summary: Hemming's journey takes place from June 22-24. He wanders south, mostly through the forest but also along the shore. On the night of the 23rd, there is a thunderstorm, and Hemming seeks shelter in some trees on the edge of a forest. He ends up falling asleep. When he wakes in the morning, there is a Willow Flycatcher sitting on his head. When Hemming starts to stir, so does the bird. They get introduced, and head home. Hemming's speech is in bold, his Spirit Guide Dagrun's is in italics.

       
A little seed had been planted in Hemming's mind, and he had all intentions to nurture it. He would go away for a while, take a trip down the coast, and hopefully the spirit that had chosen him would reveal itself. After learning about Spirit Guides he had slept on the idea and woke up in love with it. The thought had weighed on him every time he curled up to go to sleep, and he often found himself unable to catch a wink at all. To have a constant companion, one who presumably would share his interests and his desires, would be like finding family he never had. Loneliness had, occasionally, taken a toll on him, and he imagined that he would never need to be in such a state again. Assuming, of course, the two creatures got along. Hemming wouldn't have it any other way, and swore to himself that he had learned from his mistakes and wouldn't repeat them.

       
Leaving his den in AniWaya was not as difficult as leaving the little fort he had built himself in the woods. Here, he had kept the number of belongings he kept to a minimum. There were a few furs on the floor, kindly donated to him, and the spindle he had made so he could make yarn. He had not yet taken a trip to the city of Halifax, an event that would likely leave him with a good stack of books. Having only been part of AniWaya for a little more than a month, he didn't have a lot of material possessions that he was really fond of. Besides, he would be back to his little home, hopefully sooner rather than later.

       
He headed west, towards the coast, with nothing on his back or in his hands. As he left AniWaya lands, he whispered a gentle Goodbye. Wandering was something that came to him with ease, and soon he was off into the thick woods that stood to the south. It didn't take him long to forget that he was on a journey that had a set purpose, and he admired the tall trees and the way the light filtered through their branches. The wind seemed to be picking up a little, and the sky was clouding over, but nothing came of it. After a while the forest broke open into a beach, and Hemming picked a tree directly on the edge of the woods to lean against while he slept.

       
The next day, the wolf was up with the sun. It cast its red light across the sky, giving the shore Hemming's trail was hugging an eerie appearance. He tracked his feet through the waves as they lapped against the sand, or the rocks, or whatever the seaside terrain was. It changed fairly often as he wandered down the beach, and he pondered the way the water changed the land it abused. Water had the remarkable power to shape valleys and break mountains down into sand, but it took millions of years. In the meantime, it remained absolutely essential to almost everything on earth. In fact, as Hemming contemplated the wonderful characteristics of water, he could not imagine a single creature that did not need it. It could be the case that the presence of water on this precious planet was the only reason life was around at all.

       
He found it absolutely amazing that one thing could be necessary for every bit of life on earth. Not even oxygen was needed by everyone, and that was often considered universally essential by the majority of aerobic creatures. What if there was no water on Earth? Would he be there right now, wandering down a beautiful shoreline? Could any other substance fill that gap? He entertained this question and similar philosophical ideas as he walked.

       
Before he knew it, the sun was starting its descent. In the distance, he could see dark clouds rumbling with thunder, tendrils of light reaching from them to the treetops below. Soon enough, Hemming and the storm had met, and rain started to hit his gray coat. It was slow at first, a gentle sprinkling of the thing he had spent the day thinking about, but it quickly became almost torrential. He shielded his eyes with a hand, and started to walk away from the ocean. On the beach he was practically a lightning pole.

       
He moved into a forest, a place that would protect him from the rain and being struck by lightning, but did pose a danger if a fire broke out. He only went a few meters deep, where the rain that reached the forest floor was slowed and made amiable by the layers of needles it had to pass through, and where he felt he would be able to escape quickly if necessary. Hemming didn't intend to fall asleep, but like the night before, he tucked himself into a fetal position, his back against a tree. Inevitably, with the clouds grumbling lullabies, he fell asleep.

       
The smell that a storm left in the air was always a pleasant one. Hemming opened his eyes slowly, letting his eyelids drop down momentarily many times before he committed himself to being awake. It was another day, and there was more land to explore. Looking forward to what he might discover, he sat up. As he moved, though, his head felt a little odd. He furrowed his brow a little. The fur on his head didn't behave the way he would have expected. All of a sudden, a shrill chirping burst out, and Hemming jumped in shock. "Hi! Hi! Hi! You're awake! Hi!" The wolf didn't move a muscle. "Hi! Hi! Hi?" The noise was certainly coming from above his head, right between his ears, and there was a strange pulsing sort of pressure, as if something was jumping up and down. Was a lack of food starting to affect his brain, or had he been struck by lightning and was now in some weird afterlife?

       
After just a few split seconds of silence, in which Hemming collected his nerves, he replied, "Hello?"

       
An immediate response broke out, "Hi, hi, hi! Hemming! Hi!"

       
The male worried that he wouldn't be able to spend a whole life with this incessant chirpiness, and secretly and guiltily hoped that this wasn't his Spirit Guide. "Hi," he responded cautiously, "Are you... Who are you?"

       
"Dagrun! My name's Dagrun. Come on, let's go home! Go, go, go! Let's get going!"

       
"All .. right," Hemming replied, and stood up carefully. The thing seemed to have a good grip on his head. He briefly wondered if all of this was real, and if he would get back to AniWaya with no Spirit Guide in tow, fooled by a talkative phantasm. Pushing that option aside - he didn't think that there was really a part of him that was sufficiently exaggeratedly hyper to conjure such an illusion - he took the few steps out of the forest. Once the light was good, he stopped. Raising a hand up to the side of his head, palm up, he said, "Can you come down from there? I'd like to see what you look like."

       
The chirpy thing happily obliged, crying "Yup, yup!", and hopped into his hand. As he brought his hand in front of his face, a wide smile crossed his maw. The creature was a little bird, with tawny markings and a pointy yellow beak. Its beady eyes looked into Hemming's as he stared back. "Nice to meet you, Dagrun," Hemming replied, grinning broadly, and put the bird back on his head. "Let's go home." Now that the initial shock had worn off, and now that he had actually seen the creature, Hemming felt quite pleased.

       
For the most part, and contrary to what Hemming had expected, the bird was quiet for most of the way back to AniWaya. In some of the long silences, Hemming pondered, out loud for once, the origin of trees, why jellyfish were see-through, and the wonder of flight. Dagrun chirped her opinions excitedly. For someone so chirpy, she was surprisingly coherent and had an unexpected depth to her thoughts.

       
The light was fading quickly by the time they reached AniWaya. As they crossed the border, Hemming announced quietly, "Here we are," and headed towards his den. He was hungry, but his exhaustion trumped any other discomfort. Other things could be attended to the next day, after he got a bit of sleep. Curling up on a fur on the floor of his den, he muttered, "Goodnight," and drifted off to sleep. Dagrun, sitting comfortably on his head, replied, "Yup, yup, goodnight!" before falling asleep herself. The entire day had seemed like a dream, and Hemming realized that his fondness for the little bird had grown when he hoped that he wouldn't wake up without her there. Not a doubt had passed through his mind since his initial shock, and his thoughts were surprisingly devoid of the attempt to reason out the connection between them.