I miss him, she says without sound.

You grieve because you love. That is as it should be.

Again, silence falls, and Dakota waits. It is not her place to hurry an elder, or to speak before spoken to. After a time, the light shifts among the trees, shadows rippling with the movement of a long body as it walks between them. Koda catches the sheen of sun off golden fur, the twitch of the end of a long tail. Igmu Tanka. At the thought, a puma steps out of the woods and comes to sit in the center of the small glade, gazing up at Koda with eyes like molten bronze. Round patches of fur show dark against her belly. She has cubs.

Ina, Koda acknowledges.

And I must kill something for them by nightfall, comes the answer, and with it the taste of hot blood. As you must kill for your own.

A pang stabs through Koda’s heart. I have no cubs. My child died with my beloved.

Igmu Tanka nips at a bit of twig caught in the fur of her shoulder. There are cubs, and there are cubs. Those for whom you are responsible are not of your body, yet they are yours nonetheless.

My responsibility is to fight this battle.

Your responsibility is to fight this battle, and others. And then it will be your responsibility to rule.

Rule? But Kirsten—

Is Chief. You are something new.

I don’t understand.

You don’t need to, not yet. I have something to tell you: do not hesitate to flee when the time comes. Victory will follow you.

Koda feels her brows knit. I don’t—

Understand. That does not matter. What matters is that you should obey my younger sister when she gives you an order. For the sake of all the People, two-footed, four-footed, winged and creeping, you must do what you least wish to, when you least wish to.

I will be here waiting when you return.

With that, the puma turns and pads back into the trees. Koda follows her movements until she is lost in shadow, then turns back toward the road and the burden laid on her.

*

A somber, thoughtful Dakota opens the door to the house and steps inside, more by rote than conscious act. Padding softly through the kitchen, gaze turned more inward than out, she stops upon sighting Kirsten. Sitting on the tattered sofa, her legs tucked up under her, the young scientist stares into the monitor of her laptop as her agile, graceful fingers fly over the keyboard. The window across the room is open, and from it, a shaft of sunlight lances in, gilding her in pure gold, her hair a halo that quickens the pace of Koda’s heart. The love she feels for this woman is so strong, and so pure that it hurts, deep within, like a tight band across her chest.

Quite without her permission, her mind drifts back to her conversation with Igmu Tanka, and she finds herself comparing this new love with the one she lost so long ago, comparing Tali’s dark, reed-slender lines with Kirsten’s golden, muscled curves, Tali’s quiet sweetness with Kirsten’s mercurial intelligence, passion, and deeply hidden pain. What paths, she wonders, would her life have taken had Tali not been taken so quickly from her?

“You have the makings of a warrior,” Igmu Tanka had said. Would Tali have appreciated this growth in her, accepted it as simply and wholeheartedly as Kirsten does? Perhaps, she thinks. Tali had a good heart, a good soul. But she valued constancy in her life; the safety and security of knowing that each day would be much the same as the last. Family was the most important thing to her. Their loving was gentle, and quiet, fulfilling and comfortable. She gazes at Kirsten again, remembering their joining of last night. Her blood stirs hot in her veins and she moans softly. Kirsten accepted the raw desire, the deep passion in her. More than that, she embraced it, craved it with as much fire as Koda herself.

Tali was the love of who I was, Dakota realizes, with something akin to shock. But she, she is the love of who I am becoming; the woman I am meant to be.

At that very moment, Kirsten, who has turned her implants off for convenience’s sake, turns her head and locks eyes with her lover. Koda finds herself falling into the sunlit green of her direct, loving gaze, her sprit separating from her body seamlessly, painlessly as the world around her tunnels and rushes past, unacknowledged.

She’s running through a jungle thick with moisture and the scent of the earth. Broad green leaves caress her face as she passes, coating her with their moisture as her heartbeat, loud in her ears, sets her pace. Her spirit is filled with an almost savage joy as she runs, her feet light on the ground cover, her pace easy and relentless. She is the hunter, and her prey is very close. She can smell blood and earth, and a predator’s smile breaks over her face, turning her eyes to molten silver.

A sunlit clearing of deep green grass suddenly appears, and she stops, blood thrumming, as a woman, dappled green and gold, rises from her crouch, swaying to the tempo that Koda’s heart has created. Her hands reach out, gracefully beckoning, and Koda heeds their call, running to her, merging with her. They are one body, one spirit, one essence, writhing, pulsing in an ecstasy neither has ever known.

They explode then, their atoms scattering through space, and reforming randomly as the earth spins above them, blue and green and glowing, lit behind from the sun. Their combined heartbeat fades, to be replaced by the squalling of an infant breathing her first, then by the triumphant yowl of a hunting cat, until finally, it becomes the howl of the wolf going on and on and on until it is everywhere and everything.

Dakota comes back to herself as she is pulling away from Kirsten’s soft, swollen lips. They collapse against one another, panting breaths mingling, hearts thundering against their bony cages.

“Dear God,” Kirsten whispers when she finally has the breath to speak.

Cupping her lover’s cheek, Koda stares down into her eyes, so green and shining. “Did you…?”

“Feel that? God, yes. It was the scariest, most wonderful thing I ever felt in my life.”

A sudden wave of dizziness rolls over her, and her knees give out, dumping her less than gracefully back onto the couch. Dakota follows her down, squatting between her splayed legs and grasping her hands gently, chafing them with concern as she looks into clouded green eyes.

“Are you okay?”

Though she can read her lover’s lips easily, Kirsten suddenly craves the sound of her voice, and, pulling one hand away from its warm nest, thumbs her implants back on.

“Kirsten?”

“I’m—.” She lets out a breath, long and shaky, almost, but not quite, a laugh. “I’m…not sure. I think I may be…taking a little vacation from reality.”

Cocking her head slightly, Koda narrows her eyes, all but pinning Kirsten to the couch with the strength of her gaze. “Explain.”

“That’s just the problem,” Kirsten replies, tucking her free hand under the thick fall of her hair and rubbing at the back of her neck, where a mountain of tension has suddenly decided to take up residence. “I don’t know if I can.”

“Try.” Koda’s voice is soft and soothing, and Kirsten clings to its timbre like a lifeline.

“Remember when I told you about my raccoon visitor?” she begins, blushing slightly. “The one that wasn’t really there?”

Dakota nods.

“He wasn’t really there again today.” She laughs. It’s a dry, almost bitter sound. “Sitting in a tree just as big as life.” She shakes her head. “A full blown visual and auditory hallucination that I would have heard even with my implants off.”

“What did he say?”

“Oh, he had a lot to talk about, most of it put-downs.” The laugh sounds again, though a bit more genuine this time. “I can’t even manage to come down with your garden variety delusions of grandeur. Noooo, I have to hallucinate a wise-cracking vermin with a nasty attitude who seems to find my general ineptitude with life quite amusing.” Closing her eyes, she hangs her head, her chin not quite touching her chest. “When he’s not getting his jollies out of dropping eggs on me, that is.”

Koda’s eyes dart over to where Kirsten’s boots stand at the foot of the couch. With a small smile, she notes the dry streaks of yellow on the laces. Her suspicion fully confirmed, she releases Kirsten’s hand and, reaching up, gently cups her lover’s cheek, her strong thumb tenderly tracing over the baby soft skin. She remains silent, allowing Kirsten the much needed time to process her thoughts.

Deep green eyes finally raise and open, and Koda feels, once again, that sense of temporal dislocation. This time, she fights the urge, biting down on the inside of her lip until the feeling passes and she is firmly in control of her spirit. This is not good, she thinks, before Kirsten begins speaking, and she turns her attention to that instead.

“I feel like Alice going down the rabbit hole. Just when I think life is making sense, things start spinning out of control. And sometimes I think that if I just close my eyes real tight, maybe I’ll wake up and find this has all been a dream.”

“Do you want it to be a dream?” Dakota’s voice is steady and soft, but Kirsten has no trouble seeing the unease in her striking eyes.

Without thought, she takes the hand cupping her face and brings it to her lips, brushing a kiss against the warm knuckles. “Not even one second of it. I should hate myself for feeling this way. It’s so damn selfish. But if none of this had ever happened, I would never have met you, and that is something I would never want to change. No matter what.”

“Nor would I.”

The two embrace and hold each other tightly for a very long moment before Koda pulls, with reluctance, away. “For what it’s worth, love, you’re not crazy, ok?”

Kirsten looks up at her, clearly wanting, needing to believe, but, equally clearly, not believing—not entirely, at any rate.