing closer.

"We could get a roast chicken." Zen suggested after an awkwardly long silence. "Go and eat the whole thing in one day like we did when we were pups?"

Natani's ear perked up and he gave his brother a sideways glance. "You mean the time we hadn't eaten in more than a week and nearly starved to death?" His mood showed no sign of sweetening.

"But we didn't starve," The sourness of Natani's tone bounced right off Zen "we had our own christmas miracle instead!"

Natani was more grumpy that he'd failed to chip into Zen's chipperness than he was at the memory "The only miracle was you managing to con some sap into giving us a whole two bars when we were scrounging for bits."

"It was Christmas." Zen replied, accurately, "People were merry and in the mood to share it."

The noise of that very merriment grew louder as the two rounded another corner in the alleyway, and then reached a crescendo as they came to an intersection. To their left, down a scant 10 feet of gap between buildings, a hustle and bustle of warmly wrapped wolves went about between merchant stalls. Each wore a cheerful, happy smile as they greeted others or heralded goods.

"Oh look." Natani gestured down the alleyway towards the market street. "It's Kings street, the one your shortcut was supposed to go around." He stood around in a huff, looking at Zen indignantly.

Zen paid him no attention though, since he was already inspecting the footprints on the ground. "Four sets total, fresh with stone visible through them. Two heavy, one lighter, one struggling-transitions to being dragged." He didn't speak about the scents though, one was a fox he recognised, probably the lighter of the footprints. The other was old, something he had barely recognised at all, something he hadn't smelt since...

Zen, No. Was all Natani managed to say mentally before his brother was dashing the other way down the alley, following the footprints with a quick but stealthy dash, careful not to overwrite his trail even if it wasn't difficult to follow. Natani followed afterwards if only for the sake of sticking together.

Zen came to a corner in the alley and backed up against it while Nat hung back ten feet for safety. Poking his head around the corner he caught sight of a fox he recognized from a previous encounter: Carver. He was scrawny by the standards of the wolven civilisation he lived in, though perhaps not so much for a fox. His sense of fashion, particularly with his hair, was as bad as ever though.

Concerningly though, he wasn't alone. Two wolves were backing him up that Zen didn't recognise. Their fur was asymmetric, ranging from a light cream on one arm to a dark brown on the other. Each was a mirror image of the other though so they were presumably brothers. Both brothers towered over the diminutive Carver but looked young, they seemed to have knives on their belt but didn't look like they were up to magic casting and weren't wearing enough to conceal crystals. They were also doing a terrible job of looking out for trouble because both were focused on Carver, and neither had spotted Zen.

Lastly though was their mark, an elderly gentlewolf with lighter brown fur, a cream chin with greying edges and a silver patch of hair on the top of him. The rest of his fur was covered by a fine black suit and a warm jacket he wore over that. Both were probably ruined from the blood dripping from his mouth where Carver had hit him, and from how he was now slumped against the wall.

Natani could tell, through the link, that there was more to this wolf that Zen wasn't sharing, but didn't plan to pry and wasn't interested enough anyway. Carver's bounty isn't worth starting a fight here Zen. He said across the link as his brother resolved to intervene.

Yeah I know. Zen thought back as he stepped out around the corner, and began pacing towards the group. Grab some height and let's hope he doesn't.

Natani groaned mentally, as loudly as he could. Stepping in was dumb, but Zen's excuse for a plan was worse and consisted mostly of bluffing his way out of the trouble he was about to start, with a backup of 'wing it'. Both assassins were armed with short swords they could conceal under robes and a few mana crystals they could afford, but Natani didn't have the bow and arrows he would have preferred to have in this situation. The muscle Carver had brought with him would be trouble in a fight for either of the brothers, even if they were young and poorly armed, but Carver was a known caster, it was how he'd survived in a wolf dominated world and Natani thought their odds in a fight with him were far too even for comfort.

Especially without the element of surprise, which Zen was in the process of throwing away. Natani started climbing up the side of the building in the hope Zen could stall a fight until after he could make his way above or behind the group.

It took a good ten paces before one of Carver's wolves noticed Zen walking towards them. The fox remained oblivious though, hitting the old wolf around the head with what looked like his own coin purse. "Come on old man, don't hold out on me."

The wolf that had spotted Zen took the initiative on his own, stepping forwards to cover the other two and saying in as gruf of a tone as he could manage "Hey, who the hell are you?"

Zen stopped twenty paces back from the group and lifted his head slightly, pulling his grinning smile out from underneath the shadow of his hood as he spoke with a condescending tone, "Ho ho ho."

Two heads snapped around to look at him. The other hired muscle looked confused, but the fox's expression quickly turned to anger as he recognized the grin. They had history together. "Get out of here Zen, this isn't your problem."

"Not my problem?" Zen asked incredulously, because Natani had only just made it to the roof and he still needed to stall. "Carver, have you not taught Cookies and Cream here about the naughty list and the nice list? They'll get nothing but coal in their stockings if you keep being a bad influence on them."

Cookies and Cream looked at each other in confusion before they both had a moment of realization, and then became very angry. "Oh I'm not taking that." Cookies said as he took a few steps forward, drawing his dagger from the belt that held up his loincloth "You wait here boss, let me and..."

Zen cut off his speech and his confidence by pulling back his cloak to show off the sword he was carrying, as well as two of the lesser mana crystals. "Hush now Cookies, the adults are talking."

Cookies growled back at him but Carver placed a paw on his shoulder to steady him before he started a fight. "Easy, this idiot is an assassin." he said while Zen gave them a charming, toothy smile.

After spending the rest of the conversation at the back of the group catching up on things, Cream finally spoke up with a voice that was indistinguishable from his brothers. "Wait, isn't this one of the assassins the boss wants?"

"You're right, Clovis is looking for them isn't he." Carver answered as confidence replaced concern in his voice. "One of them at least. The one he's really after though is the younger brother, and," the corners of his muzzle turned upwards into a wicked grin. "I don't see him anywhere." Very gently, Carver reached downwards and set his feet in the ground, preparing to use mana crystals on his bracelet.

Zen put on his best confident face even as it otherwise drained from him. The mention that Clovis was involved now had rattled both him and Natani, even if they would put on a brave face for the other. More concerningly, Carver was gaining momentum. Zen was bluffing, he needed to put them on the backfoot and soon. "That's because he's good at his job, Carver." he said, maintaining his overly cheerful demeanour even while he adjusted his pose to better reach his own mana.

That gave the trio pause to think, with each of them in turn darting their eyes around to look for where a second assassin could be hidden before snapping back to watch Zen, the already established threat.

It was working and Zen pushed the advantage while he had it. "You must have figured out by now that I'm the distraction, right?"

That worked even better than Zen had hoped, both of the wolves were now looking around above and behind them for where the other assassin was laying in wait. Above was the correct answer of course, Natani was waiting on a rooftop, ruminating on how he didn't bring the bow. With the link though he could see through Zen's eyes and had no need to expose himself even in the slightest.

"Should we jump this one now?" Cookies asked, but Carver shut him down quickly. "No, that's probably an illusion anyway." he snapped back while the three of them closed in together defensively.

Natani noted that the illusion idea was actually a really good one. Zen agreed.

"Ok Zen. What do you want then?" Carver turned back to face him, either being less than confident in his illusion theory or lacking anything else to focus on. "Even you aren't dumb enough to start a fight two blocks from Kings street over that pathetic excuse for a bounty on me."

"You're right Carver, it is very small," He replied, pausing for dramatic effect long enough for Natani to yell at him, mentally, not to wind up Carver any further. He ignored the advice. "But you're probably used to people telling you that."

Cream stifled a chuckle, but Zen had pushed all the right buttons and Carver yelled out over anyone else. "Oh up yours Zen!"

"Rumor has it that's your thing." A moment after he said it Zen realized that was probably pushing Carver a little too far, even if his preferences were only a secret to the blind. "But that doesn't really matter because you're going to be paying me today, specifically that gentlewolf's purse." Zen dipped deep into his pool of charm and deception for that lie though. At the slightest thought he might care for the elders' health Carver was likely to kill him out of spite. But greed, on the other hand, was something the fox understood. Zen just had to sell it.

Carver gritted his teeth and stifled a growl. "Really Zen? Petty thievery? What will your guild think?" He tried to maintain his composure but the fox knew the purse wasn't worth dying over. Or losing either of his new henchwolves.

"You beat up the old man Carver, don't get high and mighty with me." Zen grinned back with his victorious, winning smile.

After a few seconds of angry deliberation, Carver dropped the purse unceremoniously with a low growl. "Come on." he snapped at the two wolves as he gently backed himself away from Zen. "Let's move."

Cookies and Cream followed after him at the same slow backwards pace before they all jointly turned away and moved off at a hurried jog, the best they could manage in the snowy conditions without slipping. "Boss isn't going to like this." One of them commented.

"The Boss isn't going to know about this because we're going to live to not tell the tale!" Carver snapped back, giving one last vicious glare back at Zen before turning the corner. Cookes brought up the rear of the group, stopping half way out of sight to point as menacing as he could towards the assassin "I'm going to remember this!" he threatened as best he could.

Zen grinned back at both of them. "Then remember: Santa Paws knows who's been good and who's been bad."

Cookies growled back at him, but was physically dragged out of sight before he could say something back. "Hurry up Romulus." Zen heard the now distant voice of Carver chastising him. "Before he puts a knife in your back anyway."

Zen waited for Natani, who could see the trio retreat from his rooftop perch, to confirm they were gone and out of sight before finally relaxing and breaking character. He rushed over to the old wolf, detouring only slightly to scoop up the purse as he went, and dropped to his knees in front. "Hey, you're safe now, I'm a friend." he spoke quickly.

The old wolf was in a bad way, besides the blood running down his nose, there was a spray of it across the snow Zen was now kneeling in and more came up with every strained cough. It took great effort from him to look up at Zen from where he was slouched against the wall, but after a few seconds of watching him his eyes went wide with surprise. "You're..." he said with a pained and struggling voice, before losing consciousness and going limp in Zen's arms.

"Shit." Zen spoke out loud as Natani dropped down next to him. It didn't feel adequate to describe how bad that was but he was already too busy fumbling with a mana crystal and what little healing magic he knew.

"Let's get him over to kings street." Natani suggested rather practically. "Someone there will have a carriage and can get him to a doctor and we can be gone before anyone notices." His concern was a rather practical measure based on the fact that the two of them could very well be accused of killing him themselves in the event he didn't survive. Discretion, as he made clear over the mind link, was in order.

"His lung is punctured." Mentally Zen acknowledged that he had heard Natani's suggestion. He just proceeded as though he hadn't. "We need to get him to a doctor right now. Here, I think I've got enough mana to get us to Marley's." he rummaged through his mana crystal chains, grouping them up into one hand as he moved the old wolf forwards, pulling one of the limp arms up and over his shoulder.

Natani groaned and rolled his eyes. Then he walked over and helped pick up the old man because he could feel how determined Zen was about helping him and it was going to be easier to help him than fight him on this.

Zen gathered together his mana and swirled it in his hand for a few seconds as he set their destination, and the three wolves disappeared into a swirl of sparkling blue magic.

---

The assassin brothers turned heads as they carried the old wolf down the road with his feet dragging along behind them. Most got out of their way quickly though there were a few shocked gaspers that usually stood still and they had to go around. The curious onlooker would probably also have noticed the trail of blood he was leaving in the snow. Zen kept noticing that the trail was growing thinner, while Natani was just glad to have not run into any city guards. Presumably they were all busy watching the market.

There was a crowd outside the doctors surgery, most of them sat on chairs they had brought or been lent from nearby shops that were not using them on christmas. Everyone was wrapped up warm, and most had sprinkles of snow on their hats that gave indication to how long they had been waiting.

A small child with their arm in a sling emerged from the front door, followed by two very relieved looking parents. A few seconds later a nurse stepped out and drew the attention of everyone present. She read out a name written on a small slip of paper, which was answered by an older gentlewolf who needed help from his son to get up onto his crutches and follow the nurse back inside. Everyone else went back to talking amongst themselves, huddling together for warmth or in a few cases, carrying on with their hacking cough.

Zen and Natani carefully picked their way through the tangle of people, there were a few paths that had formed between people though most weren't quite wide enough for three wolves abreast. Even amongst the sick though, there was sympathy in everyone's eyes and people made room for them to get through to the front door.

Inside they were immediately met by a very apologetic nurse with light cream fur who stepped away from a patient to get in their way. "I'm sorry sirs, but the doctor is running a charity today, if you'd like..." she said, though Zen cut her off quickly.

"Good, because we're feeling charitable. Could you go and fetch the doctor for us please?" he spoke quickly out of both desperation and exhaustion from hauling the old wolf through what seemed like half the city.

The nurse looked him, Natani and the old wolf up and down, and while she certainly recognised how badly injured the old wolf was, her eyes definitely lingered on Zen's sword. He hadn't meant to intimidade, but with his arm holding up the old wolf he was also holding his cloak open and it was on show for people to see. "Y...yes! I'll go fetch him right now." she stumbled over her words before racing off to the back of the surgery. Oh well, at least it would work.

Natani glanced over at him, and he gave a mental shrug because he was too tired to give a real one right now. At least they would be seen quickly. He would have offered to apologize later but doctor Cratchit wasn't the sort to care.

"What the fuck are you doing here Zen?" the doctor would tell people that he was too old to bother mincing his words any more and his fur had gone grey from the years of stress toiling over people's lives. Zen knew him better than that though: his fur had always been that colour, he'd always sworn like a sailor and he wasn't even that old.

Zen gestured to the old wolf he was holding up with his free hand. "This guy. He's lost a lot of blood and..."

"No I mean what the fuck are you doing here? You know damned well I run a charity on christmas day. You brought him in once and won in the raffle." the doctor pointed accusatively at Natani, who only looked surprised at this. "Now piss off and take him to Fezziwig!" The angry pointing finger moved slightly from Natani to the door, but lost none of its stiffness.

"We tried Fezziwig, he's closed today." Zen tried to explain further, but had to stop to breathe and Cratchit wasn't going to let him take his time.

"Then take him to Fred." he shot back, his finger directing itself eastwards now towards where Fred's surgery was.

"We did, he's closed as well."

"Then take him to Redlaw! That old crank probably doesn't even know it's christmas." The finger switches directions to point more northwards.

"He won't make it to Redlaw's doc." Zen gestured again to the state of the old wolf. "He's lost a lot of blood and he's not responding to us any more, Redlaw is halfway across the city."

"Then teleport there." Cratchit hadn't lost any of his grump as he went through all of his competitors. "You two do call yourself the magi brothers don't you?"

"We used all of our mana patching him up as best we could, then teleporting to Marley's and then to Fred's." Zen explained, increasingly exasperated. "We had to carry him to Fezziwig and then to here."

Doctor Cratchit let out a long sigh of defeat. "You probably even tried old Eb as well while you were over there?"

"Only because he was close to Marley's." Zen shrugged. It was probably best he hadn't been open honestly.

"Well at least I rated higher than him." Zen was about to argue that point as well, because they'd gone in order of who had been closest. But the doctor relented before he could get a word out. "Ok fine, I'll treat him. But not on charity! I expect him to pay when he wakes up and I expect him to be gener..."

The doctor's angry pointing finger aimed itself at the old wolf to coincide with whatever he had to say. Before he could continue though, Zen dropped the purse of gold he'd liberated from Carver into the hand, which immediately lost most of its anger and stopped all of it's pointing. Doctor Cratchit used his other hand to test the weight of the purse, and inspect the fine silk it was made from. He then looked suspiciously at Zen while asking, "Do I want to know where this came from?"

"It's his." Zen said immediately and without thinking.

Cratchit glanced over at the old, and very unconscious wolf, and then back to Zen. "That doesn't exactly make this look any better."

Zen rolled his eyes with a sigh. Okay, so maybe being an assassin gave him a bad reputation, but Cratchit should know they were above board on that sort of thing. Mostly. "I took it from Carver, who took it off him. And I think given the situation he'd be fine with it being spent to keep him alive."

"Hell, you should have said this was Carver's handiwork. Go and get him on the bed in the side room and I'll be there in a second." Doctor Cratchit waved them towards a doorway off to the side without taking his eyes off the large purse of gold in his hands.

Natani took the lead, expressing via the link that he was all too eager to stop carrying the old wolf around on his shoulders, and the two of them shuffled into the side room while the doctor talked to one of his nurses. "Fan, how many patients do we have waiting outside.... Ok then put this in the safe, then go outside and tell everyone waiting they'll all be seen today.... Enough we'll have some left over for next year.... Yes we'll use the draw but only for what order I see them.... Oh and Belle! Can you join me in the side room with the emergency kit?" Zen only heard half the conversation while he and Natani laid the old wolf down onto the bed.

The doctor charged into the room shortly afterwards followed moments later by a nurse who together turned the room into a whirlwind of activity. Zen and Natani found themselves shuffled to the far corner of the room where they propped themselves against an empty side table while the doctor went to work on the old wolf with scissors, bandage and a healthy deal of magic.

We can probably go now. Natani prodded at Zen through the mindlink. He was trying not to give the impression of being impatient, but it slipped through the link anyway.

Zen made a point of getting comfortable. I want to stick around and make sure he'll be ok. He replied..

Natani harumpfed back at him, though he didn't press on the matter. Zen was concerned, more so than his brother was used to him showing over a stranger, and a little of it was leaking over the mindlink.

They both sat in silence for a while, doing their best not to listen to the doctor swearing as he went about resetting bones. "Wrap that.... Apply pressure.... Mana here.... Ok now the bone setting..yes that's the one...good now a little more." Zen noticed that while he was focused on saving the old man's life, he'd stopped swearing.

The peace was interrupted by a feeling of cautious curiosity that originated from Nat before leaking over the mind link. Zen sent back a reassurance that whatever the question was; it was ok to ask and he wouldn't be upset. Sometimes the ability to convey feelings was much more powerful than their ability to put them in words.

He mentioned something about you bringing me here, and I don't remember that. Natani asked gently, prodding at the memory Zen had of being here last, one he hadn't shared. The time period seemed to match the time Natani had been unconscious, when his soul had been shattered and Zen had bound it to his own to save him. But it was also a time Zen had always been reluctant to share.

I couldn't afford a doctor to look at you. Not with magic at least and I knew you needed magic. I had tried all the potions and herbs that would have woken you from even a magical sleep. He didn't open up on the memory as he explained, and Nat stopped poking at it. They were usually pretty open with their memories, but this was what Zen considered the worst time of his life. So I took you here, on Christmas, and he figured out what was wrong, even if he couldn't fix it himself.

Mentally, Natani turned away from Zen as he pieced together the conclusion to the story he'd left out. The short golden half-fox they'd barely escaped from, but whom, as Zen noted mentally, did save Nat's life.

It had all worked out in the end.

"Ahh, good, you're awake." Zen perked up as he heard the doctor's tone shift back to his more cheerful and snide tone. "Welcome back to the land of the living, you'll notice how much it hurts. Now before I give you anything for that, can you look at this candle?... and again... brilliant, you won't die of a concussion if I give you one of these and walk away. Here, drink some water to help swallow it."

The two assassins tried to listen in closely, combining their hearing to hear the quiet voice of, they presumed, the old man who was now awake again. "Where am I?" He asked slowly, weakly and carefully.

"You're at my surgery. I'm doctor Cratchit, this is the beautiful nurse Belle and you're a lucky bastard because you came in here a little while ago with a broken wrist, three broken ribs two of which had punctured your lung, a fractured jaw, a massive concussion and a lot less blood than you woke up with this morning." Natani wondered over the mindlink if Cratchit ever actually stopped to breathe.

"You have my most sincere thanks." The old wolf groaned along with the old wood of the bed as the nurse helped him sit up. "I would like to compensate you, but seem to recall being relieved of my purse."

"You don't owe me a thing, it so happens I treat everyone for free on Christmas day and no one's ever owes me for that." Zen and Natani glanced at each other as if to check they had both heard that, having considered the treatment far from free when the money had come from their pockets. "Though as it so happens I did take a fairly large bribe of what I believe was your money to let you skip the wait. Speaking of which."

Natani had been about to make a comment over the mindlink about how Cratchit was considering the money. He was interrupted though by the sight of The doctor spinning his head around to search the room until he finally laid eyes on the assassins. "Ahh, good, you didn't go anywhere. You're both out of mana right now aren't you?"

The two assassins both cocked their right eyebrows in synchronous confusion at that, but answered. "Yeah, why?"

"Bugger, figured. I want you to come back tomorrow then when you've recharged some." He said almost without pause. Almost. Natani had been watching and he spotted the doctor taking a quick breath right after 'figured'. "I've got a small room upstairs that's too small to put a bed in that I've left empty so people like you can make discrete entrances. I want you to stick a beacon there for long range teleporting."

The two assassins looked at each other before turning back to him in confusion, "Ok but why?" Natani asked.

"In case one of you ever does something bloody stupid like getting stabbed in the chest." He pointed at them with an accusatory glare that they felt was unwarranted. Through mostly happenstance, they had never gone to Cratchit for any of the really bad, or really dumb, injuries any of them had suffered. "You can go straight here, I can plug all the leaks in you and repay you for that coin."

"Doc, I owed you from..." Zen started.

"The hell you do." Cratchit snapped back "That was charity. No one ever owes me shit when I'm treating for charity and you two are no exception."

Zen finally sighed and resigned his modesty "thanks Doc." He said.

"Good." Cratchit said triumphantly, then turned back to the old wolf. "Now you take these with you." He pushed a small glass bottle with several loose pills in them into the old wolf's hand and closed it around them. "Take one of these whenever it hurts but no more than four a day. It's strong stuff though so if you need that much I've done something wrong and you should come back, or find a better doctor."

The doctor stopped talking for what seemed like an unusually long period of time until Natani realised he was waiting for the old man to acknowledge he'd heard all of that. Or at least the important bits about the medication. He did so finally after what probably wasn't a very long time, but felt like it with how quickly Cratchit talked. "Understood, no more than four a day. And thank you for everything, kind sir."

"I think you should thank them." The doctor said pointing over his shoulder with a thumb at the magi brothers. "They're the ones that got you here and waved too much money under my nose. Speaking of which though, that paid for me to treat everyone else outside so I'm going to be busy all night and I'd better get on with that." With as much suddenness as he had appeared into the room, doctor Cratchit charged out of the room full of purpose, whereupon he loudly asked a nurse who was next and continued on up the stairs.

Everyone else in the room stood in silence for a few seconds while they came to terms with just how much less cramped the room felt without the doctor's presence filling it. The nurse broke the silence though as she was finishing up clearing away the tools and packing back up the bag with their emergency kit. "He forgot to mention it but you're free to go whenever you like sir. Though I would also advise against drinking for a few days after what you've been through."

"Thank you kind miss." The old wolf said politely, and then with a sweet "You're welcome." The nurse left them as well.

Zen took that as his queue to finally stand up and introduce himself to the old wolf. Natani, reluctantly and with some considerable prodding over the mind link, followed afterwards a few seconds later. "Hey." Zen gave a small wave as he spoke and walked over to the bed. "Good to see you're up and talking again."

The old wolf looked at zen very carefully, blinked a few times in surprise, then let his jaw slowly sink open as he held out an arm to point at Zen. "You...You're..." he stammered.

"Zen." Zen said with a chipper smile. "And this is my brother Natani, we drove off Carver and his goons in the alleyway but you passed out right as I got to you."

The old wolf took a slow and deep breath as he reset his nerves. "Right, yes, of course. Might I ask where we are perhaps? I don't recall arriving here and while the doctor might have been accurate that this was his surgery, I don't recognize his name."

"We're on Needlemeyer avenue. Near to where the old market used to be." Zen said gently, without trying to brag too much about just how far that was from where they'd met on Kings Street.

"Well then, that is quite some distance from Kings street." The old wolf said. "We're probably closer to my home than to where I left my driver and carriage."

"Well, to be fair we teleported here rather than walking." Zen said, trying to be a little modest.

A grin crossed the old wolf's face that Natani didn't quite understand, but which Zen was confident was actual intent of kindness. "Then I must surely owe you at least for the mana, and by the sounds of it my life as well. Unfortunately I seem to have misplaced my purse."

"We may have spent it convincing the doctor to treat you." Zen admitted slightly sheepishly.

"A trade I don't mind in the slightest, I happen to be quite a lot more attached to breathing than gold." He chuckled at his own joke gently, which also got a smile out of Zen and even a little grin from Natani. "But since I'm so much closer to my home anyway, could I perhaps ask you to help walk me back there? I can repay you much better there, and perhaps along the way you can explain what all has gone on today? It might be that I'm old but I feel a might confused."

"We'd be glad to." Zen said before Natani could hesitate, even if the sound of being paid for their time was enticing to him.

"Marvellous." The old wolf said as he swung his legs off the side of the bed and hopped out of it with a spring in his step. Then, quite surprised, he glanced down at the bottle of pills that were still clutched in his hand. "My, these are quite wonderful aren't they. I haven't moved that fast in years."

---

"And then we finally made it to doc Cratchit who we knew would be open because he always opens to treat people for charity on Christmas day." Zen left out exactly why they knew that. "But normally he pulls names from a hat for who gets treatment, so we bribed him with your purse to let you skip the line." he said rather pragmatically.

"You say bribe as though the doctor didn't then immediately spend that money charitably treating a dozen more souls for free." He said quite cheerfully and quite contrary to Natani's fears he would be upset with their decision. "I saw the crowd waiting for their turn outside in the cold, and my understanding is that they would not all have been seen without the money?"

Zen's expression turned flat as he remembered the fear of not being seen by the doctor. He'd waited outside that door holding Natani almost all day, and...

Natani was looking at him with a concerned expression and Zen now realized he'd probably let some of that seep over the mindlink. He stuffed that and all the feelings associated with it back into a box. "Not always, he continues until he runs out of the money he saves up all year." The words didn't quite match what Zen had been forming in his mind, and it took him a second to realize Natani had spoken them for him while he got his wits about him.

"Then I shall endeavour to ensure he doesn't have any more problems with that in the future." the old wolf said with a grin. "He seems like a charitable soul after my own heart and while he might insist I don't owe him, I intend to support that sort of compassion."

"Well that's old doc Cratchit for you. He only swears when he's being kind." Zen jested to the old wolf's entertainment.

"Yes I did notice he was quite forward. Though I am quite willing to excuse it in a man so charitable." The old wolf said. "Especially in someone it sounded like we both owe some of our fortune too."

Natani made himself extremely clear across the mindlink that he didn't want the conversation to go down that route, and even went so far as changing the subject. "So where did you say you lived again?" He asked. They'd kept track of where they were walking through the city, but neither of the brothers had ever been to this quarter. Notably the roads had grown wider and the buildings taller, with less wood and more brick to their construction.

"Ohh you're right, I never mentioned. The orphanage on Charles street. It's not far now." He said, gesturing to the intersection just a little up ahead. "Mind you I run it, we try to help the children move out before they get to my age."

That got a healthy chuckle out of Zen, which he immediately felt a strong contrast to from the mindlink. Natani felt only bitterness at their own childhood, and the many sad and hungry nights and days of it. "Could have done with that while we were growing up." He quipped snidely.

"It's funny you should say that actually," the old wolf said, utterly unphased by Natani's tone, "Christmas Day happens to be the anniversary of when I decided to open the orphanage."

"Ohh?" Zen enquired with interest, though that interest was mostly in cutting off Natani before he could say anything to sour the mood.

"Why yes in fact. It was a cold Christmas morning just like this, and the very worst day of my life." The old wolf's previously chipper tone evaporated, seemingly against his own desires, as he began a rather sad tale. "I had been up all night watching as all the best doctors and midwives that money could buy failed to save my wife and our first child. Though I was tired and weary I simply couldn't bear to spend another moment in the house I would never share with them, so I wandered around the city aimlessly, thinking myself the most wretched man in the world."

Zen knew that pain and his sharing of the sorrow was from the heart, he could hear it. He had been on the other side of that himself once, and at far too young of an age. "I'm very sorry to hear that." He said, glancing over at Natani.

His brother held out a paw, via the mindlink, and rested it on Zen's shoulder. That was a pain they'd both felt, and they'd both lived through.

"Thank you." The old wolf said, then took a few moments to compose himself before continuing in a much lighter tone. "I was wrong though, because that morning I met a young orphan boy begging for spare bits in the Kings Street market. He was cold and hungry and watching in despair as all the merry Christmas goers went straight past him, ignoring him to maintain their merriment."

"That sounds uncomfortably familiar." Natani said it even if they had both been feeling it, but something had caught in Zen's throat and he couldn't get words out any more. Natani couldn't quite get a grip on what it was though, it was a confusing mix of emotions that he didn't understand, especially because some of them seemed quite happy.

"Exactly!" The old wolf practically yelled in excitement as he turned to the younger of the siblings. "And I thought that while money had done me no good that day, perhaps it could still do him some." The old wolf's grin grew wider and wider as he worked towards the end of his story. "So I gave him two bars to get something substantial to eat, and he told me it would feed him and his sister for a week."

The old wolf watched with anticipation for a reaction from Natani, and when he didn't get it, turned back to look at Zen, who was grinning from ear to ear with a tear forming in the corner of his eye. "How far did those two bars go by the way?" the old wolf asked.

Natani clapped his palm to his forehead as he finally put the pieces of the puzzle together. He was about to say something but Zen was already talking. "We spent one of them on a whole roast chicken that took us the whole day to finish off together. But the other one kept us fed for the next week." There was a tear forming in the corner of his eye by the time he had finished.

"Seriously?!" A fairly irate Natani grumbled across the old wolf at Zen. "Did you not think to mention this was the guy from all those years ago?"

Zen gave his very best shrug. "Well I wasn't really sure it was him until he woke up and said something. I'd been looking at the gold at the time so I remembered his voice more than anything else."

"On the other hand," The old wolf interrupted him, "I recognized you immediately. I have never forgotten a child's face and don't intend to start even if I am getting on a bit." He paused for a few moments to collect himself before continuing. "In fact, you gave me rather a bit of a shock in the alley way. You see: I had thought you dead, so when I saw your face I rather concluded we were meeting in wherever comes after life."

Zen let out a loud laugh as they turned the corner into Charles Street, where the road was even wider now, and one whole side of it was covered in a hedgerow with an iron gateway wide enough for a horse and cart in the middle of it.

"Wait." Natani asked, still looking across at Zen. "Why would you think he was dead?"

"Well that is a slightly longer story." The old wolf said as he continued his tale. "You see I walked away thinking that at a rate of bar a week to feed a hungry mouth, I could afford to feed quite a lot of children. When I finally went home again that afternoon my thoughts were consumed by how very empty it now was. So the next day I set about converting my family's old manor, and on the new year I opened my doors to every orphan in the city."

"And I inspired you to do that?" Zen asked, still grinning.

"Saving me in the process as well I might add." The old man said. "I had lost my family and simply couldn't contemplate what I would do with myself without them." He paused as his voice escaped him, and the cold forced him to brush a tear out of his eye. "As it turns out, there were plenty of children in the city with just such a story of their own. So together we made a match, and I found a new family." His voice cracked as he finished his tale, and both of the brothers gave him some time to recover himself.

"You know," Zen said, thinking aloud, "I don't recall ever hearing about an orphanage opening, but I think that Christmas might have been right before we joined the guild." He left out exactly what guild they had joined, though if he'd been paying attention in the alleyway then he already knew.

"So that's why I never found you!" The old wolf exclaimed "I searched the city high and low for every orphan I could find but you were never amongst them. So I have spent the last few years thinking that two bars was not quite generous enough and the cold had claimed you."

It took Zen some time to find words because all he could think about was how different life would have been had they not joined the guild. At the time it had been the way he found to feed himself and Natani, it had been the first stability in their lives since their parents had died. But it had also led directly to the mind link they now shared. "We managed." he said finally, and with some moral support from Natani.

"I am so glad to hear that." The old wolf said gently. "In fact, I was out this morning visiting the only place I had ever met you..."

They were interrupted by the mighty cry of "PAPA!" as a golden wolfess with blonde hair and a comfortable red dress sprinted out from the gateway in the hedgerow, dashed across the street as fast as she could and leapt into the old wolf's arms. "Oh papa, we've been worried sick about you! We searched all along the market and the streets around it and couldn't find you anywhere!"

The old wolf wrapped his arms around the woman and hugged her tightly. "Ohh don't you worry my dear, I've had quite the day but I'm perfectly fine now." he opened an arm back out to gesture towards Zen "In no small part thanks to..."

"Lilith?" Zen asked in wonderment as the wolfess pulled her head back from the old man's shoulder and he got a good look at those pearl blue eyes he hadn't seen in so long. They'd been children back then, in the village he and Nat and their parents had lived in, and they were both long grown up now, but she looked exactly how he'd always thought she would; if, he had thought, she'd gotten a chance to grow up.

Lilith's jaw dropped in amazement as she laid eyes upon him. "Zen!" She exclaimed as she jumped out of the old wolf's arms and into Zen's, hugging onto him tightly. "Heavens above you're alive! And after all these years!" she cried through tearful eyes.

"And you too." He said, holding her tightly while Natani looked on, expressing over the mind link that he was just as bemused as Zen was was. They both decided not to ask questions about surviving the attack or life afterwards, and just be happy at it.

Lilith finally let go of Zen enough to look back over her shoulder at the old wolf and ask "Papa, how on earth did you find them?"

"Oh they found me my dear." he said with a chuckle. "Zen and his brother here saved my life this morning and were walking me home."

"Brother?" Lilith asked, blinking a few times as she looked around the old wolf at where Natani was standing.

"Hi, I'm Zen's brother Natani." He said with a scowl across his face. Lilith had known them early enough in life to remember when Zen had a sister.

"Ohh, I see." She said, still surprised, and either convinced she had misremembered or perhaps understanding the pressures of living in a wolven society. At the very least Natani didn't look male, either physically or in his body language. "Wait," she said, snapping her attention back to the old wolf "Did you say they saved your life?"

The old wolf nodded his head gently. "Oh yes, they drove off several ruffians I was accosted by this morning." He gestured towards Zen as a puzzled look crossed his face. "Who did you say they were again? I swear I remember their faces, but the names you said just now have already escaped me."

Zen and Natani glanced at each other, they'd been short on some of the details while retelling the story earlier for the sake of either not bragging, or not wanting to hint too much at their own past with one of the characters. "Carver is the only one we know by name." Zen said after they agreed for him to do the telling, now picking out only the most relevant details. "He's the fox, but all three of them work for a guildmaster by the name of Clovis."

The old wolf clapped his hands triumphantly. "Of course, yes, that's the name that rang a bell with me." he said with much more joy than anyone else present thought warranted. "I don't know of a mister Carver, but the so-called Prince is a name I know, and someone I think can be made to pay for this whole ordeal."

"Woah woah woah!" Natani stepped in immediately at the first mention of revenge. "Look, we don't like him any more than you, but we've had dealings with him before and he's really not..." he searched for the right words that wouldn't imply weakness, even if warranted, but also expressed how dangerous the prince of greed could be. "Someone you want to fight if you can help it."

"Oh don't worry, I have no intention of fighting mister Clovis." The old wolf chuckled. "However, I am a member of the city council. So in the new year I shall have an opportunity to go and discover all the taxes the dear Prince thought he had bribed his way out of paying over the last few years."

Zen and Natani both gave a heartful laugh to that. "I don't think I could think of a more perfect Christmas present for him." said Zen. There was nothing the spiteful little mage loved more than gold, and to deprive him of any of it would sour his mood better than anything else. Make him pay indeed, Natani thought over the mind link.

"Ohh, heavens I almost forgot." Lilith said aloud, and mostly towards the old wolf. "Dinner is almost ready, and you need to get changed before anyone else sees your coat." she said, gesturing to the thick line of blood running down the front of it. "And we should probably be getting you out of the cold, did you say you walked home? How are you not shivering by now?"

"Ohh don't worry about me my dear, I feel better than I have done in over a year." He said jovially.

"Actually that's probably the painkillers the doctor gave you." Zen pointed out with more than a hint of concern in his voice.

Realization struck the old wolf quite suddenly as he remembered that. "Oh yes, you're probably right. I'd best be getting inside then." he said as he turned to cross over the road to where Lilith had emerged. "Come along, you can find Zen and Natani seats at the table while I get changed upstairs quickly."

"Oh they'll be joining us for dinner?!" Lilith asked excitedly as she followed after the old wolf, towing Zen along without waiting for a confirmation.

"Unless they can convince me they have other arrangements for today then they most certainly will be. It's the least I can do to repay you for today." The old wolf said quite insistently and without checking either of the brothers to confirm.

Natani opened his mouth to say something but Zen beat him to the punch. "We'd love to stay for dinner." He said, and immediately received a hug around his arm from Lilith.

"And don't worry about the children." The old wolf continued, anticipating Natani's first complaint. "Plenty of my adult children come home for Christmas and I'm sure we can seat you amongst them. Why, I think Tiny Tim will be bringing his wife and pup with him this year."

"Tiny Tim has been taller than you since he was six papa." Lilith joked as they all walked through the gates into the garden of the manor. Childrens toys were strewn across the lawn with half a dozen snow wolves standing in various states of construction, though it was quiet for now, and the old wolf led them down the path to the house.

"Oh, my dear Lilith?" The old wolf said, stopping in the snow to turn to the golden wolfess and let her catch up. "Do you recall the story I would tell of why I was inspired to open the orphanage?"

Zen glanced over his shoulder while the old wolf began his tale. He knew this one, and wanted to check on Natani, who was bringing up the rear of the group, and only hurrying along because the cold was finally beginning to bother him as well.

Yes I'm fine. He said over the mind link, though still grumbling a little. And I won't say no to a big meal, or some coin if he feels like being generous.

Now he had checked that Natani was fine, Zen beamed smugness and vindication back from where Lilith still hadn't let go of him. See now what a little Christmas spirit can get you?

Bah. Natani said back.